Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Having a mate in his life had changed things for Fenrir - dramatically so. 

He had slept around like an absolute dog during his wild younger years, slaked his lusts indiscriminately whenever the whim caught him. Quite frankly, he had been an irresponsible cad. There were bastards, and they were numerous. He had many, many sons.

There had been a fair few who had justifiably wanted nothing to do with their erstwhile father, but the rest he had happily taken in and helped raise when their mothers could no longer guide them, when they had reached the age of needing an alpha more than they needed a parent. The number of boys he’d fathered paled in comparison to the sheer amount of wolves he’d sired with his bite. His pack was full nearly to bursting, robust with both his natural born sons and the wolves he’d created, many of whom had families of their own.

As the alpha he was like a father to them all. A pack was little more than a large sprawling family, and the leadership structure was parental by nature. 

Fatherhood was nothing new for Fen, and in his own way he loved all of his boys. Yet for all of the many times over that he’d welcomed a new child into the world, the paternal instinct had never before struck him quite as intensely as when his mate finally birthed their pup, his first legitimate and trueborn offspring. His first and only daughter.

He’d never before been present for the battle of the birthing bed, and it had been an unpleasantly messy and chaotic experience. As his mate had clenched and heaved and struggled he had done everything he could to comfort and support her; wiped the sweat and tears from her lovely exhausted face, let her grip his hands until he was sure some of the bones in his fingers were at the very least sprained if not fractured.

Then when their child finally came it had taken every ounce of his control not to panic at the scent of her freshly spilled blood on their bedsheets. He’d watched in silent awe as the ancient pack midwife pulled his child into the world with steadier hands than her age belied, and had tried not to be uncharitably reminded of yanking up a garden gnome from a hole in the ground.

Suddenly his child was in his hands, and she was so small he was nearly blown away. The noise that came out of her shortly thereafter was anything but small, and the midwife chuckled as his little girl let loose a powerful ear-splitting wail “Strong howl makes for a strong wolf,” she murmured with a pleased lilt to her croaky voice. He looked around him for a knife so he could contribute his part to the ordeal, but the old woman shook her head seriously “By your claw alone, alpha,” she insisted, and he reluctantly partially transformed his hand.

From the tips of his fingers the nails elongated and sharpened until they were long wicked claws, and he drew taught the thick rubbery umbilical cord that connected mother and baby and sliced through it himself. It felt a bit gruesome even for his tastes but the old midwife nodded her approval, a proud look upon her wrinkled face. With fingers more nimble than her bulging arthritic knuckles would have suggested, she deftly tied off the end of the cord at the newborn’s belly. Her rheumy eyes closely inspected the afterbirth to make sure every inch of it was intact - later that same night he would eat a portion of it and bury the rest somewhere in the woods as tradition demanded.

With the newborn wiped down and the midwife satisfied, he brought his daughter to his mate’s chest with trembling hands, as slowly and carefully as if he were carrying a faberge egg. It occurred to him as he watched the two cry in unison that the little person they had created together was someone totally new, someone utterly unique that had been conjured into existence. As he stared down at her scrunched and pruny red face he felt a powerful connection awaken and stir between them that was unlike anything else he’d known other than the bond he and her mother shared.

Without needing to be told, he knew that this child was his heir. Minutes old and her wolf was as innate as his had been - enough for him to know that she would be the alpha after him one day. He tried to imagine the tiny helpless little thing in his hands one day commanding his wolves, and his mind drew a complete blank. Best to stick to questions he was actually capable of answering for the moment. He brushed a dark sweat drenched knot of curls off of his mate’s forehead, “What do you want to call her, my heart?” he asked as he pressed his nose into her neck. 

She sighed and hummed, her eyes fluttering between closed and open as she fought to stay awake “My family would have insisted on a celestial name, I suppose. Some wretched constellation a half dozen other Blacks have been named after. But I’ve always preferred Greek names. How do you feel about Iphigenia, or Clytemnestra… Maybe Hermione?” Her voice tapered off slightly in her exhaustion. 

He perked up thoughtfully and mulled her words over, looking down over her shoulder to where their baby grizzled at her breast “I’ve never named one of my own children before. I always thought when the time came I’d choose something like Ragnar or Freya, a name like my own to pay homage to my mother’s heritage. But Hermione honors the god Hermes, a trickster who oversees cunning and wit. I like it, it feels right for her,” he agreed easily. 

Half a snore escaped his mate’s nose and mouth before her eyes flew back open “Yeah? That’s good, Hermione. Her mother was Helen of Troy, you know - in the Iliad. Hermione Elena Greyback. We can call her Nene when it’s just the three of us if you like,” she muttered as her eyes started to fall shut again. This time he didn’t wake her, he only grinned happily as he pulled the blanket up to cover them and began to plan his little heir’s future training. 

Their first moon with their daughter was a revelation unto itself. With bated breath they waited and watched, wondering if the moon’s light would even affect their child yet at all at such a young age. None of his boys had begun shifting with the moon before they were a year old, and from everything he’d heard from their mothers they had been virtually indistinguishable from human children until then. 

His Hermione was different though, he could feel it in his bones. She carried the spirit of the wolf with her powerfully even as a newborn. It felt like it was right beneath the surface, just bristling to be free. Something miraculous would happen tonight, he knew it. 

For the first time that he could remember, Fenrir held back his shift as long as he could to stay with his girls and see just what exactly would happen. He gritted his teeth as they elongated in his mouth, and his nails lengthened to claws where they clenched by his sides. His mate’s eyes glowed unexpectedly silver for a split second and he heard a whimper escape her throat helplessly. She wasn’t a wolf herself, but she was bound to him so tightly she might as well have been, and he knew she felt the pull of the moon too in her own way. 

One moment their three week old baby wriggled in anticipation in her onesie in her little crib, and the next second with a green shimmer of magic flickering over her form the smallest wolf pup he’d ever seen was there instead. It was the most seamless shift he’d witnessed in his decades of experience as a wolf and pack leader. It was as if they’d snatched a pup from a true wolf bitch’s litter in the forest. Where their baby’s eyes had been the same stormy grey she’d inherited from her mother, the wolf pup’s shone almost liquid silver. Her fur was just as brown as her hair had been, and he and his mate looked at each other and breathlessly laughed in shock and joy.

She was utterly perfect.

 With more strength as dexterity than she’d had as a human newborn, their pup wiggled and began to scoot curiously on her belly around the mattress of her crib, sniffing eagerly and making little chirruppy yips. She still had the chubby rotundity of an extremely young creature, and her limbs were as weak as little noodles, but she was able to hold her head up and propel herself around as competently as a child many months her senior. 

At the sight of it Fenrir relaxed and staggered to his knees, letting his own shift wash roughly over him. It took slightly longer than hers had, but was equally painless as he had spent nearly his entire life making peace with his wolf and embracing it as his other half. His mate rubbed one of his silky ears between her thumb and forefinger and then picked Hermione up out of her crib, bringing her towards where he could sniff and lick her sweet puppy face. Snout to snout for the first time it was clear she recognized her father, and both their tails wagged excitedly. 

His mate’s heartbeat ticked up briefly and two sets of intense eyes, one silver and one gold, swung around to glance at her in concern. She laughed and covered her face with her free hand in embarrassment “Stop! Gods, but that’s unnerving when you do it at the same time. It’s nothing I’m just… seeing the two of you together like this is making me emotional,” and she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. 

She grinned at him and her tone turned mischievous “Seeing you with her makes me want to give you another. Maybe even two or three more,” she said flirtatiously, even though a slight flush rose to the apples of her cheeks. He let out a sharp whine and panted, his tongue lolling out of his mouth very wolfishly indeed. 

Unable to comprehend their discussion but wanting to be included, Hermione nipped at the edge of the sleeve hanging by her wrist, chewing the yarn and wiggling and whimpering softly. His mate chuckled and brought her closer to her chest to cradle her, rocking her gently. She looked down at their pup consideringly, mischief still sparkling in her eyes “It’s different holding you this way, baby,” she murmured sweetly, and Fen snorted as he realized that she was indeed holding their child like one would hold a puppy, not a baby. Belly down instead of up. 

Suddenly their pup was yawning hugely, and as her mouth opened wide he saw with a small jolt of panic the tiny nubs of needle-sharp little teeth. He briefly wondered what would happen to them when she shifted back into a human child, and tried not to think about how a three-week old might react to suddenly having teeth in her head. His mate ran her fingers ever so lightly up the top of her snout along the weft of her fur, what would have been the bridge of her nose in her human form. He laid his heavy head down on her leg and she laughed and patted him as well. 

“What a tremendous blessing the gods and goddesses have bestowed upon us, my love,” she whispered, and he huffed in agreement. He had felt the rest of his pack successfully shift through their bonds, and he would have to make rounds around the compound checking on everyone eventually, but for the moment he enjoyed where he was with his girls peacefully while he could.

The time they had together was shorter than he’d ever have been able to predict, even with how chaotic and cruel the world around them had become. 

Members of her family were going missing or being killed left and right, with both her father in his grave and her closest cousin mysteriously disappearing within a few months of each other. Another two cousins and a spinster aunt had been blasted off the family tree and were in the wind, only the gods knew where. Everyone was starting to seriously suspect her aunt of slowly poisoning her uncle over the last decade, and though they hadn’t been particularly stable to begin with it was very apparent that her and their elf had both gone all the way round the bend. 

All the blame for that devastation to her ancestral house lay squarely at the hands of the dark lord. Where his vitriolic blood purist rhetoric had taken root, it had poisoned her already overzealous family and radicalized them to yet unseen feverish heights. Bella, who had always been unstable and violent, had been so easily seduced and was one of his most devoted lieutenants. Her known crimes were gruesome, and the fear that she’d have to eventually be put down like a rabid creature was as palpable as it was ironic. 

His mate despaired that her ancestral house simply might not survive such dark times. It was a dangerous thing these days to be a Black in wizarding Britain. The heir apparent was missing and presumed dead, and his brother was disowned. In a generation there may be no one left who was able to carry on the family name, anyone still alive and sane had escaped and married out. Narcissa had become a Malfoy, Andromeda had become a Tonks, and of course she herself had become a Greyback. Their children all bore the blood, but none of them carried the name. 

Yet strangely and incongruously enough, despite the fear and the trepidation, their day to day lives felt somehow untouched by the darkness and the raging war. Hidden away in a lovely little cottage in the woods, on a heavily fortified compound with lots of other homes and meeting houses and dormitories sprinkled here and there where the tree lines gave way to clearings, their child began to grow and blossom and things felt suspended in a sort of syrupy golden stasis. They were the parents of a newborn. They only slept a few hours a night, but it was bliss. They were in love and they were enraptured by their little family of three. 

Fenrir’s beta Ofnír was doing a lot of the heavy lifting running the pack, and every day wolves would stop by their alpha’s house to greet the new baby, to wish them well, to offer to do any chores they needed done, and to leave gifts and food for the exhausted parents. He’d never felt more secure and proud in his role as the alpha of his pack than in seeing the way his wolves paid back his leadership and guidance with their clear appreciation and support.

However, as removed as they were from the ongoing horrors of the wizarding world, his mate did still desperately fear the dark lord’s reach and his wrath. Fen had tried to settle her nerves with more and heavier wards around their home, but she was insistent that there was something supernaturally evil about the wizard who so terrorized Britain, and that nothing would be able to permanently hold him at bay if he chose to target their little family. She started to spend more time fearfully looking over her shoulder than she did looking forward, and he was more than a bit disturbed to discover that she had begun drafting a will and contingency plans. 

The cruel irony of it all was that she had managed to survive just long enough to finally start thinking that they might all really make it out of this period of terror alive after all. Long enough to start to feel almost safe again, to relax and reassess and come to the conclusion that maybe she had overestimated the risk. As the life they had built together was torn apart, it occurred to Fenrir that she had been right to worry. He had been grievously mistaken in dismissing her fear and underestimating their opponent, and in the days afterward his wolf told him constantly that he was ultimately responsible for the fate that had befallen her because of it. 

Their child would grow up motherless, with the possibility of ever having any trueborn siblings stolen from her. The dark lord had killed his mate, but he might as well have wielded the wand and cast the curse himself for having failed so egregiously to protect her. Though the war was finally over, he lived in fear of the day he’d have to explain to his poor daughter the true reason she had no mother.

He only hoped that she could one day forgive her father his foolish willful ignorance and the terrible cost it had forced them both to pay. 

He wasn’t sure just how aware his daughter was of the gaping hole that existed at the heart of their pack, but to his shame he knew that she felt at least some part of it.

She had been so very young when they lost her mother, but she had been startlingly aware and alert nearly from birth. The transformation of her first moon had seemed to awaken the consciousness in her that didn’t appear until later in normal babies and toddlers. He was sure she at least somewhat remembered her mother, and he had put off talking about it for as long as he possibly could. The grief and the guilt were still too overwhelming for him to prod at, and he feared if he did the wounds would reopen and never fully heal.

Just like his mate had always been able to do, his clever pup managed to surprise him. 

On a dreary rainy day his three year old gave him the shock of his life when she crawled into his lap and tugged on his long scraggly hair (hair Hydra would have scolded him for not cutting and brushing, fuck) “Why awways sad, daddy?” her innocently curious words cut to the core of him and he struggled not to sob. For the fraction of a second that he had considered placating her, her eyes shifted from grey to silver and the least threatening imitation of a snarl he’d ever heard burbled up out of his baby girl’s throat “Why, Daddy?” She insisted. 

Slack-jawed and nearly choking on nothing but the hot saliva on his tongue, he snapped his mouth closed and raggedly sucked in a deep breath. Since the day they’d lost his mate he had dreaded this conversation, but he knew he had to be honest with his child. His daughter was simply too clever for anything but the truth, and so he tried to conjure a version of events that was sanitized but still grounded enough in reality to satisfy her curiosity. 

He sniffed and cleared his throat and her upset expression softened as he began “I miss your mummy, little wolf. She was my mate and she brought you into the world and now she’s gone. And I have you and I love you more than anything, but there’s something missing that should still be here with us and I don’t know how to live without it,” he said softly, as tears started to run down his cheeks.

He took her little hand and placed it over his heart “Here, where you live in me. She used to be here with us too and she isn’t anymore. I’ll never stop being sad about her for as long as I live.”

His girl was as sensitive as she was strong, and she nodded and nuzzled her head into his chest “Fink I ‘membew, hew haiw was wike mine,” she answered softly, and despite his suspicions, hearing the admission struck him like a knife to the chest “can mummy come back? Whewe she go?” she asked despondently. 

He pressed his nose into her hair as the tears kept coming and bathed in her sticky warm toddler smell “Mummy’s gone forever, little wolf. She can’t come back. And the reason I can’t stop feeling sad is because if I had listened to her she might still be with us. She was scared of a very bad man, who she told me was dangerous. I thought we were safe and that we would be fine, but I was wrong. He took her away from us, and that’s why we’re always so careful now. The bad man is gone too, but some of his bad friends might still be out there. I’m scared that they might take you away from me like he did your mummy if I don’t protect you,” he explained as delicately as he was able. 

She was smart as a whip, but rationally he knew it was too much for a toddler to take in. Still though, he could see the mental arithmetic plain on her little face as she tried her hardest to make sense of it. 

“Is th’ bad man a stwong woof wike us?” She asked nervously.

