antienoftheshadows: Was I inspired by one of Matt Mercer's characters? Maaaaaaybe. ;-)

Homarid: It is less that there are few HAGS in the world or in the Convocation and more that the males are rare and vulnerable, and typically a good proportion of fertile Hexerin are brought to each Convocation. Astrid both knows the hags' weakest point and is extremely cynical about wizards.

RedFriend: I feel the need to clarify this, but Hazel did not just accidentally a metamorphmagus or anything of the like. What she did to get into the Convocation was not a physical change. It was all illusion. Useful for sure, but nothing more than that.

Scionists: I'd argue that a lot of the "tropey nonsense" you saw in my older fics is because they were started nine years ago when those aspects were much less of cliches. (Although Dumbledore being a manipulative SOB is actually canon based on my reading of book 7.) All that being said, I've mentioned in previous ANs that I intend for Dumbledore to actually be the good and caring old wizard he presented himself as in the first couple of books. The Weasleys… This might be a small spoiler, but as of right now I have no plans for any of them to be main characters in the first place.

Regarding "murderous Dursleys", think about what the end of the first chapter looked like from Vernon's perspective. He woke up to find his creepy niece not in the cupboard where she belonged but instead standing over sleeping his wife doing who-knows-what kind of freakishness to her. I had already mentioned the adult Dursleys were afraid of her and her powers, so this being the straw that broke the camel's back should not be too surprising.

"Uh, I don't think 'Hexerin' is grammatically correct": You're right! However, it was constructed this way intentionally. I mentioned previously that I don't know German, but my research was enough to know that 'Hexe' is feminine in gender. At the same time, I wanted to signify by the name as well as the description that male hags take on certain traits and roles in the hags' culture that were traditionally ascribed to women in the real world. Hence the feminine ending on an already feminine word.

Chapter 25
The Sins of Man

The transition from the hags' cabin to the forest of Compiègne was like walking outside into a blizzard.

Hazel pulled her coat tighter around herself, fighting the wind that seemed determined to rip it away. It was enough to make her wonder whether it would be smart to jump back to Germany and try this again later. The weather was not warm within the Black Forest, not in the slightest, but at least it was not storming there. It was not as if her favorite group of werewolves were waiting for her, after all. Her visit was supposed to be a surprise, especially since she had told them she would be coming back in the spring rather than just after the new year.

The idea of the werewolves being stuck in this same horrible weather would not leave her head once it popped in there, though, and that helped motivate her to continue on. It did not hurt either that if she was returning, it would be to an empty cabin in the woods. Astrid might have been the most vehement and vociferous about her attendance at the Convocation, even disguised as a half-hag the way she was, but the soldier had not been the only hag who looked at her with thoughts and expressions of mistrust. After that, she had decided to leave the rest of the Convocation to the real hags. This year, anyway.

Hunching her shoulders and leaning forwards, she pushed through the snow as best she could. If there was one good thing about this situation, it was that she had returned here after getting new boots and a heavy wool coat. Otherwise she would have little chance of making it through this horrid weather.

The winds continued to swirl and beat down on her, but in those moments where it changed directions she finally had a chance to look around before everything was hidden within the white flurries again. To her surprise, there was a new addition to the camp, namely a covered cart about the same length as a sedan with big, wooden wheels, three to each side. The sides were covered with a layer of snow, which made it hard to tell what they were made of underneath, but from the way the cover shifted in the winds, it was probably cloth of some kind.

Hazel paused in her push through the storming snow and looked at the spot where she had seen the cart for several long seconds. The people who lived here had lots of cabins and other solid structures. Why would they change things up and go for a cart now? Were they planning on moving away from the forest? Why would they do that?

She resumed pushing through the snow, and as she moved steadily closer to the center of the compound she started hearing unfamiliar voices. Those voices she soon discovered belonged to a number of men standing around one of the cabins. Something flapped around on the roof, and for a moment she was confused and slightly worried about what they could be doing. That confusion passed, though, when one man jumped up to grab the corner of the flapping thing and held it in place long enough for someone else to do something to it. That second individual then pulled taut the rope he had just tied to the corner and secured it to something else she could not see buried in the snow.

