AN: I'm so sorry for the long wait, I really am, but real life just got on top of me for a while. You know how it is.

I have decided to make this the last chapter of this story. I've done what I was planning to do with Fenrir so I don't think the story needs taken any further. However, I may be planning another following his 'pack' but that will probably have a different tone so I feel it belongs in another story.

Anyway, I had an absolute blast writing this. Thank you to everyone who read/alerted/favourited and especially those few who reviewed. Perhaps, one final review? :)

This concludes Fenrir's transition. Thank you again.

Chapter Ten

Howling Mad

He stole a child from its cradle when its mother was looking the other way. Bonfires lit the sky and the town was celebrating some victory long forgotten. No-one noticed the wolf creeping in the shadows, and no-one noticed the absence of the screaming baby until it was too late.

Lestrange gave him a house to raise it in – an old family property, sprawling and abandoned and chilly. Fenrir knew that Lestrange had hated him for a long time, and was glad now to have an excuse to get rid of him, and the 'feral child', as he called it. Fenrir didn't question his motives. He wanted to be away from the Manor too. Their shift in attitude towards each other had been gradual; Fenrir supposed it had been instigated when he'd begun doing exactly as Walden and Augustus told him to. Lestrange, he knew, hated this whole Death Eater business, but he was too much of a coward to say or do anything about it. He just went along with it, and seemed to have expected Fenrir to take a stand.

But Fenrir didn't feel as though he had any fight left in him. He didn't like the Death Eaters much, either, but if he did as they asked they left him alone for the most part, and he was even able to use his position to make the 'new recruits' – the kids – do what he wanted. He organised it through Augustus – when the grizzling of the baby (or the 'cub', as they called it, and he had no motivation to argue) became too much for him, he'd have one of the junior members of the team sit with it for a night, while he drunk himself senseless.

It wasn't that he didn't care for the child. He did. It was a boy. He named it Loki. He was proud of the little fellow. It was with regret that he locked him away on full moon nights. He read to him, from history books, and told him stories that he made up as he went along. It really was marvellous, watching him grow every day, and seeing, for once, someone who actually looked up to him – but Loki seemed always to be hungry, and Fenrir couldn't cope. He was thrilled to have some power, at last, now, to be able to dump the child on someone the way so many people seemed to dump their duties on him, and he didn't feel guilty in the slightest about getting drunk in strange and seedy Muggle bars and waking up smelling of piss (this wasn't true, but he told himself it was).

But the 'babysitter' they sent seemed barely a child himself. Fenrir opened the door one day to find a scruffy kid who looked no more than twelve with an unruly mane of hair and a slightly snotty nose standing there.

"Whaddaya want?" he growled, assuming it was one of the Muggle neighbours.

"Fenrir Greyback, sir?" The kid stuck out his hand. "They sent me 'ere to do somethin' for you. Somethin' about a puppy, 'sat right?"

Fenrir squinted at him, his nose wrinkled, taking in his crumpled attire and ignoring his hand. The boy let it drop to his side, looking abashed.

"You are…?" said Fenrir.

"Scabior, sir. I work with the Death Eaters."

"Scabior who? You look about twelve."

"I'm seventeen!" Scabior protested.

Fenrir snorted. "And when did you decide death eating was a suitable career choice?"

Scabior shuffled uncomfortably, not looking remotely confident now, but rather as though he wanted to turn and run away. Fenrir sighed.

"The kid's in bed. I assume you've been told what you're to do. I'm going out. Don't tough anything. If you don't do this right, I'll rip your throat out and I'll eat it."

Scabior swallowed.

/

Fenrir found himself at a sort of pub that was strange even for wizards on one of his crawls. Everything was purple – too purple for his tastes – and green, which reminded him too much of school. That made him sort of miserable and melancholy, though it was sort of bittersweet, because he found he was able to order a posh and exquisite-sounding drink and sit gazing into thin air in a romantic sort of way, the way he imagined he would have had be become a poet. He was just considering how this was the perfect place for him, when he heard footsteps approaching (outside his line of poetic vision) and a voice said, "Is that you, Fenrir?"

