The girl wasn't waking up. Why wasn't she waking up? The sleeping spell shouldn't be so strong after a full night.
Fenrir shook her shoulder again. "Can you hear me?"
Finally she pried her eyes open a slit. "I can't understand you."
"That sounds Greek. Do you speak Greek?" he asked in that language.
"Yes."
"Well, my Greek's a little rusty, but I'll try my best. What are you doing out here?"
"Where?" She forced her eyes open a little more.
"Hedgerow Park. Not a terribly good place for a nap. Aren't you cold?" She nodded, then shivered. "Why don't you sit up?"
He helped her to a seat on the damp wooden bench. She pulled away, fell to her knees on the grass in front of it, and retched.
"It'll be all right," Fenrir murmured in English, stroking her back as she finished being sick, then in Greek, "Are you all right?"
She shook her head. "I don't feel good."
He helped her to her unsteady feet, leading her to a seat on a neighboring bench. "You're half frozen, poor thing." He unbuttoned his outer robe and wrapped it around her shoulders. She eagerly pulled it around herself, and he put his arm around her, rubbing her bicep to help warm her up. "What are you doing out here all alone?"
Seconds limped by before she answered. "I don't know."
"Where are your parents? Are they coming back for you?"
Again silence, and then "I don't know."
"What's your name, honey?" He waited for an answer, but she only shook her head. The Memory Charm had worked, at least. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you. I just want to help you find your family. My name's Fenrir. Now, what's yours?"
"I… can't remember," she said, panic sneaking into her voice.
"It's all right." He patted her arm. "Maybe you've had a shock or something. What's the last thing you can remember?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Not even something small?"
She shook her head. "Mr. Fenrir, I… What happened to me?"
"I don't know, sweetheart." He patted her arm again. "I think you better come home with me."
As he stood, she accepted his hand, and he helped her to her feet.
"Do you know how to side-along apparate?" he asked.
She paused, thinking. "I… don't know?"
"It's easy enough. Just hold on to my arm as tight as you can, all right?" She took a grip on his arm. "It's all right; you won't hurt me." Taking the hint, she held on tighter. "This is going to feel funny, so hold on."
He apparated back to the house, directly into the living room. Normally he'd arrived somewhere outside the house for safety, but as he expected, she groaned when they arrived and her hand went to her mouth.
"There's a washroom through here," Fenrir said, guiding her to it just in time.
As she retched, he whistled sharply to call the children. Eric and Gregor were already dead asleep after the full moon, but the others came down. Sebastian signed, "what's going on?" at the same time Leslie asked it aloud.
"Nothing dangerous," he assured them. "I found a young girl abandoned on my way back. She needs somewhere safe to stay."
"Abandoned?" Leslie asked. "Like, just sitting there?"
"Laying there, asleep. And she can't remember anything, not even her name." The girl had finished and peeked out of the washroom. Fenrir said in Greek, "these are my children. Leslie and Athena were just heading to bed. Do you want to lie down for a while in their room?"
"I think I want to lie down for a while."
"She's feeling poorly. Would you girls mind if she laid down in your room?"
"As long as she doesn't wake us up," Leslie said. The boys pulled back and allowed Fenrir and the girls by. When they reached the top of the staircase, Fenrir paused by one of the doors and said, "This is my bedroom. If you need any help, come get me, all right?"
She nodded, and they continued down the hallway. Fenrir pointed out the bathroom next to the girls' bedroom, then led her into the room.
"She can take my bed, since it's closer to the door," Athena said. Leslie picked her wand up off the dresser and flicked it over her own bed, growing it to twice its normal size. Fenrir helped the girl into Athena's bed as Athena and Leslie both climbed into Leslie's.
"They don't speak Greek," Fenrir said to the girl, "but if you need help, they'll do their best. You remember where my room is if you need me?"
The girl nodded, and Fenrir stroked her brown hair. "Rest well, and hopefully you'll feel better in a little while."
"How's our guest today?" Fenrir asked, looking up from breakfast as Athena tromped into the kitchen with Leslie following sluggishly behind her.
"About like always," Athena said, getting a bowl from the cabinet and grabbing a cereal box from in front of Edward. "Fenrir, I hate to say it, but maybe she ought to go to a Healer or something."
"Doc's looked her over; he can't tell what's wrong." That wasn't true. Doc knew exactly what was wrong with her, and had made Fenrir swear by the moon that he would send her to St. Mungo's if she developed a fever or became clumsy.
"I mean, another Healer."
"Athena, why don't you just come out with it?" Fenrir said.
She sighed, pushing her hand through her shaded blond hair. "Fenrir, I don't want to sound heartless when she's sick and all, but she doesn't belong here. What are we going to do with her when we go transform?"
