Thank you so much for all the love & support throughout the last year. I just wanted to make a quick note (that will appear on all WIP updates, so everyone has the chance to read it) about how I've organized the updates. Aside from Love Like Blood (which I'd finished & completed posting before moving onto the other updates so the story is complete & out of the way), the updates will be posted in the order of furthest back date of 'last update' to most recent.

I know some of you are really anxious for updates on specific fics & would like to ask for your continued patience as I move through this process. Literally every open fic in my story list has an update ready to go, so whatever story you've been waiting for will have a new chapter in the coming days/weeks.

Chapter Ten

Fenrir awoke with the faintest start, unaware of precisely when he'd dozed off again or what had woken him. A footfall in the corridor, perhaps?

Yes, he recognized, blinking bleary eyes, definitely a footfall. Followed by another … and another before stopping directly in front of the door.

He glanced about fast. His gaze landed rather immediately on the head of wild golden-brown hair resting against his shoulder.

Wincing at the sound of keys jangling—his immediate instinct had been correct, that was Malfoy out there—Fenrir decided he needed to act quickly to save them all a headache.

Tucking his arms beneath Hermione, he shrugged her up and over to lay on the sofa, settling her so she appeared to have nodded off beside Frigga's crib by the time key sliding into the lock and turning rang in his ears. As the door began to open, he had just enough time to shove himself along the floor so he reclined against the far side of the sofa, his head dropped back on the cushion, feigning sleep.

By the time Draco stepped inside, the scene was exactly as innocent to the very paranoid observer as Fenrir had known it had been in reality.

After their unexpectedly tense and emotional moment earlier, he and Hermione'd sat beside each other in silence. He'd found it odd how comfortable they seemed to be around one another.

He pretended it hadn't unsettled him in a strange way when she'd tipped her head to rest against his shoulder. It was too peaceful, too … simple and gentle of a thing. Not something he was used to at all.

Perhaps it'd made sense then that they'd dozed off.

But he doubted Malfoy would've waited for an explanation. Oh, sure, Fenrir wanted her for himself—wanted her to choose him after all this madness with the next full moon was over, whether she turned or not—but he wanted her honestly.

He wanted that if she chose him, it was because he was what she really wanted, not because he was filling an inevitable void for her in the wake of Malfoy storming out on her over a misunderstanding.

And he was, of course, thinking far too deeply on this for just having been torn from sleep for the second time in the same evening. Lifting his head, he let himself blink groggily as he looked up at the room's newest occupant.

Draco Malfoy was looking over the scene, his features pinched as the expression on his face swung from amused to mildly concerned and back. Fenrir wasn't sure he wanted to imagine what was going through his head.

"Well," the pale-haired wizard said as he extracted his key and closed the door behind him, "at least she's finally getting some sleep."

Fenrir's eyes narrowed. "I thought she had been sleeping the last few nights," he said in a vaguely agitated-sounding whisper as he climbed to his feet in a silent, fluid motion—entirely oblivious to how the smooth and effortless movement only brought to Draco's mind the many reasons he loathed the werewolf's presence. "You know, ever since she told us both to stuff it about minding her sleeping habits?"

Draco shrugged, nodding toward the kitchen.

Holding in a sigh, Fenrir glanced over his shoulder back toward the sleeping females. Malfoy was clearly correct, as Hermione'd not so much as twitched an eyelash since Fenrir's mad scramble to shuffle her onto the sofa.

Giving a nod in return—and trying to ignore that he could absolutely feel way the wizard watched him as he'd looked over at them—Fenrir started across the floor and out of the room. He took a seat at the kitchen table, immediately resting his elbows upon it and dropping his chin into his palms.

Draco very much did not like the way the werewolf stared at him as he moved to join him at the table. However, he had promised Hermione he would try with this whole … mess, and unfortunately that included playing nice.

All right, so Malfoys didn't really play nice, but neutral? He could at least do neutral.

Purposely diverting his gaze to lock on the kitchen entryway, Draco let out a sigh and shook his head. "I thought when we started letting her check in on the baby at night, she'd come back in, go right back to sleep … peaceful night, yeah?"

Sitting up a bit straighter, Fenrir lowered his forearms to the table top.

"I don't know what's going on exactly," Draco shook his head. He didn't want to confide in his worries about, or perhaps for, Hermione to anyone, least of all Greyback, but strange times …. He was pretending there wasn't a small part of him deep down that enjoyed any conversation that permitted him to make constant casual reminders to Greyback that he was the one in a relationship with the witch.

No, she wouldn't appreciate the pettiness.

"She falls asleep all right, I think." The wizard shrugged, not truly realizing how much this recent turn of events troubled him until now—until he was speaking the words aloud. "Then she'll sort of give a start—jars me awake, scares the bloody hell out of me half the time—" He found himself genuinely surprised that Fenrir didn't flinch, not a flicker across his features nor a glimmer in his eye. Not any hint of reaction to Draco admitting to how easily he was rendered vulnerable.

His insecurities really would be the death of him, Draco thought grudgingly. Here Fenrir Greyback was only worrying about what was the matter with Hermione, and yet he was unable to keep himself from examining every minute detail of the interaction to give himself more reason to dislike and distrust the situation, and indeed the werewolf himself.

Here he'd thought he'd matured so much in the years since the war.

At the way Draco's voice had dropped off, at the way he'd paused, his face pinching in wary expression, Fenrir's brows inched upward. "Uh … Malfoy?"

Clearing his throat, Draco gave himself a sobering shake. It had been a long week, and the next three would be even longer if he didn't get over himself.

