The problem hadn't been solved by that evening. Mathilda and Alexis had eventually decided to take the Knight Bus home, since they didn't live that far away from Remus' house. Oliver opined that he would really not like to take the beating from several hours on the unsafe magical transport all the way back to Scotland, so was sticking around at least another day hoping the floos would be fixed.

We were just getting around to figuring out dinner as the sun began to set when I heard the sound of crashing from the back yard. Remus stopped mid-sentence, having heard it too, and also noted, "Something's crossed the wards." We moved to the back window in the den, peeking through the curtains to see Fenrir Greyback striding through the hole he'd kicked in the middle of the rear fence, the gate and several high wooden slats knocked onto Remus' rear lawn. The rolling green of the nature preserve was visible through the gap, and I thought I glimpsed at least one other person moving, still outside the fence. Fortunately, the fence was high enough that the neighbors likely weren't aware yet.

"It's the werewolf that attacked me in Hogsmeade," I explained to Oliver, who was looking confused. "He has a beef with Remus. How are your wards?" I asked.

"I'm a bachelor, in a muggle area, who bought a house in the last few years with no familial connection," Remus frowned. "I was hoping he'd never find me."

"What did Penny say last year?" Oliver asked, equally dead serious. "Security through obscurity ne'er works?"

"Remus!" Greyback shouted, looking at the window as if he'd seen the curtains move. He stepped forward onto the lawn, the young willow and koi pond in the corner to his left, our right. "There's an old muggle story I like. I think it starts, 'Little pig, little pig, let me in…'"

"He's gonna keep talkin'?" Oliver asked.

"Wants me submissive," Remus groaned. "And loves the sound of his own voice."

"Took me a while to find you," Greyback was continuing as he amusedly took in the backyard. Since I'd worked out his secret, Remus had restored the other main yard decoration: various antique wolf statues in granite or bronze. He figured if a neighbor glimpsed him back there as a wolf one night, the statues would provide a ready explanation. "And then I wasn't sure how to get you to come out and take your beating, without you just calling the aurors or running away. Then today fell into my lap. It's the wrong time of the month, but I'll take it."

"We could still apparate far enough to be a problem catching us," Remus said quietly, then looked like he was extending his senses. "No. Someone's put up an anti-apparition jinx."

"He's got friends," I said, just as a familiar pair of silhouettes in Death Eater masks moved into the yard. "Macnair and his buddy."

"Dresden? You in there? Hope so," Greyback continued to monologue, having moved far enough across the yard to prop a foot up on one of the comfortable oak benches that served as Remus' patio furniture. "Turns out some of my old friends were upset with me that I almost did for you, seeing as they have their own plans. So I figured we could come collect you both."

"They want both of us alive, but injured," I thought out loud. "But they don't know you're here and won't care if they kill you," I told Oliver. I wasn't totally sure about his family, but I doubted he'd get the same pureblood politeness that Mathilda got the last time they attacked me. "Stay out of sight, look for an opportunity to hit from cover?"

"Makes sense," my roommate nodded.

"Are we really doing this?" Remus sighed. "Dumbledore is going to be very obviously disappointed in me if I let you fight instead of just trying for safety."

"Think they'll burn down your house and kill your neighbors even if we do get away?" I asked.

"Fair point."

"And, hey, way better odds than the last time they attacked me," I grinned. While Mathilda was probably the fifth-year I'd most want to have my back, Oliver was a year more trained. Greyback was a lot bigger help to the Death Eaters than Flint, but hopefully Remus more than evened out the difference. Plus, we had the home field advantage.

"So Dumbledore's just a patronus away this time as well?" Remus snarked as the two of us got our gear together. I whispered a theory to Oliver, and he stopped by the kitchen before moving upstairs to snipe from an upper window. Before my roommate left, Remus whispered, "Deus illusio," and tapped him on the head, the disillusionment veil cloaking him as he left. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard the incantation for that spell, and I smirked that it was probably a reference to Mercury's ability to turn invisible, with the English name coming from misunderstanding the incantation. Foci in hand, we stepped carefully out the back door.

"Aw, you didn't even do the, 'Not by the hairs of my chinny, chin chin,' bit," Greyback sneered, putting his foot back on the ground. "You two ready for your beating?"

"Hey, skinny," I ignored Greyback and spoke across the yard to the thin Death Eater, "do you want to put up some silencing with your anti-apparition jinx? Hate to have the muggle cops show up and distract everyone."

"Or we could take this into the nature preserve," Remus suggested, nodding at the half mile of rolling fields and the forest beyond.

Greyback was annoyed that we were ignoring him and growled, "Like any muggle would even be a distraction." I smirked as the Death Eater clearly made a wand gesture to do as I'd suggested. "And if you want to go into the woods, I think we'll do this right here, where you have to worry about your precious muggles."

"And there's'n a secret passage for ye t'hide in this time, boy," the big guy with the axe, Macnair, said, planting his axe, his back to the koi pond.

"Cool. That makes sense," I nodded gravely, grinning internally at the setup line. It would hopefully be especially ironic in a moment. "So, there's one question I had before we– Levicorpus! Expelliarmus! Flipendo!" While I was casting a different spell at each of the men, I was diving to my left to put one of the wolf figurines in between me and the thin one, whose love of unforgivables was my biggest worry.

While I was firing off my spells, Remus was doing a Captain Kirk-style dive roll to his right, finding cover of his own behind another piece of statuary. His casting was silent, sending fast jinxes mostly at Greyback, and performing some transfiguration to cause several of the flagstones of the patio to grow upwards into columns that would provide us more cover.