Hasty repairs, maybe? Had something happened? And still left unanswered was the question of who these people were.

If anyone had the answers, it would be Jean Luc.

The wind blew especially fierce for a moment, and she shook her head. Her initial plan had been to jump into the forest just outside of the commune so she could walk in and see everybody at the same time, but if her friends had any sense at all, they would be inside their cabins, not walking around in this nonsense. That meant there was no point in her trekking through this horribleness, either. Gripping her staff more tightly, she jumped upwards—

—and landed inside Jean Luc's cabin. The inside, she saw, looked little different than it had back in the summer with the exception of several rugs hanging on the walls from hooks she had noticed before but never thought to ask about. At least she now knew their purpose. Of Jean Luc, however, there was no sign.

It was thankfully warmer inside the cabin, and so she started undoing several of the buttons so she could take off the heavy coat. As she did so, a ball of feathers wiggled away from the crook of her neck where he had nestled earlier and started chirping angrily.

How was I supposed to know it was going to be this cold?!, she demanded as Morgan continued his complaints. It was not this bad in Germany. It is not as if I can predict the weather! I'm stuck in it just the same as you.

Draping her coat over the back of a chair, she rubbed her arms and looked around some more. If nothing else, at least it did not look like anything terrible had happened. All his ledgers were still in their places, and while one book was out on the desk, it was also closed with his quill in its usual spot and his pot of ink securely corked. It was how he always left his workspace when he was interrupted in his work and needed to take care of something outside of the cabin.

And if she had to guess, she suspected the strange men covering the roof of a cabin with a tarp was the thing he needed to take care of. He would be back, of that she was sure.

A couple of minutes passed, but eventually the door opened to allow a bald man wearing several layers of clothing into the room. His eyes landed on her, and he took a hasty step backwards. "Who in the… Hazel? What are you doing here?"

'I came to check on all of you,' she replied. 'Is the cart yours? You are not moving away, are you?'

That question tickled him if his short laugh was any indication. "It is so easy to forget how young she is sometimes. No, none of us are leaving. Have no fear on that. We have some visitors, that is all." She tilted her head in silent question, and in response he pulled off some of the extra layers before seating himself at his desk. "Not everyone has a place to stay all the time – much like you, I suppose – and sometimes those that do have such a place do not want to remain there regardless. Some of us are like that, wandering around from community to community instead of staying in one place."

'What brought them here, then? Do they need supplies?' That was her struggle when she was on the road, after all, the constant need to get more food and batteries and occasionally other things. She had an advantage in that she could make herself unseen to walk in and out of stores and a bottomless bag to put everything in, but without those options she could easily imagine how much more difficult it would be to keep herself fed. And that was just her! If she had to continuously supply a whole group, things would be exponentially more difficult.

"Not so much, although I am sure they would not refuse were additional supplies offered. This group is one that goes from commune to commune helping out where they can." Jean Luc sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. "It is good that they came when they did, in all honesty. We have had several storms blow through here in the last couple of weeks, and the roofs are not as strong as we thought they were. We will need to repair them when we have a chance, but thankfully they were in the area and could help us patch up the holes. Hopefully the repairs will last long enough that we can keep using them. Nobody likes having to pile in three or four in a single cabin."

Roving handymen and do-gooders? It sounded like it was indeed lucky that they had been on their way here if things were that dire. 'Can I meet them?'

