A/N: Wow, thanks everyone for your wonderful reviews. The reponse is very phenomenal. You're all fantastic individuals. More positive adjectives!

As a note on the story itself - nobody has actually questioned this yet but in my mind the pack that Fenrir is running with are actual wolves, not werewolves. I always imagined that Fenrir would keep to the pack mentality and such as opposed to going the route of the loner (which most werewolf lore tends to say they are). I can see the argument for him being a loner as well (since he's presented as a helluva lot darker in the actual books than I'm presenting him) but Lupin seems to want to hold onto that pack mentality, so I suppose there's another arugment against the loner theory.

Also, this hasn't come up in the story thus far either, but I always imagined that Fenrir would have an animagus form as a wolf as well. He doesn't seem to be a huge magic user so it would make sense that he would try to do wandless magic whenever feasible and animagus tranforming doesn't seem to require a wand. That's how I'm viewing him, anyhow. Feel free to disagree with me. Now, onto the story. Please leave a review at the end.

Hunted

Chapter 5

Fenrir Greyback was watching his mate as she played with the pups. Hildegard, a stout, fierce creature had recently given birth to a small litter. They're had been four in total but the runt had succumbed after only a few days. His mate, Hermione, had cried whereas Hildegard, long since familiar with death, had turned her head to her living pups and quickly forgot.

Fenrir had stood by her quietly while Hermione started to dig into the earth. When he saw what she was doing he moved her aside and began to dig himself. The dirt came out in large clumps with worms flailing in protest at the move. When it was deep enough, he moved aside and allowed Hermione to gently place the runt into the freshly dug grave.

"He's so small," she said in a tiny voice. She had stopped crying but her eyes were still puffy and her face splashed with pink.

"It's the way of things," he told her gruffly.

She gave him an odd look at that. It was strange, though. The Fenrir that Hermione had originally heard of was a monster of epic, Voldemort without the ambition, proportions. He enjoyed maiming, drinking blood, cannibalism. His favorite pastime was torturing children. He had turned Remus when he was only a boy and he had done it smiling all the way.

This Fenrir that stood before her now was just as cruel as everyone had made him out to be, and certainly just as delightfully violent. He was also a leader, a fierce protector, and, as she recalled the feel of his tongue over her wounds given to her by Mad-Eye Moody, loyal to those he cared about. Loyal and curiously tender.

Similar thoughts were running through the werewolf's mind as he gazed on the young girl. She was whispering some sort of mantra, probably a muggle prayer, over the mound of dirt. Hiz gaze lazily flickered over her body, evenly browned from the sun, torn, bitten, dried blood across her knees and elbows, her hair sticking out like matted stalks.

He had never seen anyone so beautiful.

Or anything so very much his.

He dimly recalled having first heard about her from Lucius Malfoy. The Patriarch had been rambling as he was wont to do about the young girl who had bested his son repeatedly at Hogwarts. Fenrir had only half listened. If Malfoy wasn't complaining about one thing or another he was toadying to the Dark Lord or indulging his less than aristocratic craving for blood.

Lucius Malfoy was a hypocrite of the largest sense, thought Fenrir darkly as he watched Hermione reach over to grab some flowers to place on the make-shift grave. The man would give every indication that he was a gentleman, impeccable clothing, that silly cane; it really was a wonder the man didn't invest in a top hat and a monocle, and yet when the time came for dirtying ones hands Lucius would be first in line. He had a knack for torture and suffering that went beyond necessity and into a perverse pleasure.

It wasn't something that Fenrir wasn't unfamiliar with. Every time he killed a human adult or child he thought about ones like him, werewolves and wolves, who were hunted, laughed at, beaten, murdered for the sake of a trophy. It wasn't any different when Lucius and the other Death Eaters did the same thing with mudbloods.

But it was Fenrir and his kind who would be able to rule the night, free from fear, with humans cowering before them, if the dark lord won.

Fenrir had first spied the girl as she was collecting herbs in the forbidden forest. She was with her class, probably Herbology, and they had been delicately hoarding Wolfsbane.

How appropriate.

She had stood out from the others in her class. She was very natural. She didn't have the makeup slathered by the bucket-fill on her face or the poise of the purebloods with the constant stick-up-the-ass syndrome. She was bent over and handling the plants with the delicacy of a newborn child. Her hair was striking as it flew every which way, like a goddess of the forest, like a fairy. Her eyes were wide, bright saucers that took such impish, innocent delight in new experiences. Fenrir found it to be an intoxicating sight.

A sight that he wanted for his own.

And so he had started watching her within the forbidden forest. Whenever she went to pick herbs with her classmates or to take a stroll through the forest he would devour her with his eyes in silent anticipation of the inevitable. She would be his. He desired her. He would make her his.

It had been so perfect, so utterly picture perfect when she had gone walking alone through the forest with that red cloak. He had barked with laughter, almost doubling himself over from the sheer intensity of it.

She had fallen, much as he expected her to. And, having fallen, became his.

Now she was touching his arm in askance to leave. He took another look at the grave and saw that she had put the flowers in a wreath around the tomb like a requiem from the forest. Fenrir thought it was funny, really. In a lot of ways she didn't belong there. She was compassionate whereas the earth mother was cruel and exact. Hermione still had the ability to cry for the young when they were taken before their time, whereas the pups own mother had left it on the ground to be the food for worms and ants.

