Vonne: Hello! I've decided to start another story from scratch. This is not a new one, as I've posted a story like this before- however, this time I'm going to take a bit of a new direction. This opening chapter is a rewrite. Anyway, I will make this short by saying that this story contains OCs, but only to make the story flow. Any and all OCs are not included for any reason. This will focus on Hermione and Draco, not on the other characters whatsoever. Thank you so much!
Summary: Five years since the end of the War, Hermione Granger is working as an Auror. However, the mission she's been given is a complicated one- many Muggle teenagers have been murdered and the Ministry sends Hermione undercover to a private Muggle prep school to investigate the killings. What Hermione does not expect, however, is for Draco Malfoy to be her partner. In Azkaban accounting for his War crimes, the Ministry gives Draco an ultimatum- pose as bait for the Death Eaters at the prep school and help Hermione Granger put together the pieces of the puzzle, or die in prison. Can Draco and Hermione work together or even survive the struggles of high school again? Or will an entirely new uprising overtake the Wizarding World once and for all?
"Came the day when fate did frown and the wolf blew into town. With a gruff "puff-puff" he puffed just enough and the hay house fell right down."
Chapter One
Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?
In the dead hours of the night, something breathes finally to life.
A sharp and ready inhale, Fenrir Greyback's shadow lurches through the veins of the outstretched tree branches, unseen. His yellow eyes give a cautionary little twitch; he has been waiting for this since the War had ended, he has been waiting for this for five fucking years. In the sky, some big, hypothetical clock ticks down the minutes as he watches. Each mental tick brings a jagged smile to the werewolf's ugly and shadow-masked face. Won't be long now, won't be long at all anymore...
Where he was standing currently is someplace in the woods of the campus of a private Muggle high school. Since the conclusion of the War, the murder of Muggles has been only the beginning of the surviving Death Eaters rise back into power. But Fenrir likes them young, as it has been noted. He's been stalking high schools and daycare centers alike, taking pleasure in each and every murder. To shake off the numbness of having lost the War, Fenrir and the other Death Eaters tell themselves that their turmoil is only temporary. Tonight, Fenrir truly believes that it is.
The thing about killing Muggles is that, in the Wizarding World, their deaths don't get much attention. However, it is the amount of unexplained Muggle deaths occurring recently that makes Fenrir swell with pride. He's responsible for the majority of them. It's Rookwood that does most of the dumping. He puts their body parts in different sections of the streets of Hogsmeade, a little warning to the rest of the world that they are still out there. It's been the plan since the beginning- kill of the Muggles, scare the surviving Wizard veterans. It wouldn't be long until they'd gained enough notoriety which is, of course, what their plan is all about anyway.
This murder thing, this simple scare-tactic, it is only the beginning. The Death Eaters, they don't need Voldemort because what they need is the whole wide world. Sure enough, they all came crawling back, ready to start over, ready to try again. It was only the Malfoys, the infamous disappearing scum of the earth, who had not returned back to them. There are no reports about them in the papers except speculation- the Malfoy family, disgraced, had fled. Only their son had remained. But Fenrir and the others know exactly what they want to do with him...
In the woods by the private school campus, Fenrir Greyback braces himself. He does love a good kill. He is, of course, in luck- the very moment he opens his wolfish eyes he spots a cluster of them just by the entrance of the university-like building. Every single fiber of his maliciously evil being twitches responsively to life; it is half past midnight and he hears the sound of oncoming footsteps. Greyback pulls back and sniffs the air before him; he smells cologne and perfume distinctly and knows right away- two boys and two girls. What they're doing on campus a half hour past midnight is beyond him, but he could really care less. Their mistake. Either way, they're laughing and chit-chatting about other things, their eyes directed away from Fenrir, away from his yellow eyes completely.
Fenrir knew the saying, "your high school years are the best years of your life," but the irony of it now made him laugh. The Muggles- the four of them- they'd never experience life past their senior year. If the saying were true, which Fenrir highly doubted anyways, they would never live long enough to test the theory.