Fenrir started, and looked into the face of the man who'd greeted him. Blue eyes twinkled over the top of half-moon spectacles, surrounded by greying hair, and Fenrir choked on his posh and exquisite-sounding drink. He had to splutter for a moment and attempt to regain composure, banging on his chest before being able to say, "Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore."

"Not expecting to see me here, I take it?" said Dumbledore, with a hint of a chuckle in his voice.

"Erm," said Fenrir, not having anything else to say. "Erm, no, not really, Professor."

"Nor I you, Fenrir. I haven't heard much from you since you left the school. To what have you been applying your talents these days?"

"Erm," said Fenrir again. Dumbledore was smiling gently at him, and seemed to think that, somehow, Fenrir's life had turned out alright. But he can't've, thought Fenrir. The old man seemed to know everything. "I've just been… well… you know…" He gave up attempting to make up a profession, and fall deeper into the pit of quicksand that this conversation looked as though it was becoming.

"I've just been being hated and feared by the entire wizarding community, Professor, if you must know. I'm – I'm a werewolf, sir." He mumbled it, then looked immediately down into his drink, swirling it around and around just for something to do. He didn't see the look on Dumbledore's face but he was giving him ample opportunity to turn and walk away.

"Hated and feared, Fenrir? Surely not—"

"Yes," said Fenrir flatly. He liked Dumbledore – at least, he remembered liking him, but sitting alone in such a strange bar talking to an old Transfiguration teacher was not high on his list of things to do. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable now. He'd forgotten how awkward and painful it was to tell people he already knew about his 'condition'.

Dumbledore sighed, and Fenrir didn't look at him. "Perhaps, Fenrir, you ought to reconsider your friends," he said softly. "If that is what they lead you to believe, I doubt—"

"No offense," said Fenrir loudly, "but you don't have a clue what you're talking about, Professor." He did look up, then, and he met Dumbledore's eyes, but only for a second. He felt his face burn red as he averted his gaze. He hadn't met to shout. He never did. He never meant to fly off the handle. It just happened.

"If that is how you see it, Fenrir, I shall not attempt to persuade you to change your mind. But should you wish my advice, I will always accept your owls."

"Yeah," muttered Fenrir, string hard at a cigarette burn on the table. "Thanks."

Dumbledore said something else, probably something grandfatherly and wise, and then he left Fenrir alone, still blushing and seething slightly. Dumbledore didn't have a clue what he was talking about, and it seemed presumptuous of him to offer advice. Fenrir scowled to himself and picked away at the burn with one of his fingernails.

I'm a werewolf, sir. A werewolf, a werewolf, a werewolf.

/

One day, Augustus knocked on his door, and then entered without waiting for Fenrir to answer. Fenrir, who had just been leaving the kitchen to greet his visitor, was about to reprimand him, but didn't have much time, as Augustus thrust a paper under his nose.

"Have you been getting this?" he said.

"No," said Fenrir, staring at the Daily Prophet. He had long ago stopped caring about the state of the wizarding world. He would occasionally glance at copies that Lestrange had left lying around, but that was all. Any important news, he heard from the Death Eaters. But this headline bore his name.

'FULL MOON KILLER NAMED,' it read, 'FENRIR GREYBACK'.

"What's this?" asked Fenrir, feeling suddenly very small, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Under the Dark Lord's orders, Walden had it printed," said Augustus, thrusting the paper towards him, indicating that he should take it.

"Why?" asked Fenrir, doing so, a slight quaver in his voice.

"He seemed to think it would be more useful to us if you were a respected and feared name among the wizarding community."

"Said that in so many words, did he?" said Fenrir weakly, staring at the headline. It was clearly in focus, the bold letters the visual equivalent of a blaring foghorn, but the article below was swimming around in a hazy sea of meaningless letters. He had the vague idea that an artist's impression of what he might look like was positioned to the right-hand side, but he just couldn't see it.

