"Dad, Dad, look!" Roma raced down the stairs with five-year-old Eleanor behind her and swung around the bannister into the living room, where Fenrir and Julian were helping two younger boys with lessons. She ran up to Fenrir and held out the contents of her hand: a tiny white tooth.
"Finally fell out, did it?" Fenrir smiled, and his eyes started to pull down into a wink. "You didn't pull it out, did you?"
"Nope." She shook her head so that her hair flew back and forth.
"Not even a little? Because this might not work if you pull it."
"I kinda poked at it a little," Eleanor admitted, twisting her right hand around the index finger of her left. "But Roma didn't do it, so it doesn't count as pulling, right?"
"I suppose not. It'll probably be all right." He pulled his wand out of his sleeve. "Do you have your others?"
"Yup!" Roma carefully put the tooth on the coffee table, then took a mokeskin pouch out of her skirt pocket. From it she pulled a handkerchief tied into a bundle seemingly too large to fit into the pouch. She put it on the table, untied it, and spread it out to show a dozen teeth shining silver in the light.
Julian pulled the youngest boy back as he reached for them. "Don't touch; they'll burn."
"And they're Roma's anyway," Eleanor said.
"You'll have a Galleon's worth before too long," Fenrir said, poking them with his wand. Roma grinned, the new gap in her smile showing clearly. "Let's see. How do I do this again?"
"Don't tease, Dad! You remember!"
"I think I do." Fenrir picked up Roma's newly fallen tooth and put it on the handkerchief, being careful not to touch the others. Once he was satisfied with its placement, he pointed his wand at it. Slowly, the ivory enamel took on a metallic shine, shifting to the precious grey-white of silver as the children watched. "There you are, a Sickle's worth of silver. Be careful not to burn yourself."
"I won't," Roma said, folding the handkerchief back up into a neat envelope and tying it securely.
"I always ask. Do you want me to exchange them for coins for you?"
"Not yet. I want to wait until I've got 17, and get a whole Galleon at once."
Fenrir laughed. "That's a clever girl."
"What gets me about your stories is how normal they are," Hermione said, poking at her bowl of pasta on top of the Sniffers desk. Well, normal for wizards, anyway.
"I warned you," Roma said.
"You did. Honestly, I don't know what else I was expecting."
"Probably something a little more Fagin-ish." Hermione blinked at her. "I'm sorry. That's a Muggle reference."
"Oh, I recognize it," Hermione said. "It's from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. But I'm surprised you know that."
"We spent a lot of time in Muggle places growing up. Fenrir took us to a musical version at a free children's theater once. The man who played Fagin was absolutely brilliant; he had us rolling in the aisles. Afterwards, Ellie asked Dad if humans thought he was like Fagin and we were like the street urchins. I remember he stroked his beard that way he used to, and then he laughed and said yes, they probably did. We got a good laugh out of it. He called us his 'dears' for a week."
"When did you start calling him 'Dad'?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, I always called him Dad. He was my dad. I was only three years old when he took me, so I didn't know any different for a long time."
"I wonder why he took you."
Roma shrugged. "The usual story. It was the early 70s. My parents didn't understand lycanthropy, didn't treat me well, tried cures that weren't safe."
"Did he tell you that?"
"In a letter, after he was arrested. He sent them to most of his children, explaining why he'd taken us, and why he'd bitten us."
"He bit you, too?" Hermione asked.
"Dad bit a lot of people. He told one of the younger packs it was almost a hundred. Of course, that was after he… took ill, shall we say? I wouldn't put too much stock in it."
"That must have been hard to learn."
"Not so much for me. I've been a werewolf for so long I can't imagine being anything else. I don't remember what it was like to be human. But the ones he told to their face… They were teenagers, and that's a hard age for a werewolf. You're trying to get out on your own, and realizing just how many doors have been closed to you, how many walls you'll run into trying to live the life you want. And kids that age are already rebelling and learning their parents aren't perfect. To put all that together, and then have the man who raised you tell you he's the one who bit you… It hit them pretty hard. I think some of them are still reeling from it."
