Papa was hiding. She had checked all his usual haunts but found no trace of him. He disappeared before the sun was up and now was hiding away like it could stop today from happening.
Closing her eyes Hermione lent back against the trunk of a nearby tree, letting her body release its stress, focusing on the scents around her until she could pinpoint her Papa's scent.
It was a week after her eleventh birthday, her father had promised her that she could go to Wizarding Britain to get her wand and the necessary equipment for her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, even though that wouldn't be until almost a whole year had passed, being born after the cut off date for the previous year. On her birthday a regal looking grey owl had delivered a letter addressed to Hermione J, Granger, of the second room of the Alpha's tent. She had been beyond excited since she had received her letter but knew he father held some reservation about the Wizarding world. Her mother had personally gone to see the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore to request her attendance, normally werewolf children were not given the opportunity to attend Hogwarts but the Headmaster had told her Ma that this year another werewolf child would be attending so concessions could be made for two.
She pushed this all from her mind, and when she located his scent, Hermione shot off in his directions, eager to get her prey. When the scent grew strong enough to indicate the presence of the person Hermione stopped.
"Papa! Stop hiding I need to go get my wand! And I need to get my books. If I don't I might fall behind. I want to fit in so I need to go get everything." Hermione called her father although she didn't see him.
"We need to have a talk," Fenrir didn't want to, he didn't want to explain his faults, the depth of his evilness. He didn't want to chance that his daughter might turn her back on him. "You'll be joining the world of witches and wizards next year but before you can you must understand how being my daughter will not be an easy path."
"I'll never regret being your daughter, you saved my life. Twice!" Hermione vehemently denied his claim.
Fenrir herded his daughter, taking a seat on the log of a fallen tree. It had been ripped from its roots by Fenrir when the moon-shift had ended and he could think again. He had used claws that he forced out to slash away at the base of the ancient oak until it had fallen. Fallen as Hermione had from its branches the day she had wandered away from the pack mothers.
"I've never told you how I became infected with lycanthropy." Hermione fell silent, the changing was a private thing. Not to be discussed. The pack didn't like talking about their origins, it was a taboo subject. "I was about eight, maybe nine or ten, I can't remember clearly it happens so long ago now, but I remember waking up alone with no memory or a time before my shifts. I don't know if it was the trauma or if maybe my parents Obliviated me, but I can't recall anything beyond that.
"I grew resentful, I was a child with no memory and no one to support me. As a werewolf, no witch or wizard wanted anything to do with me, and as a male werewolf that showed early potential to become an Alpha, no werewolf that I encountered would help me. I was angry, so so angry. And I wasn't just anger I was lonely."
"Didn't anyone help you, Papa?" Hermione interrupted, her hand reaching out to lay against Fenrir's larger hairy one.
"No," Fenrir replied darkly, remember days of fear, such intense fear and loneliness that he thought he would die from it when he wished that he could die from it.
"In my anger, I grew hateful. As a way to cope, I forced myself to face what I was, and what that meant. I began to believe that werewolves were the superior race, that we deserved to be above all wizards, witches and creatures. I hated that there weren't more werewolves, that our kind was subject to such hatred. So I did it."
Fenrir fell silent, uneasy nibbled at her stomach. "Did what?"
"I began to change people," Fenrir admitted. "I would position myself so that when the change took hold I would turn as many people as I could. I wanted a pack, so I made one." Greyback took a deep breath, the words burned his throat like regret burned his thoughts. "When the adults could fight back…children could not."
"You turned people against their will." She didn't question, it was a statement. "You hurt children."
"Yes," Fenrir answered anyway, praying that even as she removed her arm she wouldn't remove herself from him, she was vital to him, his pup.
"What changed?"
"I began to lose control of the wolf, even on days when the moon-shift was a fleeting thought. I was aggressive, vile and barely a creature. When I understood this, I hid away, striving to control myself. Meeting your mother helped. Through the Alpha bond, I called all I had changed and I swore an Oath to them. We would be a pack and I would never change a person as I had."
"And since then? You've never changed someone, right."
Fenrir swallowed the bile that reappeared in his throat. "It happened a year before I found you in the woods. Your Ma and this is not an excuse, but your Ma was under pressure from her family when they found out that we were mates - Not that they knew the full implications of mating - she'd go to her family, stay with them, they convinced her to leave me. And I was weak." Fenrir admitted. "So bloody weak, on the night of the full moon I gave Freewill to the wolf."
Hermione gasped. Over and over she'd been warned about the need for balance between Wolf and Witch. Never, never should either part ever control the reins completely.
"When I woke, I was covered in blood. I tracked the scent, it was to the Lupin residence. The elder Lupin had almost caused me to go to Azkaban for suspicion of being a werewolf and my crimes, as well I should have, but they didn't have any evidence so I was let free. But Lupin had insulted me, my wolf and my kinsmen. He called us vermin, said that we were diseased ridden and should be killed off like we are less than dogs. Without consent, my wolf sought retribution." Fenrir coughed, his self-hate rising again, "he was younger then I was when I had been changed."