"Not in so many words, no," said Augustus flatly. "But I assume that was the general idea. I'm to take you out to dinner tonight."

"Eh?"

"We have people to meet. Try to look threatening, and like you know what you're doing, alright? You're a hardened killer now, you are," said Augustus, trying to look him in the eye. "You don't need to do anything, just scare the bejeezus out of them, alright?"

/

When he met Augustus for dinner, Fenrir was wearing his second-best robes, having been told that it was a somewhat fancy eating establishment, and due to the fact that his best robes were in need of a wash. Augustus soon changed that, however, getting out his wand and burning a few holes here and there, tearing the fabric before Fenrir realised what he was up to.

"Oi!"

"Sorry, I just have to make you look a bit more werewolfy."

"I am a bloody werewolf; how much more werewolfy can I be?" hissed Fenrir, falling silent as a maître d' passed and gave him a curious look.

Werewolves must be kept on a lead.

The people they were to have dinner with seemed pleasant enough. It seemed to be to do with business. Augustus kept talking Galleons to the others (two men and a woman) and Fenrir couldn't really see his purpose there. He just tried to look imposing, as he assumed Augustus wanted, to be able to wheedle more money out of them, or something. They laughed, and made small talk, and Fenrir tried to sidestep personal questions, smiling politely and then remembering he was supposed to look rough, and grimacing. Their companions seemed to regard him as slightly strange anyway: he'd sort of forgotten how to sip drinks in a sophisticated way, and how to manoeuvre a knife and fork successfully.

He'd been told to excuse himself at Augustus' signal for the bathroom, and he did so.

("How clumsy of me," said Augustus, as he dropped his spoon.

"Please excuse me," said Fenrir, as a waiter arrived to pick it up. "I'll be back in a moment.")

In the toilets, he washed his hands and face and practiced his snarl in the mirror until it scolded him for wasting his companions' time.

When he returned to the table, the two men were looking at him with expressions of horror on their faces, and the woman could not seem to bring herself to look him in the eye. Fenrir sat down, slightly bewildered, and there was less talk after that. The meal finished soon after, and the shorter of the two men shook Augustus' hand and told him he would be in touch. Then they rushed from the restaurant, leaving Augustus and Fenrir alone with each other and several half-finished meals, and a bill that Fenrir was sure Augustus didn't pay, though he nodded to the waiter in a special way as he left.

The next month it was the woman he killed. He recognised her perfume.

/

The rumours continued to spread. According to the Daily Prophet, which he had now taken out a subscription with, he was seven feet tall with a face covered almost entirely in hair, walked with a limp, was blind in one eye and was incapable of human speech, communicating only in growls and snarls. He had last been spotted, apparently, near Glyn Ceiriog.

In truth, he was more commonly spotted at The Grey Porlock, a pub not five streets away from Lestrange's old house. True to his word, Walden had taught Fenrir how to talk to girls, and he sometimes managed to strike a conversation up with the witches he found there – provided they weren't put off by the sheer bulk of him or the slight whiff or the slightly wild look in his eyes. But mostly he just listened, to snatches of conversation while he lurked in a dank corner, miserably clutching a drink.

A man stumbled in one night, bringing the racket of the pub to a standstill, white in the face and clutching one arm that hung limp, blood seeping out from the torn fabric. His hair fell into his eyes, lank and brown, and he shook as he made his way to the bar.

"I've been attacked," he mumbled.

"Should I call a Healer?" asked a young barmaid, stricken.

"No," rasped the man. "I need… I need… Firewhiskey."

The man was served his Firewhiskey, on the house, and the other pub-goers hurried to buy him drinks as well, desperate to hear his tale.

"It was terrible!" he proclaimed, after a few, his injury apparently forgotten. "Terrible! It was this great beast with great flaming eyes!"

"It were probably him," said the older barmaid, raising an eyebrow and nodding her head knowingly.

"Him who?"

"That bloke they're all talkin' about. Been all over the news. Fenrir Greyback."

"Greyback?" went the whispers. "Fenrir Greyback?"

