A/N: Deepest apologies for the many months it took me to finish this chapter off, especially after saying that I had more time to write. Pandemic and all aside, 2020 has made it a personal mission to humble me very deeply and I have been dealt a number of very personal blows in these last few months. I am still grieving but I am finally returning to creating/curating things and so far, writing this has been a really helpful way to pass the time. I have a story plan mostly fleshed out for the rest of this, but I'm also really interested in getting your opinions as to where this story should go. I would be ever so grateful for a review, however short.
Bit of an Anders heavy chapter, so I hope yous all don't mind too much! Also, if any of you have read the Gone series and are interested in some fanfic, then I am the gal to talk to (desperate for someone to fangirl with tbh).
Stay safe everyone, have a very merry winter break.
Kingsley Shacklebolt took the blow with a grunt, doubling over and spitting the pain from his mouth. He already sported a split forehead, neat red spilling from his hairline.
"No," Hermione whispered in horror.
Greyback released his wife from his side and paced the dirt in front of Kingsley. The tension in his heels was thick like rubber, his muscles bunching waiting for the pounce. Greyback looked like he had snorted an 8ball of coke, though Hermione knew full well it was only violence the man needed to feel so high. She winced.
"You evaded us for too long, Shacklebolt. You must have known how fat your bounty is." Greyback paced past the man bowing and panting in pain and delicately stroked Kingsley's head with his claws. "Did you think you could outrun us?" He barked a sharp laugh.
Shacklebolt licked his bloodied lips and raised his eyes to Greyback and Hermione's broken heart soared for him and his strength. "At least until the boarder." Shacklebolt admitted coolly.
"France, was it? Was that the plan?" Greyback stalked back and forth, never taking his eyes off his prize.
"Please," Shacklebolt panted. "Let the others go. You have me."
Several men - wolves, Hermione thought- laughed before Greyback even responded. He bent down low on his haunches to get face to face with Kingsley. "I wouldn't want to bring you all this way just to miss the party. Stay a while, we'd love the company." His tongue licked a vicious smile across his lips. He stood, he and Anders shared a look Hermione couldn't read, and Greyback sunk a devastating kick into Kingsley's chest once again, knocking the man sideways.
"Bring the others here." Greyback growled into the camp.
Cutters and Tye's silent friend dragged the young woman and another man, thirty-something and shaking with fear, to the centre of the camp as Kingsley wheezed himself back to the present.
Greyback lay his hand on the Back of Aanka's neck tenderly. "What do you think, Mare?" He crooned into her neck lovingly. "Do you like your gifts?"
"Mine?" She side eyed Greyback. "Aren't all rebels to be taken to the Dark Lord?"
At the very mention of Voldemort, the young woman let out a whimper and Kingsley shuddered. The other rebel man flicked his gaze from creature to creature around him, his eyes full of terror.
Greyback chuckled and scratched the dirty beard on his neck. "The Dark Lord will have whatever he wants, and I can assure you he doesn't care what happens to these two." He gestured to the two rebels Hermione didn't recognise.
"Please!" The young woman strained against Cutters wandering hands, her own arms bound behind her with shackles. "Please don't do this. We are good people!" Her desperate gaze pounced on Aanka, imploring her for her sense of humanity, sororité.
Aanka curled her lip in response and stepped back from the woman.
"Stop Joanne—" Kingsley wheezed.
"You have to help us! We did nothing to you!" The woman begged of Aanka. Hermione could only watch in anticipation as Joanne continued.
"Jo, shut up!" Kingsley's warnings went unnoticed.
"You have to help!" The desperation in Joanne's eyes bled across her face, her lip quivering, hands tremoring as she lay her life with trust in Aanka's decision. "You're a mother!" She gestured her bound wrists to Aanka's protruding belly. "Think of your chil—"
Greyback punched her in the jaw. He did not use the full strength of his arm, but Joanne's sweet pleading face whipped around, and she screeched out a sob. He stalked low to the quivering woman on the ground and grabbed her by the neck, pain and fear pinching her eyes together in a wince. He sat on his haunches and pulled her face close to him. "You so much as look in the direction of my child and I will eat the womb right out of you." He threw her to the ground as he stood.