Hermione understood that why it has been the elder Lupin that had caused the offence it was the younger that paid the price for his father's prejudices, "What happened to him?"
"His family hid his secret and it was never spoken of. They moved and I couldn't and didn't track him. I don't think he'd want me anywhere near him. I'm sure he was taken care of though, the Lupins despite being werewolf haters were a good family from what I could gather from others. A few months later I tried to seek him out, to see how he was coping with the shift but I discovered I couldn't find him, anti-scent warding. I hoped he was okay and took it as a sign that his parents were standing by him," Fenrir shook his head as if to wash it away. If he thought on it too long the doubts would resurface. Lord Lupin had been vehemently against werewolves but his loyalty and love for family was well-known.
"Bearing the name of Greyback will not be easier, I understand if you wish to renounce it so that you suffer fewer problems in the Wizarding World."
The pair fell into an uncomfortable silence as Hermione sorted through her thoughts. Her view of her father had dramatically shifted. She organised her thoughts, reviewing everything she knew of her father and how this man and the one he talked of could be the same person.
"I love you," Hermione finally spoke, "but I think I need some time. Can we go to Diagon Alley next week?"
"Whenever you want sweetheart."
Diagon Alley was magnificent, a wonder and a feast for all the sense. For Hermione, who had spent almost six years in seclusion it was a mixture of wonderfulness and overwhelming anxiety.
"I remember the first time I came here," Melissa told her daughter fondly as she watched her look around, jaw dropped.
"We need to get your wand first." Fenrir reminded the pair, "then we can get your school supplies, and after we do that we can get you some more books."
"To Ollivander's?" Hermione asked eagerly, bouncing on the tips of her toes, looking up at her glamoured father.
While still the same towering height, the elder werewolf didn't look anything like his true form, Fenrir's long black hair now looked a dark blonde, cut short. His skin was shallower and his eyes had lost that gleam that put people on edge. He was still an imposing looking man but at now he wouldn't run the risk of being dragged to Azkaban by Aurors.
The trio made their way to Ollivander's where Fenrir opted to remain outside, he didn't wish to not be apart of this but he knew Ollivander remembered every wand and every wizard he had sold them too, the old man could see beyond glamours. As a werewolf Fenrir hadn't brought his wand at Ollivander's, he hadn't even brought one, instead stealing a few till he found one that suited his magic.
"Ah," a grey-haired man that Hermione guessed was Ollivander from behind the counter, "Ms Granger, ten-inches, Rowan wood, dragon heartstring medium flexibility, a good sturdy wand. And you must be the young Miss Granger."
"Hermione," she replied, "Hermione Granger. Its a pleasure to meet you, Mr Ollivander."
They had chosen to use her mothers maiden name and since her parent's mate-bond wasn't recognised by the Wizarding World it was still her Ma legal name. It didn't fit in the way that Greyback did but Granger was a good substitute for now. Fenrir and Melissa had decided it was too great a risk for Hermione to carry the Greyback name. Too many enemies had been made, and many would seek revenge in any way they could, Hermione was a weak spot for Fenrir one that many disgruntled people would take advantage of.
"The pleasure is mine," Ollivander said before whipping out a tape measure that measured her hands, her arm length and even the circumstance of her head. "Ah," the man repeated when the tape measure returned to him and he had the lengths, "I know just the wand."
When he returned from scrambling around the shop, up ladders, and under piles, on top of shelves and around the bottom of them, he presented five wands.
"Well give them a go," Ollivander encouraged.
Hermione moved forward and picked up the first wand, it was brownish wand with a curve near the handle, with a flick of her wrist she managed to set alight paperwork that had been sitting on the counter. Quickly she placed the wand back down.
With encouragement from her mother, Hermione picked up the second wand, like the first it was brown but completely straight. This wand produced a gust of wind the knocked over a leaning piled of wands. That wand was set down too.
The third wand was pale, and if she didn't know any better Hermione would have thought it was a twig and not a wand.
When Hermione picked up the wand a warmth filled her chest. This was her wand, she knew it.
"Fourteen and a half inches, firm, Acacia wood with dragon heartstring as the core. Very good wand, very powerful."
"Powerful?" Hermione asked, tilting her head and a way that Fenrir was prone to do.
"The core was gifted to my great great grandfather who created wands from it, wands with the same core given by the same creature, very few dragons will ever give more than a single heartstring. A temperamental wand, but suited for its host."
After that, the trio had gathered all Hermione school supplies and was now in Flourish and Blotts with Hermione looking for books and the parents standing off from the counter ready to pay when she returned.