They walked off then, following the rest of the pack. When Hermione grabbed his arm and held it, the tears coming to her eyes once again, Fenrir felt a tug in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, rubbing soothing circles onto her arms.

She wept into his chest as he buried his nose into her hair.

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The Death Eaters had been gathered for the second time this month. Fenrir could smell the anticipation the younger members were reeking of; it was wet and sour at once, like a virgin before her slaughter. The older members, Malfoy, Snape, Avery, Lestrange and Nott were more subdued but for a prickly tendril of fear that would occasionally waft into the nostrils. Malfoy was possibly the worst at covering up the smell. The expensive colognes he used only made his own smell, hidden under so many artificial layers, that much more intense and readable. Snape was the exact opposite. He smelled natural, like herbs, like a man, like he was giving away absolutely nothing.

Lord Voldemort was sending the lesser circle out on various tasks, raids, unimportant missions of terror. It was so very clinical. Fenrir loathed meetings. He found them to be utterly without any sort of passion. It was like Muggle surgery. Methodical and sterile.

The inner circle remained while each gave a report. Fenrir, thankfully, was almost never required to report anything. As long as he was ruthless and keeping a watch on the forests then Lord Voldemort was pleased with him.

When the Dark Lord had left for the evening Fenrir quickly approached the elder Malfoy and stopped him.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Greyback?" said Malfoy in a tone that clearly stated the pleasure was feigned at best.

Fenrir cleared his throat with a growl which was menacing without meaning to be. Lucius flinched involuntarily but else remained passive.

"I was wondering, Malfoy, if I might borrow something of yours."

"Oh, and what would that be?" His hand tapped against his cane.

"A book." The tapping stopped. Lucius narrowed his eyes. The man was ridiculously open with his suspicions.

"Taken to improving that vocabulary of yours? Thinking of giving poetry recitals in the forest? Sounds delightful, really." He smirked. "Which volume in particular?"

"Anything."

"My my. Far be it from me to stop the higher learning of the working class." He chuckled to himself as Fenrir gave another low growl. The amusement faded from Lucius' aristocratic face and he cleared his throat.

"Yes yes. Apparate with me to the manor. You may choose whichever you like. And, Greyback, mind you don't bark at the house elves. It really puts them off."

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Hermione had spent the time Fenrir was gone playing with Hildegards' pups. They were still rather small - each one fit in the palm of her hand. She enjoyed playing little games with them. Their favorite was when they found a large, black, shiny beetle. Each pup had batted at it with a paw and then turned to hide behind Hermione when it fluttered its wings.

Eventually though the pups went to get fed from their mother so Hermione was left with little to do. She didn't want to think that she actually missed Fenrir but when he was gone she was frightfully bored. She rolled her eyes at the fact that she'd rather be scared witless than bored. The rest of the pack wasn't very entertaining. They'd either be out hunting (which she wasn't allowed to do without the Alpha present) or took to sleeping or just lounging around.

Hermione was so lost in her thoughts of being bored that she didn't even hear Fenrir approaching behind her. She gave a startled cry when he plopped down next to her, still dressed in Death Eater robes. Hermione shivered and turned away from the painful image that the velvet and silk robes always drew up in her mind.

With her face turned away she was startled to feel something heavy being placed in her lap. She looked down and saw a book, Vampires, Werewolves, And Other Lunar Creatures, resting on her dirty legs.

"For me?" she asked, surprised. She looked up at Fenrir who was watching her with a somewhat closed expression. He nodded once, then looked away from her.

Hermione couldn't help it, perhaps it was the smell of the book, but all her memories of Hogwarts suddenly came crashing down on her. There were hours pouring over material in the library, reading in the Great Hall as Ron and Harry had to remind her to eat, reading at the Quiddich pitch while the boys flew around on their brooms overhead, the sounds of the classroom, Lavenders annoying laugh as she gossiped with Pavarti in the middle of the night while Hermione had tried to fit in one last iota of information into her brain, the OWLS, dancing with Victor Krum, doing prefect duties with Ron at night, watching Harry smile as Dumbledore praised him in front of the entire school.

The girl hastily wiped away a tear.

"You don't like it," said the man-wolf, though he had hardly glanced at her.

"Oh, no. No! Nothing like that, really. I do like it, a lot. Oh, please don't take it back," she was now clutching the book in a death grip against her chest.

Fenrir reached out and gathered Hermione into his lap. He rested his chin on her head and looked out onto his pack, relishing the feel of the girl in his arms.

"It's a gift, little one. Yours to do with as you like."

Hermione smiled, a real smile, something she hadn't done for quite a long time. With a fervor usually reserved for first years and candy she opened the book and reverently traveled her eyes across the page.

The girl read silently for a time when she finally noticed that Fenrir was looking over her shoulder at the pages, particularly the moving pictures. She looked up and met his gaze. They stared at one another in an uncomfortable silence before the girl licked her lips.

"Would you," she faltered for a minute before continuing. "I mean, that is to say, would you like me to read to you?"

The werewolf growled in a way that wasn't horribly unpleasant and the girl smiled in a shy way.

"Alright then. Let's see, the werewolf is the most universal form of animal possession. One common belief among muggles is that the man or woman must climb into the skin of a wolf each night that it wishes to transform. That is ridiculous, isn't it? The werewolf always changes from a man into a anthropomorphic wolf form for three days of the lunar cycle..."