Jean Luc's eyes flicked over her question, and then it felt like an entire sea of fear suddenly swirled around him. "That would probably not the best idea. There are many of us, too many, who hate wizards as much as the common wizard hates and fears us. This group is the same, and I do not want them to hurt you—"

The door banged open, and another man walked into the cabin before shucking off his coat to reveal a heavily patched long-sleeved shirt and equally raggedy jeans. Fewer layers than Jean Luc wore, she could not help but notice. He was larger than Jean Luc, too, in his height and the width of his shoulders and the raw size of his arms. The earliest touches of grey were just beginning to spread from his temples, even if his scruffy, whiskery beard was already heavily salt-and-peppered. He was almost reminiscent of Uncle Vernon in some ways, she could not help but think, but only if her uncle had replaced his enormous belly and his five chins with an equal weight in muscle. And, of course, if her uncle was willing to do manual labor to help a group of 'freaks'.

"—another couple of tarps just to be on the safe side. That should be all the holes patched up…" The man blinked as he looked away from Jean Luc and towards Hazel. "Who is this, now?"

Jean Luc's face had gone blank as if to hide all the worry now churning in his gut. Hazel nibbled on her lip before reaching up with her hand to wave and start writing. She had no reason to doubt Jean Luc, but just standing around not answering the question would not hide the truth for very long either, nor make him predisposed to like her. 'Hi. My name is Hazel.'

"A witch." That thought echoed with anger, old yet still strong, but only a moment passed before his narrowed, amber eyes started to soften. "But… I have never seen a witch or wizard do anything like this. Not to mention how calm she is in front of two of us. Does she know what we are?" he asked Jean Luc, his gaze never leaving her.

"You mean that we are werewolves? Yes, she does. He appears calm, more so than I would have expected from his reputation. Thank goodness. I thought he would be more angry and aggressive."

The other man's attention was fully back on her, however, only to find she was already writing. 'Yes, I know what all of you are. I am not afraid of werewolves when you are not furry. It helps that I am not the kind of witch you have ever met.'

There, that should be enough to explain to him that he had no reason to hate or fear her. It was likely the best and fastest way she could think of to address his real concern without making it obvious that she had lifted it from his own thoughts. It was one secret she had never revealed to anyone, and for good reason. She had been witness too many times to the anger and fear everyone in Little Whinging felt when one of their secrets came out. Revealing that she could hear every passing thought, that no one had any secrets from her?

No, that was not worth the trouble it would bring. Especially not to someone Jean Luc seemed to trust and who already did not trust the average wizard. Better to be subtle.

Her answer earned her a short bark of a laugh. "I suppose you are not," he replied, rubbing his chin. "Maybe she is one of the good ones. Rarely are wizards or witches worth anything, even their own skins, but here and there it is possible for one to pop up I guess. Well, then. Hazel, was it?" She nodded, and he gave her a smile that displayed all his yellowed teeth. "A pleasure to meet you, not something I generally say to wizards. You can call me Fenrir."

She gave him a wave.

"How long have you been here? I missed her the last couple of days, but perhaps Jean Luc was trying to keep her out of sight and out of mind. Because she is a witch, or perhaps because she is young." His eyes drifted up and down her, and a black hunger rose within him that reminded her almost of the same hunger Gertrud felt. "She does look so tender and juicy. I can hardly blame Jean Luc for trying to keep her for his own pack… Huh. Now that is a thought."

The hunger vanished as quickly as it reared its head, giving Hazel a feeling not unlike whiplash. Not like Gertrud, now that she had another second to think about it. Gertrud's hunger was just that, Gertrud's. This… This felt different, like it was coming from inside him but was not necessarily him all at the same time. It was all very confusing.

Thankfully she had a question she could focus on answering instead of worrying about how he wanted to eat her for a second. 'I come and go. I met them this summer and spent a few months before moving on. I just came back to check on them and see how everyone was doing.'

"How admirable," he told her with a slow nod. "You look like you care for this pack a great deal, despite not being one of us."

She nodded in response, but errant emotions and thoughts from Jean Luc soon distracted her. "By the Circles, we are not animals. Why he insists on calling us packs, I have no idea. I also do not know why he is so curious about her, and that? That makes me uneasy."

"But I wonder," Fenrir continued, unaware of Jean Luc's frustrations and curiosity, "would you like to join us in truth?"