"Come on!" It is the voice of one of the Muggle girls, tall and pretty despite her filthy blood. Fenrir can see her pointed features through the glistening moonlight and he scoffs at the way she bothers to present herself. Her brown hair is drawn curtain-like over her thing shoulders. She's wearing her school uniform and a pair of peep-toe high heels. On her face she wears a bright shade of pink rouge. Fenrir can smell the scent of her over excessive lipgloss from where he stands. Cherry. "Come on, we're going to be late!"
Fenrir recognizes the types of girls that the two Muggles are. They're physically attractive and slender. Their faces form in sweet smiles that also have the capacity to twist into ugly grimaces. They're lovely and horrifying all at the same time; popular. Blonde, the girl to the brunette's right is her complete opposite in looks, but Fenrir can see right through that. She wears a band called a 'Scrunchie' around her wrist and has her hair in a rounded ponytail that curls perfectly at the back of her neck. Both girls have hitched their skirts up above their knees. They have unbottoned the tops of their white polo shirts to the point of crushing any sort of imagination entirely. Fenrir merely makes a revolted face. Disgusting.
As a pair, the Muggle girls support each of the boys by their intertwined fingers. They exhange looks and winks that their male companions miss, but Fenrir certainly does not. He recognizes the boys' type as quickly as he'd recognized the girls'. One is short and pudgy, like Goyle's boy. He wears his school trousers too tight and the bloom of his stomach strikes out over his camel-colored waistband. He hasn't decorated his uniform in the way that the girls have, except for the set of obnoxiously circular spectacles that rest at the bridge of his fat nose. By the looks of him, the appears to have never had much of a social life at all.
And the other boy is not that much better but at least he's not fleshy, and Fenrir gives him that. He's still shorter than the girls, though, and his arms are thin and useless. He has a head of horribly snipped hair that only dangles about a half an inch at his forehead. Its brown, and mousy, and uninteresting. He walks with a hunch and stares dumbly at the brunette girl holding his hand as if he can barely believe it. Though they look like the type of students with A averages and scholarships, Fenrir cannot help but think them to be stupid. Even at a distance, the Death Eater can tell that the girls have taken them out as a joke. He decides that, either way, they all deserve to die.
"Hurry up," giggles the blonde and the fattest boy at the end of her arm blushes, rushing faster across the campus. Fenrir thinks at that moment how much of a little pig he resembles and can't wait to eat him. He wants to huff and puff and blow their houses in, yet he remains put as the silent observer. He does nothing except watch as the two girls lead their piglets in through the opening of the woods and pick up the pace. They're no longer on the campus of the school, but instead in the brush of the woods and Fenrir tears away from the tree trunk that he's gripping to stalk them from the shadows as he marches next to them unnoticed.
One of them says, "it's right through this way, here," and even Fenrir looks ahead. He sees the clearing that the girls have pointed the boys to, but that is not what catches his attention. Rather, he sees the unblinking eyes of two other figures in the dark. They wear masks and hoods, but they are big and muscular. They are Muggles; Fenrir can tell by their matching school sweatshirts and their rather disgraceful scent. Hidden behind the bushes, their fingers wrap around the bodies of something the werewolf recognizes as chainsaws. There is no cord in it, however; he was right, the girls have brought the boys out into the woods to scare them. It's nothing more than a prank.
When the girls stop the boys in the middle of the clearing, they instruct them to sit down. "Do you know what tonight is?" asks the blonde and Fenrir thinks he knows before any sort of answer is given. He waits for one of them to speak up, waits to test his guess.
"N-No," stumbles the chubby boy, his hands still wrapped within the blonde's. He doesn't know; Fenrir is not surprised.
"It's the one-month anniversary," whispers the blonde. The boy makes a face and she continues with casual infatuation, "the freshmen boys that were killed four weeks ago. Their bodies were found here," she proclaims, "right in this very spot."
