Mistletoe and Moonlight

Prologue

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Greyback snarled at his guards as they strode into his cell, wands aloft, but it was half-hearted at best. Now that they were no longer working with dementors, the inmates of Azkaban no longer had to worry about the effects of prolonged exposure to the creatures. That didn't mean anything to Fenrir Greyback. The werewolf bared blood-darkened, strangely pointed teeth in a freakish parody of a smile. This might be interesting. Were the goody-goody wizards going to try and go a round of "mental rehabilitation." Or was this it? He'd been told of his impending execution. Was this it?

"Stand up, Greyback," the left-hand goody-goody ordered. She was a petite little witch with curly, fly-away black hair and eyes like a hawk's. Her wand, however, was long, tapered almost to a point, made of birch wood. The werewolf could smell her contempt for him. He must have looked a sight – hair long, graying, shaggy and unkempt, nails like a vulture's talons, teeth like a wild animal, whiskers rugged and dark against the sallowness of his skin. The wolf-man's freak smile stretched wider.

Like a stretching panther, Fenrir got to his feet and cracked his spine. He grinned, and he noticed that the petite little witch had to force herself not to step back from him. Even now, in his ragged, dirty robes, he still cut an imposing figure.

"No tricks now," the wizard flanking the door informed him. The hem of his deep plum robes – the new color of the wizarding guards – were spattered with what looked like soot. Just come off the Floo Network, then. Dark skinned, with a ruby in his nose, the wizard pointed a stout, hawthorn wand straight at Greyback's chest.

"Time, then, is it?" Fenrir's voice was a rumbling growl in his chest. "Let's start this party, then, eh?"

They marched him through the halls of the wizarding prison. He kept his head high as he walked, ignoring the bleary-eyed stares of the inmates in their cells. The notorious werewolf was to have a public execution using the Killing Curse. Now that the dementors had been labeled as Dark creatures, no one used the Dementors' Kiss anymore. Fenrir grinned without mirth. No living soulless for him. He'd just be plain dead. Maybe then the Daily Prophet would forget about him and stop bothering Misty....

"In here," the witch ordered, practically shoving him through a doorway into a wood-paneled room. With a single sniff, he knew that the wood paneling and flooring of the place was mistletoe.

Everyone knew that silver repelled werewolves, as it did vampires. But the wood of the mistletoe plant, toxic when eaten by humans, was lethal to all lycanthropes in large enough doses. All they'd have to do, Greyback mused, was leave him in this room long enough and he would sicken and die.

"Fenrir Greyback," a deep, rumbling voice – very familiar – broke the unnatural silence of the room.

The werewolf turned to see that a Shield Charm had been erected between the audience the Ministry had gathered and Fenrir himself. The speaker was the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt. With a sardonic nod of his head, Greyback saluted him with a raised middle finger. The werewolf received his own subscription of the Daily Prophet even while in prison – the Ministry, seeing no point to the matter, had neglected to deny the inmates of Azkaban such a small privilege – and he'd read the things the Minister had said about a woman named Misty Silversmith. The Minister had had some very unpleasant things to say about Misty.

"Fenrir Greyback," Shacklebolt repeated. "You have been accused and convicted of murder, assault, treason, sorcerous and chemical warfare, and aiding and abetting the Dark wizard known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in his plot against Britain. You are hereby sentenced to death by the Killing Curse, to be administered in fifteen minutes. Have you anything to say for yourself before your execution? Any words of regret, remorse, apology?"

A tectonic laugh surged up in Fenrir's chest and rumbled out of his mouth. His shoulders shook with mirth. Regret? Remorse? Anything to say? Oh, he had plenty to say to those mealy-mouthed pencil-pushing pin dicks in the Ministry, and something else for that total bitch Rita Skeeter. Sounds that would have been giggles in a much smaller, less ferocious man poured out of his mouth. Words? Words?

"I'll tell you what I have to say, Shacklebolt. That bitch Skeeter – she'd better get her hooks out of my Misty before someone in my pack takes personal offense."

"Mr. Greyback." Such formal address wrenched the werewolf's attention from the tall, black man to the rail-thin, curly-haired witch whose acid-inked quill worked for the Prophet. Seeing she had his undivided attention, Rita Skeeter demanded, "You have approximately fifteen minutes before you're going to die. Do you have anything you wish to say or explain? I'd like to interview you in the time remaining. What is your relationship with Misty Silversmith?"

Before he could stop himself, he roared, "None of your damn business!" The blood was suddenly rushing through his head with a mad thundering.

"Is it true that the witch known as Mistletoe Silversmith is your lover and was residing at your home after the return of You-Know-Who? Were you two secretly married? Is it true that she is pregnant with your child? Is it true that Ms. Silversmith is a Death Eater and it was she who recruited you to You-Know-Who's side? Is it true-"

"Mistletoe Silversmith's case has already been evaluated by the Ministry and we have no cause to believe," said Shacklebolt, "that she is a Death Eater. I will not have an innocent woman accused of-"

"But, Minister, you yourself have said some rather disparaging things about...."

Fenrir ignored the reporter and the Minister of Magic. He saw the acid green Quick-Quotes Quill scratching rapidly across the parchment. He picked out "angry lover" and "fiercely protective" from the few lines visible. He wasn't sure if she were referring to Misty or himself. But then the werewolf saw movement near the back of the audience and froze. His rictus grin slipped a notch. In the back of the crowd, wearing a dark blue cloak over her white wizarding robes, was a woman with ash blond hair and eyes the color of evergreen leaves. Slowly, one of those vernal eyes winked at him.

His eyes darted through the crowd. Many of the audience members were still wearing cloaks – a visitor to one of the inmates had cast a jinx on half of Azkaban to make the ceilings rain – but beneath the hoods Fenrir recognized several people.

A wizard with white blond hair and pale gray eyes, holding an ash wand in one massive fist. Beside him stood a young woman with Sidhe scarlet hair and vernal eyes. A witch whose white hair was streaked with green dye had those same eyes. Near her, but far enough away to avoid suspicion, a young man, barely seventeen, stood scruffing his raggedly chopped dark brown hair, glancing nervously around with eyes the color of hawthorn leaves. And then he noticed something bigger – some of those cloaked, hooded figures had the worn, shabby look of the werewolf. His pack was here.

His pack... and Misty and her family.

Misty....

They had to call his name more than once. He finally heard them, and looked at Shacklebolt. Now was the time. The petite witch and the soot-sodden wizard aimed their wands at his heart. Beads of sweat stood out on the wizard's forehead. Greyback forced his mouth to stretch into a mad grin. He wanted to cast his eyes back to the crowd, to find Misty's green eyes – if he couldn't have the taste of blood on his tongue and the scent of fear in his nostrils as he died, at least he could have had the sight of those green glass eyes locked in his mind.

Mistletoe Silversmith watched as the Azkaban wardens raised their wands to Greyback. She watched as the werewolf straightened his spine and squared his broad shoulders. They weren't going to kill him. If anyone was going to take out that murdering psychopath, it would be her. No Ministry goon was going to whack Fenrir Greyback. Movement caught her eye. Scattered throughout the crowd, her brothers and sisters all raised their wands. Surreptitiously, so did she.

She and her siblings whispered the spell as the Ministry goons' wand tips began to glow.

There was a flash of brilliant light.

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Author's Note: I don't own anything copyrighted by anyone who isn't me. As for the thing about mistletoe, I heard it on the episode of Doctor Who called Tooth and Claw. Interestingly enough, the Doctor was played by David Tennant, who was the movie actor for Barty Crouch, Jr. in Goblet of Fire.