“No, he was only ever just a human… And his bad friends are all humans too” 

She tilted her head in confusion “They not even woofs? Why you scawed, daddy? Tha’s siwwy” her easy dismissal was thoroughly childlike, but not incorrect he realized.

He shook his head lightly “Well, they do have magic like us. But you’re right little wolf, it is silly,” his yellow eyes flashed gold as he his thoughts churned “It’s very silly.” For all he’d feared being discovered by the dark lord or his death eaters, he had physical abilities beyond their wildest imaginations.

Most wizards were doughy and weak - they would summon things before they would ever go themselves to get them, and they had elf servants to do the bulk of any real work they needed done. Their magic may be dark and powerful, but without their wands none of them could ever possibly dream of holding their weight against him in a real fight.

There was no removing magic from the equation, but there were certainly ways that the odds could be drastically evened in his favor.

Hermione was growing up to be one of the cleverest pups he’d ever whelped.

She listened to any and all stories that were told to her with a hilariously serious air, and she practically taught herself her numbers and letters. So desperate was she to learn and so curious was she about everything around her, he found himself often unsure as how to provide good stimulus for her with the limited resources they had on their little compound in the woods. They were fortunate enough to have a schoolhouse and several teachers for the children of the pack, but his daughter was leagues ahead of all of her agemates and the few teachers they had were already overburdened with wrangling youngsters of all different developmental levels. The adults of the pack had mostly had haphazard home educations, and those few with formal schooling under their belts found themselves stretched thin. 

He’d wracked his brain and told her nearly every myth and legend and folk tale he knew that was appropriate for tiny ears, and he was beginning to draw a blank when she asked for new stories. He’d started foisting her off on older pack members when she got antsy and curious, pumping them for interesting or amusing anecdotes and life stories that she might be entertained by. Secretly he often hoped she might be pacified or put to sleep by the ramblings of the elderly.

The pack as a whole could sense his frustrations mounting. They all knew how hard he was trying and what a good father he was, and his daughter was widely adored, but it served no one well if the alpha was constantly tense and stressed. The solution to his problems presented itself from a source he hadn’t even thought to consider.

A timid knock brought him to his front doorstep where he was quite surprised to see his nineteen year old son Matthias, the youngest of his boys. The teenager shuffled in place nervously, his feet were still far too big for his frame and they looked like flippers on the ends of his legs. With a fond smile Fen invited the boy in and lead him into the kitchen. As he gestured for his son to take a seat at the kitchen table, he took the lid off of a simmering pot of beef stew “Have you had dinner?” He asked as the rich scent wafted out, stirring the bottom and turning off the heat. 

“No father, not yet,” the lad replied quietly but politely. He was a soft-spoken one, and Fenrir had never heard him speak above a tentative whisper. “Eat with us then,“ he offered mildly and nodded towards the cupboard, silently instructing the boy to start setting the table. “Hermione, come greet your brother,” he said conversationally without raising his voice, and he immediately heard little feet slap loudly across the living room floor on the other side of the cottage. She barreled into the room and burrowed into his side taking in big whiffs of the fragrant aroma.

Turning around to see who one had come by, she climbed up and took her seat at the table, her tiny legs swinging joyfully “Hi Matty,” she said cheerfully, and her chest rumbled gratefully as her brother placed her bowl and spoon in front of her. Matthias ran his fingers gently through her wild curly hair and set a small cup of milk down next to her “Hello Nene, did you learn anything interesting today?” He asked as Fen brought the butter and a loaf of crusty bread to the table, rolling his eyes wearily.

He loved his girl but gods above could she talk your ear off, and such a question was all the invitation she needed to tell them everything and anything under the sun that crossed her busy little mind. 

“Nana Miriam said that she didn’t become a wolf ‘til she was old like Offy, and she told me that when she was my age she got to go to a magic school on a train! And a hat told her what kind of animal she was most like. Can you believe it? That silly old hat thought our Nana Miriam was like a badger of all things! Ridiculous! I told her it ought to have known better that she was a wolf, but she said that wolves don’t get to go to school. She said daddy wasn’t allowed to go to school because of his wolf even though he has magic, and I might not be either if they find out I’m like him. It’s not fair, I want to learn about my magic and daddy should have got to learn about his!” Her cheeks grew redder and her big grey eyes started to well up as she went on and on.

Fenrir abandoned his stewpot and ladle and came over and kneeled down next to her on the linoleum, letting her press her face into his shoulder. He sighed quietly, and rubbed circles onto her back. “She shouldn’t have said all that to you, my little wolf. It’s much too late for me to go to school now. I learned what I needed at home from my mum, and I enjoyed being free from the expectations and responsibilities that would have come with being cooped up in a castle for all of my teenage years... And while it might be hard to make it happen, if you want to go to school then you’re going to go to school and no one is stopping you,” he said, feeling achingly like he was making a promise he couldn’t keep.

Her eyes brightened and her little brows shot up to her hairline “Really daddy? I can go on a train to school just like Nana Miriam?” The hope in her eyes and voice reminded him so much of his mate, and in that moment he could deny her nothing. He tried to mean it when he smiled at her, even though the grief still cut to the bone. He nodded emphatically “Of course, little wolf, if it’s what you really want. You’ll have to leave here to go there though, and stay there for almost a whole year at a time. You might decide you miss us too much and want to come home,” he offered, and a part of him hoped she’d agree and find the very idea untenable. 

She let out a little gasp “A whole year? That’s such a long time to be away from you and the pack,” she remarked, echoing his private sentiments as she started counting the months of it out on her teeny pudgy fingers. He laughed and manipulated her hands so that all her fingers were up except for one pinky that was folded down, then held up nine of his own fingers so they matched “It is, it’s this many moons. From one autumn to the next summer. As you get bigger I’m sure it won’t feel quite as long… But no matter how far apart we are or for how long, I’ll always be with you,” he pressed a kiss to her forehead and got up to return to his task of serving them their dinner.

He was glad to have his back to his children as his eyes misted, his girl was far too clever and too curious to ever reject the notion of going to school if it was ever actually made available to her. He carefully gripped the hot and heavy cast iron pot with oven mitts over both hands and transferred it to the table to begin portioning stew into their bowls. His daughter wiggled excitedly in her chair and he served her first, hers was the smallest and the only one with a colorful character design on the bottom and around the edges. Whether by lucky accident or some sharp intuition, Matthias had managed to pick her favorite one. There had been a stretch of nearly four months where she had refused to eat off of anything other than the Pooh bear bowl, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d had to cast repairs on the thing. 

As their conversation came to a natural lull his quiet son cut back in, nearly startling Fen as he’d almost forgotten he was there “Father, I wanted to share an idea with you that I had for Hermione…” the boy said, and he gulped awkwardly as father and daughter both turned their intense alpha eyes on him in unintentional synchronicity. “Go on, son,” Fenrir encouraged, while his daughter merely titled her head to the side much like a puppy.

“You know my mother raised me without magic before I came to you. Have you ever been to a muggle library?” He asked tentatively as he helped his little sister cut and butter a slice of bread. Fen’s thoughts briefly wandered a bit as he settled in at the table. Had he been to a library? Did the younger lads all think he’d been born in the woods under a rock? It may have been many years before any of them were born, but he had graduated from a muggle university for the goddesses sake.

Pushing down the urge to chuckle he nodded slowly “I’d say I’ve seen them. They peddle books and other such curiosities, do they not?” He asked, unable to keep a sarcastic lilt out of his voice. The boy perked up in response, nodding enthusiastically. Clueless, that one. He ducked his head down and shoved a bit of bread into his mouth to hide his snort of laughter. The boy carried on dryly. 

“Yes, in a sense. There are public libraries in nearly every city and town where anyone can go to read and borrow as many books as they please for free. I remember mother taking me to a library as a child that had a section for children’s books that was larger by far than the entire stock at Flourish and Blotts. I can’t imagine Hermione being bored or under stimulated ever again if she could go spend an afternoon in a place like that every once in a while,” he offered, not realizing how much of a mistake it was to suggest such a thing in front of the girl in question. Fen subtly braced himself. 

Both father and daughter again looked at each other and then back at Matthias with their intense alpha gaze, but while he was contemplative she had begun to practically vibrate out of her seat in anticipation “And you think this would be a safe place to take her?” Fenrir asked hesitantly. He remembered his own university days, the libraries had indeed had books on any subject one could imagine, but he had found the setting to be silent and unwelcoming. The slightest noise had been enough to draw the librarians’ ire, and he’d been banned from the stacks for minor infractions more than once by the head harridan. He couldn’t imagine his Hermione having fun in such a place. 

“Yes father, absolutely. The librarians who work there are like professors, they encourage learning and reading in children, and help them find books best suited to them. She would love it there” he responded confidently, “As a strange child in the muggle world libraries were my own safe haven, and I spent many an afternoon there,” he admitted, and Fenrir felt a flash of sympathy for his boy, wishing that he’d come to him sooner. Maybe a public library would be different enough from the strict institution he remembered.   

Unable to contain herself any longer, Hermione stood up on her chair and bounced in place “I wanna go! I wanna go to the library! Daddy can we go get some books?” She hollered, shrill little voice nearly a howl. A single rumbling growl from him had her realizing she had almost spilled her dinner, and she obediently sat back down and stuffed her mouth full of stew while turning up the pleading puppy eyes to their maximum setting.

Fenrir looked at Matthias completely deadpan and raised an eyebrow, and the lad had the decency to at least look sheepish for the frenzied excitement he’d caused “How about this, we’ll all go together the first time so I can get a feel for the place, and if it seems alright to me then Matthias can take you once a week after that as long as you’re good, how does that sound?” He suggested. Ignoring Hermione’s beastly shrieks of delight his son smiled and nodded “That’s fantastic, it would be my pleasure father,” he responded eagerly, and Fen could tell from his tone of voice that he hadn’t expected to successfully convince him so easily.

He was intimately aware of how the politics of social hierarchy worked in big packs like theirs and therefore he wasn’t surprised that his youngest and meekest son had made such a move, because the boy also happened to be one of his smartest, despite being a bit socially inept. Although he had the status of one of the alpha’s sons, there was no shortage of those to go around and that alone didn’t make him stand out as particularly special. The lucky coincidence of his birth unfortunately did relatively little for his social standing in the grand scheme of things.

However, the alpha only had one trueborn child, and the chance of being entrusted with her care was no small honor or opportunity. If he managed to prove himself worthy and capable of the responsibility, it could be an enormous boon for him. This could be his shot to kill two birds with one stone - if he impressed his father he might not only earn the current alpha’s favor, but also get to know the little sister that had been kept relatively sheltered from the rest of her much older siblings so far. Securing a place as a beloved family member while she was still young would be an excellent way to situate himself into the inner circle of the next alpha, and then he’d be set in a stable and respected pack position for the rest of his life. 

Fenrir hated that the logic of it made perfect sense to him, as much as he found it distasteful. It was like something out of one of his mate’s battered old regency novels, scheming and maneuvering and deft social manipulation. Unfortunately, a few bad apples had managed to poison the barrel. Several of his bolder sons had unsuccessfully tried to make similar moves over the years, and it had only served to ratchet up his protectiveness over his girl and who he allowed to socialize with her. He didn’t like keeping her so sheltered, but he was still cross that sons of his had tried to insincerely worm their way into her good graces without actually caring about her or her wellbeing. 

He was tentatively hopeful that his intelligent and quiet youngest son would prove himself a good companion for his daughter. Said daughter chose that moment to pounce, rocketing herself into his side and wrapping her little arms tightly right around his neck “YES! We get to go every week? New books every week! Yay, thank you Matty, thank you!”

Hermione had waited all week as well behaved and as patiently as could possibly be expected of a high strung little wolf her age. She had made a habit of dramatically and pointedly crossing off each day on the kitchen calendar with red marker. With the day of their first library visit finally upon them her energy was at a level Fenrir had never quite seen it approach before. He began to genuinely worry she might have a burst of accidental magic in front of the muggles that he would have to cover up to avoid the attention of obliviators. He considered putting a few drops of calming draught in her milky tea, but doubted it would have much affect with how worked up she already was. 

When he finally called her to the mudroom to pull on her boots and coat and little backpack she shrieked joyfully making his ears ring and souring his mood slightly. Hand in hand he led them across the compound to the young men’s dormitory Matthias lived in, and was pleased to see the lad already outside, ready and waiting for them. Hermione waved and ran towards him, and he was glad that the target of her babbling had shifted. He didn’t tune her out exactly but rather he knew that she most likely just needed to yammer to let out nerves, and so he gladly let his son take on the brunt of her rambling. Let him show whether or not he could really handle her high energy with the patience and grace a decent child minder needed. 

Fenrir certainly loved all of his sons, but that didn’t mean he necessarily liked them all equally. There were any number of them who could have feasibly thought up something like this, taking his daughter to a muggle library. He had never discriminated between witches and muggles, and many of his get were muggleborn or even squibs. That being said, he had a certain fondness for Matthias, his youngest boy and the last oat he’d sewn before finding and settling down with his mate, and was ultimately glad it had been his idea.

He hoped this would be a success and that things would work out for his two youngest children to become playmates of a sort, despite their age difference. His daughter was friends with the other children of the pack, but wolves were social creatures, and family bonds were critical for healthy and stable development. He still felt a tremendous sense of guilt that the death of his mate had robbed his darling child of not only her mother, but also the potential for any siblings  her own age. She should have had a handful of brothers and sisters younger than her to play with and boss around. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts, he wouldn’t let his mind wander down the path of misery today. 

They headed to the heavily warded apparition point just inside the main gates, and passed the two burly warriors standing guard who respectfully inclined their heads and intoned “Alpha”, to him. Hermione grumbled at his side and one of the guards looked down at her with a very tender grin and bowed like a storybook knight, “Little wolf,” he said with all the reverence of a noble title, to which she giggled then lifted her chin regally and gave her best princess wave with her cupped hand. 

Fenrir stopped to inform the guards that they shouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours, and where backup could be sent to if they were out any longer or if an emergency occurred while they were away. At their very serious caution Matthias hesitated “Do you really think there could be that kind of risk, alpha?” he asked quietly, and all three older men turned an eye to the younger male. He could hear his son’s heart rate elevate when he realized he’d directly challenged his father’s orders in front of high ranking pack members. 

The guards looked away as their alpha’s gaze softened on his son, truth be told he didn’t care all that much for such rigid formality. Those that followed blindly without question were closer to livestock than wolves in his opinion, and Fen was just pleased that the boy had remembered to address him with the proper respect. He allowed the corners of his lips to curl up to show him that he wasn’t in any trouble “No, son. I don’t think we’ll end up fighting for our lives in a muggle book house. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry when your sister’s life is on the line,” he answered candidly.

Although his face and voice had been kind, he feared his words had been a touch too harsh as he saw his son fight the urge to cower before softly responding “Of course alpha, forgive my thoughtless interruption.” After a moment the boy’s eyes briefly darted up to meet his, then shot back down to the ground to avoid his gaze. With a playful grumble he tousled the lad’s hair “You had a question and you asked it. No harm done. Imagine how much trouble this little pup would be in all the time if each one of her endless questions got her in hot water!” He said with a laugh as he tipped his head in his daughter’s direction. 