If he'd sent letters to the children he bit, was there one for Remus? He hadn't been taken, of course, but he was one of Greyback's victims.
The clock's chime interrupted Hermione's thoughts, and Roma stood. "If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the case I was working on."
"Of course. Oh, I owe you money for all the time you've spent with me!"
Roma put her hand over Hermione's as she pulled out her wallet. "Start calling me 'Roma' instead of 'Madam Darcy', and you can keep it."
"Are you sure?"
"Do you really want to argue with me? Honestly, Hermione, I was just trying to scare you away. I didn't think you'd actually come, certainly not more than once or twice."
"Thank you." Hermione gathered her things, but a thought struck her as she started toward the door. "Roma, I thought Greyback wasn't allowed contact with the outside. How did he get letters to you?"
A slight smile crossed Roma's lips. "I'm sure I wouldn't know anything about that."
"Of course not. I'll see you Monday."
Hermione thought on it all the way back to the Institute, and almost missed the thick envelope on her desk. When she picked it up, the return name jumped out at her: Clio Dragoumi. On opening it, a slip of parchment fell out: a backstage pass for Friday's Dragoumi Sisters' concert. Hermione eagerly unfolded the letter that accompanied it and found two tickets inside.
Dear Ms Granger,
Owen Millburn wrote to me about your research and somehow got his owl past my overprotective sisters. I would love to discuss my time with Fenrir Greyback with you. The most convenient place for me is the concert house, so I have included a backstage pass for after this Friday's concert and two tickets to the concert itself so you can bring a friend. (Your friend won't be able to come backstage afterwards, but there is a VIP lounge where they can wait.) I hope the notice is not too short, but I won't be in the country for long. Please bring at least one photographic ID, and be prepared for delays, as security backstage is very tight. I look forward to speaking with you.
Clio Dragoumi
This is wonderful! Hermione thought. Who should I take?
Oh. That was the question, wasn't it? With a sigh, she sat down. Ron was her first thought, but he didn't like classical music. Even if he did, an expensive concert in the finest wizard theater in Europe was not a 'friendly' outing. She liked Ron, of course. It was even fair to say she loved him. They just couldn't live together. Sooner or later, her idealism about how the world should work drove him up the wall, and his painful pragmatism about how the world did work made her want to turn his ears into puffskeins.
If only Viktor were in the country. That romance hadn't worked out either, but they still liked to write and talk. Sometimes each felt like the other was the only other person in the world who got it, who thought about things deeper than Quidditch scores or who was sorted into which school house. He would love the concert, but this deep into Quidditch season, he was well entrenched in Bulgaria. She glanced at the Quidditch schedule pinned to the wall. Nope, Ginny had a game as Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies. Asking Harry would be too awkward, since he and Ginny were just short of engaged.
Oh well, she'd figure it out later. She tucked the tickets and backstage pass into her purse, and pulled out the Mental Notebook.
Letters from Fenrir in prison. Or had they come from the prison? Maybe he'd set something up beforehand. Then again, Razvan said he went through parchment and ink by the roc's fistful in Azkaban. Were they smuggled out by a visitor? No werewolves were allowed, so that ruled out the obvious suspects. Greyback wouldn't have trusted anyone in the Werewolf Capture Unit, even if a Hunter had been willing. Could Razvan have done it? No, he would have been risking his career. If he'd been willing to do that, wouldn't he have also prescribed something to put Fenrir out of his misery?
Had he?
Hermione went to the copy of Fenrir Greyback's case file and flipped it to the summary sheet.
Date of birth: Unknown.