"Ahem". Hermione looked from the woman shuddering on the floor to Anders, standing behind Kingsley. "Alpha. What do you want with the prisoners?" To Hermione's upset - but certainly not her surprise – Anders seemed non-plussed at the violence. She eyed his disdainful look at Joanne.
Greyback shrugged one shoulder. "Stake them by that tree. Chains, magic, whatever." Hermione noted the tree he gestured to was in the direction of where the men had taken to relieving themselves and she felt immediately grateful not to be Joanne.
The men nodded and started on setting up the space for the new prisoners. Greyback didn't move however and bent down on his haunches once more to eye Kingsley. His look was not sadistic, Hermione was entranced at the levelled gaze each man gave to the other. Neither of them looked away and, how Hermione could not say, but was that respect she saw in each of them? A strange sort of respect perhaps but something not too dissimilar. She watched them exchange this look for an age, time under tension between them.
"You're mine now, Shacklebolt." His expression lay clear, the intent behind his words explicit in the weight of his brow and the slight curl of his top lip.
Shacklebolt levelled his own challenging stare, Hermione's heart wrenching at the sheer balls of the man. Staring Greyback in the eyes was like facing death itself. Shacklebolt didn't blink. "You're no more than a pawn for Him, Greyback. You're not stupid, you know that."
Greyback's tongue snaked forward and licked a sharp tooth. "Better a pawn than a dog."
"You can't be letting this happen." Hermione's voice broke in her throat, following Anders into the tent where he grabbed a mass of wound rope.
Anders huffed a sigh that told Hermione he had been expecting her objection. Damn right, she thought. "You know that I'm going to, why are you even bothering?" He was exasperated. He grabbed another bunch of rope, thinner, and stalked out of the tent.
She followed him, "you are despicable." Once she might have been disbelieving but she had seen too much for that now. She was angry but ultimately unsurprised. "How do you sleep at night?"
"You know very well how I sleep at night, Witch." He met three other werewolves at a wide tree, one of them hammering metal stakes into the ground and the other two holding the shaking prisoners. Anders unwound the rope and started to wrap it around the shoulders and upper arms of the female rebel. "You can wait for me at the tent or you can start helping whoever's on dinner tonight."
Hermione chanced a glance at the crying woman, half-expecting her to start begging Hermione as well. Joanne seemed to have learned her lesson. Hermione shook her head inwardly; she would not ignore the pleas of the desperate like Aanka: the least she could do was give the poor woman some hope. "Go to hell." She said to Anders. The eyebrows of the other werewolves shot into their hairlines, one of them curling their lip in disgust. Anders didn't do anything. He continued to wind the rope around Joanne until her wrists were bound together, and her arms were pinned to her chest. He looped the rope through the stake in the ground and cast a spell to seal them together. His response took so long that Hermione thought perhaps he hadn't heard her.
Then his hands were in her hair and he yanked her down to kneel at his feet. One hand held her in place by the hair and the other slapped her twice. Hard. On the cheek. Without a word he yanked her up again and dragged her off towards the tent he shared with her, Hermione tripping over her feet as she was pulled along.
As they approached the mouth of the tent Anders made a show of throwing her inside and stormed in after her. "You know that line we talked about, Witch? You're coming real fucking close." His brow furrowed at the top of his nose and he spat the words through his teeth. He was angry.
Hermione righted herself. "I—"
"NO!" He cut her off. "I'm done listening to your whining." He stalked the distance between them and grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her widening eyes to meet his fury. "You are going to shut the fuck up and you are going to listen."
She swallowed but ultimately stayed silent.
"I have been patient with you, I have put up with your bad attitude. And yet you continue to push your 'woe-is-me' rhetoric like anybody gives a crap. I don't want to punish you, Witch. In fact, I'd really like for us to get along, but I will not be disrespected by an insolent little know-it-all." He dropped his voice an octave and spoke dangerously then. "And I sure as hell won't be embarrassed like that in front of my men." His fingers flexed against her cheek. His anger was palpable, and Hermione was starting to guess she had taken a step too far.
She took a breath and then another step. "They're going to rape her," she whispered.
He rolled his eyes and threw her face away from him. "They're probably going to kill her." He said matter-of-factly. "Do you want to join her? You're digging your grave awfully deep." He threw his hands up in the air, "fuck Hermione, I could let them all have at you too, let them pass you around like a plaything. I don't. Every night I give you furs and a tent to sleep in. You could bunk with any of the other men, but you don't have to. You get me. And all I seem to get in return is backchat and disrespect. Pretty sorry excuse for a thank you."
