Authors Note: I started this as a project intended to be a long one-shot. Once I hit 20K words, I thought that I had better split it up into chapters. Therefore there is a big chunk of this story already written, so you should get daily updates.

This is very much an AU and one I have had in mind for a while. Relatively cannon compliant upto the Battle of Hogwarts, with the one major exception; Hermione Granger never attended Hogwarts.


Prologue

It had been five years since what history would call the Battle of Hogwarts, they had lost that day but had continued fighting the war ever since, with diminishing resources. That was how Minerva McGonagall had ended up in Eastern Europe, trying in vain to recruit support. Overwrought and exhausted, she smacked into an anti-apparation ward, splinched badly and was captured.

It was almost a relief. Minerva was so very tired of trying to hold everything together and it had been an impossible task towards the end. Almost the entire Order of the Phoenix had been killed, she had buried every friend and even Hogwarts was lost to her.

The fight was all she had left and then she lost even that.

The light coming through the window was dim and it was difficult to remember if it was sunrise or sunset. The days of Minerva's captivity had blurred into meaningless time, she wasn't even important enough now to merit immediate extradition back to Britain. She was being held by four lower echelon Death Eaters in some remote cabin in the middle of nowhere. No one seemed to know quite what to do with her.

Minerva did the same thing every time that she woke up, the routine keeping her sane even when nothing else made sense. She checked that her manacles were still secure; the chain hadn't twisted and allowed her access to most of the room; she was still dressed, albeit in ragged, filthy green robes. Then she checked for new injuries; today she had a split lip, bruised cheekbone and what felt like a couple of broken ribs. So far it wasn't a bad day.

The half-blood witch then reached beneath her pillow for the bent, scratched and twisted butter knife that she was using to dig into the wall. The chain attached to the manacles was secured into the wall by four massive bolts. Her pure blood captors seemed oblivious to the idea that a simple tool could be used for anything but its intended purpose and presumably didn't believe she would lower herself to anything quite so Muggle.

The hole in the brickwork was almost two inches deep and for the last few days Minerva had been able to feel a slight wobble in the bolts when she tugged on her chains. Though what she would do once they were free, she didn't know. The former Professor was still trapped in a foreign country thousands of miles from home, without a wand, money or even an ally. But she persisted, knowing that one day the bolts would be free and that the unbarred window would not be able to hold her.


Chapter One

Minerva had been running for almost three days, managing to catch a few hours of sleep only twice. Fleeing whilst carrying almost eight feet of heavy chain was exhausting and she fell often, unable to use her hands to steady herself. She had forced the window open at nightfall and had gotten a head start of several hours that her pursuers were rapidly making vanish.

They would be as desperate to catch her as she was to elude them, their lives would be forfeit for allowing her escape. Though Minerva was starting to suspect that her flight through the wilderness was going to kill her as surely as an Avada would have. The further into the forested mountains she fled, the harder it became to handle the terrain and the colder it got.

In the last hour, progress had become even more difficult; the trees and undergrowth were so thick that they forced her to backtrack often, snagging on her robes and chains. The canopy restricted how much light reached the ground, casting the whole area into an eternal dark twilight. If Minerva had been less tired she might have stopped to think that the very forest itself was manufactured, a trap to slow her down or even a barrier to keep her out.

A muffled shout from behind her had the Gryffindor breaking into a shambling run, her pursuers had caught up to her at last. A flash of red hit a tree close to her head and she cursed in a way that would have greatly angered her long dead father. A final push through some thorny undergrowth and Minerva found herself falling into a narrow gulley, removing a great deal of skin from her palms and knees as she skidded down the rocks into a shallow stream.

The veteran of innumerable scuffles, Minerva rolled and was back to her feet almost immediately, the adrenaline serving as an effective painkiller. She scrambled up the far side and back into trees but ones that were more naturally spaced. It was only then she began to get an inkling that things in this wilderness were not quite as they seemed.

Running through the thick ground covering of dry leaves topped with a layer of frost, Minerva knew that she was being anything but quiet. She was, however, making far less noise than the four men who were clambering up the rocks only seconds behind her. A few more spells narrowly missed her as she wove her way through the trees, before a slicing curse hit her in the calf.