Date of Death: 31 Jan 1999
Cause of Death: Complications from lycanthropy
Complications from lycanthropy? What was that supposed to mean? After 30 or 40 years, was she really supposed to believe that Greyback's lycanthropy had spontaneously turned fatal? Unless something at Azkaban had triggered it. She couldn't rule that out. With such a vague explanation, she couldn't rule out any possibility, including Razvan's 'careless' prescription. Nonetheless, she doubted that Healer Razvan had poisoned Fenrir, or that he had carried out the letters to his children. So who had?
If all contact with Greyback in Azkaban required Ministry approval, there was probably a list somewhere. Hermione flipped through the case file to see if anything was recorded after his arrest, but no, it stopped there. Well, what would another trip to the Ministry hurt?
She grabbed her jacket and went to the lobby Floo. Security at the Ministry was no more trouble than usual, and she went to Harry's desk, hoping he would be there. Things always went much easier when she could go through him instead of the 'official' channels.
To her relief, she saw his perpetually mussed hair over the cubicle wall as she approached. "Hi, Harry," she said, knocking on the edge of the cubicle.
He looked up from his paperwork. "Hi, Hermione. What's up?"
"More questions about Greyback. I'm looking for a record of who visited him in prison."
"Wasn't that in the case file I gave you?"
Hermione shook her head. "I'm afraid not."
"That's weird." He thought for a moment, and a look of realization crossed his face. "Oh. You're not going to like this. They reinstated the Werewolf Capture Unit right after the war, and Greyback was under their jurisdiction, not ours. I don't have access to those records. You'll have to talk to the Unit Head. Her name is Elmira—"
"Hembree," Hermione finished for him. "We've met."
"Oh. Right."
"Do not hex her if she cheeses you off," Tonks said, standing to look over the cubicle wall between her and Harry. "She'll hex you back, and she's better at it than you are. And I've seen your hexes, so that's saying something."
"I'm not going to hex anyone! Jeez!"
"Right, just like you didn't hex that Obliviator a few years back."
"We're not talking about that." Hermione turned back to Harry. "Are you sure you can't get them, Harry?"
"Believe me, I'd love an excuse to piss Hembree off," Harry said. "I just plain can't get to them. Sorry."
Hermione sighed. "Wish me luck, then. Have a good afternoon."
"Don't hex her!" Tonks called after her.
Hermione was becoming a little too familiar with the Beasts Division. She walked down the hall, around the corner, and up to the receptionist for the Werewolf Capture Unit.
"Hi, I'd like to speak with Hunter Hembree," she said, looking over the tall counter in front of the desk.
"I'll see if she's available," the receptionist answered with a plastic smile. "Who may I say is asking?"
"Hermione Granger."
The plastic smile stayed in place, but the receptionist's eyes grew to twice their usual size. "J-Just a minute," she said, standing and rushing with undue speed to the corner office.
A moment later, Hembree followed her out of the office. "Hello, Miss Granger. What can I do for you today?"
Hermione could hear a note of trepidation in Hunter Hembree's voice, and was ashamed to admit she enjoyed it. "I'm doing some research involving Fenrir Greyback, and I wanted to know who was allowed to visit him in Azkaban."
It looked like Hembree was going to ask why she was researching Greyback, but decided against it. "We ought to be able to find that out easily enough. Come with me to the archives."
Hermione followed Hembree through the department and into a small, dark room filled with filing cabinets. Small orbs set in the ceiling glowed inside, but it did little to alleviate the gloom. Hembree walked down one row of filing cabinets, mouthing off the letters and names as she went, then stopped and opened a drawer. From it, she pulled several thick manilla folders until her arms were loaded. She carried them to a table at the front of the room and sorted through them until she pulled one from the middle of the stack and flipped through it.
"Here we are," she said, pulling out a sheet of parchment. "There was myself several times for interrogation. Jasper Marolt, one of my Hunters, for the same reason. Minister of Magic Shacklebolt once as part of a general inspection of Azkaban. Healer Ilias Razvan 11 times for medical observation. Ares Silversmith once.—That was a personal favor. Mr. Silversmith had done a lot of service for the department. I'm afraid he's not on such good terms with us now."
