"I still say this is a bad idea, Mr. Silversmith."

"Yes, Hunter Hembree, you've said that about 15 times now." Ares couldn't quite disagree with her, though, as they made their way through the twisted, Dementor-lined hall of Azkaban's Maximum Security section. Someone was sobbing, and mutters drifted out of the cells. Nervous giggling poured from one as they passed. Hembree grabbed Ares's arm and pulled him away as the woman inside lunged against the bars, thrusting her arm through and grasping at the glass wands in their hands.

"Please let me out!" she begged, her glassy eyes looking through them more than at them. "I promise I'll be good. Please let me out!"

The Dementor guarding her turned and drew a long, rattling breath, and she scrambled back to the corner of her cell with a squeak.

"Alecto is a little high-strung," Hembree said, pulling Ares away. Finally, they reached the end of the hallway and a heavy iron door.

Hembree raised her wand at the Dementor standing there. "You were told to stay away from him."

The Dementor glided away, and she let out an annoyed grumble. "I'm sorry, Mr. Silversmith, but I don't know how sensible he'll be. We told the Dementors to stay away from him for a few days to get him in a better state, but if they haven't been listening…"

"There's nothing for it," Ares said, watching the Dementor retreat down the hallway.

Hembree tapped the lock on the door, and it swung open with a loud creak. "We have to keep Greyback separate. He doesn't play nice with the others."

She took Ares's elbow and steered him to a spot in front of the righthand cell. The tall man inside was curled up on the narrow cot, his back to the door so only his matted gray hair was visible under the blanket.

"Do you see that line on the floor?" Hembree pointed to a box painted in red all around the cell, about three feet from the bars.

"Yes?"

"Do not cross it. That's his arm's reach." A smile spread across Ares' lips as he opened his mouth to argue, but Hembree's glare wiped it from his face. "Make no mistake, Mr. Silversmith. Fenrir Greyback is just as dangerous without a wand as he is with one, maybe more so. He's as fast as a snidget and as strong as a re'em, and if he got his claws into you, you'd be dead before either of us could react. Wouldn't he, Greyback?"

The man inside the cell didn't react. Twisting her mouth, Hembree kneeled on the stone floor and pulled a container of hot chocolate and a mug from her bag. She filled the mug, then reached into the bag again and took out a bottle labeled 'anise extract'. "I'll try some of this for you. Sometimes it'll get him talking when chocolate alone won't." She dropped a splash of it into the chocolate, then levitated it into the cell and onto the desk beside his cot. Once it was in place, she stood, stuck two fingers into her mouth, and whistled sharply. "Greyback! Rise and shine!"

Greyback cringed and pulled the blanket closer to his head, revealing his dirty feet and yellow toenails. "You know I sleep days, Hembree. Come back later."

"You've got a visitor."

Greyback started to roll over, then stopped and rocked back toward the wall. "If it was one worth having, they would have said something by now."

Ares looked to Hembree and opened his mouth questioningly, but she put up her hand to forestall him. "We're not leaving until you sit up and talk to us."

"That's fine. You'll keep the Dementors off." He pulled the blanket over his head.

Hembree turned to Ares. "What should I use to get his attention? A tickling spell, or should I go straight to a mild shock?"

With a groan, Greyback rolled onto his back and patted around on the desk until he found the mug. "If I ever get my claws into you, Hembree, I'm going to enjoy it." He pulled himself to a seat and froze as he caught sight of Ares. His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Finally got permission to Shard me, did you?"

"If we ever get permission to Shard you, Greyback, I'll be happy to do it myself. This is Ares Silversmith."

"I know who he is. Every werewolf in Britain knows who he is. It's just a shame I can't pay him back for his 'gift' to the world." He looked pointedly at the red line at Ares's feet, and Ares stepped back from it. "About like I expected," Greyback muttered, lifting the mug to his lips.

"He wants to talk to you."

At the first sip, a look of ecstasy flitted across Greyback's face, and he breathed deeply from the mug. "Anise. He must want to talk to me pretty badly. Didn't she tell you how cooperative I am, little boy?"