That question immediately shut off Jean Luc's complaints in lieu of a wordless shock and fear. Shock and fear that Hazel could understand and shared considering there were only a few ways to interpret his question. 'What?' she finally asked.

Fenrir just shrugged. "You found friendly faces here, but a pack is truly home only to wolves. If you wish, I can give you our gift and bring you into our family. The full moon was a couple of nights ago, but the wolf is still strong. I should be able to push the change long enough for one good bite, especially if she cooperates."

"You are mad," Jean Luc said, breaking the silence that hung in the air after Fenrir's offer. "Gift? Our existence is a curse, and you would inflict it on a child and pretend you have done her some great service? It is wrapping a ribbon around a poisoned apple."

"It is only a curse if you treat it as one." Fenrir's voice held not anger nor surprise but resignation, as if this was an argument he had had several times before. For all she knew, he had. "Or you can ignore the wizards' propaganda and pay attention to your own eyes and ears. I call it a gift because that is exactly what it is. It marks us and makes us better than a simple wizard. Why do you think they fear us so? Because they know the truth just as much as I do, and they are desperate to keep us from realizing it. Hiding the truth is the only way they can truly control us."

"We turn into mindless beasts once a month, and you think that makes us superior?!"

Turning towards Jean Luc, Fenrir's eyes caught the light of the lamp and shined a polished gold for just an instant. A lazy smirk spread across his face. "Do not assume your experience is universal, Jean Luc. Many a wizard has died that way, and a few of our kind as well. It is a good way to lose a hand."

Hazel took a step backwards as the two men glared at each other. The tension in the room was rising quickly, and she was getting worried that things were about to get ugly. If Fenrir really was as much like her uncle as he sort of looked, things might even turn violent. The last thing she wanted was for Jean Luc to get into a fight with the people who helped the commune as a whole, especially when it was just over her.

Thankfully, she had an option for how to get rid of the source of their argument. Grabbing the heavy coat she had laid over one of Jean Luc's chairs, she jumped herself—

—back to the Black Forest.

Morgan twittered at her in confusion, but in the end he begrudgingly took flight from her shoulder so she could pull her coat back on. She offered her shoulder to him again, but now that he was in the air he sang lightly and circled her head. Have it your way, then, she told him before walking deeper into the woods. It was much more pleasant out here than it was in Compiègne, and right now a walk was a good way to clear her head.

Not only was it warmer, it was also not nearly as snowy or windy, so she was able to enjoy the look of these familiar trees. She had not had a definite location in mind when she jumped away from the commune, just somewhere in the Black Forest, but she recognized where she was now that she could spot a few landmarks. North of the hags' cabin, roughly a ten minute walk based on her trips with Elfriede to gather ingredients. The familiarity was enough to put her at ease, and as she did she turned the confrontation she had just left over and over in her head.

Do you think running was the right idea, she asked her friend after several minutes of thinking. I thought maybe it would make them calm down if I was no longer there for them to fight over, but now I don't know. I don't know if they even realized I left at all. The last thing she wanted was for them to still fight, for Jean Luc to get hurt and run off their help, all for nothing.

Even if her chest was still warm at how quickly Jean Luc had leapt to her defense.

He and everyone else in the commune are all convinced that being a werewolf is the same as being a monster. I wonder why Fenrir's opinion is so much different? He sounded like he reveled in it. That thought triggered another, and she briskly rubbed her arms as a cold chill crept down her spine. Being a werewolf was not the only thing he enjoyed, not if his thought meant what she thought it meant. Why did his hunger seem so different to the hags'? What was its source? It was not just being a werewolf, that much she knew from her time spent with the commune, but if that was not it, where had it come from?

Her feet wandered around the forest, past more spots she had visited more than a few times now when gathering ingredients with Elfriede, and perhaps half an hour later she felt it was getting close to the proper time to head back to the cabin. It might just be her there, but at least it would be a warm place to eat something and continue planning out her next steps. South, she had previously decided. She would head south sooner than later.