"We'll work something out. Hopefully, she'll feel well enough to take care of herself for a few hours."
"Look, if Athena's not going to say it, I will," Edward said. "Fenrir, we don't want her around anymore."
"She's human," Luther agreed. "They can't be trusted; we all know that."
"She's not any different from the rest," Christavious said. Sebastian nodded firmly.
"I'm not sure that's true, my Treasures. I'm not sure what she is, but I don't think she's a normal human."
"What do you mean?" Gregor asked.
"Someone went to a lot of trouble to get rid of her. She's a thousand miles from her country, barely speaks the language and didn't at all when I found her, and doesn't remember even the most trivial detail of her past. Even new things, she has a hard time remembering. Someone did not want her to find her way home, and although there's not much I would put past a human, that's unusual behavior towards a child, even for them. There had to be some reason they wanted rid of her that badly."
"Like what?"
Fenrir shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps she's half satyr or half faun. At her age, she might be starting to grow a tail, and it could be an embarrassment to them. Have you girls noticed anything like that?"
"We haven't exactly been looking," Leslie said.
"Well, I can't blame you for that. But that could be one reason. Or perhaps she's a dhampyr."
"Ew!" the children immediately said.
"Kids! It wouldn't be her fault. But if her human parent decided they could no longer stand vampires, you could see where they might not want her around, couldn't you?"
Gregor shuddered. "I wouldn't want her around if that's the case. I hope she's not a dhampyr."
"She doesn't look like a dhampyr," Athena said. "I don't think that's it."
"Maybe not," Fenrir said. "Maybe she's part fae. Maybe she's cursed. All we know is that someone wanted rid of her, and that ought to be reason enough to give her a home for the time being."
"Well, we can't just keep calling her 'her', anyway," Christavious said. "We're going to have to come up with a name for her, if she can't remember her real one. Especially since she's starting to understand what we're saying."
"Yes, she wouldn't appreciate those insults you use when you think I can't hear you," Fenrir said, waving a finger warningly. Several of the kids looked away sheepishly. "Why don't you all think of names for her, and she can pick the one she likes best? Maybe you'll warm up to her when you have something more personable to call her by."
"Do you have everything you need, Selena?" Fenrir asked in Greek, tucking a blanket around the girl as she lay on the couch.
"I think so."
"We'll be back sometime after sunrise, depending on how long we take to find everyone. I'm going to lock all the doors, and you should be perfectly safe. Try to take care, all right?"
She nodded, and Fenrir kissed her forehead, gave her hair one last stroke, and then gathered up the other children and left. He hated to leave her alone for this, but who could stay with her?
The full moon came and went. Fenrir tried to keep himself calm as he gathered the children from where they had scattered in their lupine frenzies and cast the portkey to a spot a short walk from home. Gregor, the youngest, was still wired by the time they found everyone, but Eric was dead on his feet, so Fenrir hoisted him into a piggyback to carry him home.
"You're getting too big for that, Eric," Christavious said, poking him in the ribs.
"No, I'm not," he muttered into Fenrir's shoulder.
"He's fine," Fenrir said. He didn't want to snap at the boy, but he did not need Christavious's needling right now.
"He's almost nine!"
"Let me enjoy it while I can. Someday he'll be too big to carry."
Edward laughed. "I don't think I'm too big for you to carry."
"I know I'm not," Leslie agreed.
"Well, someday he'll be 30 and I'll be old. Don't worry about it, all right?"
"You're gonna spoil him," Christavious said.
"My Treasures deserve to be spoiled." They reached the house and climbed the creaky steps. "Can you get that, Leslie?"
Leslie pulled her wand out of the pouch hanging around her neck and tapped the doorknob, ordering "Alohomora". The locked popped, and the door swung open.
Everyone gasped.
The house was in shambles. Tattered fabric and shredded bits of clothing were spread all down the staircase and the hallway floor. Even from the doorway, they could see the edge of the coffee table, lying broken like some injured animal, and chunks ripped out of the sofa.
Fenrir snapped his fingers for attention, and the children clumped together. Eric slid off his back and joined them. "Go back to our meeting place," he whispered. "If Leslie and I haven't come for you or sent you a message in 15 minutes, go to Julian and tell him what you saw here."
Athena pulled a watch pendant out from under her sweatshirt and fiddled with the knob, then gave a quick nod. Fenrir waved his hand at his side, and the kids silently eased off the porch, then ran back the way they had come. Fenrir gestured for Leslie to stay behind him and inched into the house. Something cracked under his feet: porcelain, broken dishes from the kitchen. A hole had been broken in the bottom of the kitchen door, and through it they could see broken chair legs and shattered dish shards.