She toppled over as the leg gave way underneath her and much as she wanted to give up, as much as she believed that there was no more hope - she still fumbled in her pocket for the butter knife, knowing that the poor excuse for a weapon was better than nothing. The Death Eaters who came to surround her were obviously not of the same opinion, two of them even laughing mockingly at her futile show of defiance.

Minerva's animagus form had better senses than her human one and something of that bled through in times of stress. She heard the rustle in the bushes off to the left before her captors did, mirrored immediately from the right and she could almost feel multiple sets of eyes on them. Then hell itself was unleashed.

A blur of pale grey fur flew past Minerva's head, launching itself at the closest Death Eater in a flurry of teeth and claws, latching onto the man's shoulder. Before she had fallen, she had seen a rock overhang about twenty yards away and now she began to hobble towards it, leaving a trail of her own blood behind her as she tried to get out of the way of whatever the hell was happening here.

She was almost there when a dark sable form darted in front of her and stopped. Minerva had seen a wolf before, of course she had, but it had been in a zoo, behind bars and far away. The creature standing in front of her, with a snarl on its lips and with fire in golden eyes was anything but tame or contained. It's feral gaze dropped from her face to the pathetic weapon in her bound hands, and if Minerva didn't know better she would have sworn that she saw amusement in its countenance before the animal charged off towards the fighting.

Breathing hard, the witch tucked herself into the overhang and watched a short but incredibly brutal battle take place. The four Death Eaters were all bleeding and were defensively positioning themselves to tackle what they assumed to be a group of animals, a formidable task but only animals nevertheless. Minerva wasn't so sure, a doubt that solidified into fact when the wolves appeared to take orders from the light coloured one she had seen first, surrounding the wizards with a deadly intent that seemed almost Human.

The quiet woods erupted into a cacophony of snarls, growls, shouts and the sound of spellwork gone awry. Minerva didn't close her eyes, she had seen worse during her three wars and while unexpected, this turn of events could work in her favour. Either she hadn't been attacked yet because she wasn't deemed a threat or because she was being protected but she doubted it was the latter.

The first Death Eater was dead before his final incantation could be finished, his blood splattering across the leaves. Several of the wolves howled in victorious glee. The youngest wizard's nerve broke upon seeing his friend's throat torn out, he tried to apparate away and was caught in an anti-apparation ward only a moment later, he splinched and landed in front of Minerva's hiding place in a pool of his own blood. She saw his wand falling and greedily snatched it out of the air before it could land.

She could have sworn that she saw that golden gaze on her again before another grey wolf grabbed the fallen man by the leg with an audible splintering of bone and dragged him away. The wolves seemed resistant to magic, at least to a certain degree but they were also surprisingly agile, dodging even the quickest of hexes.

The final wizard died only a few minutes after everything started. His last move had been to explode a tree causing a fragment of branch to impale the biggest grey wolf through the chest. The impact knocked it off of its paws and to within touching distance of Minerva.

Blood began to stain pale fur, pumping out far too quickly and the animal let out a whimper. Minerva watched entranced, as the hair shrank back into skin and the wolf's limbs began to enlarge and reform into something bigger. Within seconds the witch found herself staring at the naked form of a human man who was bleeding around the chunk of tree wedged between his ribs. It wasn't like any kind of human to animal transformation that she had ever seen or even heard of. This was something different.

Even as that thought crossed her mind, Minerva was moving forward, towards the injured man. She got there before any of the four legged creatures and began to heal the wound. Reflexes born from innumerable battles caused her to try to help him and she couldn't suppress the impulse, despite the fact that she had no idea what was going to happen or how the animals would react.

It wasn't Minerva's first time removing a foreign object from a person but it was the first time she had such an aggressive and intense audience. Once the deep blood vessels were healed, she wandlessly removed the piece of tree and began to recite the incantation that would close the wound, one layer at a time. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see five wolves staring at her - all as still as statues, the only sign that they were alive were the plumes of steam that came from their mouths.