"But, sure, it's not the full moon tonight," said one voice from the back of the crowd.

"They say," said the landlady, "that he don't need the full moon to attack people now."

There was a collective gasp of horror and Fenrir's fist tightened around his glass, so tight he was sure he would break it. Somewhere in the crowd, someone shuddered.

"Oh, 'e's just 'orrible."

"You don't want to hear the things they say he does to the bodies of people after he's killed them – oh! I'm getting ill just thinking about it."

"And all those children, goin' missin'… What do you suppose he does with them?"

"I don't like to give it much thought meself."

One child.

"He's with them Death Eaters, isn't he?"

"Aye. They say they're the only ones who can anywhere near control him."

That was enough for Fenrir. He gulped what was left of his drink (because angry though he was, he'd paid for it and it hadn't been cheap), slammed the glass on the table and stood up to leave. As he strode towards the door of the pub and into the night, he heard the voice of a man saying, "Tell you what, if he ever comes anywhere near here, I'll batter him to death with this barstool!" This was greeted by cheers from the crowd and offers of drinks for the man.

/

Most girls were happy to please him, but most girls had a price. It wasn't that he couldn't afford it – they were cheap as anything, but if he was honest he hated them. They smelt too strongly of the perfume they wore, and of other men, and had Fenrir not been so lonely he would have given up associating with them entirely. Sometimes he entertained fantasies that scared him, of ripping off not only their clothes but their very skin – but he was always a perfect gentleman to them. At least, he pretended to be, and they pretended to be interested in him, and pretended not to notice that he smelt of dog.

For the briefest period of time, though, for what felt like a day but must have been in reality a number of months, he knew a girl who was different. She'd approached him. He'd been reading a book of Muggle children's stories – Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. He didn't know why he put himself through it but he needed something to fuel his sense of injustice. The girl had startled him, and he'd thought for a moment she'd known what and who he was – but she didn't. She started to talk with him, instead, about the Muggles and the wolf and the books, and Fenrir let her, because it had been a long time since anyone had wanted to talk with him about books.

The months he spent with her had no effect on his duties. He still went out at night and did what he had to do and he lied to her about it. He didn't want to lie, and he hated himself for it, but he didn't want to tell her the truth, because that would have shattered everything he'd had with her. He had a strange feeling inside of himself when he was with her. He didn't know what to call it.

But his thirst for blood seemed to increase with each day that passed. Part of the reason, he thought, was that rat of a boy Scabior. Loki loved him. Fenrir wasn't sure why, but he hated the boy for it. Perhaps it was some primal pack instinct or something of the like, but he couldn't stand the fact that the child – his child – his son for all intents and purposes – was being raised in part by…

By a wizard.

He told himself it was because Scabior was a wizard. And wizards had scorned and shamed him his entire life. It felt like his entire life, in any case, because the time when he had been a wizard seemed so long ago now. He felt so old – ancient, in fact, and it was all he could do when he came home to stop himself grabbing Scabior by the throat and mutilating him in the most horrendous way he could think of. I should change him, he thought, but he didn't. Instead, he found more children, some of them younger than Loki and some already older, some with their identities intact and family names attached, but all of them were impressionable and all of them depended on him.

They did not belong to their families any more, he told them. Their families did not want them any more. They belonged to Fenrir now, they were wolves, they were his. But he was gentle about it, always gentle, and they believed him, and they trusted him, because the children were not cynics.

/

He pushed the girl away. They fought, and she cried. Fenrir remembered, a long time ago, feeling things that would have been called 'remorse' and 'pity' but it had been so long since he didn't know how to recognise them. 'Love', too. He didn't know if that was what it was. He knew she wanted to keep him, and he knew she knew he was a lot more dangerous and vicious that what he appeared to be to her, but for some reason she wanted him to stay. Fenrir didn't know why, but he knew that it frightened him. He could kill people, mercilessly and without warning, and without ever thinking about them again, but they were strangers, and this woman… cared for him. If she put one foot out of line, if she spoke a word against the Death Eaters regime (and she would, he knew she would), he'd be ordered to kill her as though she was a particularly annoying fly. And what frightened him was that he knew he would.