"Right, sorry. Anyway, as I was saying, she goes to check on the baby and then when she comes back to bed, she falls back to sleep but there's something off about it." Draco's brow furrowed as he grimaced. "Not quite like she's having nightmares, but nearly, I think? She's sort of restless after that, tossing and turning. Moving about like she's fighting with something sometimes, even."

He didn't like the way Greyback's frame has visibly tensed, nor the way the werewolf leaned closer over the table, gaze steady on Draco's. "Fighting? You're sure that's what it was?"

Sitting back—putting space between them as he thought back on the most recent incident in the wee hours of just that morning—Draco breathed in deep and nodded. "I think so. I mean, what else could it have been?"

Fenrir sensed the other man's unease, but with that sense came a strange cognizance that it wasn't on account of the conversation. Well, at least not entirely. He wasn't sure he wanted to go any further with his thinking on that anymore.

He didn't … Fenrir hid a frown. He didn't hate Malfoy, and in fact this situation had even afforded him a certain respect for the young man. He found himself suddenly reluctant to suggest an idea that was bound to make Draco Malfoy more uncomfortable than he already was.

"Think back on her movements." Fenrir shrugged. "Is it possible she wasn't fighting so much as pawing at something?"

Draco's gaze darted about the kitchen, a swallow going down his throat as he again recalled the motions. He'd thought she'd been striking at something—he wasn't exactly a stranger to Hermione Granger's ability to land a punch.

But now that Greyback had mentioned it …. "I suppose, yes. It could've been."

He did not like the way Fenrir Greyback's eyes drifted closed as he rumbled out a single word. "Fuck."

Well, Draco liked the mixed of concern and exasperation in that expletive even less. "Means something bad, doesn't it? About her bite?" He decided to be more specific despite his full awareness that it wasn't necessary, "About her chances of turning?"

Greybacks massive shoulders rolled, giving him an appearance as though he was unexpectedly having trouble feeling comfortable in his own skin. "Maybe. There's a chance this means she's … she's dreaming of shifting. Of behaving like a wolf."

"Funny," Draco said, unable to help the snark that was rearing its head—it was late, he was tired, and every time he considered that this mad scenario they were in was a bit too much to handle, something more happened. "Here I thought you'd be ecstatic to have her be like you."

Fenrir shot forward, snapping his teeth and relishing the way the little snot jumped in place. Ensured he had Malfoy's full attention—and that any more cheek was the furthest thing from his mind—Fenrir allowed himself to ease back in his chair once more.

"I'd be ecstatic if she had wanted to be bitten," he explained in a voice clear despite how a growl ran beneath his tone. "I don't know how many times I have to keep telling you, I'm not the creature you remember. I'm more than aware I've made mistakes that should not be forgiven—not by you, her, or anyone. Back then ... I don't know that I'd have been able to care."

Draco lowered his gaze, feeling like a shit for letting the pettiness get the better of him. He knew all about Greyback's history with their former professor, Hermione's friend, Remus Lupin. If Fenrir Greyback really was a changed man, then Draco understood his own lengthy list of regrets from his younger years paled greatly in comparison to Greyback's.

"I don't know, and I won't pretend to know, what the next full moon will bring," the werewolf went on, his voice audibly calmer now. "I can observe, I can pay attention to my senses, I can make guesses on what I think the outcome will be based on those things, but nothing's written in stone."

It was on the tip of Draco's tongue to push that point. To needle Greyback about what he hoped the full moon would bring—like he didn't know. About what Greyback hoped it might mean for where her heart led her—he barely refrained from uttering a scoff at himself, as if he didn't already know the answer to that, too.

Fenrir's nostrils flared and Draco realized quite immediately how much of a mistake it had been to let his mind whir on such things. He was giving off something the werewolf could detect, some hint of … jealousy, perhaps, in his scent that Greyback was picking up on, wasn't he?

He wondered briefly what jealousy even smelled like.

Draco snickered at himself and shook his head.

Greyback arched a brow, the sudden change in the wizard's demeanor not at all something he'd been expecting. "What?"

With a pensive frown that just as soon gave way to a smirk, Draco once more shook his head. "I was just thinking I'd make a terrible werewolf."

Amber eyes widening in bewilderment, Fenrir shook his head. "I wasn't aware the thought had any reason to cross your mind."

"It doesn't, really, it's … stupid. I was just thinking I'd never be able to get used to being able to detect other's emotions from their smell."

Fenrir snorted a laugh. "Oh, that's where that came from." Yes, he'd detected that hint of envy winding through the air of the kitchen a moment earlier. He'd been content to ignore it.

Nodding, he decided he'd do Malfoy the courtesy of following that instinct.

"We need to do something about her sleep," the werewolf said, graciously redirecting the conversation to the very problem they'd sat down to discuss in the first place. "I think we should let her stay with Frigga tonight."

Draco's brows shot up into his hairline as he glanced from the werewolf to the kitchen entryway, and back. "I certainly hope you're not suggesting you and she switch places for the night."

His features pinching in disbelief, he deliberately ignored the the brief spiking of a different scent entirely winding off the other male. Where did this wizard's mind get up to sometimes? Fenrir shook his head. A Malfoy would never be his type, anyway. They were far too … squirrelly.

"No, you git," he said, shaking his head again. "We let Hermione and Frigga have the bedroom, you and I camp out in the living room."

Well, now Draco felt like an idiot. An idiot who was turning out to have a nasty habit of letting his mouth runaway with him, for some reason. "Suppose that does make much more sense."

Deciding he wouldn't think any further on it, Fenrir stood from the table. He led the way back into the silent living room and their task of attempting to move the females across the flat without waking them.

He thought sure they were both far more in dread of this risky endeavor than they were of whatever answer the next full moon would bring.