Minerva woke him with a charm and was unsurprised when the newly conscious man scrambled back, away from her and towards the safety of his own kind. She did the same and stumbled into the dubious shelter of the overhang. The frozen tableau held for several seconds with no further movement. The scavenged wand was gripped tightly in her hand but the witch had no idea what to do. Presumably the anti-apparation wards were still active, normally being tied to a location rather than a wizard and she had no desire to be caught in them again. Magic also seemed to have limited effects on the creatures and she didn't dare make the first move.

The naked man finally took his eyes off of hers and turned to face the darkest of the assembled wolves. Minerva followed his gaze, glancing from wolf to wolf. The grey canines had their heads lowered, shoulders tensed and tails outstretched - they were clearly aggressive and meant business, lips drawn back in a threatening gesture.

The final animal was different, with a narrower face and lighter bone structure, Minerva could clearly identify that it was female. The wolf was predominantly black; with pale long fur behind her shoulder, under the chin and on her haunches. The body language of the creature was different; her tail was held high with the very tip wagging slowly, her head was raised and she watched with curious gold eyes.

"I'm sorry," said the naked man, "Thank you for saving my life but we have laws. Humans who trespass on our land must be… I can't let you live."

Minerva looked at him, not really surprised by the words. Then her eyes trailed across the assembled wolves and to the darkest one again, who had not taken its eyes off of the witch. "I'm not going to make it easy for you. I have nothing left to lose." The man nodded in resignation and morphed back into his canine form.

The witch inhaled sharply, lifted her wand, resolution written clearly on her features and determination in her stance. The grey wolves began to spread out, in readiness to attack, their paws making no sound on the soft forest floor. The darkest wolf remained still, swivelled her ears and her tail stopped wagging. Everyone tensed, waiting for something to happen.

A sound broke the stalemate. The dark wolf letting out a baritone vocalisation that was part growl and part howl. The noise carried, lingered through the forest and drew all eyes to the animal who stood at the treeline. She lowered her head and let the cry die down, not moving her golden gaze from Minerva's green one.

The other animals abruptly took a step back, glancing from the witch to the wolf, who wrinkled her muzzle and for a moment, showed them impressive white teeth. Then they slunk away into the trees, all except for the darker wolf who moved closer - ever so slowly walking towards Minerva, crossing the clearing in a few seconds and sat down on her haunches, about fifteen yards away from the overhang. They stared at each other with intensity.

The witch also sat down, keeping an eye on the wolf but knowing that she needed to stop her leg from bleeding before she passed out. The wand wasn't as good as her own but it was certainly capable enough to allow her to heal herself. Then she turned her attention to the manacles that bound her wrists; it took several different spells to find one that would free her.

"I don't suppose that you have some kind of wolf magic that will help?" The animal snorted. "So you do have a sense of humour? Good to know. Maybe if I make you laugh, you won't kill me." The wolf tilted her head, ears swivelling as she intently watched the movement of Minerva's wand. The chain fell to the floor and the woman tossed it aside in disgust, relieved beyond measure to be free of the weight. "What happens now? I try to run and the six of you hunt me down?"

The wolf whined and stood up. Minerva flinched, lifting the wand again in case she had to defend herself but it merely turned towards the trees where two pale shapes had emerged and sat watching her. The animal Minerva had mentally tagged as hers rubbed her face against the other two and stepped into the undergrowth, vanishing from sight.

For a few minutes the witch observed the pair of wolves, who had quite clearly been left guarding her and didn't look overjoyed at the prospect. "So what is the story with you two?" They looked at her seemingly unimpressed and almost disinterestedly but Minerva noticed that they kept their eyes focussed on the wand grasped in her hand.

"You realise, of course, that wolves can't talk?" A feminine voice drifted out of the gloom between the trees. Minerva watched as a young woman walked between the two canine forms, running her hands through grey fur, in what was apparently a very familiar, ordinary caress. The witch observed the figure with interest; the young woman had dark frizzy hair, pretty features, generous curves and intelligent chocolate eyes. She was wearing blue Muggle trousers and a black jacket, undone over a white shirt but despite the freezing temperature, was barefoot.

A smirk crossed her face as she walked towards Minerva, stopping in the exact place that the dark wolf had been sitting. The Gryffindor said nothing in response for a moment, just watched as the young woman cocked her head in a familiar gesture. Recognition dawned, that this was indeed the dark wolf, the one that had fascinated her with its calm demeanor. "You're talking now, are you not?"