Hermione crossed her little arms with a huff “There’s nothing wrong with being curious… It clearly runs in the family,” she said mischievously and grinned up at her brother. The look on the boy’s face was priceless, and he was clearly touched to be included in such a statement. Fen wouldn’t allow himself to be totally won over by that single interaction alone, but it was a mark in the boy’s favor that he’d already made a good impression on her. 

As they reached the apparition point they came to the agreement that Matthias would side-along with Fenrir first so he could get eyes on the location, and then wait there briefly while their father returned to the compound so he could side-along Hermione there with him. They were gone and then Fenrir was back before the girl had even had time to blink twice, and just like that they were in a clean alley behind a tidy red and brown brick library in Surrey. Pretty purple wisteria vines heavy with blossoms grew above the windows, and there was a mossy scent in the air. As her tummy settled from the jarring sudden transportation, Hermione took in the sights sounds and smells of the muggle neighborhood around her with wide eager eyes.

Her father knelt beside her and put his hands on her tiny shoulders, ducking his head down low to make her eyes meet his serious gaze. “I know we’ve gone over this again and again but humor me, little wolf. What are our rules for being out today and getting to come back a second time next week? Say them for me once more so I know that you remember,” he insisted softly. 

She nodded and stood tall with a militaristic air, puffing out her little cheeks and counting on her fingers and reciting from memory verbatim; “No talking about magic or doing magic. No talking about wolf stuff. No sniffing people and no growling. No talking to strangers older than me who aren’t the librarians. No telling anyone our real names. No running away even if I get excited or scared, and come right back here to the alley if we get separated. Stay with either daddy or Matty, and if daddy isn’t here I’m not the boss Matty is. No books thicker than my wrist. No books on the dark arts until I’m twelve. Be polite and quiet in the library. No forgetting the rules on purpose, and no crying if we have to leave early… did I get everything?” 

“Yes you did, well done my smart girl” he answered proudly, and stood back up to lead them out of the alley. 

To Fenrir’s amusement and Hermione’s great dismay, Matthias pulled out from his inner jacket pocket a laminated card with a neatly written copy of their rules. Her eyes widened and she hissed and tried to squirm away from her brother, but got only a firm grip on her shoulder and a light swat to her bum in response “Ah ah, no! This is to help you not forget the rules on purpose. You can either wear it pinned to your shirt or on a band around your wrist, which sounds better?” he told her matter-of-factly. She grumbled terribly, but ultimately chose to have it pinned upside down to the neck of her shirt so she could read it while having her hands free for carrying books and turning pages. 

Fenrir snorted at the display, and found himself impressed that his son seemed to be capable of the delicate balance between firm discipline and fond permissiveness that a child minder needed to embody. The boy might just shape up to have a way the younger ones. If that was the case and he kept up like he was, he might just find himself on little wolf duty more often than he signed up for. He rewarded the lad with an approving nod and a knowing grin and Matthias smiled and ducked his head low, quietly pleased. 

They headed around the building to enter through the front, and at the help desk they signed Hermione up for a library card so she could bring books home with her. They were warned by a kind looking older woman that they would have to pay 2 whole pounds to replace her card if ever she lost it. His daughter, unfamiliar with having or using muggle money and appropriately horrified, promised she’d keep it safe and immediately handed it to her brother for safekeeping. Father and son both seemed a bit taken aback by the show of trust, but were pleased nonetheless. 

As they moved into the building proper, Matthias caught the attention of another younger librarian roaming the stacks and asked her to guide them to the children’s section. With a grin she crouched down happily to greet Hermione with a handshake, which delighted the girl to no end. The woman patiently questioned her about what she liked to read about and what stories she was familiar with, then brought her over to a section of the building the size of their cottage or larger, where everything was bright and colorful. From the paint on the walls to the rugs on the floor, the toys and games and the shelves and shelves and shelves of books, there was nothing that wasn’t pleasing and exciting to her eye to land upon. 

She was in heaven. 

Despite the enormous abundance of books all around them, what immediately caught her curious eye and drew her attention was the furniture “Daddy the tables and chairs are just my size! Look, it’s perfect for me!” she squealed as she dashed over to a Montessori set that was exactly child sized, sitting and looking just like a little adult at work. Her feet touched the floor while her back touched the backrest of her chair, and she tapped her toes and wiggled joyously in her seat. 

Her father and brother laughed at her antics and both chose to squat next to her table instead of awkwardly cramming themselves into baby chairs. Fenrir tousled her hair and shook his head with smiling eyes “You were so excited to come read books, and now we’re surrounded by them. So let’s go find some that catch your interest, eh my girl?” She shot back to her feet with an emphatic nod and a simple but direct “Yes!”

It was a Herculean task to keep up with her all afternoon as she buzzed around the library like a billywig, and for the most part Fen left the job to his son to get a better idea of how he handled her when she was particularly high energy and rambunctious. He was pleased to see that the two continued to get along well and that Matthias was sweet with her without being overly lenient. With his senses open to what they could tell him, he took laps around the building and guiltlessly listened in on conversations around them over the course of the afternoon and heard nothing out of the ordinary. There certainly didn’t seem to be any discernible threats anywhere in or around the library, not that he had expected there to be.

Mums quietly read picture books to their little toddlers, school age children and teenagers studied their course topics for homework assignments, older adults looked for information about hobbies or crafts, and people asked the librarians for fiction recommendations. Some people hummed or whispered the words under their breath as they read. The gentle rasp of pages turning and the soft thump and thuds of books closing and being placed back on shelves was strangely meditative. There was a slight whine to some of the electric lights that probably didn’t bother the humans but that he found hard to ignore. 

Aside from all of the books and the pushcarts for moving them from shelf to shelf, it really wasn’t anything like the stern and unfriendly place he remembered from his school days. He had been an anxious young werewolf thrust into the world of academia for the first time, constantly confused and desperate to follow every rule to the letter so as not to be discovered. More importantly, he figured, it had been a very different time. He was much older than he looked, and when he was a student in the early fifties there had been rules for curfew and dress code and co-ed interaction. He couldn’t imagine even the most studious child having fun where he had once grimly struggled to learn. 

The place he stood now was like night and day from what he remembered. He could find no reason to deny his daughter permission to come back to such a place as long as she was accompanied by a trusted adult. 

To his surprise many of the children present were unaccompanied, their parents nowhere to be seen, and they appeared to be perfectly well behaved and none the worse for it. In his mind’s eye he could easily see Hermione thriving here, reading her days away in a place where her questions could be harmlessly asked and answered to her heart’s content. Watching his darling girl practically glow with joy as she and her brother explored books together helped make his mind up. With a sense of quiet resolve, he decided to allow this to become a part of their routine. A place she could come regularly, with more frequent trips as an earned reward and with-held trips as a deterring punishment if one ever became necessary. 

Later back at home that evening as he was tidying up from their thrilling day out, Fenrir startled to see an adult book in Hermione’s backpack with a small square yellow piece of paper stuck to the cover. When he brought the note closer to his face he was intrigued to see that next to a meticulously drawn cluster of little hearts his daughter had written him a message. He felt a pang in his chest at the sight of her handwriting, although she tried so hard to make her letters neat and legible they still carried the wobbly slant that was instantly recognizable as being the product of a child’s limited fine motor skills.  

‘You should try reading this one, Daddy’ it told him, and when he finally noticed the title of the book he couldn’t help but laugh. His clever girl always did manage to surprise him. He cracked the spine of Bearing The Unbearable: It’s OK That You’re Not Okay, and settled down on the sofa in front of the fireplace to read.

Fenrir’s heart nearly stopped in his chest one morning about three months later when Hermione asked him to clarify the exact verbiage of their personal honesty policy.

“I sincerely hope you aren’t trying to negotiate it, little wolf!” He retorted with a huff “I’ll admit, sometimes there are things the entire pack doesn’t necessarily need to know about our private lives, but I’m your father and your alpha. We’re a team of two, you and me. We always tell the truth, one hundred percent of it, and we trust each other to understand if we have to say something difficult,” he growled sub-vocally, trying to reign in his temper. 

Cooling off a bit and feeling a touch guilty as he saw the anxiety plain on her little face, he redirected “If there’s something I need to know, I’d always rather you tell me yourself than have to hear it from somebody else. You can tell me anything and I’ll never be upset with you for being honest,” he reminded her more gently, and then started to feel anxious himself when she came around and climbed up into his lap at the breakfast table. 

“What is it my girl, what has you so upset?” he asked as he pulled her head to his chest and brushed a few errant curls off of her velvety little forehead. She briefly hemmed and hawed and he allowed her that short moment to gather her thoughts, before dropping a statement on him that landed like a bomb and left him reeling “My new library friend smells like family,” she broached tentatively, eyes on him and nose and ears twitching to carefully gauge his reaction.

Fenrir could scarcely believe what he had just heard. She had only gone to the book house a dozen times if that, when had she had the opportunity to start building pack bonds with random muggle children? He was suddenly struck with the paternalistic urge to simply never let her leave the compound again until she was thirty. Frustratedly, he shoved down the panic that had started to build in his chest, he couldn’t make her regret coming to him. He had just said himself that honesty was rewarded in this house, and he’d hold himself to that even if it bit him in the arse like a tick. 

“Okay, I’m going to need a bit more information than that, little wolf. Does he smell like he’s supposed to be pack? Do you feel like biting him? If you’re starting to have those inclinations already then it might not be safe for you to be around human children,” he speculated, but she cut him off with an incredulous whine and started to twist her torso around to face him. 

“NO daddy, we don’t bite. I know the rules! He smells like he’s pack already. Like Matty does, but not as strong,” and that left him calmer but truly bewildered, and he mentally scrambled for what it could possibly mean. 

“Alright, I’m listening, I’m very glad you told me this,” he reassured her quite emphatically “Now I need you to focus and tell me everything you know about your friend. We’ll figure out what this all means together, and what we’re going to do about it,” he promised, and she threw her little arms around his neck in a squeezing hug that very nearly throttled him. Merlin, but his girl didn’t know her own strength. What had he been thinking sending her off to play with muggle children? It was frankly a miracle that nothing worse had happened. He was glad to be distracted by her happy ramble about her new friend, and he listened intently for any further clues. 

“Well he’s my age, and he has black hair and green eyes, and he always smells like mothballs, and he’s so skinny and all his clothes are too big and smell like someone else wore them first. He’s nice and he’s shy, and we were such having fun reading together until his family came, and then when they did he smelled so scared daddy! He said he lives with his auntie and uncle but that they hate him! And the lady that came to get him yelled and was mean to him! She dragged him out by his ear, it made mine hurt just seeing it. And when his mean auntie showed up his awful cousin came too and he was the fattest boy I’ve ever seen, and he tore up the book we were reading and called us freaks! Can you believe he ruined a book on purpose? At the library where the books live?” It took everything he had to keep a straight face at her turn of phrase. He nodded along solemnly, in silent agreement that the poor boy’s situation seemed dire.

She continued on like a ticker tape machine without stopping for even a moment “Matty fixed our book after they left but I just couldn’t believe it, daddy. I’ve never seen someone act like that, and my poor friend just went home with them like it was normal! Even though I could hear his heart was going like a rabbit, he just went with them. And-and then when I saw him the next week… he had b-bruises on his wrist and he smelled extra sad. Can we rescue him from his mean family, daddy? Please, please, please,” she begged in a rush and tumble of swirling words, and Fen was keenly aware that her puppy eyes were in full devastating effect. They were extra wet and misting with tears, and it yanked at his heartstrings uncomfortably.

He bit back the immediate affirmation he wanted to give her, he might not be able to deny her anything when she was so upset but it wouldn’t hurt to make it seem as though he’d at least mulled it over first. He grasped desperately at strings to find something else to latch on to “And you’re sure he smells like he’s already pack and not that you want to make him pack?” she frowned and bared her round little milk teeth at him “I already said so daddy! He smells like family, like Matty,” she insisted. Fen’s eyes narrowed as a thread from her story stuck out to him. 

“Speaking of Matthias, where was he for all of this? You said he fixed the book after the boy ripped it. Why didn’t he stop the boy before he did it in the first place?” He pressed like an interrogator, and her silence spoke volumes. Her big stormy grey eyes turned pleading again “He was only a few feet away, he was across the room talking to the pretty librarian. I could tell he was bored and that he had been watching her while she sorted the books, so I told him to go flirt with her and make a niece for me to play with,” she said as innocently as a lamb. A startled laugh barked out of him, and he immediately regretted it. Children said crazy shit all the time, but the situation itself wasn’t remotely funny. 

He found himself furious that the young man he had trusted to watch his daughter while she was out in the muggle world had allowed himself to be distracted. He had left his little girl’s side and she had been vulnerable. And to pursue a woman, of all things. Fucking anything could have happened to her while he’d been off trying to get a leg over. The compound they lived in was a place where it felt like time stood still, but the world outside had kept on spinning. Enemies could be anywhere, could be posing as anyone. 

It was unimaginable to him that he would ever forget such an error, and he wouldn’t be in a forgiving mood anytime soon. He patted her curls absentmindedly and tried to wrench himself away from the pit of rage that simmered hot in his belly “Your brother and I will discuss this later, Nene. When he takes you out it’s his job to stay close by and keep you safe, even if he finds it dull and even if something more interesting tempts his eye. He needs to know how disappointed I am in him, and that his job might change hands to someone more trustworthy after today,” he said with a finality. His daughter whimpered sadly and there was a look of devastation on her little face, but she knew him and his moods well enough to realize that his expression and tone brokered no room for debate. 

Although he was still affected, he braced himself and tried to shake it off. They were far from finished with their loaded conversation, and he was eager to get through the rest of it  before it became even heavier. “So this little friend of yours, he gets treated poorly by the people who are supposed to be taking care of him. Now that sounds like something I can help with, as that’s exactly the type of child I’d usually be perfectly glad to offer my bite to. Do you think he’s a normal muggle boy?” He asked, hoping to get carried away in the logistics of things. 

“I’m not sure, he definitely smelled a lot more like a human than like a wolf, but he only smelled a little bit more like magic than like muggle. It was really confusing,” she admitted shamefaced, her voice low and tinged by embarrassment at her own ignorance.

He shook his head and made a soft noise at her “You’re only six, my little wolf. No one could expect you to recognize something you’ve never smelled before. You’re doing a fine job telling me everything I need to know. As a matter of fact I can guess from what you’ve said so far that he’s most likely a muggleborn. Sometimes muggles have children that are inexplicably born with magic in them, but because they’ve been raised in the muggle world the only magic they smell like is the core that’s deep inside them. Your friend likely doesn’t even know he has magic. And that’ll be why he smells like Matthias as well, your brother is also muggleborn. The core of his magic is there, but it’s buried deeper below the surface than yours or mine,” he explained, and she was rapt to his every word. 

Though he had wanted to keep to the facts, a thought slowly made itself known that brought a heavy furrow to his brow “There are dangerous people in the magical world who hate people who don’t have ties to magical families. They call themselves purebloods and think they’re better than the rest of us because they were raised knowing about magic and using it for every little thing. They fought a war over blood, and we lost your mother because of it,” he found himself admitting, to his dismay. 

Hermione was stunned where she sat in his lap, staring up at him with her mouth agape “Was mummy raised by muggles? Is that why the bad man took her away?” She asked breathlessly. And though it was the last thing he wanted to discuss Fenrir knew she deserved to hear the truth from him, just as he had demanded it from her earlier. 