Elated, Fenrir can take credit for the killings that the blonde is talking about; he was the one that had done it, of course. They had been too easy of a kill, but still worth something. The Muggle community had been in an absolute panic. Once the boys died, chaos had ensued. News stations advised that doors be locked at night, that citizens kept their eyes peeled. He'd heard one news anchor ask, "who among us would do such a thing?" and he'd laughed at the pitiful question. He wonders what Muggle England would think once they'd found out who really murdered the boys. He wonders now if they'd even believe it.
Nonetheless, the most that the 'police' had found of the boys was scraps of their clothing and bits of their hair. They were dead, though, and there was certainly no denying that. Rookwood and Avery had been delighted when he'd brought the bodies back to the Wizarding World, all dead and rotting and mutilated as they were. The Carrows had taken great pleasure in placing their body parts throughout their sleepy town. Of course, the Ministry of Magic had done a fair job of covering it up. But as long as they could pretend it wasn't happening, Fenrir and the others would always have their motivation. Now he only thinks joyously of how many more he has to kill until they finally start listening?
He looks back on the four Muggles seated in the middle of the clearing and the two unseen Muggles hidden behind the bushes. Perhaps they'd listen when six more bodies show up in the dead of the night. Fenrir licks his lips; he can hardly wait.
"Right here?" the skinny Muggle boy looks down at the ground. It is the first time he has looked away from the brunette girl over the course of the entire night. "S-Should we even be here?"
Making a pout, the blonde fixes her face so that she looks so deflated in the lack of light. "What?" she asked in a tone that is only mockingly hurt, "don't have any sense of adventure?"
"Course he does!" pipes up the other boy, and he gives his slender friend a stern look before turning away. Fenrir wonders how long they'd been conversing about meeting the two Muggle girls at the school campus. They are the type of boys that Fenrir can see discussing it for weeks. They look shaky and uneasy, as if they are trying their damndest to remain cool and collected. Fenrir can smell the fear on them, however, as much as they are trying to hide it. They are weak and the girls are naive. In the werewolf's mind, both are equally as pathetic. When the girls look away to exchange mischievous glances, the pudgy Muggle whispers to his friend through clenched teeth, "shut up, Simon!"
"But," asks the boy, Simon, "why are we here?" He is so innocent when he asks it. It makes Fenrir sick.
"It's romantic, don't you think?" Fenrir hears the blonde ask. She speaks to the chubby boy, pulling his chin up with the tips of her long and polished pink fingernails. "Don't you think, Shelly?" The blonde gets a bobble-head nod in response. Her smile practically touches her ears. Nonetheless, she slips her hand around 'Shelly's' rounded shoulders and places her hand on the bulge of his crotch. She giggles when his eyes widen, as if he's never been touched there before in his life. "I've always noticed you around at school, you know," she lies.
"You have?"
"Mmm," hums the blonde. Then she turns to Simon and her brunette friend, cocking her thumb out towards the two of them directly. "And Jenna's always had her eye out for you, Simon."
Simon looks at the brunette, who has now been deemed 'Jenna'. Fenrir could care less about their names; they would not need them in death. "You've noticed me?" he asks, and his voice is nothing more than a whisper. Jenna looks at the blonde and smiles. When she turns back to Simon she is nodding furiously, a strand of brown hair falling loosely over her boney shoulders.
"Course I have," she tells him, running a hand up to massage a single shoulder. She does not reach towards the middle of his legs, but Simon does not seem to be jealous of 'Shelly' in the slightest. Fenrir notices that he is happy to have been touched at all. "Haven't you noticed me?"
"Yes!" Simon practically chokes on the words. "I've a-always n-noticed you, Jenna" he's telling her, "I've noticed you since f-freshman year..." Simon looks embarrassed, red in the face after his admission. Jenna only giggles.
Fenrir pauses for a moment. He isn't quite sure what it is he's stumbled upon, but he knows he's hit the jackpot. He could care less about the boys and the tricks that they've been so naive to believe. The girls have made it too easy, they've given him free range to do whatever he pleases with them. At their ignorance, Fenrir stifles a laugh. They all deserve it anyway- their blood is just that filthy.