Crouching down to slip underneath a fallen tree, her steps slowed to a halt when she realized what was in front of her. The trees here were smaller than the rest of the forest, and the farther in one direction she looked they continued to thin out. What was over there? She gave herself and Morgan a shrug and pushed deeper in.

The longer she walked, the more stunted the trees became and the quicker that change progressed. Soon enough, the trees completely vanished. What stood before her was a completely bare clearing, one without trees or bushes or anything at all. Taking a couple of steps into the clearing, she looked down when she noticed that the sound of the snow crunching beneath her feet was different. It sounded… brittle was probably the best word for it. Even the air itself smelled and tasted off. Stale.

Twittering came from behind her, and she glanced back to find Morgan stubbornly sitting on a branch at the edge of the clearing and squeaking at her. Normally he was right beside her everywhere she went, so why would he now be so insistent on staying away? The only time she could remember him acting like this was in front of… de Rais's… tower…

She looked back at the center of the clearing and began backing away, backing towards the tree line. She did not need another encounter with hungry children's ghosts—

A force like a dozen hands wrapped around her chest and yanked her off her feet.

The ground rose at her faster than she could prepare herself, and she slammed and slid through the snow and the foul-smelling mud beneath. When she came to a stop, she desperately clambered to her feet and spun around. There was nothing here, not that she could see anyway. Which only confirmed that she was dealing with something far worse than a wild animal or a wizard.

I mean you no harm, she yelled as desperately as she could. For all that she could not make a sound, spirits in the past had been able to understand her 'voiced' thoughts without difficulty. She hoped this hidden spirit would be able to do the same. Nor was I trying to trespass. If you let me go, I will be out of your way.

For a moment nothing happened, and Hazel held her breath. Would it leave her be the way she hoped, let her walk away from this and just stay out of its way from here on out? A weak breeze blew, stirring up a small swirl of snow off to one side.

Again the force lashed out, flinging her forwards this time.

She hit the ground, but unlike last time the ground did not stay put. It lifted up beneath her. Rolling off and away, she looked back to watch snow and mud rise up and up and up, the almost liquid form flowing and shaping into something recognizable. Before her stood a statue of a hag, the eyes staring unblinkingly at her.

The mud-hag screamed and leapt, its long fingers outstretched to rip apart her flesh.

Hazel got to her hands and feet and dived forwards, pushing with her will to jump away from this place. The world turned dark and tight, her body being squeezed and stretched as it attempted to cross space, but the forest did not come to meet her. She remained in that stretched state, the darkness twisting and warping around her for several breathless seconds, and then she was pulled backwards into the clearing again.

The mud-hag had jumped over the spot where she once was when she jumped, giving her just enough distance to crab-walk her way behind her and glance over herself. Why had that not worked? What had kept her from teleporting away? As she frantically examined herself, she noticed a faint haze, like tendrils of red smoke or fog, almost lazily circling her ankles and stretching up her legs. It blinked in and out of view, coming only slightly into more focus when she really focused on it.

Snow crunched in front of her as the hag did not turn around so much as lose cohesion and reform itself facing her direction, which was enough to shake her from her examination and continue scrambling away. If she could get just far enough away, get to the edge of the clearing—

Her head and shoulders bumped into something.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and physically lifted her into the air, the earth a full foot or more beneath her. Another snow-and-mud-person held her, this one an incredibly tall man with a pair of long, almost tusk-like teeth poking out from beneath his bottom lip. The mud-hag approached, but no longer was that figure alone. Now it was joined by two more, both short with pointed ears and prominent noses. The figures all raised their fingers, and the mud that formed them split and separated to push out a number of sharp-edged rocks. With menacing flexes of the dangerous stones, they continued to advance, murderous intent unmistakable even in their sightless eyes.

She twisted, but no matter how she turned she could not get her jump to work beyond giving her the briefest squeezing sensation. Whatever this spirit had done to bring her back was still working, its haze still tying her to this clearing. She was not getting away from here that way.

