When Fenrir Greyback said someone was "not right in the head", they were probably not someone to trifle with. Hermione was finding that to be true with Violet Macnair. By coincidence, they were on the same visitor's boat to Azkaban, and Violet single-handedly filled the air with tension. It wasn't anything physical that Hermione could put her finger on. Unlike her father, Violet was not large and hulking; she had a rather slight build. She was quite pretty, in fact, with a 'Snow White' look: raven black hair contrasting beautifully with a roses-and-ivory complexion and brilliant blue eyes. No, it was something about the way she held herself, and especially the way she looked at the other passengers. Every time Hermione caught Violet's eyes, it reminded her of Greyback looking at her as she lay body-bound and helpless, his to 'keep'. She did her best not to return Violet's gaze.

At last, the boat docked at Azkaban, although that could hardly be called a relief. As they disembarked, Hermione dared a look up at the building and almost fell over from dizziness. The crazily angled towers would have been quite comfortable in an M. C. Escher painting, but they had no place in a brick and mortar building, not even a wizard one. The ministry escorts took them inside and reminded them of the rules and options for visiting prisoners, took their wands and gave them glass loaners to use in the prison, and inspected them and the items they had brought. Expecting that her bag, and the sheer quantity of items in it, would attract the inspector's attention, Hermione prepared herself for a wait. To her surprise, he concentrated on the sealed box of Honeyduke's fudge she had brought and finished quickly. As her escort guided her to the door, Violet broke into loud protests over her own inspection.

"Miss Macnair, please!" her escort said. "We do this every month. Just once, would you please just cooperate?"

The fight sounded like it was about to get juicy, but before it did, Hermione's escort led her to a meeting room. She could have spoken to Scabior in his cell, but this seemed like it would be more comfortable for both of them. Indeed, she couldn't complain. She had expected one of the stark white rooms she had seen on television dramas as a child, but instead it was set up like someone's personal sitting room. A cozy fire roared in a fireplace, and in front of it were two well-padded armchairs.

"They should bring Mr. Scabior any minute now," her escort said. "I'll leave you to your interview and be back to get you in an hour."

As her escort stepped out of the room, Hermione took a seat in one of the armchairs and adjusted the box of fudge on her lap. Harry had suggested it as a traditional gift for prisoners that would ease the influence of the Dementors. After a few minutes, the door swung open and cold air billowed into the room. Hermione pulled her coat around her as a man in Azkaban's drab gray prison robe stepped inside. She assumed this was Scabior, but she never would have recognized him on the street, in part because no one on the street would ever look like that. His waxy skin stretched across a nearly skeletal frame, and his eyes were sunk deep into his face, peering out without truly recognizing anything. If he had been in Maximum Security with a Dementor by him every moment, he surely would have been dead by now. Just the normal security had left him with one foot in the grave, and the second didn't look far from following. As the door closed behind him, he shuffled across the room, aware of nothing but the armchair opposite her. Only once he had lowered himself to a seat did he realize she was there.

"You're not my sister." He shook his head, the yellow skin of his forehead pulling into wrinkles. "No, that's right, she came a few days ago. You're, um… You're that researcher they told me about."

"That's right. I'm Miss Granger." She slid the box of fudge into his bony lap. "Merry Christmas."

His eyes closed and reopened in the slowest blink possible. "It was Christmas a few days ago, wasn't it?" His hands shook indeterminately over the box. "May I?"

"Please, be my guest."

With inordinate difficulty, he broke the wax seal and opened the box. As the first piece of chocolate touched his lips, his whole continence changed. The tightly stretched skin of his face loosened, and his eyes visibly brightened, a look of recognition passing over them. "Granger," he repeated. "Hermione…?"

"That's right," Hermione said uncertainly.

"I think I remember you." He blinked again, more quickly this time for what little that said. "Yes, that's right. You were with that Potter boy. I have a lot of money in a vault at Gringotts because of you. Not that it does me any good here, but it is nice to know." Scabior brought one knee up and rested his arm on it, the casualness of the gesture ruined by the shakiness of his limbs. "What brings a good girl like you to talk to someone like me?"

Hermione squirmed in her chair. "Fenrir Greyback, actually. I want to know what he was like in the Death Eaters."

