Edited as of 2nd August 2017.
If you're interested, Wolf is the same age as Lucius Malfoy, and 4 years younger than Molly is six years older than the Marauders, Lily and Snape, as previously established. I've also, for the purposes of the Fanfiction, decided to make her the same age as the Prewett twins, or a little older.
Chapter 3: Wolf At The Door
I was born sometime in October, in the year of 1954, to two ordinary magical people. To this day, I still remember my mother singing me calm rhymes in the early hours of each morning, my father telling me stories of Hogwarts.
However, I forgot their faces within days of being given up. I learnt to. I had to. I was ten, I had memories that I didn't want to rewrite, but I was trained in the art of self-preservation from an early age.
The circumstances that surrounded my transformation were cloudy, at the very least. No one can remember being bitten in full colour, but I can't even recall why I was in the woods that night. If I was a perfect child, then I would have been out picking berries, or climbing trees. The most likely scenario is that I got bored of sleeping (which is a pastime for those that have nothing else to do) and walked out, in my pyjamas, only to be mown down by a Werewolf. It wouldn't have surprised me, in the slightest. I was fickle at best and bored at least. I hope the Wolf that bit me was pleased with his meal.
My ordinary magical people parents didn't want to parent a vicious Werewolf child. St. Mungo's offered little in the way of support. So that's why I ended up on the Orphanage doorstep, watching the treacherous couple vanish off into the night fog. My years at the Orphanage (although my parents were alive and well, much less dead) were the ones that I could remember, day by shining day. Matron Coffelia used to take me out to the woods on the hill above the Orphanage every full moon, but leave me to return on my own.
Matron Coffelia used to take me out to the woods on the hill above the Orphanage every full moon, but leave me to return on my own. The bullying was always worse on the mornings that I walked in the door, naked but for a tattered robe and covered in blood and mud and god knows what else. The fearful glances hurt me more than their punches and words ever did. Love? What was love, anyway. I didn't know it. Had I ever known it? I didn't know it in those eight years, and I hadn't known it since. Even Matron Coffelia, a patron saint to every other child, actively avoided my presence.
At eighteen, the little hospitality I had received there was snatched away, and I was given one hundred Galleons, my few possessions, and booted out on my arse. I'd walked for hours in the freezing cold, the shoes on my feet gaining holes in mere hours. My Wolf, ever the pragmatist, kept me walking. He kept me sane. He kept me fed, his thirsting hunger biting through my gums and forcing me to munch on a poor, helpless rabbit as it hopped across my path.
Getting to London from the middle of nowhere was a piece of cake when I offered the conductor of the Knight Bus a couple of gold Galleon coins and a blank expression. To his credit, he said nothing about the caked blood under my fingernails, and he let me sleep for what must have been hours before he finally dropped me off, in what I learned to call Diagon Alley.
One hundred Galleons seemed like a fortune to me at eighteen. But it went on the house that provided my shelter, and the apparition lessons I took from a grubby little man in Knockturn Alley one Saturday morning. He took what was left over from the sum as well when I wasn't looking. Then he disappeared before I could hook my hands around his grubby, stumpy neck.
I got my food by stealing. I had been brought up to know that stealing was wrong, it was a sin, but God was a load of bullshit if I was twenty-one, uneducated and unemployed. And stealing was what kept me alive. I wouldn't believe in God if God wouldn't help me. God wouldn't be afforded the luxury of one other follower.
Names were fleeting objects. The one given to me by my parents was stolen when I was given up to the Orphanage, and the one Matron Coffelia gifted to me was neither wanted or received well. I tried to scratch her eyes out.
Nowadays, I only answered to Wolf. I was Wolf. Wolf No-Second-Name.
And that name was what I wrote on my forged documents. The ones I would need to blag my way past the man with the atrocious spelling and into the awaiting arms of a steady job. Something I sorely needed at this time. Thankfully, all I needed for the badly spelt job prospect was confirmation that I went to Hogwarts.
I used Slytherin as my House, as I always did. It fit me well. It smelt good on my body. I looked good in emerald green. I felt like a Slytherin, after everything I had been through. I had had to be cunning to survive this long in a futile, hostile world. The children at the orphanage said, once, that the Dark Wizard was in Slytherin. I knew nothing of this Dark Wizard, but I felt dark, I felt in the dark. Surely that was something we had in common. My robes, my only decent pair, were a dark, bottle green colour. If I was to where them, I might as well make my documents fit the part too.
I messily folded the slip of paper confirming my education and slipped it into my jacket pocket. My feet still ached from the romp in the forest, and my Wolf growled within me, appreciating my discomfort. I patted my stomach as if to console the creature lingering within my soul. He faded away, leaving me alone, once again.