One thing was still stuck in her mind, though. The statues had been unable to reach her when she was in the midst of jumping. If she could just reach that halfway state, not here but not there either…

She jumped and twisted and stretched, and as the mud-people raised their hands up in preparation for a deadly blow, she slipped.

Hazel fell to the ground and glanced up. The mud-giant still had its arms outstretched, but it looked wrong. Everything about it was swirling, as if it was painted into the world and something was trying to smear it into nothingness. It was not just the mud-giant, though; she looked around and saw the same was true of the trees she could see in the distance and the ground beneath her butt. Everything about this place was blurred.

She sighed in relief, only to immediately regret it. It was not air she tried to breathe back in; she could not see anything odd about the air itself, but it felt like she was breathing underwater. Cool wetness pressed against the inside of her mouth and tried its best to flow down her throat. She clamped her mouth shut tight and held what was left of the air in her lungs where it belonged.

Slime wrapped around her leg and pulled. She slid across the ground before being lifted into the air by her right ankle. The spirit still existed, but no longer was it hidden. What stood before her was a monstrous beast, its hairless skin a mottled white and brown just like the mud and snow from which the statues were composed. It stood on six legs but no feet; instead its legs melded seamlessly into the very ground. Two tentacles stretched out from around its mouth and the far, far too long teeth that poked out and overlapped, one of which was holding her up while the other lashed out at the not-air around them.

Nope. Not dealing with this. Twisting her torso around again, she tried to jump away from this place.

Nothing. Not even the momentary tightness when she tried to jump away from the mud-giant's grip. All she was doing was wriggling like a worm on a fishing hook.

The tentacle tightened its grip in response to her ineffectual efforts, and then the beast opened its mouth and roared. The sound was loud enough to make her ears ring, and the smell of its breath brought tears to her eyes. It was the stench of a dozen rotting corpses baking under the noonday sun. Before she could think about anything else, the tentacle started moving towards the still-open mouth, and the waggling of the spirit's purple tongue was enough to tell her exactly what it planned to do now that she was in its grasp.

She kicked at the tentacle with her left foot, but she could not give it a firm blow. Every time she struck out, her foot simply slid off the thick slime that coated it. Her efforts certainly were not distracting it from its goal of swallowing her, and from the way her chest was starting to burn, she only had a little bit of time left before she could no longer hold her breath.

Fine. If she could not kick it, she could hurt it in a different way. She flexed her wrist and winced when a brilliant light shined from her hand. The spirit snarled as well, which at least was a benefit. Her dart had manifested, but it was not a dart. What appeared instead was a long, thin knife, almost more like a thick needle than a blade. Regardless of its new appearance, however, it would still do the job just fine. Before the spirit could shake off the surprise from the burst of light, she jammed the tip deep into the tentacle that held her.

The spirit roared again, and this blurry world shook with its fury. Everything slid sideways once again in the instant before she fell and smacked her back onto the snow. The impact forced the wind out of her, but when she took another desperate breath, it was normal air she sucked in.

Which meant while she might no longer be in the fire, she was back in the frying pan.

Red haze swirled around her from seemingly nowhere and tossed her into the air before slamming her back down. Her back hit the ground the next second, and every bone and muscle there suddenly screamed in agony. She went up and then down again, and again. Each hit hurt more than the last, and her vision swirled and fragmented into spots before coming back together.

This, this was bad.

Something grabbed her shoulder and dragged her painfully against the freezing ground before hurling her once more. Not upwards this time, thankfully, but instead to the side. Hitting the ground was no less painful than before, though, especially when she turned her head with a silent groan and spotted the tree her head had almost bashed into.

Wait. Tree?

It was awful turning her head back the other way, but when she managed it she was shown a startling scene. The clearing was now absolutely filled with tongues of red smoke, the four mud-people still standing around, but a fifth figure was here now as well. Dressed in thick clothes and heavy boots, a green-skinned figure crouched between Hazel and the figures with arms outstretched and let out an angry, animalistic snarl.