"What he was like? He was a sadistic bastard, that's what he was like. You ought to know that." He reached toward her scars, and she jerked back. "Sorry, didn't think. I'll keep my hands to myself," he said, putting them up and leaning back. "Don't worry about me, though. I think you could slap me halfway across the room if you wanted to, the way I feel. But you wanted to know about Greyback, not me. He didn't treat me much better than he treated you lot. Worse than he treated the pureblood prisoners, actually. Hell, the son of a bitch must have broken my arm nine or ten times. He only fixed it six or seven, too. You got any idea how hard it is to fix your own wand arm?"

"I can imagine," Hermione said. "He didn't like you very much, I take it?"

"He hated me. Of course, that's nothing special. Greyback hated all humans, and he wasn't shy about saying so. But I think he hated me more than most."

"Why was that?"

"Because I knew what was wrong with him." Scabior snorted at his own remark. "Well, everyone knew what was wrong with him. He ate people. But I knew he didn't like it. He didn't want to be that way; he just couldn't control himself. And he hated that. Sometimes I think the only reason he didn't kill me for knowing it was because he needed me to bail him out when he lost it."

"Was he always that bad?"

"No. When the Inner Coven first called him back, he seemed pretty normal. If he wasn't a werewolf, I would have liked him better than Macnair, to be honest. When I was first assigned to 'dog sitting', it was just to watch him when they sent him to bite someone, to make sure he didn't get caught while he was transformed and that no one tracked him while he was sleeping it off. But the longer things went on… You could see him falling apart. And then when he killed that little boy…" A shudder went through him.

"He changed after that?" Hermione asked.

"Everything changed after that."

Scabior clung to the broom handle, concentrating on the compass, on the flight, on anything that would keep him from thinking about that poor boy, about the screams and the growls and the blood. He concentrated so hard that he didn't notice the first beams of sunlight peaking over the horizon. Only when the compass reversed itself, showing him that he had passed over Greyback, did he realize morning had come. Part of him wanted to keep flying straight, as far away from that scene as he could get, but he forced himself to turn back until the compass spun in place. Greyback was right below him now, not moving. Normally, he apparated home immediately after returning to his human form. Something must be wrong.

What was Scabior thinking? Of course something was wrong.

Twisting and turning to avoid branches, Scabior lowered himself through the forest below. As he cleared the lowest branches, he saw Greyback lying curled up on the ground. Dried blood stained his face and hands, reddish-brown against his skin. Greyback heard him coming and rolled over, picking himself up as Scabior landed and rushed to him.

"Mr. Greyback, are you all right?" He instinctively grabbed Greyback's arm as the werewolf stumbled, and immediately realized his mistake. Normally, this would earn him a broken arm, or at least the threat of one. This time, Greyback leaned against him heavily, so heavily that Scabior could barely support his weight.

"Get me home."

Without daring to question, Scabior held Greyback's arm tightly and concentrated on the old house Greyback had claimed as his own. For an instant, darkness surrounded them, squeezing until it felt like they would be crushed, and then it released and they were inside the dark rooms of Greyback's house. Greyback tumbled to the floor as they appeared, and Scabior knelt beside him.

"Mr. Greyback, do you need anything?"

"Help me… Help me to the sink."

Scabior pulled Greyback's arm over his shoulder and hefted him to his feet, doing his best to hold him up as he guided him to the nearest washroom. Greyback took the edge of the sink for support, pulling his arm away. Scabior darted forward and turned on the faucet, and Greyback stuck his hand under the water.

"Go find out what happened to that boy," Greyback whispered, watching motionlessly as the red stain flowed down the drain.

"Sir?"

"I've got to know if he lived. Go buy me a newspaper."

"Sir, I heard his parents. And… And with what I saw…"

"Elijah, please." Scabior's blood ran cold. He hadn't even realized Greyback knew his first name. He'd told him once, but Greyback had never used it before. He'd been warned to worry if Greyback ever did. "Go buy me a newspaper anyway."