“I wish it had been that simple, little wolf. Your mummy came from one of the pureblood families that hated muggleborns, but she knew they were wrong and so she ran away from them. In those days the bad man was hurting people left and right, anyone who didn’t agree with him was in danger. The bad man took her away from us to punish her family, but her family were so set in their ways that they didn’t care, they were just glad she was gone so no one would know that one of their own had harbored different ideas than them. The bad man didn’t know we were your mummy’s real family, that we were the ones who were hurt the most when she was gone,” he explained through gritted teeth.

It felt as though his chest had ripped itself apart and every word that left his mouth was akin to blood pouring forth from him unwillingly. He was losing something by letting his daughter know this wretched history, by allowing her to see this ugly part of him that was still an open wound. But it was a legacy she deserved to understand, no matter how awful. Her little eyes were as wide and as watery as he’d ever seen them, and his own tears threatened to spill out of him in response “That’s so sad daddy,” she exhaled raggedly “how could mummy’s family not care that she was gone? What about her mummy and daddy?” 

With a shake of his head he continued, despite the ache “I never met your mummy’s mother, but I know her father was a good man. He would have cared, he would have been absolutely heartbroken, but he was also taken away by the bad man. After that there weren’t many other people in her family your mummy was close with. Distant relations like aunts and uncles and cousins. Your mummy was an adult when her father died, she didn’t have to put up with her mean relatives like your little friend does, she was able to walk away and leave them behind. It really is a shame he’s in such a bad situation, I hate to see a child mistreated,” he hissed venomously. 

As their talk returned to her friend he could see a certain arithmetic going on behind his daughter’s eyes “If the bad man’s friends are still out there and they hate muggleborns like my friend, is he in danger like mummy was? Do we need to rescue him from his family and from the bad people?” She asked anxiously, and her heart rate began to spike.

Mentally he cursed himself for not arriving at such a concern sooner “It’s certainly possible that he could become a target if he shows early signs of magic. I don’t know what efforts the wizard government has made to protect muggleborn children since the war ended. He might be perfectly safe behind wards. But that doesn’t mean he’s safe in his home if his family is cruel to him. Is there anything else he told you or that you noticed that might help us get a better idea of his situation? …And what’s the lad’s name, all this time you haven’t mentioned it?”

“His name is Harry and he lives just a few blocks away from the library in a house with hedgerows. He said his aunt and cousin were the Dursleys but that they never let him forget that he will never be one of them. He said he’s a Potter, the last one after his parents died when he was a baby,” she murmured thoughtfully, and his ears started to ring. 

For the first time in the last six years of actively involved hands-on parenting, for the first time in his decades as a father really, Fenrir dropped his child.

The following week found both father and daughter anxious for the time to pass so they could return to the library. Hermione was blithely excited to see her friend again and possibly help him out of his bad situation, while Fenrir was unsure of how to explain to his child that he believed the boy she had befriended was most likely the young savior of the wizarding world. Since the moment she’d spoken the name his mind had spun with the opportunities that the information had presented. 

Deep in the heart of him where all his worst impulses lived, Fen had a distinctly selfish ulterior motive for considering bringing the child into their fold. Harry Potter would be attending Hogwarts come hell or high water, and if he just so happened to be a werewolf that might make it significantly easier for other werewolves who wanted a good magical education to sneak in alongside him without too much notice or fuss. The rational part of him was firm that a reason so shallow could not be his sole justification for biting a child, but the sly wolf that lived in the back of his mind countered that such a situation could still manage to benefit his daughter even if it was merely a happy accident of circumstance. 

He wasn’t going to resort to stealing a child carte blanche, but he would do everything he could to convince the lad to come willingly and become a part of their pack. 

The somber mood as he and Hermione left their cottage and headed towards the gates was worlds apart from the waves of excitement that had carried them the first time they’d made the same trip so many weeks ago. Like he had been before, Matthias was ready and waiting for them outside the single men’s dormitory. The proud glow of responsibility he had once worn had all but left him, and he stood hunched and silent. The boy’s eyes never left the ground as they approached, and his daughter squeezed his hand and looked up at him beseechingly.

He shook his head, and she whined low in her throat. He shook his head again, his brows furrowed, and this time she tugged on his arm petulantly. He let loose a low rumble, and her little answering noise sounded like a kitten trying to imitate a lion’s roar. That stopped him in his tracks, and he glanced down at her incredulously. To her favor she also looked surprised with herself, and her cheeks started to pinken. “Sorry daddy,” she mumbled under her breath, and he pulled her closer and put his arm around her shoulder. “How very scary you are, little alpha,” he teased as he tousled her hair.

Amidst the playful chatter of her giggling, he took another closer look at his son. His son who looked utterly despondent and remorseful. The boy had made a mistake, and he had ripped him a new one for it when he’d found out. None of that changed the fact that he was a kind boy who was decent with children and who got along quite well with his daughter. This had been a difficult learning experience for all of them, but one that he was certain would leave a lasting impression. “You coming or not, lad?” He huffed impatiently as they passed him by on their way to the gates. 

Hermione bounced happily next to him with a skip in her step, and after a moment of hesitation he heard the boy rush to catch up with them. He plodded along without remark, and when his son quietly thanked him for giving him another chance, he merely nodded brusquely. He made eye contact with him over Hermione’s head and then glanced down at her meaningfully. His son’s face hardened and he nodded emphatically - he wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted from his job again. 

At the apparition point he instructed one of the guards to side along with them and wait outside the library as backup just in case, and their posture stiffened reflexively “Are you expecting trouble, alpha?” one asked hesitantly, but followed along with them obediently. Fen tilted his head back and forth contemplatively “We might be coming home with another pup today, and I don’t want to take any chances if we have to use force to separate him from his people,” he answered a bit enigmatically. Matthias and the guard with them both startled and looked at him askance, but Hermione started chanting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and jumped in place excitedly where at his side and punched her little fists up in the air. 

By the time they arrived at the library, the boy was already there reading quietly at the tiny table by the nonfiction children’s books. He looked like he was struggling, his eyes were squinted almost shut and his little nose was nearly pressed flat to the pages. When he looked up at them his eyes went out of focus, and when he saw them heading towards him he seemed frightened at first until Hermione rushed over to greet him. He waved at her then and smiled, and looked delighted when she pulled another little chair over to sit right next to him. 

He was briefly baffled when the boy addressed her as Melody, but then remembered that not using their real names had been one of their library rules, and found himself proud that she’d obeyed it so stridently even with the little friend she so clearly adored.  

Then Fenrir noticed the boy’s eyes flicker towards him uneasily and his scent turn slightly sour with fear. 

He hurried to get into a low and unthreatening position on the floor near the two children, and told his daughter to introduce them, which she did enthusiastically. “Daddy, this is my friend Harry. Harry, this is my daddy Fen- erm… Fred,” she supplied a bit awkwardly, but with a large and genuine smile. He struggled not to laugh at his child, and easily accepted the fact that he was apparently to be Fred for the time being. Unbeknownst to him, the fondness on his face and the tenderness in his gaze did much to put the boy at ease in his presence. 

The boy gulped a bit awkwardly and visibly mustered up his courage “Hello sir, it’s very nice to meet you,” he said politely in a teeny timid voice. It trembled ever so slightly, but he held out his hand to shake and Fenrir took it gently, nodding in approval at the boy. “Hello Harry, my girl has told me about you. All she talks about anymore these days are the books at the library and the new friend she’s made. What are you reading?” He asked curiously. 

A delicate flush rose to the boy’s cheeks, and he held up his book so they could see the bright and colorful pictures of reptiles on the front “I like snakes, sometimes I find friendly little ones in the garden at my aunt and uncle’s house,” he said shyly, as if expecting to be chastised for it. 

“I’ve heard they make good… pets” Fen said, just barely catching himself from referring to them as familiars “we live a bit closer to nature than you do here, and we see them often in the forest. They don’t bother us if we don’t bother them,” he provided conversationally. That seemed to win the boy over, as his bright bottle green eyes widened with delight as he exclaimed at how lovely it would be to see one in the wild.

For a while they made small talk about other animals they had seen in the forest, rabbits and deer and birds. Harry told them about the many myriad cats he had met that all belonged to an older woman who lived on his block and watched him occasionally when his relatives were busy. His daughter remarked that she’d rather like to have a cat, but that she’d sadly never met one that particularly liked her in return. He hadn’t known that about her, and chalked it up to the many unexpected things one overheard when children were talking amongst themselves. 

After a while had passed and things had become more comfortable, Fenrir placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and they made prolonged eye contact for a moment before nodding and turning both their gazes back to Harry in unison. The sight of it must have been intense, because the boy’s voice died in his throat under the weight of their stare. 

Hermione charged in like the straightforward little bludger she so often was “Harry, you know you’re my best friend, right?” She asked very seriously, to which the other boy blushed and nodded “you’re my best friend too, Melody,” he answered sweetly. She smiled sadly back at him, and his face fell “I know you said it wasn’t important, but I told my daddy about the way your auntie yelled at you… and the bruises that were on your arms last week,” she said softly. 

Her words landed like blow to her little friend, whose face blanched and became a rictus of panic and fear. His eyes darted back and forth as though searching for a clear exit, and his heart rate sky-rocketed within his little chest, sounding nearly fit to burst. 

As he started to weakly deny and deflect, her brows furrowed and her words continued out of her like floodwaters as she reached out to clasp his hand in hers “I’m sorry, Harry, I know it’s awful, but we can help you! We can take you away from them if you let us,” she whispered desperately, and looked pleading heartfelt eyes up at her father who nodded and reached out to put a calming hand on the boy’s shoulder. He regretted it immediately when the child flinched away from him and abruptly pushed his seat back to stand “No, you can’t!” He cried wretchedly, a touch of anger making its way into his voice. He stomped a little foot against the ground. 

“People have said they’d help me before and no one ever does. I always have to go back. The Dursleys always trick them and lie. They tell everyone I’m bad and they end up believing it. The preschool teacher did, and so did the kindergarten teacher,” his voice became thick as his eyes watered and tears began to fall. A bubble of snot dripped and he roughly wiped it away onto his sleeve. Hermione’s face had fallen and she pulled her friend into a hug that he stubbornly resisted before melting into it bonelessly. 

The boy made hesitant eye contact with Fenrir and sniffled pathetically “Please don’t try and do anything, I finally have a real friend and I don’t want to lose her,” he said as he hugged her back in earnest. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, there were clearly forces working behind the scenes to keep Harry where he was. However, he was not without magic and power of his own, and he had never once backed down from a challenge.

“What you need to understand, lad, is that I hate seeing children treated wrongly and that I’ve helped others like you escape from similar situations. Your aunt and uncle are cruel to you because they are weak. The people who have tried to help you failed because unfortunately they were also weak. I’m not, I’m very strong. If you want to be free, I can do something about it. I can take you away from them. No one will be able to stop me because I won’t be asking anyone’s permission but yours,” he explained succinctly, and a strangely hopeful light came over the boys eyes as he contemplated this.

Harry glanced at his daughter searchingly, and she nodded “Daddy’s strong, he’s our leader,” she assured him.  

“Our?” The boy asked, and she grinned “There’s lots of us. We live in the woods and we run and play. You can come be one of us. If you take daddy’s bite you can even be the same as us,” for a single moment she flashed her grey eyes silver, and with a low rumble he scolded her for such a public display. “Not the place, little wolf,” he huffed, but she shrugged unapologetically.

Harry stared at his friend breathlessly, for a moment she had looked just like - he glanced towards the other animal books and remembered her favorite, the one with the wolves on the front, whose bright eyes hers had resembled for just a split second. Without another thought, he found himself confessing to them, wanting them to know that he was different too “Sometimes weird things happen around me. My hair all grew back overnight, and I was suddenly on a roof when I was getting chased by my cousin!”

 Her father was unsurprised, but his friend gasped with delight and her voice dropped low “Harry, you are like us! You have magic too! Daddy said you might, but I wasn’t sure,” she clapped and bounced excitedly. 

“Magic-” Harry whispered reverently “is that what it is? Is that what you are?” He asked looking between the both of them with an openly hungry curiosity. The two both nodded in unison, and he noticed that his friend and her father were really very similar in their mannerisms.

“Yes lad, you and Her- erm, Melody and I all have magic. There’s a whole world of magic hidden in plain sight behind the one you know,” And he flashed his own eyes so that they glowed golden like hers had, making Harry gasp with wonder “But my daughter and I aren’t just magic, we are also werewolves. We can transform and run and howl at the moon. We can smell and hear things that regular folk can’t. And my girl recognized you by scent as someone who would be important in our lives. She was born like this, but most people are bitten to become like us. It’s a gift I’ve given to many others like you who wanted to escape from horrible homes. Do you wish to take my bite and become a wolf?”

The boy was looking at his own hands and flexing his fingers as if imagining claws sprouting from the ends of them “I got bitten by one of Aunt Marge’s big scary dogs once. Will it hurt like that did?” He asked nervously. 

Fenrir considered this and knew he had to be straightforward with the child “I won’t lie, there are some who experience terrible pain when they are bitten and every time they transform for the rest of their lives,” he nearly kicked himself when he saw how dramatically the child’s eyes widened with fright at his words, and his daughter looked at him with disbelief that he would trail off there, so he hurried to finish his thought.

“But those people also reject their wolf, and fight and fear what they become. They see themselves as monsters and the wolf as a mindless beast, so that is how they act. They are the reason our kind is hated by many. But I will tell you this - I have never known a free wolf who chose to accept the gift of my bite and later regretted it. When you embrace your wolf and you accept them as part of you, the transformation is smooth and easy and nearly painless. There are gifts and abilities that come to wolves who are at peace that the fearful ones could never imagine in their wildest dreams,” he promised earnestly. 

He was relieved to see the color come back to the boys face “That doesn’t sound so bad as you made it seem at first,” he said a bit peevishly “…it really won’t hurt if I want it badly enough?” Harry asked thoughtfully a moment later, and Fen was about to give his question the serious answer it deserved when his daughter crowed “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!” and the boy guffawed at her, breaking some of the tension the conversation had built up.

He snorted and ruffled her curls “Where on earth did you hear that, little wolf?” She grinned toothily up at him “There must be old people at the closest nearby house cause they keep their telly running really loud all day long,” she snarked. Meanwhile Harry gawked at her in disbelief “You can hear someone’s telly going from outside their house and in another building?” He asked incredulously. 

“Yes, they’re two houses that way,” she pointed over her left shoulder “they like to listen to game shows and funny commercials for mobility tools and cooking pans,” she replied very matter-of-factly “I wasn’t sure what I was hearing at first but you talked so much about the shows your cousin watches that I got enough context to have a grasp of it. I was worried you’d miss it if you came with us because we don’t have one, but you said you’ve never been allowed to watch anyways,” and she shrugged apologetically. 

He nodded, still somewhat thunderstruck “Yeah, I suppose I wouldn’t… You’d really take me in and let me become a-” he lowered his voice to barely above a breath “a werewolf? I really don’t have to go back to that house?” He asked, hope in his voice and wonder in his eyes. 

“Not if you don’t want to, is there really nothing for you there? We can get you anything you might need of course, but are there any clothes or important belongings you’d like to go back for?” Fenrir encouraged lightly. He didn’t want to send the child back into a house where he’d been abused, but he didn’t want him to be without anything but the clothes on his back either. 

