A/N: Thanks so much for all my lovely readers and especially those who review. I'm glad that enough people seem to enjoy this rather rare (on this site at least) pairing. Hopefully we'll be seeing some more Hermione/Fenrir eventually. Thank you all again, and enjoy.

Hunted

Chapter III

The first time Hermione saw him change she watched with a fascination not unlike when she had first witnessed a small act of magic; Dumbledore levitating a saucer at her parent's home. Again she felt the wonder, the widening of her eyes, and the disbelief followed by the swell of a bittersweet chorus of voices informing her that the world is now and forever changed.

The moon was the orb of third year Defense Against the Dark Arts class again. It brought a cold shiver of fear and anticipation that ran up her spine like ants. His body, already hairy and thick even while human, sprouted soft, gleaming fur over every inch of his sun-splattered skin. His jaw elongated, morphing while the bones cracked and creaked while those terrible, terrible teeth, canines particularly sharp, grew long and hot.

"The horror," she whispered.

His new body stood on hind legs and threw his arms back while his muzzle reached forward and let out a howl. The noise was all at once a sound of jubilation, a sound of wonderful feral fury and, to Hermione alone, a sound of dominance.

There again was that fear that always prickled her skin when he approached her. She shrank back against the wood of a tree. She feared the pain and the sound her screams would make when they hit her ears. Oh, how she hated the sound of her suffering. It always sounded so hopeless. The undercurrent, running wild with fancy under her fear, however, was relief. If he tore her up she would be free of him.

That final bite never came, however. He bent his head down next to hers. His nostrils flared as they took in her scent. His mouth parted as that saliva, that diseased mixture, dripped over her tongue, teeth, and lips.

He bit her. He bit her lips. He bit her breasts. He bit the nub between her legs. Softly, ever so softly, he bit the whimpering flesh of her neck and drew blood. He kissed the ruined flesh beneath his strong paws and married her to him in a primal ceremony with his pack, black-eyed beasts, howled a refrain of congratulations.

"The horror," her voice finished the quote as her eyes fell shut.

"What's it like?"

She was lying at his feet, idly picking the petals off a rose (imagery not quite lost on her but pointedly ignored) while he rested his bones against the trunk of a tree and watched her through lazy eyelids. He made a noise at the back of his throat, a tepid warning, before seemingly changing his mind and indulging her need to converse.

He asked her to clarify in not so many words.

"The first time." She turned to face him, rose still clutched in her hands, while her hair, a tangled mess of dirt and dried spit, fanned out in the ground below. "When you change."

He was silent for a long moment. She went back to plucking her petals.

He loves me.

"It was terrifying," his voice said evenly, reverently, a whisper of awe. "But after the terror came something so great that... that I can understand why your people fight as they do against my lord."

He loves me not.

"What was it?"

He loves me.

"Freedom, little one. You will experience it soon. Then you will know." His dark eyes traveled her body with anticipation of its inevitable forced maturity. "It is something that passes beyond morality. It is in the very essence of all things." Seeing her furrowed brow, he shifted his weight and tried to think of words in her language that would help her to understand his point.

But oh, how much easier it would be for her to understand him with the song of praise to the nightly orb, the snarls and squeals, the air against a body covered in dark fur.

Soon, he reminded himself, soon.

He loves me not.

"Your people," he began slowly, "they fight because they believe that my lord will take from them their freedom-"

"-he will," interjected the girl who, with a steel glare that was aimed in her direction, quieted and averted her eyes.

"And their ability to make choices. However," he shifted again, rubbing a sore spot on his back against the rough wood, "that freedom that your people so desperately rallies behind is something they will never grasp."

Hermione understood, then, and was aghast. "What you are speaking of is anarchy."

He loves me.

"When you change, little one, you will know. It is beyond words like anarchy, beyond your logic, your civilization, your history. It is a choice of your black and white, your good and evil and all those branches of grey and knowing that you are able to walk down each and every path without any restrictions. Your people will never know this. Even if they win they will still be bound by their laws, their own prejudices against my kind - our kind," he amended without noticing her flinch. "They will be bound by their Ministry idols and the declarations that were penned by wizards who were probably drunk when writing half of them. They will be bound by their own personal guilt. They will be bound by anyone who tells them to stop."

"Eleutheria,"she whispered the word in Greek so softly he barely heard it, though his ears pricked.

"When you change you will take a life because you are stronger than it. You will spare life because you are feeling generous. Either choice will have the same consequence; none."

He loves me not.

He flower, empty of petals, now ugly, was tossed aside.

"Your kind," she stressed the word so that it was clear it did not involve her, "would slaughter myself and my family and many of my loved ones for the simple fact of their having had the wrong parentage, something none of us could help."

He growled low and swept her into his arms. She complied enough to rest her head against his slowly rising chest. Her skin, which was cold from lying on the ground, warmed up against his own.

"Better for a few to be truly free than to have a world enslaved," he said quietly.

She did not agree but, though a younger version of herself would have pressed the point, the older version, tired and weary and realizing the fruitlessness of the venture, allowed him his beliefs unchallenged.

That night, under the light of the full moon, the dark-haired beast called Fenrir Greyback ran out across the enchanted forest. His prey, a young doe, was running on sheer panic and was managing to keep just a few steps ahead of him. Fenrir imagined his dinner was going to be lost for a brief second before another figure, sleek and brown, hurled itself out from behind a cord of trees. Their eyes met and flashed before the younger beast, paws pressing down on the body of the bucking creature, sank fresh, pristine teeth into the jugular and burst the vein with wild abandon.

That night, proud and tall, Hermione Jane Granger carried to her pack her first kill. As many teeth sank into the flesh the dark-eyed Alpha watched her carefully with a pleased expression.

Her heart, beating outside its confines at last, exulted.