Hermione wanted as many books as she was allowed, she didn't want to be clueless when she went to Hogwarts, after all, she'd be a year older then most, most likely, and if she was good at magic maybe then she'd have a lot of friends. Friends that didn't mind that she was a werewolf or that her father was who he was.
Wondering around Hermione with her head in a book bumped into someone, thankfully only stumbling and not dropping the interesting book on the fundamentals of transfiguration, it wasn't the book required for a first year, but it was interesting.
"I'm sorry, are you alright?" A black haired boy asked, reaching out his hand to steady her.
"I'm alright, it was my fault anyway, my Papa always warns me not to walk with my head in my books. I'm Hermione Grey, I mean Granger, Hermione Granger, who are you? Have you found anything interesting to read?"
"Sirius Black," the boy said, running his hand through his wavy black hair, "It nice to meet you, and no, I'm hiding from my mother not reading." He told her plastering his body against the bookcase and peering around cautiously.
"What does she look like? I can help you hide," Hermione offered, she didn't often get the chance to talk to people her own age, there were some younger pups but it wasn't the same.
"Scary," Sirius replied, "like a Dementor," he shuddered. "With the face of a pinched dragon."
Hermione had never heard anyone described quite like that before and could only reply with a quite confused, "oh."
Trying to think of something to say made her less observant and before Hermione could warn Sirius of the cloud of black gliding from behind the woman had arrived.
"Sirius!" A woman called as she came to a stand beside Hermione and Sirius. "You are a Black, behave like one!" the woman's curled lips reminded her of a snarling dog.
"And you are?" the woman asked turning on Hermione, with a sniff as she looked her up and down.
"I'm Hermione Granger, Ma'am," She said curtsying in the way her mother had taught her too.
"Hmm," the woman grunted, "Knows how to respect her betters, a half-blood then, though I don't recognise the name. Come along Sirius we don't dally with those that are beneath us."
Sirius gave Hermione a rigid smile and shook his head, following after his rude mother with his head down and shoulders slumped.
In a daze, Hermione wondered back to her parents where they paid for the products.
The months in between then and her going to Hogwarts the year after were spent reading and learning everything she could without actually using her wand. Hermione had devoured her books and had made several trips back to Diagon Alley to purchase more, she had often had to swap books in an effort to not be swamped with books. Living a semi-nomadic life made it difficult to keep belongings beyond what was necessary.
Hermione didn't see the Black boy again though she always made a point of looking for him in the busy streets. Maybe he could be a friend when they went to Hogwarts, she hoped at least.
Soon it was a week before Hogwarts begun and Hermione and her parents were going over how the school would deal with her condition.
"We've been promised that you'll be taken care of each full moon. Every month you'll have to plead sickness you can rejoin classes after you've healed enough."
"Won't I miss out on a lot of work, I really don't want to fall behind."
Fenrir chuckled shaking his head, "I doubt that my daughter could fall behind with anything, but the Headmaster has promised your mother that your gift wouldn't influence your schooling." Fenrir still had many steadfast reservations about the Wizarding World and Albus Dumbledore. Despite his past actions he still firmly believed that lycanthropy was a gift.
"Does he know I'm a Greyback?" Hermione asked wondering if it would colour his treatment of her.
"No," Melissa answered. "Your name would have appeared in the Attendance Book the year of your birth but with the adoption ritual, we performed your name changed to mine.
"I want you to take care of yourself, I know you are a brave, smart girl but I know how your drive can make you single minded. Studying is important but so it socializing and making friends."
"Will anyone know about me? Will the other boy know?"
"I think so," Melissa answered, trying to remember what the Headmaster has said in regards to the other werewolf child. "I would be healthy for your wolves to interact together to stave off loneliness and help the shifts be easier. I can't imagine that you wouldn't know each other."
After a spell of silence, Fenrir spoke, "you can't tell anyone. Wizards and Witches don't understand the gift. They think we're less then we are, not even human."
"But want if I make friends?" Hermione asked, "it would be wrong not to tell them the truth."
"Not even then," Fenrir replied recalling the censor of his life, of the hatred of his kind and their gift.
Albus Dumbledore sat in a periwinkle robe with little candies stitched into the fabric, a hideous yellow teacup in his wrinkled hands and the damnable twinkle in his eyes. In front of him sat Lord and Lady Lupin and their child the Young Master Remus Lupin.
Said boy sat in front of the Headmasters desk with his legs crossed and shoulders curled, eyes cast to the ground. If one were to look closely - and Dumbledore was in the habit of doing so - you would see behind a long lock of hay coloured hair a piece of plaster tapped to the boy's jaw. Werewolves healed quickly but not from self-inflicted wounds.
"I don't what his curse to be revealed to anyone," Lord Lupin swore, not looking at his son.
"It was my decision to allow a werewolf child to attended Hogwarts and in that wisdom, I have decided that only I, the boy's Head of House and the Matron of our fine school should be informed."
"No one else?" The elder Lupin asked.
"No," The Headmaster replied.