He was sick of the whole thing. He barricaded himself in the house, with his children – his pack, Walden called them; was that the right name? – and he tried his best to protect them from the horrors of reality.

"People will tell you werewolves are dirty, that they're no better than dogs, but they're wrong. They're very wrong. You know that, don't you?"

"People – humans – think that because they've made a cosy little nest of a society for themselves that they can tell everyone else what's right and what's the right way to be."

"Werewolves understand each other. We don't judge. We're the ones who are thinking clearly. Not them."

The children listened to him, captivated, and they drank in every word and they seemed to understand. They loved Fenrir, and he – he was fiercely protective of them at the very least. He would have ripped the guts from anyone who treated them the way he had been treated in the blink of an eye.

The list of names of the reported dead grew and grew. Irma Winterbottom, Herbert Flitter, Ernest Clish, Paul Sheasby, Esther Atkinson, Alfred Dearborne, Quentin Prichard… Whoever. It didn't matter to Fenrir. Another month, another name. That's all they were, just a name. A name and the faint smell of blood. They weren't a mother or a father or a wife or a brother. They were just a name.

Nothing changed in Fenrir's world for a while. He raised the kids – or the cubs, as Walden called them. Walden was no longer a friend of him. He killed whoever it was he was supposed to. And he drank in the same pub.

When he was out, once, in the middle of each month, Scabior was still hanging around, keeping an eye on the children, although they were sensible enough to look after themselves. Fenrir made sure the children knew exactly who and what Scabior was, though, and he was certain they bullied him relentlessly. He smirked when the young man hurried out of the house upon his return, looking slightly traumatised and dishevelled, but he couldn't help feeling something like uncertainty about the whole thing. He liked Scabior, in a way. He was of good humour and had a sort of childish enthusiasm about whatever he did (at the beginning, anyway).

"'Snot what I thought it would be like," he told Fenrir when he was leaving one day. "Workin' for the Dark Lord. Thought it'd be more like bein' a pirate or somethin'."

Fenrir snorted.

/

Then one day, something did change. Fenrir was at the pub, as usual. He really did nothing there, having given up talking to the other customers. They mostly avoided him like he had a bad smell hanging around him – which, in truth, he probably did. But this particular evening, they were staring at him when they thought he wasn't looking, all alone in his dark corner, or whispering behind their hands. When he got up to get another drink, the sparse crowd seemed to part slightly, and when he reached the bartender, she had a frightened sort of look in her eyes, like a rabbit caught in front of a bus.

"Same again," he growled, having seen too much strange behaviour in his life to care much for this. She nodded, and, not taking her eyes off him, reached under the counter for a glass, poured his drink, and slid it across the counter to him. She croaked out the price, and he tossed the coins at her and turned to go.

He was almost back in his seat before from the silence somebody called out, "Murderer."

Fenrir froze. The crowd was holding its collective breath; a couple of people shuffled and the beer tap dripped but aside from that there was no noise. Fenrir turned, very slowly.

"What did you say?" His voice quivered slightly. Even to his own ears, he sounded angry; he'd spoken in the sort of tone that indicated quiet menace but inside his head he was panicking, feeling rather like a trapped rabbit himself now. How could anyone know who he was? He'd always been so careful. His house was protected by the Fidelius Charm – were the children alright? If these people knew, it wouldn't be long before the entire town was at his front door with pitchforks and torches – but how could they know? He'd never given his name to anyone. Not in years. He was registered a werewolf and now a murderer – that would have been stupidity.

A man forced his way from the back of the crowd, half-staggering and breathing alcohol fumes. In his hands he held a yellowed sheaf of parchments: this morning's paper. Fenrir's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment as he caught sight of himself on the front cover. A world away from the artist's impressions of a flea-ridden beast-man with protruding fangs, he was young again, smiling in an embarrassed sort of way at the camera and wearing an awful knitted Christmas jumper. He was nineteen years old, and already his hair was greying. 'MY SON IS A WEREWOLF,' read the headline. 'PARENTS OF PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER FENRIR GREYBACK SPEAK OUT'.