What was Gertrud doing here?!

The smoke shifted. A burst of panic filled Hazel's mind. Gertrud was not looking at the densest portion of the smoke, just where the figures stood. Could she not see it? If she did not, there was no way she could get away should it catch her the way it caught Hazel.

Fear spurred her on, and it was almost simple to call up green lightning to wrap around her body and start knitting her injuries back together. She had to act quickly. From how the spirit reacted to her dart in that other place, she might have a weapon with which to defend herself and Gertrud until they could both get away from here.

Yet despite her flurry of worrying, the spirit did not immediately attack. The figures slowed to a halt in the face of Gertrud's fury. Five, maybe ten seconds passed before they slumped and melted, their substance flowing back into the ground. The red smoke swirled as the body of the spirit flickered in and out of Hazel's sight a few times, but soon enough the color dulled and descended to the ground and spread out. Laying in wait for another hapless mortal to come walking by, perhaps.

Gertrud had relaxed when the figures broke apart, and once everything was calm she turned around and left the clearing for the tree line where Hazel still lay. Once she left the clearing entirely, Morgan fluttered over and landed on her shoulder. "Are you okay, Hazel?"

'I am fine,' she replied. She picked herself up gingerly, the pain that had spread through her back much less intense but still present. 'How did you know I was in trouble?' And how had Gertrud gotten here so fast? There was no way she could have run here from the cabin so quickly, not unless she had known where Hazel was before she was even in trouble.

"This little guy found me," she said, jerking her thumb towards Morgan. Realizing they were talking about him, the little bird tweeted joyously. "He was screeching his head off, and considering he never leaves your side, I knew something was wrong. How do you feel?"

'Sore, but not dead.'

"Thank goodness." Gertrud smiled at her and laid her hands on Hazel's shoulders. She then without warning started shaking her. "I told you to stay away from the scoured clearing! Why did you not listen to me?!"

'I was not looking for it,' she replied as soon as she slipped out of the hands of the angry and worried hag. 'I came back from France and needed to clear my head for a bit.' Which, if nothing else, fighting for her life against a spirit had certainly put the issues between Jean Luc and Fenrir into perspective.

"France? What? How would you get to… Oh, of course. Your teleporting thing." Gertrud shook her head and glanced back at the center of the clearing. "Stay out of there. It is dangerous to those with human blood."

'Just humans? Why were you safe?'

"Of course she would ask that. That might be a question for Elfriede, not me," Gertrud replied. "It is not a pleasant fact. Elfriede is the one who likes teaching and explaining this kind of stuff anyway."

Hazel propped her hands on her hips and stared at the hag until Gertrud sighed in resignation. "The spirit there does not like humans because it remembers what they did. The scoured clearing…" She sighed. "It is a grave."

A grave? 'Grave for who?'

"Too many." Hazel gave her a look of confusion. "It is not one person's grave, Hazel. The remains of several dozen beings rest beneath the surface. Hag, goblin, stone-men, tree-herder… Too many to name them all."

Several dozen?! 'Why are they all buried there? Why is the spirit mad?' And what did the spirit hold humans to blame?

"This is why I did not want to tell her this story." Sitting down several feet from the tree closest to the edge of the clearing, Gertrud waved for her to sit as well. Morgan fluttered over from Gertrud's shoulder to her own when she was on the ground. "Two, maybe three hundred years ago, the wand-wavers who ran the country took a dim view of any and all beings who were not human. They tried to push us away and drive us out. They felt this land belonged to them and them alone. Most of us barricaded ourselves in our homes, and some did in fact leave the country; it is why there are members of our coven who live in France and Great Britain.

"However, not all were so willing to be pushed around. A good number decided to push back instead. Some, the bravest but also the most foolhardy, decided that attacking the wand-wavers in the heart of their little safe haven in Mainz would be the best way to change things."