Harry blushed again, and looked down at himself “All of my clothes used to belong to my cousin and none of them fit right. I don’t really have any toys or books of my own. I guess there’s my blanket, it’s what I was wrapped in when they found me on their doorstep. It’s in my cupb- erm, it’s where I sleep,” he stuttered as he very pointedly cut himself off.

Fenrir’s eyes narrowed, and he fought to hold in a snarl of fury “And where exactly is it that you sleep, lad?” He asked deliberately evenly. The child avoided his gaze stubbornly “In a cupboard under the stairs” said in the same meek voice Fenrir never wanted to hear come out of his mouth again. He let out an angry breath and scooted forward on his knees to press the boy’s chin up to meet his eyes. 

“We’re going to walk you back to their house and wait outside while you go get your blanket. Then whether you want to become a werewolf or not, you’re going to come back out and leave with us, and you’re never going to have to see those people ever again for as long as you live. How does that sound, my boy?” Fenrir wasn’t prepared for the hug that came, but he was glad for it and returned it readily. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As they left the library, the burly gate guard who had been patiently waiting outside joined them and followed along behind at a polite distance. Harry glanced back over his shoulder several times and eyed the large man nervously, but was calmed when Hermione leaned closer and whispered that he was one of theirs acting as a bodyguard. Once they were out of sight of the building and any other muggles, Fenrir put up a modified portable silencing charm around them and his daughter sheepishly reintroduced them all to her friend.

Rather than being upset at being deceived, the boy found it amusing to no end that she had been undercover like a secret agent. He repeated her real name several times and announced that he liked the sound and feel of it much better than her pseudonym. He liked that they both had names that started with an “H,” and he was particularly thrilled to learn the nickname that she often went by, and took strongly to calling her Nene. 

Matthias he had seen before in passing, but Harry had assumed he filled the role of a babysitter or temporary guardian, and was surprised to learn that he was actually her older brother. He glanced back and forth appraisingly between the two of them and wasn’t going to say anything, but the young man caught his confusion and grinned “It’s alright, I know we look nothing alike. We have different mothers,” he announced casually, and Harry’s eyebrows shot up. 

Aunt Petunia had always said very unkind things about such scandalous family situations, but neither the siblings nor their father looked the slightest bit bothered or embarrassed. No wonder they were so understanding and didn’t mind that he was an unwanted orphan, they weren’t exactly a standard family either. 

The walk back to the house Harry had lived in his whole life stretched longer than it ever had before, but he also felt lighter and more full of hope than heading in that direction had ever before allowed him. Coming to the Dursley’s house from school or the park or the library or Ms Figg’s house had always filled him with a chilling sense of dread, but today his steps were as easy as if there were wings on his ankles. If his friend’s father was telling the truth, and he hoped hoped hoped he was, then this would be the last time he ever came this way again. 

Conversation was light and tapered off to silence until they were finally on the sidewalk in front of number four, where Fenrir put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and crouched down next to him “We’re going to be right here waiting for you to come back out, and we won’t move a muscle until you return to us. All you have to do is go in and get your blanket. You don’t have to talk to those people or even look at them. I’ll be able to hear you the whole time, even if you only whisper,” he assured the boy. 

It cut at Fenrir’s chest what clear and immediate relief his words brought to the child, how frightened he was just to go into his own home and collect his things. He knew this was the right decision, no matter what consequences might follow. His daughter nodded along in agreement “It’s true, we can hear even better than dogs. Right now your auntie is in the kitchen telling your cousin how cross she is with the neighbors across the way for planting the wrong color pansies and not trimming their roses properly,” she wrinkled her nose in displeasure at the bossy woman’s awful attitude. 

Harry was briefly stunned by her incredible senses, but quickly caught up to what she’d actually said “Alright, if they’re in the kitchen then now’s my chance. She’s probably distracted starting dinner and he’s never met a meal that couldn’t keep his attention. They might not even notice me come in,” he eyed his first ever friend warily, not wanting to air his fears but not wanting to risk not saying goodbye. She knowingly placed one of her small hands on his shoulder and squeezed supportively. 

Mustering all of his courage, Harry turned and headed towards the house determinedly. Keeping his feet light, he eased open the door and left it cracked behind him so as to not risk drawing attention to the noise. It would give him an easier escape as well, should it be needed. He crept to the wall and shuffled along it rather than taking the most direct path through the hall and living room to his cupboard. He hardly dared to breathe as he held the knob in both hands so it wouldn’t rattle as it turned. 

Opening his door only exactly as much as he needed to squeeze a single arm through, he grabbed the edge of his blanket and pulled it towards him at a glacial pace. It thankfully didn’t catch on anything or make any noise as it dragged through the door, and he slowly and silently let out the air that had begun to burn in his little lungs. The blanket fully in his arms, he shoved it under the front of his shirt, and reached his arm in once more to grab his tiny green toy soldier, shoving it deep into his pocket. 

Not even bothering to close his cupboard door behind him, he turned around and snuck back out the way he’d come in, moving as fast as his legs would carry him. Racing back out through the front door and towards his new family, he couldn’t quite believe it. It had happened just like they said it would, but part of him hadn’t really thought it would be possible. He had done it though - he had escaped from the Dursleys and was finally free.

He ran into his best friend’s open arms - this was the best day of his life!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As the four werewolves waited anxiously by the street for Harry to come back out, they all strained their ears intently to listen for any conflict from inside. Out of the corner of his eye Fenrir couldn’t help but notice his daughter start to pace restlessly in front of the drive. She whined low in her throat and made to move towards the house, but the very instant she went to set her foot on the grass of the lawn she was repelled and knocked back several feet across the sidewalk and into the street. He was leapt to her side to check her over for injuries, and to his great relief she was dazed but otherwise unharmed. 

Like a prize fighter she shook the blow off, heaved herself up onto her feet, and marched back up towards where she’d been so violently ejected just a moment before. This time as she approached she held her hands out and pushed them slowly forward out in front of her. Her arms started to tremble, and her face and body tensed. When she looked back at him her eyes glowed silver with frustration “Do you feel it daddy? Something is specifically trying to keep us out, like a perfect inverse of the wards around our territory in the forest,” she said astutely. 

Wary, he sidled up next to her and took out his wand to connect to the ward scheme and pull up a diagnostic array. As a flickering illusory script materialized and hovered before him, his eyebrows shot up to his hairline at what he read. An anti-werewolf ward around the premises of the house, more robust and off-putting than anything he’d seen outside of a ministry holding cell. An anti-animagus ward, extending below the ground in a bubble all the way around the house, as if whoever had applied it intended to specifically thwart someone in animal form from digging or burrowing their way in. An anti-house elf ward, highly uncommon and somehow sinister in aura.

All three had the fresh gleam of defensive spellwork that was regularly maintained and strengthened. Fenrir found himself genuinely baffled.

This was the home of the supposed savior of the wizarding world, the boy-who-lived. At bare minimum he had expected to see a set of the strongest goblin war wards galleons could buy. Aside from the strange wards keeping out very specific undesireables, there was nothing to protect against disaster or accident, nothing to keep out anyone with ill intentions, nothing to keep out anyone who bore one of the dark lord’s marks. Why would someone go out of their way to keep werewolves and animagi and house elves away from Harry Potter, but not do anything about his family beating him?

The evidence before him painted an utterly incoherent picture, and he could glean no story or sense from it - why was no one protecting this child? Someone at the ministry or DMLE should have invested in the boy’s well-being, by virtue alone of him being a muggleborn with no magical family to care for him. With the added risk of dark wizards potentially seeking revenge against him for vanquishing their lord, his home should have been warded as tightly as a fortress.

He recalled that in his panic at the library the boy had revealed that he’d sought help before, and that no one had ever followed through for him despite having said they would.

Something wasn’t right. 

He looked back at his precious daughter, and wasn’t sure what to tell her. Her life had been so sheltered and safe up until now. They had existed co-dependently in a perfectly secure bubble of isolation. She was strong, but she also had a tender and compassionate heart, and he worried that she was soon going to start growing up too fast in front of his eyes. Absentmindedly he nodded down at her expectant and worried little face “You’re right, my girl, stay back from the ward line. I don’t want to see what happens if you try to breach it a second time. Hopefully your friend won’t need us after all,” he said nervously, reaching out to hold her hand. 

Apropos of nothing, she tilted her head to the side “Daddy, does my bite give the gift too? For some reason it feels like I should be the one who bites Harry,” she whispered strangely, sounding as confused by her own incongruous statement as he was.

Fenrir simply didn’t have the brainpower to give that train of thought the full consideration it deserved on top of everything they’d already done and seen today. It took a sincere effort not to laugh at her, not unkindly but hysterically “Noted, but that’s a conversation for another day I’m afraid. One thing at a time, little wolf,” he replied, his voice reedy and strained. She was clearly unsatisfied by his response, and he didn’t blame her. This was yet another of her endless questions that he just didn’t have a good answer for.

But he had never once lied to his child and he wasn’t going to start now - better to admit he was out of his depth and figure it out together when he was on steadier ground. He hummed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully “I appreciate you telling me though. We’ll talk about it later, I promise.”

Harry took to pack life like a duck to water.

It was made clear to him that the way he’d been treated was wrong, and that no one would be allowed to do the same to him again. No one would hit him or say cruel things to him here. This was a place where children were protected and treasured. It took him a while to truly understand that and for it to sink in, that there was a system and rules in place here to protect him. As soon as it did, he was utterly transformed from the anxious and fearful child he had once been.

Anyone with eyes could tell that being away from that house and those people had taken a massive weight off of the boy’s chest. He smiled brighter, he laughed louder, he spoke freely without walking on eggshells or flinching from memories of the strikes that used to follow such behavior. He had been so desperately lonely before, and there were people everywhere now who smiled at him and talked to him. People who cared about his thoughts and feelings, and who wanted to make sure he was warm and fed.

He blossomed like a little bulb finally given water and sunshine. All it had really taken was a bit of kindness. 

In Harry’s opinion, the most remarkable and fantastic difference in his daily life was that he was allowed as much as he wanted to eat for every meal. Gone were the days of starving and sneaking scraps to slowly ration away in his cupboard. He had never been asked by an adult what he wanted to eat before, and it was a novelty to respond and have it result in something tangible. If he asked for a sandwich he got one, and if he asked for soup he got it. It was like his magic powers, but a special trick that he could perform on demand as often as he wanted.

Sometimes he was even given things he needed before he could think to ask for them. On a chilly afternoon, one of the half dozen older people who took turns watching him and Hermione noticed that he was shivering. Without hesitation he went to the house next door and came back with a warm woolen sweater that was just Harry’s size.

The boy was so touched that he could hardly get out the words to thank them, and when he finally did the elderly man brushed them aside with a snort “Was nothing, me lad. Their son just had a growth spurt and I figured they’d still have some of his old things from when he was your size,” the man eyed what he was wearing thoughtfully and added “in fact, if you stop there on your way home this evening I’m sure they’ll have some more clothes that should fit you properly.”

A pack, he quickly learned, was just a big family. And this family took care of each other. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the weeks that followed, Harry observed a strange hierarchy to the pack interactions that he couldn’t quite make sense of. His friend’s behavior here in her home was somewhat different in a way that puzzled him as well. She treated him the just same as she always had when they would meet at the library, and she certainly wasn’t spoiled like his horrid cousin had been, but she carried an air of authority that he wasn’t used to seeing on another child.

More surprising still was the way even the adult pack members seemed to casually defer to her. She was still treated like a child, just an important one. She didn’t hesitate to give requests that carried the weight of an order at times. She didn’t seem to realize what she was doing, and no one ever mentioned it. 

It wasn’t bad, just weird. 

By the time he’d been at the compound for nearly a fortnight, he finally felt comfortable enough to work up the courage to ask her about it. As they ate their breakfast he tentatively broached the topic “Is there a reason most of the adults let you be in charge?” He asked somewhat timidly, dearly hoping it wasn’t something that was offensive or foolish to mention. 

The hand holding her spoon drooped back down to her bowl and she turned to him with her brows furrowed “Huh? What are you talking about Harry?” She asked in confusion, but the older lady who was watching them for the morning, Miss Miriam, covered her mouth with her hand and chuckled softly.  

She cooed at Hermione and reached out to tousle the top of her curly head “It’s only natural duckie, you’re not doing anything wrong,” she turned to Harry to answer his question “you know that her father is our alpha. This one may be a tiny tike now, but as his heir she’ll be our next alpha someday. It’s an important job that she needs to be ready for when the time comes. So in a way we let her practice for her role while she’s still young, taking little orders here and there and letting her decide matters too small to waste the alpha’s time on,” the old woman explained with a grin. 

While Harry was quite satisfied with her answer, Hermione’s cheeks quickly turned pink and she seemed thoroughly mortified “So I’ve been, what, bossing everyone about and no one’s said anything?” She uttered quietly, curling in on herself self-consciously. 

Miriam tutted and shook her head “My darling girl, is it bossing about when the alpha or his beta tell us what to do in a crisis? Or settle matters betwixt folk before it can come to blows? Their job is to protect, and they do that by guiding us rightly. Ours is to listen and to follow where they lead us. Like the father and children of a family,”  she soothed softly. 

Her wrinkly lips curled into a smirk “That being said, we’re no sheep - we’re wolves. I can guarantee, duckie, even the most submissive wolf around wouldn’t just blindly obey an order they were well and truly opposed to… much like how you choose which of your da’s rules you feel like following on any given day,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Hermione’s ducked her head as her face bloomed into a sheepish smile, and she came around the table to hug the woman tightly “Thanks for explaining Nana Miri, and for putting your trust in me that I’ll be a good leader someday,” she said sweetly, and nuzzled her head into the perfumed crook of the woman’s neck. She pulled away and her head tilted as a thought came to her “How did daddy choose Ófnir to be his beta?”

Miriam glanced down at her curiously, and when she was sure Harry wasn’t looking Hermione tipped her head in his direction and raised her brows back at the older lady. She huffed out a hearty chuckle “Well, now isn’t that a question! You may want to ask your da that yourself, duckie, it was a bit before my time here. But as far as I know, he was there when your da needed the guidance of someone older and wiser than himself. He helped him bring this pack together, sent him out hunting for loners who suffered by themselves, made him go find all his boys and take responsibility for them. He proved himself to be someone your da knew he could trust and rely on. A good friend, you could say,” she replied knowingly, with humor in her eyes. 

Harry, not exactly paying attention and having missed their last interaction, turned to Hermione apologetically “I hope you don’t think I was calling you bossy. I’ve just never seen adults listen to kids before” he swung his legs a bit, and was surprised when his friend reached out to take hold of his hand “Harry, I’m not mad. It’s good to ask questions when you don’t understand something. It’s a sign of leadership to not just accept what you’re told, but to find out more,” she hesitated, uncertain of whether it was the right time and place to say what had been weighing on her little shoulders. She looked into his eyes and he smiled in encouragement. 

“I hope this doesn’t upset you Harry, but I’ve been starting to think you’re supposed to be my beta someday when we’re grown up… I tried to tell daddy it feels like I should be the one to bite you to give you our gift. I don’t know if I can give it yet though, or what’ll happen if I try,” at this her smile melted away and she looked concerned “my senses get so confused around you. When I met you at the library you smelled like you were already pack, but now the wolf and magic and pack smells and feelings are all too close together for me to tell any of them apart.” 