"We know what you did," said the man.

Fenrir swallowed. The crowd still looked uncomfortable. It didn't seem sure if it wanted to have any part in this or not.

"That's… That's not me," said Fenrir.

"Who is it, then, your twin brother?" The man held the paper up in front of him, squinting at it slightly. "You're a bit fatter now, but you got the same nose, and the eyes… You must be dead inside, 'cause there ain't nothin' there."

Fenrir snatched the paper from him, his eyes burring with hot, angry tears as he tried to read the article. Perhaps his parents were trying to reach out, to find him… Perhaps they wanted to forgive him…

"Yeah, have a good read, there," said the man. "I saw that this mornin' and I thought to myself, that looks a lot like that chap who always sits in the corner there. We'll string you up for this, you know that, don't you? Why'd you ever think you could get away with it? I used to be an Auror, you know, 'fore they chucked me out… 'Cause cowardly villains like you need hung, Greyback, you don't need no bloody fair trial or any of the other soft bollocks they're servin' up nowadays…"

"Seymour, shut up!" somebody called out. The crowd seemed to be staring in awe at the man, who was standing unsteadily and shaking a finger dangerously close to Fenrir's face. Fenrir was only vaguely aware of this, his head was spinning and his eyes were too wet to see from. He blinked, hard, several times, and then, from the bottom of his throat he managed to produce a growl, snapping his jaws at the hand in front of him. Its owner gave a screech of laughter and took a step or two back.

"Yeah, that's right, Seymour," Fenrir hissed. "You get away. You should know better than to pick fights with murderers, what with all that Auror training behind you, shouldn't you?"

The crowd seemed to be becoming more hostile now, intent on backing up Seymour, whom they seemed to have decided was leader. Fenrir heard several knuckles crack. He wasn't stupid. He knew that now Seymour's apparent suspicions had been confirmed, an Auror squad would be arriving shortly, and he wasn't about to pick a fight with a crowd of angry bar-goers, no matter how big or strong he may have been in human form.

"See, that's the thing, though," said Seymour. "I'm not scared o' you, as you seem to think ev'ryone is. 'Cause I know you ain't gonna hurt me. You ain't even gonna touch me, 'cause I got backup and you're too scared. You ain't so hard when you ain't all wolfy, are you? And the full moon's still two weeks away, and by the time you manage to screw up enough courage I'll be well-prepared. And then the Aurors'll get you, Greyback. If I don't get you first."

Fenrir stared at him. The crowd seemed to be getting restless, listening to him, believing him, and Fenrir knew he was right. He couldn't fight them all at once – and what's more, he wouldn't, because killing with a wand seemed cold and detached and somehow evil, whereas a wolf attack – that was the most natural thing in the world, wasn't it? That was what werewolves were born to do; that was what the teeth and claws were for.

Fenrir scowled and knocked back his drink. Seymour laughed in a horrible sort of way, and turned to the crowd, jerking his head to Fenrir and inviting them to laugh with him. Hesitantly, a couple of the congregation chuckled, and Fenrir set his glass down hard. It made a sharp clacking sound on the table, and immediately the laughter subsided. It didn't seem to matter how many of them there were; they were dealing with a man known to kill people with his bare hands, and not one of them had wanted to be the first to let him see them draw their wand.

Fenrir scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away the stray droplets of the drink. His hair was coarse and rough, and made the sores that had formed from eating raw eat sting. He gave another low growl, and eyed Seymour from beneath drawn eyebrows. Seymour stared back at him.

"Run," said Seymour. "While you've still got a chance."

There was a faint rustling of robes and Fenrir knew it was only a matter of seconds before someone made the first move. Ignoring whatever social protocol was (did it really matter, any more?) Fenrir Disapparated where he stood, but not before he'd heard a spell go whizzing past the place where his left ear had been. Someone rushed forward, and hands scrabbled at his cloak, but he was gone, into the night, into a street somewhere.