Hazel found herself leaning forwards in curiosity and perhaps morbid anticipation. She felt she knew the answer to this question, but she still had to ask, 'What happened?'

"Oh, the wand-wavers slaughtered them." Gertrud's tone of voice as well as the shrug she gave were nonchalant. "Every single one who attacked that day died, and their bodies were mostly burned right there in the street. At first, the wand-waver government said that this was why all non-humans must be driven out, that we were too dangerous to be left alive. Everyone worried that this would be the battle that started a war.

"Thankfully, the government miscalculated. It had been a bloodbath on both sides, you see, and while there were some who wanted to see us and everyone else exterminated, the majority of the country remembered that these kinds of things had never happened until we were pushed into a corner. The higher-ups in the government realized that their own people were turning against them, and from there it did not take long for them to reverse course and get rid of the laws and restrictions that started all the hostilities in the first place.

"It was cold comfort for those who died after attacking Mainz, however." Gertrud waved at the clearing. "They were buried here for a number of reasons that would take too long to go into. It did not take long for a vengeful spirit to take up residence, and it has become more powerful practically by the year."

An angry spirit that constantly got stronger? That did not sound too good. 'Does it ever leave the clearing?'

"No, which is a small mercy. That would not end well." Standing up and brushing herself off, the hag offered Hazel a hand to stand as well. "But that is enough history for today. I still need to finish harvesting some ingredients, and your disaster interrupted me."

'Sorry,' she replied. That was when she realized something. 'But were you not at the Convocation today? Elfriede said you were all going.'

"That was her plan, but Hedwig was not happy. Not because she felt pressured to have a child," added Gertrud at the sight of her darkening expression. "She said having me around chattering and gossiping was embarrassing. All because I do not get to talk to Franziska as much as I would like. Anyway, since there is nothing else for me to do at Convocations, I stayed behind." The older hag gave her a conspiratorial grin. "Although I do have something to do in the mean time. I could not help but notice that when she was embarrassed, it was while she was making small talk with Franziska's son. If I am to be at home, I might as well work on a few philters of fertility for her."

'You and Elfriede promised all she had to do was meet with people. That she was not obligated to have a child yet,' Hazel reminded her.

"That is still the case, but just because Hedwig did not plan on having a child this year does not mean she can not change her mind if she finds a Hexerin she likes. It is better to be prepared, that is all, especially since Elfriede needed them to have Hedwig in the first place. It is not as if fertility potions require me to go out and buy ingredients or anything. I can whip them up fairly quickly, and they will last for a while.

"Come along. I will show you how to make them just in case you are ever in need of them yourself or know someone who is."

Hazel watched her walk away before turning to Morgan. That seems kind of a non sequitur, don't you think? Considering what just happened.

Morgan thought about that for a moment before twittering, and she had to nod before taking one last look at the scoured clearing. Yeah, you're right. That probably is the point.

The first part of the chapter has changed quite a bit since I first came up with it. My initial plan, back when I was unsure whether Hazel would even attend Hogwarts, was for Fenrir and his people to have fought and killed Jean Luc's group. He might have even gotten a quick bite on Hazel before she could get out. Lycanthropy, after all, would be an excellent analogy for the blood-borne diseases that runaway youth are at a very high risk of contracting.

I'm trying to break myself of my tendency to add darkness just for the sake of drama, though, and that's all turning Hazel into a werewolf would have been in the end. The more I thought on this scene over the course of several months, the less aggressive and violent Fenrir became towards his fellow werewolves as details of a backstory came to me.

So before anyone starts wondering whether I'm whitewashing him here, the answer is… not entirely. It's more that for a very one-dimensional character in canon, I'm finding the potential for surprising depth in him. If he is someone who is feared and hated by wizards yet respected by other werewolves as canon seems to imply, the question becomes what is his true nature and goals? Why is he the way he is? I don't know if I'll explore those particular questions in any detail on-screen, but you never know.

Silently Watches out.