At that Miriam nearly choked on her tea, and she stood abruptly and shuffled across the kitchen “This is becoming a conversation Fen needs to be here for,” she muttered under her breath. At the garden door, she addressed the warrior that was standing guard “It’s not an emergency, but we need the alpha and beta here if they’re not busy, Ephraim. Can you send a message off? My lungs aren’t what they used to be,” he nodded and tossed his head back to let out a piercing howl that rung out and drew the attention of everyone in the vicinity. After a moment’s silence they all placidly went back to their tasks. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few minutes later both men emerged from the tree line, their long strides quickly ate up the distance to Miriam’s door. The two were a study in opposites. Fenrir stood tall and broad, with long hair tied neatly back and a thick beard. His face still showed traces of youth, but he was for the most part quite serious in affect. His beta next to him was short but lean and rangy, and his hair was ear-length and swept back neatly. His clean shaven face was sharply lined and angular, but there was an undeniable playfulness in his eyes. They hurried past the wolf standing guard and into the house, and met the children in the sitting room Miriam had shuffled them off to. 

Fenrir narrowed his eyes at them in suspicion of hijinks and possibly shenanigans “I don’t smell blood or see broken bones. What’s going on, I only just brought you here for the day a bit ago?” Miriam tipped her head to the side as if in thought, discreetly showing her neck in deference and looking down at the floor, “An important conversation the children were having, alpha. They have questions I don’t have the answers to and need your guidance,” she demurred. 

He sighed at the older woman and muttered for her to lift her head, then turned to his daughter expectantly. She eyed her friend who shrugged cluelessly, so she braced herself for impact and barreled ahead “Daddy, do you remember how after we brought Harry here we were supposed to talk about the way he smells and how I feel about it?” Her father groaned and rubbed his forehead “Never got around to that did we, little wolf? And it has to happen now?”

She steeled herself “Yeah, daddy. It’s important. I know I won’t be alpha until you’re gone, but I think Harry is supposed to be my beta, and I think I’m supposed to be the one who gives him our gift. But I don’t know if it’s possible. Does my bite even work yet?” She wrung her tiny hands and avoided his eyes, a rosy flush rising to the apples of her cheeks. 

“Miriam was explaining how everyone helps me practice to be in charge someday, but I don’t want that to be for a long time. I don’t want anything to happen to you sooner than it has to. We already lost mummy, I don’t want to lose you too,” she whimpered, and when she looked up at him with big wet eyes he surged towards her and wrapped her in a tight embrace. 

“Oh my sweet little wolf, this has been weighing heavy on your mind hasn’t it?” She sobbed quietly, her faced mashed into his chest. Her voice came out sounding muffled and congested “If something happens to you I’ll be all alone. I’m not ready to be by myself,” she cried. He looked down at her in shock, not prepared for the depths of her worries. 

He held her at arms length “Hermione, my darling girl, even if something did happen to me, there is a whole pack of wolves in these woods who love you and would never let you be alone. I swear it by the goddesses,” he grinned at her “and besides that, your old dad is a strong one. Don’t count me out just yet. I’m not going anywhere while you still need me,” he promised. From across the room Ofnír made an aggrieved noise “And what am I, who more than half raised this little whelp, chopped liver?” His beta teased, bringing forth a weak laugh from her lips that warmed Fen’s heart. 

He pulled her into his lap and settled down where she had been on the sofa, eyeing Harry where the boy sat silent and stiff next to them as if trying to blend into the scenery.

With his free hand he ruffled the boy’s hair and tugged him into their hug “I suspected that there was some latent bond between the two of you. I’m still not sure where it came from or why, but unless some other complications arise when he becomes one of us then I don’t see any reason why Harry can’t be your beta one day. A beta is an important role in the pack, someone who has to complement our strength with their own, make up for the places where we’re lacking. Remind us of hard truths when we might not want to hear them,” He glanced over towards his own beta, who had been watching with attentive eyes “anything you’d like to add, as the one with relevant experience?”

Ófnir settled into the armchair closest to them and leaned back, crossing his ankle over his knee. He stroked his chin, and pondered this for long moments before he answered, his voice honey rich and buttery smooth “Any transformed wolf can technically bite a human and turn them into a werewolf. It is why our kind are feared. But your father is nearly as true a wolf as you, dear girl. He’s embraced and become one with his wolf. His bite, when given with intention, bestows our gift without unnecessary pain or torment, and inducts a wolf into our pack.” He paused thoughtfully, clearly weighing his next words. 

“As you were born of him, and are a truer wolf yet than even he, I see no reason why your bite could not give the same gift as his. The true question here however is the matter of pack. You are not yet our alpha, but you still carry the potential as your birthright, even if you have not yet matured into the role and circumstance has not yet called for you to do so. My concern is that if you bite your friend, you may accidentally create your own sub-pack within our pack. It brings up questions of loyalty. A wolf must obey their alpha first and foremost, but they must also obey their sire. This is usually the same person, as myths and legends of wolves biting and turning people at will are mostly baseless. You are children now, but having divided loyalties among pack may lead to devastation in our future if we are not careful,” he mused philosophically. 

“You’ve given this quite a bit of consideration then, my friend,” Fenrir rasped out a moment later from where he sat under a small pile of children. His beta smirked like the wolf he was “Oh indeed, from the moment I caught wind of the situation brewing between these two little scamps,” he remarked wryly. 

Hermione turned around to face her father’s beta “But what does it mean Offy? If I bite Harry am I stealing him from daddy and the pack?” She laid her head back against Fenrir’s shoulder and took her friend’s hand in her own “It’s what my wolf says I should do… but I don’t want to be bad,” she admitted softly, her little voice tremulous. 

Fen grumbled in his chest and it shook her whole body like a miniature earthquake “You were honest, and you told the truth even though it felt scary. You came to an adult with your problem instead of hiding it or lying about it, or going off on your own and doing something foolish. You’ve never been bad and you never could be, little wolf. Even in your confusion you act in the best interest of our pack. It tells me you’ll be a good leader someday, that you already are one,” he comforted her. 

Ófnir cut back in “And your little problem may not necessarily be as complicated as all that, either,” his beta offered tenderly. 

His eyes glowed sea green as he continued “If your father first ritually blood adopts Harry, then you wouldn’t be merely his friend giving him your bite, you would be his sister, and that changes things entirely. When the gift is passed between family, things are always subtler, simpler. There’s less friction and less fuss in the magic of it, and it would very likely mitigate any of the potentially worrisome effects… but that’s a family matter, and I’ll let the three of you discuss it,” he rose from his armchair across from them, and led Miriam out of the room to give them some much needed privacy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry sat nervously, and regretted the direction the conversation had taken immensely. He was already beyond grateful that these good and kind people had rescued him from his awful relatives, and he didn’t want to make things even more complicated for them. He looked down at the little trainers on his feet, still scarcely able to believe he had shoes to wear that were the right size “I can’t ask that, you’ve already done so much for me,” he whispered. He had hoped his voice would come out brave and strong, but it had sounded more like a whimper. 

Hermione and Fenrir both heard the unspoken pleading in his voice and the stutter of a lie in his heartbeat, but they didn’t need their enhanced hearing to know that he had meant the very opposite of what he’d said. Fen placed a big warm hand on the back of the boy’s head and pulled him into his side, and Hermione threw her arms around his shoulders “Lad, you don’t have to ask. We’ve wanted to bring you into our family since the day we brought you here, we just wanted to give you time to adjust so you wouldn’t feel overwhelmed, or like you had to say yes out of gratitude,” he assured the boy softly. 

His face transformed to shock and joy “Really? You want me? No one’s ever wanted me before,” he breathed. Hermione started to cry again and hearing a child say such bleak words made Fenrir’s eyes feel wet as well, no matter how hard he fought to keep them dry “Yes, lad. You’re a good boy, kind and smart. We’d be proud to make you a Greyback,” he told him, his voice choked and thick with emotion. 

“Would I-” Harry stumbled over the thought and his brow furrowed “Would I not be a Potter anymore then?”

Fen shook his head “You’ll always be a Potter, they’re your family of birth and no one can take that from you. But even as a member of this pack, you could still be vulnerable to others trying to take over your guardianship without parents to protect you. Wizarding adoption isn’t just paperwork like the muggles file with their government. It’s a spell- well, a ritual really, like Ófnir said, one that binds you together and makes you truly ours by blood,” he explained. 

Though still clearly delighted, the boy gulped “Is it like being bitten? Does it hurt?”

Fen went to shake his head but stopped and thought about it for a moment “It shouldn’t, the only thing we have to do that could cause you any pain is a small cut on your hand. That being said, it is a bit like the gifting ceremony - it can change you in unexpected ways. You might end up looking a bit more like us, but you also might not. It depends. My mate, Hermione’s mother, she had very dark hair like you do, so yours might stay the same. She was pale as the moon itself though, and I’m not much darker than she was. Your skin and hair might end up a few shades lighter? It’s hard to say, and it has a lot to do with intent. If you don’t want to lose what you were given by your parents then there’s a good chance you won’t.”

The children both breathed a sigh of relief, and he continued “Ultimately it’s up to you Harry. We brought you here to get you away from the Dursleys, and we’ve done that. You’d be just as welcome here with us as my daughter’s friend if you chose to never become a werewolf or a member of our family. It’s offered, sincerely and with the hope that you will accept it, but is not by any means required for you to stay here with us, do you understand?” He pressed, needing to make sure that whatever the boy chose wasn’t something driven by a sense of obligation or gratitude. 

Harry nodded and grinned “Thank you for giving me a choice. I do want to - I want to be a wolf and a family and… and everything!” He rushed out and the two children giggled and hugged each other, and he pulled them both into his enormous embrace.

What a blessing, he thought, what an unbelievable blessing. And he wondered if wherever she was now, his mate was watching and smiling.

FIVE YEARS LATER

At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the 1990 academic year had just gotten underway. Students had arrived on the first of the month, and had more or less begun getting settled in and focused on their studies by the end of the first few weeks. There were always stragglers here and there who took longer to find their footing, typically first years that stayed turned around longer than the rest, but none yet had given the staff any real cause for concern. 

Classes throughout the school had finished with syllabi and introductions and last-year review and busywork, and had begun to get into the real meat-and-potatoes of their content. Wands were out, and textbooks were cracked open wide. The library’s doors were open, and the students found within were as industrious as busy little bees. 

On the evening of September 18th, in a hidden turret near the headmaster’s office, the book of names and the quill of acceptance began their work writing out the very first letter to be sent off for the following school year. A magical child would be turning eleven years old tomorrow, and their invitation would leave in the morning via one of the school owls. An early birthday indeed, they’d be one of the oldest in their year as the cutoff for the current year had been August 30th, and there had been no others in the days since. Statistically, most children were born around October to November, and there were always lots of letters to send off in those months.

Since the days of the founders, standard procedure was that the auto-quill that was linked with the book of names would fill in the form letters with the children’s names, and write their addresses on the corresponding envelopes. Different colored ink pots were used for muggleborns and children from established magical homes, and it was therefore easy to differentiate who needed orientations and who did not. When the quill finished its work, there would be a filled in letter and an addressed envelope, and the only job that human hands were needed for was to stuff one inside of the other and send it off on its way. 

Though she greatly enjoyed carrying out the responsibilities of her position, particularly visiting the muggleborn students and introducing them to their magic for the first time, there were certain jobs Minerva felt could really have been better done by a house elf or even a particularly competent matching spell. Really it was grunt work, and though she didn’t mind it too terribly she was quite busy. 

As the deputy headmistress approached the pedestal that the book sat upon she grimaced miserably, not having expected to see two letters instead of one. She’d reached her absolute limit already with magical twins, and she didn’t know how for the life of her she’d handle another pair if they were anything like those terrible Weasley boys. Mischievous didn’t even begin to describe them, they were like James Potter and Sirius Black born again in this generation. She shuddered at the very thought of them potentially teaming up with these two new up-and-coming youngsters. 

Or worse, she thought, dread gripping her, developing a rivalry. She truly might not survive such a thing…

She was a bit chuffed at first glance to see that the siblings names both started with an H, which she thought that was a fine naming convention for twins, much better than rhyming. Though they were some of the worst sort of people, she still thought that the Carrows naming their twin girls Flora and Fauna had been nothing short of inspired. 

As she really took in the names on the letters, however, she wondered for the first time ever if the book was somehow playing some sort of sick joke on her, and slowly started to feel as if the room was spinning. 

Hermione Greyback
Left Upstairs Bedroom
Alpha House
Greyback Pack Compound
Snowdonia National Park
Gwynedd, Wales

Harry Potter Greyback
Right Upstairs Bedroom
Alpha House
Greyback Pack Compound
Snowdonia National Park
Gwynedd, Wales

Feeling as though the life had been drained out of her, she clutched the two letters to her chest, and staggered over to the desk in the corner of the tower. She tossed her spectacles onto it and ran a shaking hand over her face. James and Lilly’s boy… How could this have happened? She moaned into her hands. What could she possibly- but there was an address! 

She put her specs back on and peered at the address on one of the envelopes. Snowdonia, all the way in Wales. It was early enough, there was still time - nearly a year of it. She could go and she could try and get some answers. The wild and unhelpful thought occurred to her that if she was visiting a magical family etiquette demanded she should really owl first. Their names had been written in emerald green ink which meant they weren’t muggleborns - and she briefly considered that wasn’t sure if she could justify a home visit if they already knew about magic. 

She shook her head at her own stubborn sense of manners and propriety. Was it ruder to show up at a werewolf’s lair merely uninvited, or explicitly unwelcome? Better to ask forgiveness than be denied permission. She had to get to the bottom of this. 

Realizing that there was in fact a person she could ask who might be able to advise her, she sent a desperate note to her former student, not truly expecting to hear back from him since his disappearance after the war. She resolved to wait until she heard back from him to take a single step in any definitive direction, even if she had to delay getting the children their letters on the exact date of their birthday for the first time in a thousand years. 

This was simply too important to bungle.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As she had not truly expected to even hear back from him in the first place, she was shocked when she ran into Remus Lupin while in Hogsmeade three days later. He stopped her outside of Scrivenshaft’s and practically dragged her to the Hogshead, and there was a wild look in his eyes bordering on paranoia as he cast furtive glances and thick muffling spells around them. 

As they sat he turned to her and saw her sharply raised brow he withered slightly under it “I’m sorry professor, but if Greyback is truly involved I’d rather be safe than sorry. Please, tell me everything you know,” her eyebrows shot up and she narrowed her eyes at him peevishly.

“Hello to you too, Remus,” she said dry as a cab sav in her accented drawl “it’s a lovely afternoon. I’m fine thank you, the students keep me young and well.”

He flushed and ducked his head “Yes, hello professor. It’s lovely to see you too, and I’m glad to hear you’re well. I’m… well, I’m as good as I can be, I suppose. Things have been better. But there isn’t time for pleasantries. Please, you said he has Harry? I thought Dumbledore had him hidden? I tried everything to get the old man to let me take him, or visit him even. I begged just to see him or know he was well, but he’s steadfastly refused to tell me anything,” he sounded absolutely gutted and Minerva saw red. 

She flagged down Aberforth and signaled to him that it was that kind of afternoon. He rolled his eyes and brought over a dusty bottle and water stained glasses. After tossing back two fingers and refilling her glass she turned back to Remus. 