Hermione laughed without an ounce of mirth. "A thank you? I'm supposed to thank you for not letting me be raped by lots of men. For what? So I can be raped by one man instead." She scoffed. "Thank you, my hero." She said, dripping sarcasm.
He growled and gave her a clear and resounding slap across the face before pulling her back to face him by the chin once again. "Would you just quit the sorry-for-yourself act, it's getting real fucking old. It's not earning you anything; no one here feels sorry for you." He laughed. "Why would we? We're the ones doing it to you, we're never going to wake up one day and turn over a new leaf, so stop pretending that's going to happen. This is our nature, Witch. This is our culture."
She scrunched her nose in anger. "You're never going to stop hurting people? I'm never going to stop being angry about it." She raised her voice to meet him. "I am not stupid for expecting better, for holding you to decent standards."
He scoffed at her, "yes, because that's worked out for you brilliantly so far, hasn't it? Tell me how your disobedience has helped me a 'better' man."
She stayed silent, her chin wobbling with a wet rage.
He simply nodded at her. "That's what I thought." A moment passed between them where neither one of them said anything. He sighed, brought his hand to his eyes, and rubbed his temple with his thumb and forefinger. "Granger, you are smart. Surely at this point you must have realised you're only making your life harder here."
The tears threatening her cheeks finally broke and wet her face, but her eyes softened, tired. "Please, Anders. Just let her go." Her voice was broken and flat, and they both knew that Joanne was not the 'her' Hermione was referring to. Her words were but a meagre attempt to maintain the Gryffindor fight inside.
Anders looked down and shook his head. He sighed, returned to his bed beyond the inner curtain and sat down on it. "You know that's not going to happen, Granger."
"Alright," Hermione sniffed and nodded to herself. "I'll do it myself then." She said quietly.
He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Witch. This petulance is beneath you."
"No," she looked him dead in the eyes. "I'm not going to let you beat the compassion out of me."
"Enough, Witch! I have had enough!" He stood in his anger and approached her. "I'm sick of offering you far more than you deserve and receiving only disobedience." He grabbed her by the back of her neck, his fingers long enough to cradle the back of her head. He steered her toward the bed and forced her face down into it. "You will respect me, or so help me god I will give up on you. Throw you to the perverts out there. Is that what you want?" He bent down to spit the words into her face on the bed. "Is it, Witch? Is that what you want?"
"Is this what you want? You want me to roll over like Aanka, be your bitch?"
He growled and held her there. He pulled her jeans down her legs with his free hand and slapped her bare arse. Hermione yelped and tried to wriggle out from underneath his grasp, but he held her firm and slapped it hard again, springing tears into Hermione's eyes. He growled again, spitting fury and yanked her back up by the hair to face him. "You'd be oh so fortunate to be my bitch. You don't deserve such a luxury." With his free hand, he unfastened his belt buckle and pushed her to her knees. "You are nothing more than a slave."
Anders held her head tight between his hands, wrapping her coils around his fingers, and shoved his semi-erect meat into her mouth. The taste made her gag immediately and he took the opportunity to push his cock further into her mouth. Her tears came reflexively as she choked around him.
Anders spent only a few moments fucking her face as she cried. He growled in frustration again before pulling his cock out once more, wiping it on her cheek. She noticed it was softer now than it was before. He shoved it back into his trousers before pulling his wand out of his sleeve and casting chains around her ankles, anchoring her to the foot of the bed.
He stalked in rage toward the piles of boxes in the outer room of the tent, where he kept his assortment of possessions. He leant his hands on the table there and panted his fury out like a bull.
Good, she thought to herself. Can't even get it up. I hope he's embarrassed.
Minutes passed as neither of them moved. She remained kneeling by the bed, saliva and tears still smeared across her face. Her gaze was fixed at the furs, where she hadn't slept in what felt like days, but she didn't see anything but her hatred of everything that surrounded her. He maintained his position, hands flat out and leaning on the table several metres away from her.
Finally, her voice came to her evenly. "You want me to be someone I cannot be."