It was a street heavy with the odour of filth and rotting food, a street filled with the noises of Muggles dining and partying and celebrating. What had they to celebrate, thought Fenrir viciously. Couldn't they see what was going on, how everything was so wrong with the world?

He growled again, just to himself, and strode forward, dragging his fist along the rough brick wall. It hurt, yes, and it drew the faintest prickles of blood, but it didn't matter. They'd be crying out for more of his blood soon, if they weren't already. Why weren't they scared of him? Because he was the Death Eaters' lapdog, was that it? Because he did what he was told and was such a gentle man by day? He snorted, and dug his nails into the brick. It crumbled slightly, but his nails cracked more than the brick and he yelped.

By the light of the streetlamps, he could make out words written on the Prophet still scrunched in his free hand. He shook it open, and read all about his childhood. How he had been such a bright young boy. Such a promising young man. Such a talented wizard. So sweet. So clever.

"But he always had a bit of a mean streak," his mother was quoted as saying. "I should have realised earlier, I mean, he was Sorted into Slytherin, for goodness' sake, and why would he be, when my entire family were in Ravenclaw?"

Fenrir read through the article at such a speed his mind began tripping over itself. His mother seemed to have conveniently forgotten that his father was a Slytherin, or it had been cut from the interview. Fenrir, however, very much doubted the latter. His mother had never trusted him, apparently, and that made him ache inside. She had loved him, of course she had – she was his mother, for heavens' sake! She couldn't have known how he would turn out.

He wanted to scream at her, to tell her it wasn't her fault, to tell her he knew his father was forcing her to this, that he wanted her and loved her and needed her to take care of him – but he couldn't, because he knew that was a lie. It was her fault. She'd listened to his father, who'd turned his back on him, exactly the way everyone else had when he'd needed them.

He read the article through, again and again, hating it more each time and hating his mother and father, too, for their utter, utter betrayal. In a rage, he flung the paper onto the street. It fluttered down gently, landing with an inappropriately soft crinkling sound, but Fenrir was too consumed with rage to notice or care. He threw his head back, tearing at his hair, and a horrible, shrieking sort of noise split the night. It took Fenrir a moment to realise what it was.

He was howling.

He'd never done it before, not as himself. Well, not as a man, anyway, but surely man and beast were one, after all. The line seemed completely blurred now, and Fenrir wondered if there had ever been a barrier between the two after all. But as the end of his howl died on his dry throat, he knew that whatever he was, he wasn't anybody's lapdog.

The lights of a bar flickered behind a door at the end of the street. Fenrir went forward, shaking with anger, to the source of the light. He pulled open the door, revealing an almost-empty Muggle pub. The bartender glanced up when he entered. He said something benign and trite that Fenrir couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears.

"A drink," said Fenrir, assuming that was what he had been asked. A drink to steady his nerves. A drink to help him do what he needed to do. "I'm Fenrir Greyback. I'm a cold-blooded killer. I'm a monster. And I want a drink."

"Whatever you say," shrugged the barman, and pulled him a pint.

/

Fenrir stood in the open and sniffed the air. It was the dead of night. No birds sang and only the moon gave light to the little country lane in which he stood. He had used the wolf's senses for the first time tonight, made as full use of them as he could. He had traced the man's smell – Seymour – back to the house that sat at the top of this gently sloping hill.

It was a crooked sort of house, next to a crooked sort of tree, with a lonely dog tied under it and the moon hanging over it. It was a half moon, and to Fenrir that usually meant nothing, but tonight he was overwhelmed by how beautiful it seemed. His face cracked into a smile, and he set off for the house.

He had the courtesy to knock. He knocked several times, pounding his fist against chipped black-painted wood, before a young girl answered the door, her dark hair falling over her face and her eyes heavy with sleep.

"What do you want?" she said flatly.