“You mean to tell me you specifically asked for custody and were refused?” She snarled through clenched teeth “I had to watch as Albus placed the boy with those monstrous muggles - the worst sort. Lilly’s foolish sister and her great lump of a husband. I told him it was a mistake, and he told me there was no one else, that it was absolutely necessary. Necessary my behind!” She fumed. 

Remus exhaled harshly and had to grip the edge of the table to keep his claws from manifesting. He still left slices on the edge of it. As he panted and waited for his fangs to slide back into their normal shape and length, he dared to look back up at Minerva, who gasped to see his normally mossy green eyes glowed as if from on fire from within. 

“Please tell me you’re joking. That Harry wasn’t raised by those vicious, magic hating cunts. How could this have happened?” He tugged at his hair desperately and looked a genuine fright “I was a witness to their will signing myself, they were nowhere on the list of acceptable guardians for him! He was supposed to go to me and Sirius, and if not us then Alice and Frank, and if not them then to you or Amelia, and if not you then other family James had back in India. You mean to tell me I’ve been chasing loose ends and looking for my boy for a decade and he’s been here this whole time under my nose staying with people who hate him?” His voice ratcheted up to a hysterical pitch. 

His eyes flashed and then dulled, and tears rolled down his cheeks “And now a monster has him. At least he was physically safe with his godawful relatives, who know’s what’s happened to him since he was taken by that beast. How could this have possibly happened?” He moaned. She sympathized, but this was neither the time nor the place. 

“I’m sorry Remus, Albus told me it was sorted. If it makes you feel better this is fresh news to me as well. News I wouldn’t have been privy to without having seen it myself in the book of names. The letters never lie,” she reached out and placed a hand over his where it rested clenched into a tight fist on the table “And now I must investigate, and so you my boy must tell me everything I need to know about how to safely approach him. This isn’t just about Harry, there is yet another student who shares the same address and last name,” she pulled out the two letters to show him, and after wiping his face messily with the sleeve of his shirt, he took them and inspected the addresses. 

“I didn’t know he was settled,” was his first thought “Around the time he bit me, it seemed like he was all over the place. Dumbledore wanted me to try and join him during the war to get information, but I could never track him down. Has he been there on that compound the whole time? Has he been playing house and acting like a father all these years? I can’t imagine the state of the poor children. The very thought of it all is incongruous with what I know of the creature who destroyed my life. Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest idea of what might appeal to him, professor. I’ve never been a real member of his pack,” he admitted despondently. 

She sighed and resigned herself to going into the wolves den unprepared, and Remus waffled briefly “I can’t let you go alone, professor. Greyback is incredibly dangerous. You could be killed just for showing up in his territory for all I know,”

She raised herself to her full sitting height “Mr Lupin! I appreciate your concern, but I am perfectly capable of defending myself. I’ve been liaising with unruly parents for longer than you’ve been alive, young man. This one just has… bigger teeth than most. If you’ve no relationship with the man himself, it may be even more dangerous to show up on his doorstep with you in tow. Now you may not be part of a pack but you’ve been a-” she dropped her voice to a hush and glanced around them “a werewolf nearly your entire life. Surely there are things you can tell me that might help?”

He whined subvocally and scratched at the scraggly scruff growing on his chin “I suppose so. And I’m sorry, I just hate the thought of you walking in there. It could so easily be a trap,” he moaned. 

“An incredibly elaborate one if it is” she replied snarkily. 

He chuckled wetly “Yes, well. I don’t know how well it will translate to whatever backwoods nightmare they’ve got going on out there, but I’ve always been very sensitive to sharp smells. I’d recommend that you wash thoroughly with the plainest soap you can find, as well as avoid any perfumes or potions for at least two days before going if possible. Keep the foods you eat mild for at least the same amount of time as well. It doesn’t exactly bother me, but I can smell that you had haggis yesterday for dinner and a snifter of Glenfiddich before bed.”

“Goodness me!” She exclaimed, and battled the immediate instinct to bring a hand up and try and get a whiff of her own breath. Cheeks pink, she nodded for him to go on. 

“Loud noises are difficult as well. Keep your voice low and level. No matter how frustrated you may become, you must do your best to keep yourself calm. I can hear your heartbeat from outside and down the street if I listen carefully, and I can tell the instant it changes speed, meaning that if I’m paying attention I can figure out if you’re lying or becoming upset.”

“Morgana’s starry garters!” She piped up, alarmed, nearly falling from her chair “Yes, for the most part I can block those types of noises out. But it made dorming with six boys for nearly a decade unbearable,” he said with a shudder.  

“Merlin’s beard, you poor lad…”

“Quite... Now professor, what I really don’t understand about this is why the book of names thinks him and this girl are twins? He was born in July of 1980 - I was there for it. He shouldn’t have gotten his letter yet, not for nearly a year,” He wondered aloud, to which she had no real answer “I’ve honestly not the foggiest, my boy. The only explanation I can think of is magical adoption, but even that shouldn’t have changed his birthdate,” she said, just as baffled by that point as him.

“But as for the advice you've given me, thank you Remus. I’ll wash, I’ll stay calm. I’ll get us both as many answers as I can. And I’ll ask him if you can come and see Harry, dear boy” she smiled at him, and her heart swelled with affection as she saw how much her promise moved him.   

“Thank you professor. It would mean everything to me just to know he’s well. I can’t imagine how he possibly could be given who he’s with in that place, but… stranger things have happened.”

Chapter Text

After a great deal of time spent traipsing through the surrounding forest land outside of the small Welsh town of Gwynedd, Minerva McGonagall stood at the front gates of what she was fairly certain was the Greyback compound. 

The spot had very nearly eluded her entirely, and it had only finally caught her attention because of its too-perfect stillness. It was a like a void where there should have at least been some signs of animal life, no matter how small. It was most likely several hundred acres if she had to guess, she knew because she’d haplessly circled it twice. She was rather impressed by how far out it was from anything else, a national park was quite a genius place to hide a werewolf clan if one had to hide one somewhere. 

Holding the palm of her hand out tentatively, she pressed it slowly against what she was certain were heavy wards. It tingled familiarly, and sent an electric pulse zipping up her arm that made her spine shiver. It felt much like Hogwarts or Diagon alley. There was definitely something hidden there, close enough in front of her to bite her on the nose, and she was quite confident that it had to be what she was looking for. 

Summoning every ounce of her Gryffindor courage, she conjured her tabby cat patronus “Send this to Fenrir Greyback; Hello sir, I am the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School, and I am here on official business to discuss admission of your children for the 1991 academic year. May I please be allowed entrance to your home to conduct this conversation? Thank you and good day,” she recited in the most professional and stern tone she could muster.  

Her spectral guardian wound itself tightly around her legs before bounding off. It disappeared as it crossed the ward in front of her, and she prepared herself to wait as long as it might take to receive a response. She transformed a nearby fallen log into a squashy armchair, and had herself a good sit. It was a very pretty area, a dense old growth forest with little streams and waterfalls every which way. She imagined it would be an idyllic place for children to ramble.

She hated that she’d needed to wait until the weekend before she could finally get away from the castle, but her schedule was packed so full these days that her few scarce hours of free time fell exclusively on Sundays. Letters were supposed to go out on the day of a magical child’s eleventh birthday, not several days later. It was embarrassing, and in her professional opinion it made the school look rather bumbling. She didn’t like feeling so wrong footed.  

Roughly five minutes later a tall stone wall materialized before her eyes, and a few short minutes after that an exceptionally tall young man tromped out of the woods and came up to her. She stood to greet him as he came closer, and keenly noticed that he seemed unsure of himself. His robe hung on him oddly as though he were unaccustomed to wearing one, and he started to stick out his hand to shake but then at the last moment halted and half bowed awkwardly instead. As he straightened his ears flushed pink. 

“I uh- sorry, I’m Matthias. Welcome. Please follow me, professor,” he said, and he turned on the spot and headed back the way he came. She pressed her lips into a thin line to keep from chuckling at him. No need to make enemies right away, but oh how all young men were the same. This she was familiar with, even if the setting still eluded her. Any educator worth their salt knew a nervous teenage boy when they saw one.

After a few minutes march on a well kept trail alongside the wall, during which she noticed his much longer legs had kept perfectly to the pace she’d set, they came to a stone gatehouse. The two men standing guard were impossibly large and burly, gruff and unfriendly looks upon their faces. It was hard not to mentally compare them to a pair of Rottweilers or Dobermans, and after a moment’s reconsideration she scolded herself for stereotyping them thusly. 

The young man conferred with them briefly, and then they passed through and onto the compound. From the moment she stepped inside Minerva could tell that the air was different. The breeze that had tickled her skirts and dragged a wisp of hair from her bun was gone, the air was still and her ears popped. She could suddenly hear people talking softly and children laughing and shouting nearby. From outside the walls it had appeared as if the tall trees of the forest continued uninterrupted beyond on the other side, but now that she was inside it was more resembled a meadow clearing. There were lots of little cabins and larger cottages scattered hither and yon, and she followed the lad to one of the larger houses that was fairly centrally located.

She stood a bit behind him as he knocked at the door and felt a rush of nerves come over her. He turned to look back at her kindly “You don’t have to be afraid. You’re more welcome than you realize. Dad had a feeling you’d be coming, he just didn’t know when it would be,” he said politely, clearly intending to comfort her.

It had the distinct opposite effect. 

She swore mildly under her breath and tried to settle her nerves. No one should be able to tell how fast her heart was beating! The latch clicked and the door opened, and the largest and most well-built man she’d ever seen stood before them. His size alone left her speechless, and she wondered how on earth he moved comfortably through doorways. 

A rakish grin lit up his face and she realized he was actually quite handsome, though not conventionally so “Thank you for bringing her by, son. Please come in,” he rumbled lowly, and there was a very slight Scandinavian dip to his accent. It made her wonder where he was from, Sweden or Norway maybe? She nodded and followed him into the house, and was rather shell shocked upon arriving at the sitting room to see a dear friend that she had thought was long departed.

“Miriam Bones, is that you?” She asked in disbelief as she clutch at her chest.

“Minerva McGonagall, as I live and breath!” Said the other woman, rising from where she had been sat between two children on the sofa. She came over with a glowing smile on her face and made to embrace her, but Minerva held her at arms length with narrowed eyes “I haven’t seen you in decades, where have you been and what are you doing here? We thought you’d died, you cow. I attended your memorial service!” She demanded furiously. 

The pleasant smile fell away from Miriam’s face and she looked absolutely gutted “A memorial service? For me? I suppose that makes sense, but I’d really hoped-” she cut herself off with a heavy sigh and raised a hand to her brow, massaging it lightly. When she spoke again her voice was soft, and sorrowful. 

“I was bitten Minnie, and my family told me I was dead to them. I could hardly believe it, but they asked me to leave and so I did. I was certain that if I simply waited long enough I’d be welcomed back, but then I’d heard how many other Bones had died by the time the war was finally over and I figured there was nothing to go back to. Alpha Greyback found me and took me into his pack, gave me a home and a place to belong. I’ve helped him raise his children, and doing so has finally brought some peace back into my life,” she said earnestly. 

Minerva hesitated and debated whether or not his was the right time and place to reveal what she knew, and ultimately decided that she simply couldn’t stand the heartbreak in her friend’s voice “There’s a child due to arrive at the school this fall - Susan Bones, raised by Amelia after Edgar passed. Her niece I believe. You’re not the last Bones, Miri. I don’t know how warmly they’d welcome you, but Amelia is the head of the DMLE and she’d definitely want to know that you’re still with us,” she offered. It wasn’t much, but nearly anything that floated could be a life raft in a storm.

Miriam’s hand fell to her mouth and her eyes were visibly wet, and Minerva finally pulled her in for a hug to help give her some semblance of privacy “Oh Minnie, thank you. Thank you for letting me know. I can’t tell you how much it warms me to find out I’m not the only one left,” she sniffed, and wiped discreetly at her eyes, and straightened “Goodness me, but we’ll certainly have a chance to talk about that later. You’re here for far more important matters.”

Taking her hand, Miriam tugged her across the room and drew her over to the sofa she’d been sitting on, where Mr Greyback had settled into the spot she left. She held her other hand out, gesturing at the small family “My dears it gives me great pleasure to introduce my dear friend Minerva McGonagall, transfiguration professor and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts. Minnie, this is alpha Fenrir Greyback and his children Hermione and Harry. I’m sure that all of you have questions for each other, I’ll just go and put the kettle on and get out of your hair,” she said, bustling away to the kitchen. 

Gesturing to the chair across from them with his chin, Mr Greyback settled his arms around the backs of each of his children’s shoulders, pulling them in closer to him “Thank you for coming, professor. Please sit and make yourself comfortable,” he said, and in the quiet of the house the resonant timbre of his voice was lower and more compelling.   

She did so, removing her hat and setting it and her handbag on the floor at her feet “Thank you for taking Miriam in when you did. I wish she’d thought to come to me, but I’m glad she had somewhere to go. I can see that the circumstances here are nothing like what I may have been lead to expect. I’m honestly not sure what I thought I’d find now, but I can say I’m beyond pleased to see her again after all these years and know she’s well,” she said, feeling lighthearted and hopeful.

He nodded contemplatively at her words “I can safely say that none of us expected that, and all of us are most pleased at your reunion,” he responded smoothly, but he seemed displeased “Although if you came here with negative expectations, I’d like to know where you heard them from. Who warned you away from us?” his voice vibrated strangely as his gaze on her turned steely, and she felt the urge to answer fully and truthfully. 

Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled down into a harsh scowl “Mr Greyback have you cast a compulsion charm on me? I am here on official school business, and have made significant efforts to come here unbiased and impartial!” She said sternly.

He raised his own brows and held a hand up apologetically as if soothing a startled horse “You have my word that no magic was done upon you except for allowing you access through our warding scheme. My alpha voice is strong, please forgive me. The effect that you felt was unintentional on my part. I forget how powerfully it works on non-wolves. I’ll make an effort to not use it again while you are with us, but I would appreciate if you answered my question all the same. We’ve worked extremely hard to stay neutral and hidden since the last war ended, and I’d like to know who has undermined that,” he insisted.

Her temper cooled, and she settled back into her seat “Alright then, please see that you do. I have to admit I’m a bit surprised that you seem to be unaware of your reputation,” she hesitated, and clasped her hands together tightly on her lap. How could he not know, and would his decision regarding his children’s education be influenced if he saw her as the messenger of such bad news?

“I don’t know how to say this Mr Greyback, but the wizarding population at large is… quite frankly, terrified of you - it’s rumored that you were under he-who-must-not-be-named’s control, and there were reports coming out left and right near the end of the war about how you… savagely attacked children all across the isles. When I saw the letters with their names on them, I feared the worst and I reached out to a former student of mine who happens to be a werewolf. You may remember him, as he was bitten by you as a child. His name is Remus Lupin. He was supposed to have been Harry Potter’s guardian after his parents died, but was denied custody of the boy. He asked me to find answers if I could, but he warned me to be cautious of you,” she admitted. 

She looked at the boy where he sat on the sofa next to his current guardian and wondered how much he knew about his own history. If he knew how worshipped he was still by their community at large, and how curious the wizarding world had been about his whereabouts for the last decade. She was surprised to see that both children had taken one of their father’s hands in their own and were trying to comfort the man. 

The girl looked over at Harry and her eyes flashed from grey to silver “There may have been a time when you belonged with this Lupin, but he missed his chance. No one can take you from us. I’d like to see them try,” she scoffed confidently.