"Close your eyes," the blonde instructs and Fenrir regards their little game once again. Fat and flustered, 'Shelly' obeys instantly, his eyes rolling back into his skull as the blonde works her magic at the base of his trousers. Simon, however, is a bit more reluctant. Fenrir watches from the shadows as Simon watches Jenna, the two held in a staring contest for only a short matter of seconds before Jenna gives him the go-ahead. Then, as if safe, Simon lets his lashes flutter shut as well.
But the two girls do not lean in and kiss them, as the boys may have expected. It is the blonde, however, who acts first. She pulls out a bleak and beige potato sack from her knapsack. Taking advantage of 'Shelly's' shut eyelids, she extends the front of the bag and stretches it out wide before slamming it forcefully over the boy's round head. 'Shelly' lets out a little scream, and Simon, responsively, pulls open the shutters of his eyes. He is too late, however; Jenna has already whisked out her matching sack. In an instant, she has Simon's head covered, as well.
'Shelly's' voice is muffled when he cries out desperately, "please!" and Simon only struggles to fight off a far stronger Jenna on top of him. However, the two spare Muggle boys from the bushes finally step out and the girls allow them to take over. In the trapped boys' ears, they sound off their noisy chainsaws.
"Hey!" Held down by the bigger Muggle boys, 'Shelly' is perhaps the most frantic of the two. He kicks and punts uselessly, emitting only a laugh from his captor. His stubby little legs reel around in circles. His short arms are useless and swinging. He hits nothing and instead makes a dash for the bag on his head, only to be knocked back away from it by the boy on top of him. The blonde is smiling so wide that her vibrant gums are showing. Her eyes twinkle and she rocks back and forth at the back of her pointed high heels. She's enjoying this far too much and, in a moment, Fenrir will be too.
The very second that Simon and 'Shelly' know they've been duped, it is already far too late. They flinch and cry out at the sound of the chainsaw at their ears, cringe when they feel the hot breath down the back of their exposed necks. Though the prank has been carried out just to scare the two boys, Fenrir is more than happy to take it to a whole different level. He steps from the bushes because he has been waiting to do so forever. He doesn't make himself seen but instead steadies his wand. He aims for the fat one first. 'Shelly' is still struggling underneath the toned athletic Muggle boy with the hacked up chainsaw.
"Avada Kedavra!" Fenrir hisses and- my God- it feels so good just to say it. It is like he was never exiled at all in the first place; the way the binding light hits 'Shelly' is almost therapeutic. The boy makes a little animalistic squeal and then he's dead, just like that.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Jenna is screaming and the muscular Muggle on top of 'Shelly' glances up, sputters back, and searches around. He's heaving and panting as if he's run miles. His face is wet and dripping with sweat. He looks almost guilty. "Did you see that bright light?"
Hidden beneath the barricade of branches, Fenrir sits back and listens to the confusion. He watches Simon as he pulls the potato sack from off of his head. His hair sticks out in all different directions and he glances down once at his fallen plushy friend. A look of horror spreads wide across his rather unfortunate features. He had not been the best looking boy before, but now he manages to look just about ghastly. When he pulls forward to reach out a hand against his friend's shoulder, he cries out, "Sheldon?" His face is struck and panicked. He looks pale, paler even, than before. "Sheldon?" Simon's twiggy hands pull and pluck at Sheldon's bloated body.
Fenrir smiles as the blonde scrambles away from the dead boy. She's frantic and its spectacular. "What did you do to him?" roars the boy still straddling him. He turns around and his tomato face his glaring right at her, accusatory.
"I-I d-didn't do a-anything to him!" She's red in the face and she doesn't look so pretty anymore. Instead she's nothing more than disheveled and unkempt. Eyes wide and dripping, she's clinging on to Jenna and bouncing up and down saying, "I didn't d-do anything to him, Jen, you saw me! I swear!"
Fenrir loves the way the five remaining Muggles look. They're nothing more than sheep and now, more than ever, he's happy to be a wolf. Caught up in the chaos, the lot of them fumble around the body, shaking, and rocking, and rattling. Fenrir loves the way they refuse to accept 'Shelly's' death. He flashes his crooked teeth just for the hell of it. He thinks, rattle his cage all you want, little pups, that bird's never coming out... .
