A/N: Hello everyone. I wanted to say thank you all for your kind reviews. I'm a little overwhelmed by the interest in this rather rare pairing. I'm glad you're all enjoying it. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get back to everyone personally, but know that if you did review I have read them and they have made me very happy. To the anonymous reviewer who was asking if there were any other stories of this type - well, there probably are. Unfortunately I haven't really come across them. I think Lupin/Hermione is a bit more mainstream for werewolf pairings(in fanon, anyhow).

Thanks again and enjoy.

Hunted

Chapter 4

Hermione stretched slowly, her limbs creaking and complaining. At Hogwarts she has been used to her bones giving off noises such as these. She has always been a disastrously early riser. This had always been confusing to Harry and Ron who would point out that the books she read in those shining twilight hours would still be there in the library no matter the time of day. Yet, even sleep deprived she pulled herself day after day out of bed to tread into that wonderful sanctuary of leather spines and stick her head into the developing worlds of potions, ancient runes and transfiguration. Most were beyond NEWT level.

Now when she awoke it was usually past noon. Fenrir often chose to sleep past the midday sun which bore down as the omnipresent god it was. She, tangled in his limbs, had no choice but to adjust.

She supposed she was getting used to this sort of thing. Getting used to the monthly changes into a beast her grandmother warned her about as a young girl, of eating meat with her hands and tearing it off the bone with her teeth, of routine and random fucking, against a tree or on the ground, once in a pool of water. She was getting used to the idea that she might not die any day and that her life was going to be filled with him. Not books or Harry Potter or potions' explosions or house elf liberation campaigns, but the wolf in the fairy tale who didn't just devour granny but devoured the little girl as well and bred her into his plebeian world of Darwinism, survival of the fittest and all that. And there wasn't going to be a friendly woodsman with an axe who saved her, or digestion juices to ease the pain of her tough meat in his body. No, she was there until the forest itself took her.

She awoke and walked towards a still pool of water. Hermione enjoyed the feeling of the water, a half attempt at bathing, in the mornings. It felt cool, refreshing, a way to help her clean the mire from her skin.

She wasn't used to, and felt she never would get used to, the body hair. She supposed that Fenrir liked it, liked the friction it would cause when he ran his hands over every inch of her. He treated her like she once treated Crookshanks, running his palms and nails lightly over her expanse of flesh, the smooth back, the smooth stomach, down and up her legs which had months worth of hair growth, under her armpits which had little tufts of soft fuzz, and to that small shield of decency between her legs which he would cup in a manner which was both delicate and possessive.

The water felt good. It caught in the tangled mess that was her hair and trickled down her back. She bent her head forward and long, wet tendrils of her hair fell across her breasts.

This is how she looked when Fenrir came across her. He stopped when he saw her, a vision of the forest. He recalled a story which flitted like a butterfly across his mind. Nymphs. That's what she looked like. A small forest nymph playing in the water. He must have made some noise because she turned to him. Her eyes appeared startled, like Artemis when Actaeon had come across her vulnerable divinity. And like that goddess of the forest, Hermione's eyes blazed with defiance. She stood proudly before him, dripping wet, as he stood proudly before her. The dichotomy of the male and female divinities.

He held out a hand and in a low voice said "Come." She appeared startled and faltered back a step. Fenrir was immediately reminded of a deer, a young fawn perhaps, when it realizes that the wolves are upon it. There is that single, delicious moment of knowledge, an affront of mortality, before the flight instinct takes over.

"Come," he said again, soothing.

The girl took a step forward and another before she was close enough to touch him. She placed her hand in his large one and his fingers came curling over her.

"Good girl," he murmured and led her back to the safety of the pack.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

It was coming close. The night with its tendrils of calming darkness and the moon, a shining ornament in its fully glory which would change her lovely body into a monster with claws and sharp, wretched teeth, yellow eyes and perked ears that could hear the sounds of the trembling heartbeats of her prey. But it hadn't happened yet. She was still herself. She was still Hermione Jane Granger.

And she, at present, was running. Running, however, was a bit of an understatement. She was more accurately being dragged by Fenrir Greyback as he crisscrossed his way expertly through the woods. Hermione scratched and beat at the arm which held her all while trying not to trip. She asked him why he was acting like this. He grunted and only pushed her to run faster. And then, all of a sudden, they were stopped and Hermione's back was to a tree. Fenrir's hand was at her mouth, his body was pressed against hers. He looked around the side of the great tree, a willow, and growled low.