The smirk broadened into a Cheshire cat grin in reply and the woman took another few steps closer. Minerva raised her wand to waist height, in a silky smooth, lightning fast motion that was tracked by a chocolate gaze. While the wolf form of these creatures was seemingly resistant to magic, her experience healing the male had taught her that spellwork could indeed affect them and she was fully prepared to defend herself.

"Expelliarmus." This was the last word that Minerva was expecting to hear from what she had honestly believed to be a non-magic user and indeed she had seen no sign of a wand among them. As a result she wasn't guarding hers. The witch could have saved her own wand, even as it slipped from her fingers but this one was not her own and its allegiance had not yet been won. The disarming charm sent it straight into the deft hand of the young woman who eyed it curiously, turning the wood in her hands for a moment.

A bolt of fear shot through Minerva's body, a reaction that she brought under control quickly but judging from the way the smile slipped from the young woman's face, it had been noted. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Considering what your… compatriot said earlier, you'll forgive me if I don't quite believe you."

There was a nod in response, then the young woman spoke carefully, "As with most rules, there are exceptions..." She walked slowly towards Minerva, coming within touching distance and engaged the older woman in another moment of intense eye contact, looking for something. Then she extended her arm; holding the wand out towards Minerva, handle forward, for her to take. "If it makes you feel better…? But please try not to put someone's eye out..."

"Thank you." Really it had been a stupid thing to say but the Gryffindor had been raised with manners.

Another pretty smirk greeted the two words, "You're welcome." The wolf stepped back slightly, "Care for a walk?" She indicated the opposite direction to the one that led to freedom.

"If coming onto sacrosanct land is the problem, I hardly think that going deeper into your territory is going to help matters."

"What's done is done. There's no going back now." The young woman turned to indicate the two wolves still waiting behind them, "Plus everyone will be less agitated once we move away from the border."

Minerva gave a low noise of frustration that sounded an awful lot like a growl, then summoned her lauded Gryffindor bravery and stepped out of the shelter that the overhang provided. She fell into step with the younger woman without speaking for several minutes. After what felt like weeks of being chained up alone, she didn't feel much like silence and she broke it with what amounted to small talk. "Aren't your feet cold?"

There was a chuckle in answer, "Not really no, I can feel it but the temperature has to be a lot lower to bother us." Another few minutes of silence followed, "I'm Hermione Granger." The words And you are? were implied but left unspoken.

"Hermione, as in, the Spartan Princess, daughter of Menelaus and Helen?"

This time the young woman gave a proper laugh, "Yes. But it could have been worse, my parents originally wanted to call me Iphigenia but thankfully my grandmother stepped in and convinced them to go for the cousin with a prettier fate."

Minerva snorted, "Greek mythology fans then I take it?"

"Mmmmm. Do I get to know your name, or shall I make one up?"

"Minerva."

"I guess your parents preferred their mythology with an Italian flavour?" Hermione grinned at Minerva's amused chuckle, then her step faltered for a moment, "Minerva... McGonagall?"

The older witch blinked, surprised, "Yes."

"Well, that's unexpected." This time the pause was brief, "I read your paper regarding the implications of lunar cycle stages on Transubstantial Transfiguration."

Minerva raised an eyebrow, the publication had been rather obscure decades before, let alone now and would be unintelligible to most people not possessing a Mastery in her field. Once more, she fell back on habit and politeness, to cover the fact that this young woman had again thrown her, "Did you enjoy it?"

"I did, very much so. I looked for more research of yours but apart from the odd article, it seemed like that was all you published."

"I didn't have the time, unfortunately." The young woman nodded, accepting the statement without question. It was unusual for Minerva to be recognised for any of her achievements that didn't involve Hogwarts or the Order and she didn't quite know how to feel about this development. They were now climbing a rather substantial rocky outcrop and until they were over the brow of it, neither spoke. Minerva was exhausted from her days of travel and Hermione seemed lost in her thoughts. "Are you going to tell me what is going on?"


Thanks to Libby from the HG/MM facebook group for the beta.