Almost done, hang in there! One, two, or three more chapters, depending on how long I want them to be. This particular chapter is a long'un. Sorry. Last week of high school EVER, so I have lots of spare time.
Everyone hated the plan, but it was the best- and simplest- they could come up with where plausibly everyone lived. The children were left at Tonks' flat with the quiet wolf with the concrete voice and Verity, but everyone else started heading over towards London's armpit.
It was as bad as Chessie remembered- the smell, the gritty road under her feet, the homeless looking at them as they passed with wide eyes.
The plan had three main parts, and all three would have to go with a fair amount of success to keep the plan going.
Part one was being put in action as the rest of the pack approached. In theory, Marjorie, Kel, and the tired-looking wolf who'd told them to call him Matthew were in the pub already, pretending to be humbly groveling and begging for forgiveness while counting heads and finding alternate exit routes. Their story was that Chessie had tricked them- technically she sort of had- but she turned out to be sort of a traitor- also partially true- and they thought Greyback was a better leader. Hopefully he was deluded enough to believe it.
But why were they wearing different things? It'd be stupid not to take advantage of what was offered. How'd they know to go to the Howling? He'd taught them that. Plus it was cold outside, and even though the Howling wasn't much warmer it had enough booze to trick them into believing it was.
They'll also be mentioning that Burt and Bartender were also coming back, but had a special surprise for him.
All they had to do was wait for the signal, one of the pack drawing one of two shapes in the fogged-up glass. A circle for "we're ready", or a rectangle for "we're not ready but I guess it's not a good time to say that, so be careful entering anyway".
They had the third wolf- who'd requested to be called Ben- on lookout in the semi-abandoned store across the street with an exhausted but still constantly vigilant Penny Savage. Lupin and Chessie, who were bracing themselves for a fair amount of pain in the near future, sat behind the lookouts with Burt and Bartender. Everyone was tense.
A circle appeared in the front window of the Howling, and Marjorie's anxious expression was visible for a moment before turning away.
Ben and Penny sighed in relief. No one else did.
Time for part two.
The door burst open and rebounded with enough force to knock Chessie silly from where she was being suspended by the back of the old shirt Tonks had made her trade for. Burt had Lupin in an awkward looking headlock in the other arm, but at least he could stagger along backwards on his tiptoes. Chessie was just hanging from one of Burt's ham like fists like an old doll. At least she had a decent view of the room. Greyback stood in the center of the room, just beyond the far edge of the light Chessie had gotten beat up in in the past. The ghost of her nose began throbbing in remembrance.
To the right, huddled in a corner with tearstains on her face and dust and dirt on what would otherwise be an extremely cute outfit for a seven year old girl, was Rose. Chessie's growing maternal instincts noted that her glasses were gone, and that the flush on Rose's cheeks wasn't entirely from crying.
Rose abruptly looked up and squinted at Chessie with an expression of surprise.
"Chessie," she mouthed, and a tear slid down one of her dirty flushed cheeks.
Chessie felt an identical one slide down her own as white fury flooded through her body. Her inner wolf knew the feeling well. It was the emotion of an animal that knew it was wild and hopeless, and most importantly, feral. Lupin and Burt must have sensed it- which meant Greyback definitely did- and the tension in the room increased substantially.
"Drop them," Greyback commanded confidently, and Burt did. Lupin and Chessie hit the floorboards with a resounding thud and exchanged a glance as Greyback begin a maliciously gleeful soliloquy about the joys of happy endings and the fact that his two biggest rivals were on the ground at his feet, etc.
Bartender had been slowly sneaking around to the bar, where underneath she had access to several weapons- mugs, a spray nozzle or three, and a thick club she'd confessed to have a considerable amount of skill with.
Marjorie, Kel, and Matthew were lurking around the edge of the light, and a few other wolves Chessie recalled from the camp were glaring at her.
"You've been such an interesting person to have around. Quite the busy little werewolf. Always pushing people, taking control of my pack. Denying us the simpler pleasures in life-."
"Raping children." Chessie growled. Had he done anything to Rose. Surely not, not much time had passed. She tried to tell by glancing at her, but Greyback noticed where her attention was and pulled Rose over to him by one of her skinny biceps.
"I'm hurt," he drawled lazily, running a rough hand down one of Rose's cheeks, "that you think I would do anything so…predictably wrong to any child. Especially for revenge."