"Several times, but he's stubborn. Are you going to behave yourself if I leave him to talk to you?"

Greyback snorted. "How exactly do you expect me to answer that, Hembree?"

"It's all right, Hunter Hembree," Ares said. "You can leave us. I can handle him."

Greyback laughed.

"Be careful, and remember what I told you," Hembree warned with another glance at the red line. "I have to say, though, I think you're wasting your time. I wouldn't believe half of what he tells you."

"Then why do you keep coming back?" Greyback asked.

"That's all right. It's my time to waste," Ares said.

As she stepped out of the hallway, Greyback called after her, "Tell Scott I said 'hello'." She tried not to react, but her spine unmistakably stiffened and her fists clenched.

As the heavy iron door slammed shut with a clang, Ares couldn't quite suppress a shudder. He was alone with Greyback now; if something went wrong, there wouldn't be anyone to help him, not anyone who could get here in time. Greyback must have seen the shudder, because he chuckled softly. Doing his best to ignore it, Ares drew a chair with the loaner wand and set it safely outside of Greback's reach. Greyback glanced at the red line again, as though to remind Ares that he was already planning what he would do if Ares crossed over it.

Ares wasn't sure what he had expected to happen now. Part of him had expected Greyback to be a raving lunatic, ranting as soon as he came in. Or perhaps another of the mumblers, like some others in the wing, his mind somewhere far away. Maybe Ares hadn't really expected a conversation at all; maybe he had expected to go home and announce that Greyback was too insane to be reasoned with, and he couldn't get anything. He certainly hadn't expected to have to start anything, but Greyback merely sat on the bed, staring at him expectantly as he sipped the hot chocolate.

"You murdered my father," Ares said at last.

"This is true," Greyback said.

That wasn't the response that Ares expected, either. A denial, maybe, or a rant justifying it, but not a simple acknowledgement.

"And you kidnapped my sister."

"That's not the word she or I would use, but if it's the one you like, so be it."

"I want to know why."

Greyback's lips spread apart into a slow grin, the tips of pointed yellow teeth brushing his lips. "Do you, now? Then why didn't you ask your sister?"

"Athena and I don't speak."

"Really? She speaks to your mother.—Oh, don't think I haven't kept up with her. I did my best to watch out for all of my children, even when they were on their own."

"She may speak to Mum, but that doesn't mean she speaks to me."

"Athena doesn't speak to you, or you don't speak to her?"

"I don't see what the difference is."

Greyback chuckled. "Don't you?" He shook his head. "Pathetic."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. You're pathetic. How many strings did you have to pull to get back here?"

"I don't see what that matters."

"It had to be harder than going to Athena, even if you had to go to Transylvania." Greyback laughed, a soft, woofing sound. "Of course, there wouldn't be bars between you and Athena, would there?"

"This is funny to you?"

Greyback's laughter grew. "Absolutely hilarious. You'd rather talk to the crazy serial killer than to your own sister." He threw his head back and laughed so hard that his body shook.

"Stop laughing!" Ares jumped to his feet. It only seemed to amuse Greyback more, and several seconds passed until the werewolf's laughter faded back into chuckles. "Are you going to answer my question or not?"

Greyback shrugged. "Why not? I took your sister so she wouldn't grow up a coward like the rest of the Silversmiths, and I killed your father because he was the most spineless of them all."

"How dare you!" Ares shouted, raising his wand. In an instant, Greyback was across the cell. Ares had only a split second to realize that his hand was over the red line before Greyback's claws clamped down on it. The wand shattered in their shared grasp, glass shards flying in all directions. Ares threw himself back, and Greyback's claws ripped through the flesh of his hand, but he managed to pull away. His back struck the cell bars behind him, and he slid to the ground in relief.

"You're as big a coward as your father was!" Greyback shouted. He turned with a disgusted growl and kicked the metal wastebasket toward the bed, then plunked down with a loud squeak of old springs. "You better call your babysitter to come get you." He pulled back the sleeve of his prison robe with a wince; glass shards had pierced his skin in a swath stretching halfway up the inside of his arm.

