A/N: Hello, lovely readers! I hope you're all safe and well through these trying times. Have a new chapter in the hopes that a little sadness might brighten your days!

Enjoy!

Eliza x

Disclaimer: I do not own the works made use of herein, none of the Harry Potter features or characters belong to me. I make no money from this work. (Basically, if you recognise it, it's not mine.)

Warnings: Rated M for situations, LOTS OF swearing, violence, sexual scenes, minor character death, graphic descriptions of murder victims, references to cannibalism, torture...

Apples and Oranges

Chapter Seventeen

Truly anyone's guess, it seemed, though Hermione doubted anyone would guess the tableau that she woke up to. Indeed, she must have sensed it, for she woke all at once rather than little by little, her every muscle tensed and ready for action. Her hand, beneath her pillow, curled around the handle of her new wand, and every curse she knew was queued on her tongue, ready to trip off at a moment's notice. Forcing her breath to slow into a more natural rhythm, she kept her eyes closed and felt around, carefully, with her mind.

"No need for that, girl," came the growl from behind her. "I'm much too old and much too slow to do ye any harm."

"Forgive me if I doubt that," Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. She didn't drop her wand, but she did relax, pushing up into a seated position and turning to glare at the woman sat next to her. Peg looked in fine fettle this morning, dressed in an all-black suit with a feathered cap on her head. Truly, mourning suited her, and Hermione told her as much.

"When ye get to my age, it had better," Peg snorted, dropping the book she'd been reading on the bedside table. "Forgive us for intruding, but you slept for longer than I expected and these old bones can't keep me up for long nowadays."

"There's a chair over there," Hermione pointed out, inwardly resigned. Werewolves. They had no respect for one's personal space. She shoved her way out from under the covers and, realising that the woman wouldn't be turning around any time soon, rather self-consciously began to dress. "And whose old bones would you be on about? You move like you're no older than fifty."

Peg watched her with eyes bright with interest and a little smile playing on her lips. "You flatter me, lass. And ye sound like my boy."

"Rude," Hermione snapped back, searching her bag for a bra. "I swear, every time I put something down around here it goes walking off."

"Probably Fenrir." Peg shrugged when Hermione whipped round, her face the picture of shock. "Don' look at me like that, girlie. I don' have him on a leash."

"You ought to," the younger woman replied, mostly under her breath. Abandoning the search, she pulled on the first blouse she came to, and then a blazer, for propriety's sake. "Why are you here, Peg?"

"Fer the funeral. Thought ye might want to accompany an old lady. O'course, you could always wait for Fen to come an' pick you up, but that would just give the Pack hope and I don' reckon you're ready for that yet. An' don't try to fob me off with none of that 'oh, I can', I'm here for work and nowt else' rubbish. Yes, I can see it in yeh eyes, and I'll not be havin' any of it. You knew our lad, ye were there when he died, and you'll pay your respects after he's dead, like ye ought."

Hermione sighed, again, flopping down onto the chair Peg had selective blindness over. "It seems you've overrun all of my objections in advance."

Peg nodded her satisfaction. "And any more ye think of, too. Now, black is a personal choice, o'course, but I don't think fuschia sets the right tone, do you? Use that pretty stick of yours and turn it something a bit more subtle, unless you want to be mauled by supper. It's a full moon tomorrow and you're in the midst of a Pack. Best not to disrespect."

Hermione glanced down and bit back a groan. Right. "Colovaria."

Dawn had not yet broken over the hills when Hermione and Peg joined the pack at the edge of the woods, Peg leaning heavily on Hermione's arm as she valiantly struggled across the harsh terrain in her favourite heels. Hermione had offered twice - no, three times, actually - to cast a steadying charm on them, but the woman was adamant. She'd worn those heels to her mate's funeral, her son's funeral, her son's son's funeral and every death thereafter; they were her lucky funeral heels, and she wasn't going to let every silly little girl with a wand faff about with them. Hermione tried not to be offended, she truly did, but her impenetrable facade was just that: a facade.

Silly little girl, am I? she fumed silently, the words keeping time with Peg's every unsteady step. Faffing about, am I? Would it be poor taste to murder a woman at a funeral, she wondered as Peg regailed her with tales of her late mate's funerary rites. Only it was an extremely tempting proposition. It had taken Peg some time to get going, but once she'd started speaking, she just hadn't stopped, and Hermione was trying to get her thoughts in order. She was never at her best in the morning, and even worse when she hadn't yet eaten.

