a/n: I've just been writing like mad recently - hence the much quicker than usual update here. I hope this is meets everyone's satisfaction as it is slightly different than the previous ones. I haven't heard a lot of feedback as to what sort of ending you would like so if I don't get that soon I might end up just flipping a coin or something. Alas. Though I am still delightfully thankful to everyone who has reviewed thus far. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get back to you all personally - just know that I read them and they make me insanely happy. I hope the quickness of this chapter makes up for it.
Also, not to shamelessly plug my other fics here cough cough but I do know that a lot of readers for this fic are also Severus/Hermione shippers and I do have a piece in the works titled Tearing the Veil which is primarily SS/HG and some HP/DM. If you like my writing (and even if you don't half of it has been co-written by FlowerPagoda) I'd like to just point everyone in that direction since I absolutely love it and I think you guys might as well.
Thanks so much. Sorry for the dreadfully long author note.
Hunted
Chapter 7
Harry Potter was looking out the window of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place with a weary, closed and vaguely ill expression on his face. It had been months since he'd last seen Hermione and that beast in the forest but almost every hour his thoughts would drift towards his memory of her, particularly of her tear-stained face.
Her pleas to recall that she was still the same, even naked, abused and bitten, she was still his best friend who loved books like most people enjoy candy. Oh, how they echoed in his mind so loudly that not even the gentle caresses and murmurs of Ginny Weasley could chase them away.
His fists clenched, his mismatched nails making indentations into the skin of his palm. Harry knew that he was somehow responsible for all of this. He should have kept a better watch on her. He shouldn't have let her go out into the forest alone. Merlin, he shouldn't have befriended her in the first place. Wouldn't it be better if she was a friendless bookworm locked up in the library day after day? Wasn't that better than the fate he had left her with?
His fists slammed against the windowpane. It would have shattered but for the spells on it.
Ron had taken the news miserably, worse even than Harry thought he would. At first Ron just denied it, like a child who was told he couldn't go out to play because of the rain. Then, when that painful moment of acceptance seeped in (and how could he deny it for long? Moodys' corpse and Tonks' bleeding, scarred face demanded realization of the truth) his face contorted into the epitome of demented rage. He fell to his knees, a supplicant to a god none of them believed in, and screamed until his throat must have bled from the damaged sound.
The terrible tragedy of lost love. Remus, gazing at his beloved and gathering her limp, barely breathing body into his arms, swore revenge on the bastard who had wronged him three times now.
Strike. Strike. Strike. He's out. The cock has crowed. Denied and then acceptance.
And what could they do? They had scoured the forest as best they could but their forces were small and tired from the constant barrage of the Death Eater forces. With Dumbledore dead and buried they were almost like snowflakes in a storm. And there weren't enough of them to stick to the ground. It was like they were all slowly melting under the hot hatred of Voldemort - a veritable Aztec sun god who demanded human sacrifice, be it the enemy or your own.
Harry did not lose hope, however. If there was one thing the boy did not do it was give up hope. When Cedric died he still hoped. When Voldemort invaded his dreams he still hope. He had hope when Sirius went beyond the Veil and never came out. Though it shook his core and rattled every part of him, he hoped when Dumbledore was blasted off the tower. He even hoped, when Hermione lay naked at his feet, and again when she sprouted that terrible fur, that she would return to him and tell him to study more. Just like she always had.
Ron didn't say much about it anymore. After leading a failed rescue attempt (one after the other, so damn, damn, damn many) he eventually just stopped altogether. He concentrated on defeating Voldemort only - as if by taking out the king all the pawns would simply fall down like dominoes. And then, sure, he would be reunited with her and she would tell him that it was only a dream he had while on the Hogwarts Express because he had shoved all those silly chocolate frogs down his throat and they're really bad for you - indigestion gives nightmares. Didn't you know that, Ronald Weasley?
Ignorance, especially self-imposed, surely is bliss. Or, at least, one way to cope.
Still, Harry could not focus on Voldemort or anything else. He just wanted a return to normalcy. He wanted his best bushy-haired friend near him. He wanted her to stand up to his wedding to Ginny, and perhaps to stand up to her own with Ron. They could be so happy. Even if she was a werewolf, well, so what? Remus was as well and he got on well enough. He might be ostracized from the wizarding world as a whole but he still survived. It wasn't as if she was widely accepted even without the disease. Harry thought that it would be enough - his friendship, Ron's love, Remus's empathy. They could be one big, messed up and slightly disfunctional family.
They could. They could they could they could.
He needed to believe that she would be returned to him. Sometimes it was the only thing keeping his feet following one another.
"Please come back," he whispered to himself against the glass. The window fogged under the heat of his breath. "Please, please, please come back."
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Fenrir was watching her sleep. He was sitting against the wall of a cave, a little ways away from the bed of grass he had made for her. He enjoyed her small frame as it moved up and down with each breath. He thought it was the most beautiful sight. Hardened and soft all at once.
Hermione was peaceful at rest. Her hands folded under her head while her hair, tangled mess, rested over the top half of her body. A blanket of sorts. Hogwarts: A History was lying half opened next to her where she had stopped reading for the night. Next to it were some other books that Fenrir had picked up from Malfoy Manor that he thought she might like. On top of the books was a single flower, a white lily, that he had picked for her when he realized that she was different now.
Fenrir took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring at the new, unique scent she was giving off. He loved the smell of her. It was an odd mix of dirt and grime and sweat and of innocence (how she had retained that even after his brutal ravishment was something he couldn't fathom but idolized all the same). When she was in heat she smelled spicy, tangy, like an exotic fruit he was dying to peel between his teeth.
Now, however, she had a different smell. One he had smelled often enough among his pack, recently on Hildegard.
He wondered if she knew she was starting to carry his litter. He felt an odd joy and obscene amount of pride when he thought about how it would be her, certainly the most worthy of creatures, who would be the mother of his sons and daughters. They would be werewolves from birth and have an even deeper connection to the moon then even Fenrir himself did. They would be beautiful half-beasts, running wild as kings and queens of the forest. Not even dragons could stop them.
When he noticed her shiver Fenrir moved himself from off the wall and lay down next to his mate. In her sleep she turned to him and he delicately wrapped his arms around her. He would be careful with her now. It wouldn't do for him to risk injuring her or his children. When he took her from then on until she gave birth it would only with extreme caution. She wouldn't hunt either. No sense risking her being hurt by a rampaging hippogriff or the like.
The master werewolf hummed low and pleasingly in the back of his throat. Ah yes, this was perfection in his arms. And it was perfection that drew herself closer in his embrace and wrapped her legs enticingly around his own.