Scabior turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could, clambering down the staircase and onto the porch, then down the rickety front steps. He stumbled on the last one and threw out his hands to catch himself as he fell on the wet grass outside. A second later, a loud BANG split the air, and the Knight Bus appeared in front of him. He must have put out his wand hand by accident. That was fine. No, that was perfect. As the Knight Bus opened its door, he scrambled on board.

"Did ya call us, or did ya just fall?" the conductor asked.

"Called you."

"Ya all right?" Scabior nodded, panting hard. "Where ya goin'?"

Where was he going? Where was the furthest place he could go to find a newspaper? "Diagon Alley."

"It's gonna be a while. We just passed Fallsbrook; we've got to go all the way around again to get there."

"That's fine." That was great. The longer he was away from that house, the better. He took a seat on the nearest armchair, but the bus didn't move.

The conductor held out his hand expectantly. "It's 11 sickles."

"Oh, right, right." He searched his pockets until he found a Galleon and slid it into the conductor's hand. As the conductor started to fumble for change, he muttered, "Just keep it."

"For that much, you can get hot chocolate and a—"

"Don't worry about it."

The conductor looked him over as the bus took off with another BANG. "You sure you're OK? You're not going to be sick, are you? Nothing worse than someone getting sick on the bus."

"No, I'm not going to be sick." If he were, he would have been hours ago, right after moonrise. That poor boy… He shook his head, trying to shake the memory from his mind. He'd been flying all night, and his body ached and longed for rest, but he didn't dare go to sleep. He'd surely dream of that awful scene. He didn't even want to think about it, much less live through it again. If there were a way to Memory Charm yourself, he would do it in a heartbeat, just to get that awful vision out of his head.

He might have dozed on the bus. The journey certainly passed faster than he wanted it to. Before he knew it, they were through the route and starting again with Appleby. All too quickly, they went through the next stops.

"Diagon Alley," the conductor announced. Scabior didn't move. "Hey, mister, this is your stop."

Scabior considered asking if he could stay on for another round, but how would he ever explain that? "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." He picked himself up and made his way down the steps as slowly as he could, no doubt to the annoyance of the driver and conductor. The bus vanished with its trademark BANG the instant Scabior's feet touched the pavement in front of the Leaky Cauldron. He stared at its facade for ages before he could bring himself to go inside. Old Tom was still in bed at this hour, but his granddaughter was reading behind the bar in the dining room, and looked up as he entered.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asked with misplaced cheerfulness.

He walked past her, towards the alley entrance. "I'm just passing through."

"Nothing's open for a few hours yet."

"That's all right. I just want to walk for a bit."

He made his way into Diagon Alley itself and started walking, first to one end and then back to the other, and then again to the first. Back and forth he walked over and over until he had lost track of how many times. The sun rose higher in the sky, and a few shops started to show signs of life, employees rearranging displays and getting ready for the day. His mind would have been content to walk forever, but eventually his body protested, and he made his way back to the Leaky Cauldron and found a table in the corner of the dining room.

"Can I get you anything?" Tom's granddaughter asked, coming over.

"A newspaper, when they come in."

"Anything else? Something to eat, something to drink?"

"Coffee."

"Sugar? Milk?"

"Black."

A sympathetic smile crossed her lips. "Are you hungry? If you're short on money—"

"I've got money. I'm just not hungry right now."

She nodded. "All rightie. I'll get your coffee."

Scabior stared across the room, his mind wandering. He was so preoccupied with keeping it from wandering back to the previous night that he didn't notice when the young lady placed his coffee on the table. He certainly didn't notice when she slid over a plate with two slices of buttered toast and a fried egg. After watching Greyback the night before, he didn't think he would ever be hungry again, but politeness forced him to choke it down.

As he managed to swallow the last bit of toast, she brought his newspaper over and set it on the table. "Here you are."

The main headline was "Child murdered by feral werewolf," accompanied by a photograph of the area where Greyback attacked the Montgomerys' son. Scabior's stomach protested the breakfast that had been forced upon it, and he folded the paper in half so he wouldn't have to look at that horrible reminder. "How much do I owe you?"

"Don't worry about it."

"I have the money," Scabior said, digging into his pocket. "How much?"

"Just make it up next time." She walked over to help another table before he could argue.