"I suppose you're proud of yourself to have scared me." Ares cradled his hand against his chest. Blood oozed out of gashes, burning against the torn flesh.

"You were already scared. I was more concerned about saving my own hide." Greyback started pulling the glass out of his arm, dropping the pieces into the wastebasket with echoing clinks against the metal. "Better glass than silver."

Than silver? Did he think… "I wasn't going to cast the Fragmina," Ares said.

"Of course you weren't."

"I wasn't! Not against an unarmed man!"

Greyback glanced at him out of the corner of his brown eye. "How do you think the Hunters use it?"

"That's not how it was intended." Ares sighed. "They don't use it like I meant them to. It was supposed to be a last resort against a powerful Dark Creature, one that couldn't be stopped by Stunners. They use it first, whether they need it or not." He shifted, wrapping the hem of his robe around his hand to stem off the bleeding. "The last time I was at the Ministry to teach it, when I came out, there was this boy coming out of the Werewolf Registration Office. He wasn't even school age yet, and he had these horrible burn scars all over his arm, up his neck and into his face. He looked like he'd been cut with a thousand red-hot knives, and I knew it had to be Fragmina Argentea."

"You met my brave one," Greyback said. "He got those protecting a child who was smaller yet."

"That's not what the spell was meant for. He was small enough to be stopped with a Stunner."

"Not permanently, and that's the problem for the Hunters. Wolves who are Stunned get back up eventually. Wolves who are Sharded usually don't."

"If I'd known how they'd use it, I wouldn't have given it to them."

"What a shame you opened that jar, Pandora. But it's too late to put the curses back in now."

Ares sighed, staring at the helter-skelter stones of the floor in front of him. "When I first made it, and everyone else was celebrating, my mum didn't say anything at all. When I finally asked her what she thought about it, she said I was just like my father, and the way she said it… Mum never talks about Dad. I think she hates him now."

"Good taste on her part." Greyback stood and took a box from a shelf above the books on the wall. Setting it on the desk, he opened it, took out a jar of salve, and applied it to the wounds from the glass. They closed before Ares' eyes. With another sigh, Ares pushed himself to his feet.

"It really is as simple as it looks," Greyback said as Ares started for the door. Ares paused, looking back. "You came far enough; I'll save you a little time and a little pride. It was war, and your father was a weaponsmith. He had the choice to work for us or not. He chose 'not', so I made sure he wouldn't work for anyone."

"What about Athena?"

"Your parents hired a poacher to skin her alive. I don't care what excuse they give; they couldn't be trusted with her after that."

"You're the one who bit Athena, though, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Why? None of this ever would have happened if she weren't a werewolf. Was she in the wrong place, or did you bite her on purpose?"

"That's not what you asked."

"That's what I'm asking now."

"That one isn't free. If you want that answer, you need to get me something." Greyback chuckled at the odd contortions Ares' face took while trying to figure out what he could want. "It's not what you're thinking, whatever that might be. Athena deserves to hear that answer from me, not from you. You bring her back here with you, and I'll tell you both."

"I can't do that," Ares said.

"Then you don't want it badly enough."

"No, you don't understand. It's not me; it's the Ministry. They won't allow you to have visitors like her."

Greyback sneered at him. "You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

"It's true!"

Greyback jerked his thumb towards the hallway's iron door. "I can hear through that door, even if you can't. Violet Macnair was here to visit her father just a few days ago. Have you ever met that woman? She isn't right in the head. If they'll let her in—"

"She's human, though," Ares interrupted. "I'm sorry, but the Ministry has said no werewolves. None. Athena's been trying to get permission for months. She and her fiance even came back to Britain over Christmas to try in person. They were told the only way they'd get into Azkaban was if they weren't coming back out."

"So pull some more of those strings you have."