"Why did he visit?"
"Greyback kidnapped his sister when she was a girl and murdered his father during the war. He had some romantic notion of asking him why. It was against my better judgement, but I allowed it. Where was I? Ares Silversmith once. And of course, his wife and son."
"Whose wife and son? Mr. Silversmith's?"
"No, Greyback's."
Hermione almost dropped her bag. "Come again?"
"It's a shocker, isn't it?" Hembree asked. "We confirmed it before we let them in. Before he turned vicious, Greyback was married, and they had a child. She left the country with her son ages ago—my guess is to get away from him—but she'd never put in divorce papers. When she petitioned to visit him in Azkaban, we didn't have any grounds to stop her, and we certainly didn't have any recourse with the son. Next of kin, you know."
"What were their names?"
"Lucia Darkmore—they were using her maiden name—and Phelan Darkmore. I'm not sure where they came from. You'll have to go to the Immigration Office for that, and they're pretty tight-lipped about that sort of thing."
"Still, it's something. Thank you very much, Hunter Hembree."
"My pleasure. Is there anything else you need?"
The helpful tone in Hembree's voice was clearly forced, but that was no reason not to take advantage of it. "If you don't mind, you said that you met with Greyback several times. What was he like?"
"Like nothing I have seen in all my years as a Dark Creature Hunter. He had the most terrible combination of bloodlust and intelligence I can imagine—and I've Hunted vampires and worse. He'd play with you, trying to get you close enough to grab. And he was good at it, too. Knew just how to needle to make you careless." She shook her head. "I hate Dementors more than just about anything, but even I would have been open to letting them Kiss him if we could have gotten permission."
"Were the Dementors hard on him?"
Hembree's lips pursed together into a hard, flat line. "Dementors are hard on everyone, Miss Granger." The artificially helpful tone in her voice was gone. "Is there anything else I can do for you this afternoon?"
"No, that will be just fine. Thank you." Hermione made her way out of the Werewolf Capture Unit. Greyback had a wife and son. Who would have thought it? How could she find them? Immigration wouldn't let loose with those records; she was sure of it.
She realized she had passed the Werewolf Support Services Office, and a thought came to her. She stopped and backtracked to it. The door was open, and Seph was alone inside, working on some paperwork. She knocked on the door.
"Oh, hello, Miss Granger. How are you? Have you gotten any responses to your notice yet?"
"Not yet," Hermione said. "I think maybe Chris was right."
"Don't tell him, or he'll be absolutely insufferable." Seph shrugged. "Honestly, give it more time. Sometimes people have to see something a few times before they'll consider it. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Hermione felt a blush rising in her face. "Do you like classical music, Mr. Blaine?"
"I love it. I like pop, too, but classical just resonates in a way modern music doesn't."
"I know just what you mean. Do you like the Dragoumi Sisters?"
A smile broke across his face, scrunching up his eyes. "They're my favorite. I have three of the records they've made with all nine sisters, and two of the ones without Clio. Euterpe's vocals give me the chills."
"Have you seen them in person?"
His smile vanished. "I want to, but I can't afford it right now, and they'll be gone before payday. Merlin only knows when or if they'll come back to Britain."
"Are you free Friday? I've got an extra ticket."
"You what?" he asked.
"I'm interviewing Clio Dragoumi afterwards, and she sent me a spare ticket. Would you like to come?"
"Do sphinxes like riddles? I'd love to! When does the concert start?"
"Seven o'clock."
"I'll pick you up at 6:30, then. Where do you live?"
"It's One Delamere Forest."
"Oh, in Cheshire?" Hermione nodded. "That's a beautiful area. You must have an amazing view."
"That's one of the things that sold me on the house, actually," Hermione said. "I'll see you Friday at 6:30, then."
"It's a date."