Maybe it was whatever Remus sent softening up his spell resistance, but my spell (one of the Half-Blood Prince's inventions) caught on the evil werewolf enough to flip him upside down by an ankle. The thin man negligently shielded against my disarming charm and whatever Remus had tossed his way. But Macnair was too busy forming a shield against Remus (it seemed to come from a large bracer focus on his left arm) to defend against my knockback jinx.

The big man was blown across the koi pond, right into the immature whomping willow. It was annoyed.

"Liberacorpus!" hissed the thin man, dropping Greyback to the ground in time for Remus' follow-up spells to fly overhead. "You like Snape's inventions? Sectumsempra!"

I ducked and let the dark cutting curse splash off the statue I was hiding behind. I guess that answered several questions we'd had about the spell and who the Half-Blood Prince was. "I find they aren't very good against inanimate objects," I deadpanned to the guy in return. Well, as deadpan as you can get when you're yelling across the battlefield covered in spellfire while a willow tree beats the holy hell out of a squealing maniac. I wondered if the immature psychotic tree recognized the guy's axe as a threat and was especially angry about it.

"Crucio!" the thin man barked, trying to catch my leg around my hiding space, but the past year's experiences had made me very motivated to keep track of my gangly extremities when people were throwing unforgivables around. It tore a chunk out of the back wall of Remus' house when it sped past me.

I wasn't sure what kind of effect Remus was having on Greyback, as he seemed to be frantically playing cat and mouse with the bigger werewolf on his side of the yard, his spells seeming to splash off. I wondered if werewolves were especially magic resistant against their own progeny. "Remus! Switch partners!" I suggested, then yelled, "Alarte ascendare!" to try to knock Greyback into the air.

The curse-embraced werewolf was practically crackling with dark energy at this point, and my spell rolled off of him with only a brief lift. It got his attention, though, as Remus shot me a look but began dueling with the Death Eater at the back of the yard. Literally foaming at the mouth, Greyback snarled, "I'll teach you not to get between an alpha and his lessons, unless you want to be meat!"

"Careful, Fido," I taunted, moving between obstacles in the back yard to keep Greyback at bay, using my staff to banish myself off of the structures in the yard when he got too close. "Your master will get the newspaper if you chew me up too badly. Bad dog!"

Snarling in utter rage, he picked up one of the benches from the patio and let my attack spells wash over him, planning to throw the piece of furniture at me.

Grinning at the memory of figuring out how to fight a troll, I incanted, "Wingardium leviosa!" and levitated the bench out of his hands on the lift, slamming my staff down overhand to send 75 pounds of hardwood careening into his head. While the hit staggered him, he snarled and stood back up, literally beating at his chest out of some monster-movie machismo. "Oliver!" I yelled, figuring my roommate would never have a better shot.

"Depulso!" the disillusioned form of Oliver Wood yelled from the second floor, looking nearly straight down at the werewolf's back. A shimmering shower of bolts rained from above, most hitting Greyback's neck and shoulders.

The guy that was more beast than man at the moment nonetheless still grinned evilly through his snarl as he noticed the transfigured silver spikes that had missed him and embedded themselves in the yard. "That doesn't work," he chuckled grimly, but the laughter turned into choking from the bolts buried in his throat.

"It's inherited," I shrugged. Remus had, in fact, had a whole box of fine silverware that his parents left him as a final screw-you to the son that had the temerity to suffer for their crusade. In one of our conversations about Bob's theory that inherited silver might hurt werewolves, he'd mentioned he had it and that it had given him an allergic reaction. So he'd just put it into the back of one of his cabinets until Oliver, at my suggestion, grabbed a handful of silver forks to transfigure into spikes.

Growling but barely able to move from the bleeding and damaged organs, Greyback slumped to his knees and stopped fighting, reaching a hand behind to try to pull the spikes out.

I turned to watch the stalemate that was Remus vs. the Death Eater. Macnair seemed to be gradually winning against the tree, but it had smashed his axe to bits so he was trying to use his bulk to overpower the whipping branches and he didn't seem to be able to do much magic without a focus. I pulled out my blasting rod and tossed out a, "Glacius!" at Skinny's flank.

The guy barely shielded in time, the white mask quickly looking around the yard, suddenly realizing he was basically now fighting alone against three wizards. With a hiss he spun into apparition to dodge one of Remus' spells and I felt a pressure lessen from him having dropped his anti-apparition jinx. He appeared next to Macnair, both of them getting furiously whipped by the angry willow tree before he could side-along apparate the bigger Death Eater, each disappearing in a snap of air.

"Cowards," Remus said, clearly very winded from the battle. He ran a hand through his graying hair to push it out of his eyes as he walked over to where his lifelong nemesis was slowly bleeding out on his back patio. "I'm sorry, Fenrir," he said insincerely. "While if you were a normal wizard, I could probably save you, I'm afraid you'd resist healing spells as easily as jinxes and charms."

"This doesn't... count." Greyback choked out. "Didn't... beat me... yourself."

Shaking his head and leaning against one of the transfigured flagstone columns because I'd used his patio seating as an improvised missile, Remus simply explained, "This was never about beating you, Fenrir. You're the one who's obsessed with me. I'm a human being, not an animal. I don't have to overpower you to prove anything.

"Besides. Muggle naturalists have proven that the idea of 'alpha' wolves is so much nonsense anyway. You're not an animal, either. You're just a sad, cursed man. And I'm done with you." Remus thought for a moment, summoned his energy, and incanted, "Stupefy!" It was enough to get through the dying werewolf's magic resistance and knock him out. Remus smiled at me wanly and said, "There's no need to let him suffer unduly. I'm not a monster."

I nodded. The only monster here was peacefully bleeding to death. Several ornamental statues of wolves, three wizards, and an extremely displeased tree bore witness to his passing.