Fenrir cocked his head and listened for a moment, straining for any sound. Hearing nothing, he took out his pocket-watch and adjusted the knob. The hands moved to point opposite of each other, then swung like a compass needle to point down the hall, towards the tracking spell he'd cast on a bracelet for Selena. Leslie's eyes darted back and forth, up the stairs, through any doors they passed as they followed it.
They reached a small storage closet under the stairs, the watch pointing to the door. Fenrir gestured to Leslie to stand back, then cast "Alohomora." The door flung itself open, and a sharp cry split into the air. Selena pulled herself further into the corner of the closest. "Please don't hate me!" she sobbed in Greek. "I didn't mean to!"
"It's all right; it's all right," Fenrir assured her in the same language, crouching. "I'm not angry. Please come out."
"I swear I didn't mean to!"
She didn't move towards him, but as he wrapped his arms around her, she threw herself around his neck. He put one arm under her knees and lifted her, and she didn't fight or protest.
"Sweet Morgan's Tailfeathers!" Leslie gasped as he brought her out into the light and eased her down on the floor. Her skin was covered in bites and scratches. "Selena, what happened? Who did this to you? — Fenrir, ask her who did that to her."
"Those are self inflicted," Fenrir said.
"She did that to herself?"
He nodded and fiddled with his pocket-watch again. The hands broke apart and returned to their normal positions, then the face glowed blue before fading to its usual ivory. He tucked it back into his pocket.
"This happens when a werewolf is confined somewhere too small," he said. "We destroy anything in reach, including ourselves."
Leslie shook her head in confusion a few times, then her eyes grew wide in realization. "You mean she's…"
Fenrir nodded, gently rocking Selena and muttering to her soothingly.
"Oh, you poor thing!" Leslie knelt beside them, wrapping her arms around Selena and squeezing. "That must have been terrifying! Not knowing what was happening to her!"
"I think we know why she was abandoned now."
"But you weren't actually abandoned," Hermione said.
"No, he kidnapped me from my dressing room and bit me that night before he 'found' me. That's why I was so sick at first. My body was reacting to the bite, trying to reject the lycanthropy. It's not a very common reaction, and it can turn very bad very fast. I should have been in hospital that month."
"Did he ever tell you why he did that to you?"
"Kind of, in a letter, but it didn't make any sense. He said he'd done it because…" She looked at the floor and tapped her foot. "Give me a minute. It's in there. He said it was because I was 'beautiful and graceful and talented, and everything werewolves aren't supposed to be,' and he wanted to show the world that someone could be all that and a werewolf too. But that's nonsense. If I hadn't escaped him, I'd still be busking on Muggle street corners for a quid here and there. The world never would have seen me. If that's really what he wanted, he would have left me with my family. But Fenrir was too selfish for that."
"Selfish?"
Clio nodded. "Have you ever heard of those people who collect cats until they have more than they could possibly care for? Like, they start out with one or two that really need help, but somewhere along the way they get the idea that they're the only one who can take care of a cat. They start seeing neglect everywhere and try to save them all, and it ends up worse than whatever the cats came out of to start with."
"You think Greyback was like that with kids?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, I do. Maybe it didn't start that way. A lot of the older pups have nasty scars and things like that, and a lot of older werewolves were bitten by Fenrir, but not raised by him. But somewhere along the way, I think he started taking kids just because he wanted kids."
"If you had a chance to talk to Greyback now, what would you say to him?"
"I wouldn't say anything, because I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't be in the same room with him," Clio said. "I hate him. I hate what he did to me, I hate what I go through every month because of him, and I will never forgive him for it. I don't even speak to some of my packmates now because of that, and the ones I am still close to, we just don't talk about him anymore."
"They don't feel the same way?"
"No. I suppose I can't blame them. For a lot of them, Fenrir was the only parent they ever knew, and for the rest, he was the best they knew. Or at least that's how they remember it."
A knock on the door interrupted them, and Hermione glanced at her watch. "Oh my gosh, they really are checking every 15 minutes on the dot."
"I wouldn't be surprised if my sisters have a timer running.—Yes?" Clio's youngest sister opened the door and leaned into the room. "Have you met Calliope yet? I can't remember who's been in here."
"Not yet. Hello."
Calliope nodded to acknowledge her and said something in Greek to Clio. Clio answered, and with another nod, Calliope closed the door. "My sisters want to leave soon," Clio said.
"It has gotten rather late. Thank you so much for taking this time with me." Hermione tore the pages that she had used from the borrowed notepad and stood, then shook Clio's hand.
"I was glad to. I don't like people thinking that all werewolves adored Fenrir, any more than I like them thinking that we're all monsters."