He sighed, suddenly seeming much too tired of fighting, suddenly making Hermione feel as if this was a fight she might have with her husband in some other life. "I want you to be clever, Granger. I am not Fenrir Greyback. I don't enjoy beating you into submission. I want you to see you have an opportunity to have it easier than you currently do. It's your choice if you take it or not." He didn't look at her as he spoke.
She laughed mirthlessly. "I should be grateful you're not a sadist."
"Yes, you should. And you should use that to your advantage. Let go of your old ideas of the world, Granger. They won't do what you want them to anymore. Let go. Survive."
He didn't wait to hear her response before he left for the camp outside.
Hermione was sick of being told to let go. She was fed up with criminals and sociopaths telling her that kindness and compassion were empty notions of grandeur. What did Aanka and Anders know? They've never bothered to hope for better, and their belief that letting go of her faith in the world would do her any benefit only served to aggravated her. I don't want to live like that, she thought. I can't just accept less, it's cowardly. But the voice in her head was weak. It was cowardly, but that did not comfort her because somewhere deep within her responded. They're right.
Hermione had fallen asleep to the sounds of begging and pleading for mercy somewhere outside the tent. In her moments before slumber, she had hoped for a wand – not to escape – but to simply ward the tent from the sounds. She had woken up some time later, she guessed some hours, and Anders had not yet returned. She had wondered briefly where he was, what he was doing, before those thoughts filled her with hate. The hate did not last as long as she had hoped. Having given in to unfettered emotional fatigue, Hermione dug in her furs for the copy of Shadows and Spirits and begun to pick up where she had left off.
Her reading speed had slowed, and she was horrified to note that even her comprehension was not as she had remembered it. It had been a long time since she had read for pleasure, and the skill she had practiced so much required maintenance she simply could not devote energy to anymore.
Anders returned as she turned the page onto her third chapter of the evening. She was very aware he was there and did her best to keep her eyes fixed to words on the page in front of her; he had to call her name before she decided to pay him any notice. "Oh, you're back." She feigned her ignorance. He pretended to believe her.
"You're probably hungry by now." He offered her a bowl of what looked to be green beans, sprouts, cabbage, potato and shredded ham all covered in gravy. Her mouth drowned itself in salivation and she took the bowl from him, spooning warm food into her mouth.
After a few bites, she slowed and eyed him warily. "So, you're not starving me then." Her mother would have balked at her eating with her mouth full.
He rolled his eyes. "Quite a flare for the dramatic, you."
Hermione got the impression she was being treated like his charge. He spoke to her – and fed her – as if he was her father. The thought creeped her out, then comforted her. That only creeped her even more.
She watched him take off his outer coat and boots as she ate. The silence lay comfortably between them before he looked down at her. "Are you ready to apologise?"
"No." She swallowed her bite. "Are you?"
Anders gave her a glare in answer, making it obvious what he thought of that proposal.
She changed the subject. "Would you mind casting a ward on the tent?" He raised his eyebrows in confusion. "The… the men. The prisoners. I just want to be able to sleep. Please." She added as an afterthought.
His features softened and he acquiesced, casting a sound ward around the perimeter of the tent.
She nodded her thanks.
They did not interact for some time after that. He grabbed a book from the small wooden crate he kept beside his bed and lay on the bed to read. She finished her meal and settled down with her own book at the foot of the bed. They remained like that, reading in each other's company for almost an hour before Hermione put her book down to remove her boots and jeans. The cheek of her arse stung still from his brutality earlier and she soothed it before turning her eyes to watch Anders read.
He sat on his bed in his t shirt and cuffed cargo trousers, one leg tucked under him and the book resting on his other knee. His lips pursed slightly in concentration and his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he looked downward to the page.
"Nothing better to stare at?" When he looked up from his book finally, he saw her in her fleece and a pair of underwear that sat too baggily on her frame, despite his efforts to keep her fed.
She didn't respond to his question. "I still think you're wrong." He blinked. "About the world and what I should expect of it."
He sighed, softly this time, and beckoned her over with the jerk of his head. She reluctantly joined him on the bed, mostly for his physical warmth. "You don't have to take my advice, Granger. But I do give it from experience."
"Well then I feel sorry for you."
He blinked again, floored by that statement. He looked at her with an expression she could not describe. At his silence, and the happy feeling in her full stomach, she turned away from him and lay her head down against the pillow.
The room was still but for their breathing. And then he all but whispered, "thank you."