She was so hungry.

"We always fast before a funeral," Peg told her, and Hermione started, worrying that she'd said the words aloud - and if she had, how many. "Warms us up for the feast to follow, but it ain't half a pain trying to do things. I'm an old lady, y'know, can barely get anywhere as it is without an empty belly."

"Ye'd get places much faster if ye wore sensible shoes, woman!" came a welcome snarl - not welcome because she liked him, of course, but because he distracted Peg from launching into another one of her tales. Hermione was sure that was the reason. One good night's sleep didn't endear him to her - and he'd stolen her underwear!

"You're not havin' my lucky funeral shoes, Fenrir, and that's that!" Peg snapped, patting Hermione's arm in thanks before moving to hug her last remaining grandson. "I'll be wearing these at your funeral."

"Mornin', Granger," Greyback said, in a voice so gravelly that it approximated a purr. Hermione ignored the way it shivered across her senses. She really did. "Kind of ye t'come."

The gravity of the situation, somewhat suspended momentarily by Peg's boisterous presence, came down on Hermione then, and she felt that urgency in her stomach, the ache in her chest. The morning's atmosphere was less heavy than the day before, as though a small amount of the collective burden had been lifted, but a heavy, drugging sadness swept through her all the same.

"Kevan Quinn was a good man," she heard herself saying. "I - I didn't want to intrude, but Peg insisted."

"You're welcome here," Greyback replied with a twitch of his lips, something that might have approached a smile if his face were not so solemn. "Will ye be staying with Peg?"

They had reached the Pack, now; all of them, lined up along the treeline, with Angus at the front sharing the weight of Kevan's body with Greg. Dr Wallace had done a wonderful job, Hermione could tell, wrapping him carefully in a shroud made of some gossamer thick fabric that was draped repeatedly over his body, except for the face, which was protected only by a few thin layers. Mrs Quinn stood a few steps behind them, Mary-Rose supporting her weight with a hand wrapped around her waist as she cried. "Yes," Hermione replied, hollowed out by the weight of the widow's grief. "I'll stay with Peg."

Greyback looked between them for a moment before nodding. He passed his grandmother over gently with a few murmured words, and then, oddly, touched one finger to Hermione's cheek. "It's alright," he said, gruffly, before turning and loping off.

"Fen will carry him," Peg told her, her voice lowered in respect. Indeed, Fenrir took the weight of the man from his packmates and shouldered it himself, carrying him cradled in his arms like a babe. Hermione's breath stuttered, a sudden, fleeting memory of the final battle - Harry carried, just like that, by Hagrid - looming large in her eyes, before it was gone, and Fenrir was leading them into the trees.

They walked in silence for a time, even Peg remaining quiet, somehow gliding through the trees as though there was nothing there to stop her. Indeed, the whole Pack seemed to move elegantly, regally as one, catching Hermione and carrying her with them. She was tired, and her muscles ached, and her stomach growled, but she walked; forward, endlessly on, without complaint. Roots seemed to slide out of her way, wildlife quieting for their passage, and once she was sure a tree had shifted a few inches to the left to allow their passage, but she did not mention it - she mentioned nothing, thought nothing, simply… walked.

Greyback called a halt just as Peg seemed to wobble, her grip slackening on Hermione's arm, and the whole pack simply paused, dispersed throughout the trees but somehow still one party, still linked, still one whole.

And then they moved, lining up in a ring - no, a spiral, curving around to the small clearing where Greyback stood, still holding Kevan, showing no signs of strain. Peg shoved Hermione in the right direction, and they began moving, slowly forward. Glimpses of the scene came to Hermione through the trees; Mairie kneeling, Greg with his hand in a fist, Molly taking her place in a smaller circle that formed around Greyback.

And then it was her turn, and Peg urged her to her knees by a shallow ditch, more a rut, that had been gouged out of the ground. "Take a handful," Peg ordered, her voice low and scratchy, sounding more her age than she ever had. She demonstrated, gnarled hands digging deep into the dirt and pulling out more than her hand could hold. Still, she pulled it to her chest and kept it there, so as not to dislodge any. Hermione glanced at her, and then the rut - a mere few inches deep, and not large enough to hold a grown man - in confusion. "Do it," Peg repeated, and Hermione felt the Pack around her murmur and shift.