"Revenge," Chessie heard herself snarl. Behind Greyback, Marjorie kneed one of the few wolves who'd escaped the roundup at camp in the groin and muffled his gasp and fall to the ground. Kel did something to another- as he passed the wolf went from vertical to horizontal.
Greyback stood hunched over Rose, who was silently crying again. Although tall for her age, she still looked small compared to the monster lurking over her. His hand was still on her face. Chessie stood up slowly, shaking with rage, mind pleasantly blank.
"This is revenge," she said coldly, and launched herself at Greyback. He threw rose bodily away from them, and she hit the bar with a whimper. Bartender, who had leapt onto the bar with her beloved club in one hand and a spray nozzle in another, hopped down to hide Rose out of harm's way for the time.
With her out of the way, things could escalate. The plan was to incapacitate Greyback and his four wolves, but Chessie wasn't feeling remotely nice enough to stop at mere incapacitation. Decapitation would make her feel better.
All of this was pondered in the second Chessie was off the ground, flying through the air towards Greyback with her arms outstretched. He brought up an arm and it felt like Chessie was hitting a wall. She landed in the poorly lit circle on the floor, but got up. The pain was fueling her anger. Lupin had gotten on Greyback's other side and was distracting him (getting beat up) while Chessie recovered; she launched herself at him again, succeeding this time in getting her arms around his throat and hanging on for dear life as he roared and flailed.
She had a good, if not brief, view of the door, where Penny and Tonks kicked it in true police fashion, followed by what seemed like half the Aurors in the Ministry with any level of true talent and instinct. She noticed Kingsley Shacklebolt and Bill Savage among them.
Everybody with Lupin and Chessie stopped fighting slowly backing up and making it exceedingly obvious that they meant no harm, taking all of what Tonks and Penny had advised them to do verbatim. Lupin and Chessie themselves, though, were slightly distracted by the large angry werewolf trying to escape.
Tonks shouted for Greyback to freeze, but he didn't.
The same with the second time, and when Penny tried.
Chessie, who was still hanging on to Greyback's back with her arms around his neck, met Tonks' eyes and gasped, quickly bracing her feet against Greyback's back for one final leap. She waited for the right moment, and as soon as Bill Savage began the spell she launched herself backwards as hard as she could at the same time Lupin dove for the ground, both hoping they wouldn't wake up in jail in a few days. She heard something crash under her and a throbbing pain in her skull that drove the remainder of her feral fury out of mind completely- she'd landed on the back of the bar, where dirty half-empty bottles of beers of different varieties were broken and digging into her skin.
Inebriation actually sounds pretty good about now, Chessie thought, but resisted.
After about three times the amount of stunning and sleeping spells than is healthy, Greyback slumped to the floor unconscious, and everyone who wasn't busy arresting the unconscious wolves breathed a sigh of relief.
Penny pulled rose out from a cupboard behind the bar and hugged her while she cried; Chessie slowly sat up and began picking glass out of herself. Lupin wheezed something from the floor, making Tonks laugh. The sound was almost foreign, but it was welcome.
Tonks must have given descriptions of who not to arrest immediately, because as Aurors began taking Greyback and his wolves to that werewolf jail, all of those wolves who'd been helping gathered around Tonks and Bill Savage. Bartender was helping Chessie, who was bleeding in several places and generally cussing out the world. Penny was still holding Rose tightly, but to Rose's credit neither of them were crying.
"Penny," Bill Savage said in an old weathered voice. He faced his daughter.
"Dad," her voice broke slightly, and she handed Rose off to Marjorie, who was silent for once.
They looked alike, Chessie thought through a haze, now that the fury was gone and pain had taken it's place. Both Savages were sinewy and tanned, and had brown eyes. Bill Savage's iron grey hair had once been sandy brown like his daughter's, if Chessie's memory served her right. Under normal circumstances Chessie wouldn't have noticed this.
"I was so worried," Bill Savage said softly, approaching Penny.
"Me too. But I'm okay, mostly. Just…different. And I have this nagging concern that I'll be moving back in with you soon." She said carefully. Every werewolf present, barring Chessie and Rose, knew what was supposed to happen next. The tearful reunion was in progress, next would be the right-wing extremist debasing the werewolf and scaring off any friends and allies they might have had left.
Scrimegoer strolled in like a king in the low-rent district of his kingdom, looking down his nose at Chessie's entourage.
"Cue the antagonist," Marjorie muttered, and Kel and Matthew nodded slightly.