My wand was picked up. It wasn't my wand if folklore was to be believed. I picked it up off a dead man when I was thirteen. He had no need for it anymore. I did. I needed to do magic to function in this society. What I had learnt was, at best, equivalent to the abilities a twelve year old, but it was enough to stave off the questioning glances. And it was certainly better than what was expected of me, considering my unusual circumstances.
45 Diagon Alley. I checked the advert again, just to make sure, and grasped my wand in one hand, saying the name to myself over and over again, under my breath. I couldn't face the walk, not with my burning limbs and thumping headache. If I was going to make anything of this opportunity, I was going to have to Apparate. I took a deep breath, swallowed my swirling stomach, and felt myself being whisked away, squeezed and pulled, all the way to my intended destination.
The bottom floor of 45 Diagon Alley was completely void of any furniture, covered in a thick layer of dust and musty to the smell. It looked like no one had set foot in the place for years. I raised an eyebrow and slipped my wand back into my robe pocket. Whoever I needed to speak to, they didn't know how to clean. Which was another opportunity for me. Even if I couldn't blag the copywriting job, I could suggest a cleaning position, as long as I wasn't forced to wear a tiny piece of cloth.
There was a creak from behind me. I spun around, scanning the empty room for whoever it was. Whoever was watching.
"What are you doing here?" I heard a voice say, and I crept forward, instinctively feeling for my wand in my pocket, grasping it tightly. I said nothing, however. It might not even be a person. It could be my Wolf, toying with me like he did so much. Maybe the job advert was just a ruse. Nobody had grammar and spelling that poor, after all. Perhaps I was hallucinating again.
Just as my heart started to sink, a figure stepped out from the shadows. "What are you doing here?" he asked again, this time more forcefully.
I didn't answer. The man was too interesting. He was much older than the two boys of the day previous, much taller, freckled, with red hair and a big nose. He was scowling half-heartedly, like he didn't like to but was forced to in this context. He looked like the kind of guy with a loving family that put stews in his fridge when he wasn't looking, and had siblings that he adored. He was well groomed, unlike the room we were standing in, and his eyes had a twinkle to them that I hadn't seen before.
"I said, what are you doing here?" the man repeated his question, gaze getting stronger and colder as the seconds ticked by. Slowly, I let go of my wand, letting it drop back into the bottom of my pocket.
"I came for the job." I answered shortly, my vocal chords still trembling with the attempt. I coughed, a couple of times, wishing I had a cup of water. "In the Daily Prophet."
The man's eyes widened in surprise, and I could feel him looking me over. Then he shrugged. "Got your papers love?"
"I am not your love." I spat, taking some kind of sadistic pleasure in the way he looked taken aback, maybe even slightly hurt. Oh, yes, that was why I found it hard to find work. I had no idea how to communicate with people, let alone any concept of what was 'normal' in accepted Wizarding society. I was snarky, and sarcastic, and rude.
But I still passed him the documents.
He flicked through them disinterestedly, pausing only at the one that declared my school, age, name and date of birth. He looked up quizzically. "What kind of a name is Wolf?" he queried. I offered no answer, staring at him blankly, daring him to question my name choice further. "And why did you just put October, 1954 as your date of birth?"
I shrugged as an explanation. That wasn't something he needed to know to have me in his employ. The man definitely wanted more explanation, but after minutes of silence he gave up.
"You must have been at Hogwarts with me then," he continued cheerily. "Though in... Slytherin?"
"That's where I was put," I said simply, with another shrug. There wasn't much I could say to that, other than an affirmative response. What were the qualities of each house, again?
"You don't seem like a Snake," the man grinned, shaking his head as he placed the papers to one side and holding out his hand. "As long as you can spell, you've got the job, Miss Wolf."
"Just Wolf, " I corrected quickly, eying his outstretched hand warily.
"I'm Fabian Prewett. Ex-Gryffindor," the man smirked. "Are you going to shake my hand or not? We can hi-five if you want if that's more your style."
He made his hand into a palm shape, but I shook my head. I quickly took Fabian's hand, before I could decide otherwise. His hand was strong and calloused, but warm, and he nearly pulled my arm off when he shook it.
"Thank you," I said, trying to sound sincere. "I've been trying to find work for quite a while."
"Glad I could help!" Fabian grinned. "My brother's been at me for ages to find someone who could help us out, he's just as bad at spelling as me, if not worse. We really need a team member who actually had a grasp of British grammar."
"I'm amazed that there's one person with grammar that bad, let alone two," I blinked rapidly at the man in front of me, who was now laughing. I hadn't meant that as a joke. I had meant that as a serious observation. "What? What's so funny?"
"You're a riot!" Fabian chuckled. "It's going to be fun having you around the place."
In my entire life, I had never been thought of as 'a riot'. Was he laughing at me, or with me? I just stood and stared as Fabian Prewett walked up the stairs at the back of the room.
"Come on!" he yelled back. "Are you coming or what?"