"They're coming," he said softly. "The Order."

Hermione's heart was fully in her eyes and Fenrir saw.

He leaned his head down so that his voice whispered in her ear. "Do you think they'll take you back, little one? Even if you do manage to get away from me, kill me, do you think they'll take you back?" With one hand he lovingly caressed the scars on her neck from when he had bitted her in his werewolf form.

She wailed against his hand, shaking her head back and forth trying to dislodge him.

"You bear my mark, little one. They'll kill you for that alone."

And then, with a delicate kiss to her forward, he dragged her, wailing, through the woods again.

She wasn't quite sure how it happened but all at once it seemed they were cornered by Order members. Hermione could make out Kingsley Shaklebolt and Tonks, sporting her wild pink curls, there was Mad-Eye Moody who was looking determinably paranoid and then, right before her was ...

"Harry!" she cried out, pulling away from Fenrir who, preoccupied with Moody's wand near his face, allowed her to go.

"Hermione? Oh Merlin, we thought you were dead," the boy wonder looked all at once shocked, overjoyed and then his face fell into anger. "Has he hurt you? Did he hurt you? I'll kill him if he so much as touched you."

Hermione only sobbed, allowing herself to be gathered into Harry's arms on the forest floor. He quickly covered her naked body with his cloak and held her gently, stroking her hair and cooing her gently, telling her it would be okay.

Fenrir, held at wandpoint by the three Aurors, stared at the girl in the hero's arms and felt his insides twist with a dark jealousy.

And then, unmercifully, the moon rose.

"Get away from her, Potter!" cried Moody, his magic eye trained on the girl.

"What are you talking about? This is Hermione!" said Harry.

"She's been bitten, Potter. She's a monster like this one. Get away from her now!"

Harry only shook his head, disbelieving. He was staring into her eyes as her face grew and her claws folded, when her teeth grew feral. Harry shook his head frantically, as if it would dislodge the view of this transformation from both his mind and reality.

"Harry!" she cried out, trying to inch towards him as he unconsciously backed away. "I'm still me! I'm still Hermione!"

And when her name was uttered from her lips the beast form fully took over her. Staring now into the eyes of Harry Potter was a werewolf, like any other, licking its lips and ready to pounce.

Hermione yelped as a hex from Kingsley's wand hit her paw. She cowered and licked it, hoping her saliva would cull the burning sensation.

Fenrir, also transformed, took the opportunity of Moody's preoccupation with Harry's safety and lunged for him. It was a bitter struggle. Moody was old, however, and Fenrir was used to fighting tooth and claw. The werewolf quickly came on top of the old Auror and was prepared to sink his teeth into the old wizards wizened throat.

And then she cried out again. Another hex, this time from Tonks, was thrown at her. She stumbled back, bleeding from her side, and whined loudly. Fenrir, murderous rage in his eyes, leapt at Tonks, taking hearty, careless vengeance on she who would dare hurt his chosen mate.

There was a human voice in his mind, almost always quieted but always there, which took a perverse delight in rearranging the metamorphmage's face with his claws, something he thought not even her magic could do.

And then Hermione was next to him and his blood craze was temporarily forgotten. She was injured and needed to be hidden. Somewhere safe.

What transgressed next was a series of spectacular violence. Fenrir fought brilliantly, often lodging his own body in front of Hermione's to take hexes aimed for her. All the while he heard Harry's voice shouting for the others to stop but he was ignored, if the number of hexes thrown were any indication.

He was still unsure how he managed to make it out of there alive with her. When she was safe with him in a cave not too far off that he had often used for recuperation he began to look at her wounds. She wasn't horribly injured but there was a large amount of blood coating her fur. Fenrir's own boiled at the sight, his anger blinding him. He had half a mind to run back out into the night, to finish those worthless Aurors off.

But she was whimpering. The noise caused his ears to flatten and his head to lower. Softly, carefully, he dragged his tongue across her blood-matted fur. She shifted, winced when his tongue ran across a particularly deep cut, and pressed her body closer to his. He continued to clean her until her body was rid of all traces of the night.

His growl was low against her ear. It was very plebeian to her ears, still untrained to the language of animals. But the meaning was very clear.

Mine.

She pressed herself closer to him and rested her head on his paws.