With an annoyed grumble, he counted out a guess of what the meal and paper cost, left it on the table, and went to the Floo with the paper tucked under his arm. There was no getting around it; he had to go back. Thankfully, Greyback's house wasn't connected to the Floo network. Scabior went to the closest location. From there, he could have apparated or used a portkey; instead, he walked. His feet protested the additional abuse, but it bought him a few more precious minutes of freedom before the house loomed into view.

He pulled himself up the porch steps, let the door close with a creak behind him, and plodded up the stairs to the second floor. Greyback's bedroom door hung open, and the bed inside stood empty, unused. His bloody shirt and trousers had been thrown into the fireplace, but otherwise there was no sign that he had been there. This wasn't good. Usually after a full moon, all Greyback wanted to do was go home, get a bite to eat, and sleep until the following night—and he couldn't be hungry after that.

Scabior slunk down the hallway. The upstairs sitting room's door was open a crack, spilling the soft flickering light of a fire onto the hallway's hardwood floor. He tiptoed toward it, his heart pounding as he silently pushed it open. Before he could stop himself, he gasped, and the newspaper fell from his grasp. Greyback sat in a chair with his back to the door, his right arm raised and the tip of his wand to his temple.

Scabior swallowed hard, his hand moving toward his own wand. Could he stop Greyback? Did he want to?

Hearing him, Greyback's arm wavered and sank to the armrest. As his hand reached it, his fingers loosened, and the wand clattered to the floor.

"Maybe you'd like to give it a go," he said, his raspy voice soft in the expanse of the room. "I've been trying for a couple of hours now, but I just… I'm too much of a coward. I don't have the courage to end this."

Scabior lowered himself to pick up the paper; Greyback hadn't moved by the time he straightened. As Scabior stepped to the side of the chair, he was increasingly convinced that his heart would never stop pounding. In his months of 'dog sitting', he had learned he could predict Greyback's moods by how well groomed he was. If he looked like hell, he was going to act like hell. If he'd combed his hair, it would be a pretty good day. If he'd shaved, it'd be fabulous.

Scabior had never seen Greyback look so polished. His hair was washed and combed and pulled, sleek and shiny, into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. His beard was shaved into a neat Van Dyke point. All trace of blood was gone. He had changed into a robe that Scabior didn't even know he had, almost new and still dark with dye.

Scabior stopped a few steps short of him and held out the newspaper, his hands shaking so badly it rustled. Greyback made a half-hearted wave at it. "Keep it. I already know. God help me, I already know."

Greyback stared across the room as he spoke, and even that made Scabior shudder. Rarely did Greyback miss the chance to stare down an underling, his eyes full of hatred for the humans around him. Now the only thing his eyes were full of was despair. Desperate to do anything rather than just stand there, Scabior ventured close enough to pick up Greyback's fallen wand. As he reached to put it on the end table beside the chair, Greyback grabbed his wrist. He flinched. Here it comes.

For once, though, Greyback didn't squeeze, didn't twist. His hand fell away, drooping over the arm of the chair like a dead animal. "Why didn't you stop me?"

Scabior stepped out of arm's reach, although that wouldn't help if Greyback came after him. "I didn't know how, sir. I tried a Stunner; it just made you mad."

"Next time try silver."

"Sir!"

"Use the Killing Curse if you have to! Just don't let me do that again."

Scabior's mouth opened and closed twice before he found his voice. "Mr. Greyback, I couldn't…"

"Elijah, listen to me." He locked eyes with Scabior, and the underling swallowed hard. Their usual fire was gone, but it was replaced by a steely resolve all the more frightening. "I know what the Inner Coven has told you. Now this is what I'm telling you. I swear by the moon, my word more binding than sleep, that I will never punish you for anything you do to keep me from hurting a child. I won't hurt you, I won't hold a grudge against you, I won't even yell at you. But if you ever let me kill a child again, you won't live to see the next sunset. Do you understand me?"

Goosebumps rose on Scabior's flesh. The Werewolf's Oath was second in strength only to the Unbreakable Vow. Maybe it was stronger. The Unbreakable Vow could be broken at the price of death, but a werewolf had no such escape. Whatever they swore by the moon to do, they were compelled to carry out, no matter what stood in their way.

"I understand, sir."