"Oh," said Fenrir. He hadn't been expecting, somehow, for anyone else to be in the house. The girl looked to have barely reached her teens, and he assumed she belonged to Seymour. "Is your father here?"

"Why?" The girl narrowed her eyes. "It's late. He's… in bed."

She seemed to sense, somehow, that Fenrir was not just 'a mate from the pub'. Maybe it was the menace in his eyes, or the way he stood, or the way he smelt, but she was about to shut the door in his face when a blow from his fist sent her tripping backwards into the hallway. She stumbled over her own feet, unsteadily, and careered backwards into a spindly table holding a heavy vase. There was a crash, and then a sickening thud, and Fenrir smelt briefly the blood that trickled from her head.

He could hear her breathing, faint though it was, but he didn't care if she was alive or dead. He was here for one reason and one reason only – and that was the man he could hear struggling to his feet in the next room.

He tramped over the girl's body, clumsily feeling along the cold, dark walls for the door. He thrust it open, and it obeyed with a series of hacking creaks, and inside the kitchen he found Seymour, silhouetted the window and clutching his wand. He was swaying slightly on the spot, looking confused, evidently woken from a drunken stupor and wondering whether the sounds of the intruder he'd heard were real.

"You," he mumbled, as Fenrir stepped out from the shadows and the soft moonlight brought his features into view. "What are you doing here?" Then his face broke into a wicked sort of grin. "Come to face me like a man, have you?" There was a moment of hesitation before he waved his wand in front of him.

"Yes," growled Fenrir, advancing, snatching the wand from his loose fist as soon as it was up and without giving the matter a second thought, snapping it in two. "So why don't you face me like a man, eh?"

His face was barely an inch away from Seymour's now, and he could see the fear and confusion in him eyes and it was almost enough to make him rethink his plan. Almost.

"You see, I don't have my wand," Fenrir clarified, trying to make sense of his words through his muddled thoughts. He needed to say it right. He needed this man to know why he was here. He could feel Seymour's breath on his face. The other man was rigid with fear now.

"All I brought," said Fenrir, "was me." And then there was a moment of hesitation, in which he repeated himself internally, and smiled, and nodded at Seymour (you understand, don't you?) And then he lunged for him, fingers closing round his throat and forcing him back into the glass of the window. His nails, which had never looked more like claws than they did now, were piercing his skin, his very flesh, blood oozing out and running down his hands.

Seymour's fists pounded against his back and he felt teeth scraping against the side of his neck. Seymour was screaming, screeching, crying out for someone (his daughter, probably) to help, flailing and kicking at whatever part of Fenrir he could reach.

"HELP ME! HELP! HE'S A MANIAC!"

"SHUT UP!" Fenrir pressed the heel of his palm into the man's windpipe, cutting off the air. Seymour spluttered. "I just want to let you know, Seymour, before you die, that I'm not a coward. And I am not anybody's lapdog. I am a werewolf. I am a man. I am Fenrir Greyback and I am going to kill you and I am going to do it with my bare hands and my teeth and after that I will eat you and it doesn't matter what form I am in, I shall enjoy it, do you understand me?"

His claws – nails – were digging into Seymour's cheeks now. The other man was struggling, clearly in pain, still feebly kicking, and he somehow managed to draw enough breath for a spluttering laugh.

"I'm not scared of you. HEL—"

"You should be." Fenrir shoved him into the window pane again, and Seymour's breath caught in his throat. "Everyone should be scared of me, and when I'm done with you, Seymour, there won't be any reason why they shouldn't be."

Seymour laughed again, but the sound was weaker this time, frightened. "You're mad," he wheezed. "Absolutely – bloody – mad."

Fenrir stared into his eyes, and then was possessed by a sort of delirium that threatened to eradicate his senses. For the first time in so long, something a wizard had said was unequivocally true. He was, indisputably and beyond a doubt, completely and utterly mad. It was all he could do to keep himself focused on the task and from bursting into gales of laughter. Instead, he howled, and as the blood splattered onto the windowpane the lonely dog under the tree echoed the sound, crying to the moon in the still and silent night.

The End