"I don't have that many! If she weren't a Journeyman Potioner, maybe I could, but they're afraid she'll slip you poison or something." Ares shook his head. "I could try to get her fiance in, but they're not married yet, so we're not really related. I don't think it'll work. I don't even know if they'll let me back in after this."

Greyback twisted his mouth thoughtfully. Ares glanced around the cell, partly to avoid his gaze, and his eyes fell on the inkwell and quill on the desk. "Maybe you could write her a letter or something," Ares said. "I could give it to her."

Greyback chuckled. "That'd probably be illegal, you know. Taking something from me out of here."

Ares glanced at the iron door—Hembree was still waiting just outside, no doubt—and stepped closer to his cell. Greyback's glance at the red line stopped him, but he dropped his voice as low as he thought Greyback could hear. "I don't think they'll search me when I leave. I can get a letter out."

Greyback looked him up and down in a way that made Ares step backwards before he realized he was moving. "Can you get out more than one?"

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't think it was a difficult question. Could you carry out more than one letter?"

"Physically, probably," Ares answered carefully.

Greyback looked him over again, then reached into the box on the desk and tossed him a bandage. "As delicious as it smells, you better wrap that hand up."

As Ares wrapped the bandage around his wounds, Greyback returned the box to its place on the top shelf. "I will make you a deal, Mr. Silversmith." With an easy gesture, he kneeled and stuck his arm between the bed and the desk; Ares couldn't see exactly where he was reaching. He pulled back his hand, sat on the bed, and set a pile of neatly folded parchments on the desk. "If you will give these to Athena, I will tell you what you want to know."

Ares eyed the stack; there must have been a hundred letters in it. "That's a lot more than one."

"That's one for almost every bite I can remember," Greyback said, putting his hand on them. "I haven't written all of them I should yet, but I might not get this chance again. I'll take what I can get."

"You didn't really bite all of those people."

Greyback gathered up the letters again. "Don't bother telling Hembree where I had them. They'll be somewhere else by the time they knock me out to check for them."

"Wait!" Greyback locked eyes with him, and another little shudder went through Ares. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it." Ares's eyes darted over the letters, sizing up the stack. "Why did you write them?"

With a sigh, Greyback rested the stack on the desk again. "As often as not, when you tell one werewolf something, you've told all werewolves. All that matter, anyway. I wasn't thinking clearly when I told your sister's pack that I had bitten them. I couldn't make them understand why. I know they are asking themselves the same questions you're asking me, and I'm the only one who has those answers. They deserve to know my reasons, so whenever I can think clearly enough, I've been writing them down to give to my Treasures. They can decide for themselves if I was right. If you get these to Athena, I know she will get them where they're supposed to go."

Could it really be that simple? How could Ares be sure he wouldn't be smuggling out some sort of Death Eater communication? Something dangerous?

Greyback seemed to guess what he was thinking, because another fanged grin spread across his lips. He sorted through the stack and pulled out one letter. Ares could see "To Athena Silversmith" written in shaky script on it as Greyback laid it on the desk. He then carried the rest to the bars, kneeled in front of them, and spread them out on the floor like a Muggle illusionist spreading playing cards for a 'magic' trick. "If you don't believe me, look at one yourself. Any one you like, except your sister's."

"How do I know they're safe?"

"How would I make them unsafe, locked up back here without so much as a wand?"

Ares couldn't argue that logic, but at the same time, Greyback shouldn't have been able to stay so lucid and alert for so long, either. Half his cohorts were already reduced to mumbling lunatics, and yet here he was, isolated with no contact with anything except Dementors, and able to hold a conversation after nothing but a mug of hot chocolate with some anise extract.

"If you don't believe me, do whatever you need to make sure they're safe before you hand them over. Cast a revelaspell on them. Take them to a Potions Master. If you're that worried about it, copy them and give the originals to the Ministry as confessions. Hembree'll love you to death. Just get the messages to Athena; that's all I'll ask. Or is that still too much for you?"

Ares looked at the letters spread on the ground in front of him, name after name written on the parchment, some preceded by the words "To the family of" and some just "to". "Let me read one."