She closed her eyes. How deep would she go with these people? Far enough that she could not return? This was no anthropological study, it would assist her in writing no laws, and it would not solve a murder. This… this was sheer self-indulgence, at this point. She should stand - make a stand, now. They would know that she was not one of them, she would not be leading them, and herself on. No more distractions, isn't that what she'd told herself? Sworn, as she fell asleep the night before? Less than twelve hours ago. Where was that legendary Granger self-discipline?

Floundering. She was floundering, beyond hope. On the precipice between her own world and this one and -

What was she doing? Having a crisis on the edge of a man's grave! Who was she?

Her fist dug deep before she'd even chosen to move; she felt the coolness of the soil, its wet kiss on her hand. She had motion - it was malleable, rich and moist and everything soil ought to be. One could grow almost anything here, and yet they used it to store their dead. There was a strange, almost satisfying symmetry, and she smiled slightly, comforted, as she pulled out her hand and cradled the dirt to her chest. Peg nodded, satisfied, and guided her to her place in the line.

Angus and Greg stepped forward with spades as the last pack member, a child of no more than twelve, took their place in line, and began to dig. Greyback stood in front of them, still bearing Kevan's weight, still staring solemnly at his pack, still uncomplaining. Empathy - that was the heavy feeling in Hermione's heart. He bore this weight alone - in more than one way. And he cared.

Mrs Quinn - Hermione realised that she'd never bothered to learn the woman's first name - stepped forward then, her eyes rimmed red from tears, her clothes crumpled and worn, looking nothing like the stern woman Hermione had met just the day before - and had it been just the day before? It felt like so much longer. Mary-Rose stepped forward as if to go to her, but she held up a hand, closed her eyes, and breathed.

"I am not a loquacious woman," Quinn said, her voice trembling. "I cannot - there is nothing I can say that will represent Kevan as anything other than the sum of his parts, when we all know he was so much more than that. He has taken my breath away, every day, since we first met. Waking up - without him - that is something I never thought I would go through. I would die first. We had agreed it - we had sworn on it!"

She froze, coughed, and shook her head. "Kevan would want me to thank you. You are his family. You've accepted him since the day I brought him home, looking like a stray, all dressed up from his fancy Ministry job and nursing a fresh bite on his shoulder. This was the first place he'd ever been that had taken him for exactly who he was, no more, no less, and that was beautiful to him. You were all so beautiful to him.

"Kevan was a muggle-born, and he always went out of his way to respect that, which is why we bury him here today. 'I love you, and everything, but people get buried, not burned', is what he's always said to me. He thought a funeral pyre would make him feel like a hog roast." Quinn choked on a laugh here, and a ripple of responding mirth shot through the crowd. Hermione smiled, softly.

"We bury my Mate today. My equal in everything. One day, you will bury me here, too." Quinn turned, touching Kevan's cheek where he lay in Greyback's arms, his eyes closed peacefully. She smiled, laying her hand on his neck, and kissed his lips, gently through his shroud. "But not today," Quinn added, her voice stronger, now. "Today, I live. For you, my love, and for our son. Faolán will grow up strong and loyal and fierce, just like his father, and I will be there to watch that happen."

She stroked her Mate's cheek one last time before stepping back, and Fenrir turned, lowering the body into the hole in the ground. Angus and Greg assisted him from within before jumping out, their own hands full of dirt. They flanked their Alpha, his own hands full, as he looked over his people, his eyes shining with a quiet sadness, and something akin to pride.

"Kevan Quinn was one of us," Fenrir rumbled, his voice carrying through the woods with astounding clarity. "A valued member of our Pack. Within us, he was all things - husband, father; a brother to each and every one of us. We care for him, now. He runs with us. He hunts with us. He lives with us. And he will never be forgotten."

He scattered his earth without fanfare, and stepped aside.

And then, like a well-oiled machine, the Pack was moving again. The children at the back of the line were the first, scattering their soil atop the shrouded man and disappearing into the trees. It continued in reverse, until Hermione was stood by the edge, gazing down at the man she'd failed so badly. Realisation burst through her, with a newfound sense of purpose, and she knew what she had to do.

She kneeled down, ignoring Peg's tugging on her arm. He was barely visible through the thin layer of soil, but Hermione didn't need to see him; she merely needed him to hear her.

"I know what you were doing," she murmured, reaching out and letting her soil fall through her fingers. "And I will do it for you. You will not have died in vain."

And then Peg had her arm again and they were stumbling through the trees, whatever spell that had been cast long gone, complete with the absence of silence.

"Well, that was nice, wasn' it?" Peg said, the second they were free of the clearing. "I do prefer the burnings, though. They're a bit closer to home."