"Is he dead?" one of them asks and its a stupid question because Fenrir already knows the answer to this. He waits for them to check his pulse, waits for them to put their ear to his chest and find out that his heart is no longer beating. "He's not breathing!"
The blonde is grabbing her roots at her skull and she looks like a jack-o-lantern with all that fake tan. She's saying, "I didn't!" and shaking her pumpkin head back and forth.
Jenna, she's speechless, but she's the only one. Numb and fuzzy, she looks like she is going to pass out while the two athletic Muggles above her shout in sync, "oh G-God! Oh, fuck!"
Simon, he's blubbering, "S-Sheldon? Sh.. Sheldon?" It's far too delicious to go to waste.
When Fenrir steps forward again, he's itching to watch another one drop. "Avada Kedavra!" Like flies they drop and this time its one of the athletic boys. He falls so fast its almost funny; Fenrir nearly losesit when the blonde screams with blood-curling passion.
"Oh my God!" she's sputtering. It's pathetic and Fenrir loves it. "Ryan!"
Then they're all standing with their eyes searching around in the woods and the tallest Muggle boy find Fenrir's yellow eyes in the darkness. It is something that Fenrir does not expect, but not something that he can't handle. He smirks and lifts his wand, pointing it at the boy before he can even identify him there. He mutters the Unforgivable. Goodbye dirty Muggle, goodbye, useless waste of space. This time, the remaining four scramble.
Simon is on the floor, his body crouched over Sheldon's and he's shaking and its perfect. The blonde's on her feet, her back pressed against Jenna's. She's crying and stammering. There's snot coming out of her nose, spit dripping out of her mouth. She doesn't look so pretty when she knows she's about to die. And, only because he can't stand the grotesque sight of her, Fenrir picks her next. However, because he likes to play with his food, he waits a moment in the blackness. The blonde is heaving now, holding her stomach and whirling around. She's saying, "oh God, Jenna, w-we've got to get out of here!" and she almost stumbles of Simon on the floor in the process.
When Fenrir shuffles, however, neither of them are left standing still. Even Simon sputters upwards, his pupils dilated and his mouth agape. He looks so stupid, but they all do and Fenrir's come to expect that. He watches, amused, as they run around in circles. They're all crying and to Fenrir it sounds like music to his ears. He can hear the way their feet scrape and scramble against the brush below the soles of their shoes and he watches the leaves fly out from underneath them. It goes in slow motion and Fenrir wants to savor it.
God, he thinks as he watches them dart off, how I've missed the hunt.
The blonde one, she's the slowest. Sometime in the process of running, she'd lost her 'Scrunchie'. Fenrir's foot stomps on it as he yells out the curse and points his wand at the nape of her shivering back. Then she's hit and she falls to the floor of the wood in fractions, just by Jenna's scampering feet. First her knees hit, then her head, slapping against a nearby rock and sending a collection of maroon liquid pooling out from the side of her pretty little head. Dead, dead, dead, as a doornail. Fenrir never really liked that saying. On the ground of the leaf-covered wood, the blonde Muggle girl looked as dead as something else- something squashed.
Spinning around, however, Fenrir realizes that he's lost something- the two of them, Simon and Jenna. They're gone. Fenrir spins to one side; no one. He looks over his shoulder; gone. He can smell them, but faintly. The scent of their fear is fading in his nostrils. He can hear them screaming, but just barely. For a moment, he thinks that he will try and follow them, however, something stops him dead in his tracks. Letting them go would be bloody brilliant- a fucking spectacular end to his gory masterpiece.
Let them tell everyone else what they saw or what they thought they saw. Let the myths and the urban legends be created from this night. Let them know. This was only the beginning.
Vonne: My apologies for the short first chapter! I promise that the rest will be a lot longer than this, which is, of course, only the opening. Please note that any and all OCs are not included for any reason other than to create story flow. This will focus on Hermione and Draco, not on the other characters whatsoever. Thank you!