Minerva thought this was a bit frighteningly possessive, but the boy nodded emphatically and visibly took great relief from her statement. She pushed herself to try and rethink her preconceived notions yet again, as she’d already been forced to do several times today. The girl must have known that was a concern the boy would worry about. She supposed she could understand how a life with a great deal of sudden large changes might lead to one being afraid of it being disrupted again, especially once one was finally somewhere stable and comfortable. Custody battles could be heartbreakingly messy. 

Mr Greyback on the other hand seemed very pleased with what the girl had said, and praised her “Well said, little wolf. Our family can never be torn asunder, not by any human’s fear or any wizard’s magic. Not even by a lone wolf’s claws.”

When his gaze lifted back up towards Minerva there was a jarringly intense fire in his eyes as they flickered from yellow to gold and back “Madam, I tell you now with magic as my witness that any such rumors are patently false. In my entire long life the only person I’ve ever bitten against their will was Lupin, and it was for purely political reasons,” he said loftily, to which Minerva raised a single brow questioningly.

With a scowl, My Greyback rushed to explain “Listen, his father was a terrible bigot who worked tirelessly to restrict our legal rights and have us classified as non-sentient beasts. I bit his child to try and teach him a lesson about our inherent humanity, to try and force him see us from another perspective, but it clearly didn’t work. Lupin is also the only person I ever bitten who I didn’t offer to induct into my pack immediately afterwards. I can see now what a grave mistake that was. I unthinkingly left a werewolf child in the home of a man who I knew hated our kind. I admit, I did him terribly wrong… I don’t know what else has happened in the boy’s life to cause him hardship, but I clearly failed him if he has grown to hate and fear all others like us,” he said, and the regret was written plain on his face. 

Pained and clearly eager to avoid speaking more on that subject, he pivoted “Like many of the others who live here, I took Harry in because he was abused and neglected by his family. Other than my daughter who was born here, and my many sons who have found their way to me one way or another, our pack is made up of broken people who have come to me to escape and heal. This is not a place of savage barbarism, my pack is a family.” He insisted.  

“Furthermore, I have no idea how the rumor about me being under the dark lord’s control came about, but such a thing is unthinkable to me. I hope you will keep this in your own confidence, professor, but truth be told there is no one on this earth I hate more than his loathsome followers, and I would never have knelt for him for any reason. He killed my wife, my true mate, the mother of my only daughter. I considered him my mortal enemy before his was killed, and my entire pack celebrated his death richly,” he said passionately, and the  arms draped around his children’s shoulders flexed as he held them more tightly. 

Minerva took in everything he said and gave it several long moments of serious contemplation, mentally connecting dots and putting together pieces that suddenly clicked into place seamlessly. She turned a fresh eye back to him, suddenly feeling as if she was seeing things more clearly than she had in years. When she spoke it was precise and intentional. 

“Although the student body was never made aware of his condition, Remus Lupin was the only known werewolf to have ever attended Hogwarts, Mr Greyback. I’ve never heard of or seen record of another. Miriam certainly wasn’t a werewolf when she and I attended together. And that lad of yours who brought me in was as magical as can be, yet I never once saw his face at our school. You’re a wizard yourself, and I know I didn’t teach you. As a matter of fact I’ve never seen another letter addressed to this place despite all the children I saw coming in. Yet there are two werewolf children here with Hogwarts letters, offering them admission to learn magic at our school…” she trailed off, looking at the little ones on either side of him who had been absolutely glued to her every word. 

“Do you know and want me to confirm, or are you still putting it together?” He asked, with the closest thing to a sneer as she’d seen on his face so far. The only small comfort was that she sensed his distaste wasn’t directed at her specifically. “My suspicion would be that it’s entirely political, of course,” she huffed “I can only guess your wife must have also been a member of the sacred 28 if Miss Greyback’s invitation of admission is anything to go by,” she sniffed tartly.

“You really are a sharp one, professor,” he muttered with a nod before pausing, and for the first time since she’d arrived he seemed uncertain. He looked down at his daughter and pressed a kiss into her hair. What he said next sent Minerva reeling.

“My mate was Hydra Leonida Black, daughter of Alphard Black. Our union wasn’t exactly a secret even before we went underground here, but my father-in-law was the only member of her family who was aware and who supported us. The war wreaked havoc among them, and as far as I know Hermione is the last living Black scion. Her cousin Narcissa had a child, but he would be the Malfoy heir and not able to claim both titles… Whoever it is up the ladder making the important decisions, who hates werewolves enough to systematically deny us an education for generations, happens to love purebloods more. And they aren’t willing to lose their access to two of them just because they’re not human. The last Potter and Black can’t not go to Hogwarts,” he reasoned, an uncomfortable look on his face that echoed how she felt herself. 

The children in question made eye contact and had an entirely silent conversation before turning back to her. The girl seemed to be the little leader between the two of them, and she spoke up hotly “So we do get to go to school, but only because we’re important? That’s not fair! And is it really too late for Matty?” She asked, and Minerva considered whether to give the most diplomatic response or the kindest. She settled for the truth.

“If you mean the young man who escorted me here from outside the gates, then I’m afraid so Miss Greyback. We take in students who are eleven or sometimes twelve years of age as first years, and educate them until they’ve reached their age of majority as seventh years. We only accept transfers from other countries, and we don’t educate students over the age of 20. I’m sorry, my dear. It’s wrong that there are magical children being denied an education, and I’m going to do everything in my power to get to the bottom of it and change this,” she said very seriously.

Her father stroked her hair gently “You’re right that it’s not fair little wolf, but Matthias loves you and I’m sure he will be happy for you to have the opportunity he never had to go to school and learn. This is what you wanted, remember? Ever since Miriam told you about the school you’ve been so excited to go,” he reminded her softly. She shook her head and as her ringlet curls bounced to and fro Minerva felt a flash of recognition. From the hair to the eyes to the temper, she wasn’t sure how on earth she’d missed the fact that this girl was clearly a Black. 

“But what about Rainy and Tim and Patrick and Keely? They’re all our age, they should be going to school too! Where are their letters? Can they go to a school in a different country like the professor said?” The girl asked astutely. 

Minerva was shocked to hear that there were so many Hogwarts age children living on the compound, but Greyback cut in with an amused tone “Keely and Tim would never have gotten letters to begin with, little wolf. They may be wolves like us but they don’t have magic like we do. They wouldn’t even know that magic existed if they weren’t part of our pack. They can learn just like muggles do at any regular school, or be homeschooled by their parents here if they prefer it. Rainy and Patrick on the other hand though…” his face and tone darkened significantly. 

“You’re right, they should be going to school with you. We’re just going to have to do our best to teach them what they need to know here. We can get extra copies of your school books and follow along with what their lessons would be. We’ll do our best to make sure they’re not left behind, my girl,” he offered, and to her ears he sounded incredibly ashamed to be unable to provide for some of the children under his responsibility. 

Her inner lioness roared at the thought of magical children having to try and teach themselves, and for the first time in a long time Minerva found herself speaking without thinking “All of the subject professors have to submit their yearly plans to me for review. I can send you our official curriculum and lesson plans to use with them. Are there other magical children here as well? Older or younger ones?”

His brows rose and he looked touched by her willingness to help them “Yes, quite a few. Our pack isn’t small, but children are rare and precious. There are roughly fifteen under seventeens, ten of whom we’re pretty sure are magical. There’s a fourteen year old and a sixteen year old who are magic, and the rest are all under eleven. There are several babies and toddlers we aren’t sure about, none of them have displayed any accidental magic yet. The rest are either muggle or squib,” he listed, his eyes raised to the ceiling as he counted them off. 

She was floored by the numbers, and her face told him so “Mr Greyback, that’s not by any means an insignificant amount of magical children. I don’t know how familiar you are with our school seeing as you didn’t attend it yourself, but each new class of first years for the last decade has gotten measurably smaller. What the war did to our magical population was horrific. Before it started we used to regularly see class sizes of anywhere from seventy to eighty new students each year. We suspect this coming year will be the smallest yet, as they are the children who were born at the height of the war. There are only forty of them. There should clearly be more, and I’m starting to wonder if there aren’t perhaps pockets of magical children like this one who’ve been overlooked rather than just the low birth rate theory we’ve been working with. Do you know if there are other werewolf packs across the isles that could have children with magic?”

The man visibly tensed, and when a grimace lined his face Minerva was afraid she’d miss-stepped terribly “I know you ask that in good faith, professor, but our children are more valuable to us than gold. Being questioned about where they might be hidden is uncomfortable no matter how well intentioned. That being said, I can say for certain that we’re the only pack of this size in the isles. What smaller groups of loners might be hidden here and there, I couldn’t begin to estimate.”

“I will say this though; people seem to have gotten it into their heads that a wolf pack is all about rigid hierarchy and competitions of dominance. In reality, our structure is much more similar to a family, with the alpha as the father figure. Loners can be dangerous, not because they present an inherent risk of aggression, but rather because there aren’t any others around to keep their behavior in check. Imagine a young man off on his own at university for the first time, he’s going to behave very differently than he would have were he still under the watchful eyes of his parents.”

His children laughed at this and his face transformed with fond affection. Minerva was taken aback by how much open kindness and warmth she saw in the man whom she had been so terrified of before today. She allowed herself a wry smile “I’m sure Mr Lupin will be best pleased to hear himself referred to as a naughty fraternity lad,” she snarked. This prompted Harry to speak up for the first time since she’d arrived. She had started to wonder if she would hear his voice at all while she was here “Professor, if Mr Lupin was supposed to be my guardian, does that mean that he knew my parents?” He asked softly. Her heart felt heavy in her chest at the question. 

“Why yes indeed, Mr Potter. In fact, he and your father James met at our school and were both sorted into Gryffindor, the house I am in charge of. They were the closest of friends. They got up to such shenanigans the likes of which Hogwarts has hardly seen before or since. Incurable pranksters, they were,” she said with a beaming grin, remembering the marauders whom she had loved so dearly “Those boys aged me more in their seven years than the entire war, I swear!” 

His laugh was like a bright little wind chime, and it filled her with joy to have been the cause of it. His next question was innocent and lighthearted but filled her veins with ice “Do you happen to have any pictures of them professor? I wish I knew what my parents had looked like,”

“You don’t- oh my dear boy,” she moaned “Yes. Not with me, but… I know I have pictures of them, and I can contact some of their friends for you. I’m sure Remus has plenty enough to spare some. Your mother! She was my student as well. Lilly Evans was one of the brightest young witches I ever had the pleasure to teach. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but you have her green eyes, bright like emeralds they were. The rest of you though is pure James. Merlin’s beard but you do look just the spit image of him, you’ve got the Potter hair. Euphemia agonized over your father’s hair. That’s- She was your grandmother. Her and I were close friends. Distant cousins actually. Goodness, forgive me, I can’t seem to turn my mouth off,” she said, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth in embarrassment. 

“No, please!” He cried “I didn’t know any of that, no one’s ever told me. When I was with… My aunt and uncle told me they were drunks who got themselves killed in a car accident. I know that’s not true now, they were just cruel to me because they could be. But I don’t know anything that was true about them other than the story everyone knows. I really look like him?” It took her a painful moment to try and ignore the first part of what he’d said. She’d known those wretched muggles couldn’t be trusted with him! She forced a tight smile onto her lips “Yes my boy, you look just like your father did at your age, but his eyes were hazel. He wore specs though, he had terrible eyesight”

Hermione seemed to deflate next to him, and he reached over instinctually to grab her hand tight “Before I was given the gift I always had trouble seeing too, but I’m glad I don’t anymore. It wouldn’t have been worth having terrible vision my entire life just to be a little bit more like my birth father” he said pointedly, which cheered the girl. “Do you think he’d want to meet me? Mr Lupin I mean,” the boy asked her timidly, as if expecting rejection. 

“Of course he would, Mr Potter. He begged me to bring back news of your wellbeing. He’s been searching for you since you were a baby. Actually,” she said moving her gaze to Mr Greyback and keeping her words carefully tactful “He specifically asked me to request visitation rights from your guardian. He wants to be in your life in whatever capacity he can be.”

“Lupin can see Harry whenever he likes as long as he’s willing to come here to do so, and respect that he is my son. I blood adopted him through the old rituals and we will not be parted,” The man replied instantly, with a very final air. He would not be moved from his edict. She nodded “We can work with that, I’m more than certain he’ll be willing to brave the wolves den to see you, lad,” the boy’s grin was radiant.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Although she was greatly enjoying herself with the tea spread Miriam had set out and telling stories about James and Lilly’s time at school, the afternoon light was fading and Minerva had more business to attend to for the day elsewhere. “Now I fear I’ve nearly overstayed my welcome, but there is still the official Hogwarts business that I came for. I see two magical children before me, and I need confirmation that they will be attending our school in September of next year,” she said with a small wry smile.

“Yes! Yes yes yes,” The girl said quite a bit louder than was necessary, and her father stared at her unimpressed until she apologized at a much more appropriate volume. He nodded at his daughter in approval, but when he turned back to Minerva, he hesitated. “Is there any way for them to attend under different names? If my reputation is truly as gruesome as you say, I don’t want it to stain my children the moment they enter your world. Can they attend under the names Potter and Black?” He asked with shame clearly visible on his face, it had clearly cost him a great deal of pride to even have to consider them doing so. 

Minerva winced “They could, but it might not make things any better for Hermione. If she goes by the Black name, people will almost certainly assume Sirius was her father, and it could make things very difficult for her,” her eyes met Harry’s apprehensively “You said you know your parents’ story, I assume you’re aware of his crimes?”

The boy’s body sprung tight like a coil, his face full of rage “I know exactly what he did. He was their friend and he betrayed them!” Fenrir shushed him and ran his enormous hand in circles down his boy’s back “Let her finish, son. I imagine you have something to tell us about him, as well? I knew Sirius, he was one of the few Blacks Hydra and I thought we could rely on. I was furious when I heard about what he’d done, and I may have killed him myself if he hadn’t been dragged away to Azkaban,” he remarked casually, and she tried to ignore that last bit. 

She pursed her lips “That’s just the thing. Like yourself, Sirius has a reputation in wizarding Britain as a cold-blooded killer. Yet when I tell you that your father was good friends with Remus Lupin, he was nothing short of blood brothers with Sirius Black. I’ve never seen two boys closer, or who loved each other more dearly. When his own mother beat him and disowned him and left him for dead, the Potters took Sirius in. You could always find them together, working towards the same mischievous ends. I tried to be as stern as I could as their head of house, but gods be good I adored those boys,” to her horror she felt a burning in her nose and eyes, and fought stubbornly to keep tears at bay. 

“I simply couldn’t believe it when I heard what he’d done, and frankly I’m still not sure I do. Other people said the same thing, and people who didn’t even know them repeated it like bloody parrots, but it was genuinely unimaginable to me that Sirius Black would do anything to harm a hair on James Potter’s head, or yours and your mother’s. He was your godfather, you know. I saw him hold you in his arms on the day of your christening, and there was a love in his eyes that moved me to tears. I tried to find out more when he was taken by the aurors, but every file was sealed and I was turned away every time I tried to see him. I can’t help but feel that I failed him terribly for things to have turned out the way they did. I’d have taken him in myself if the Potters hadn’t gotten there first.” 

She felt raw like the edges of a torn silk garment, suddenly deeply vulnerable, and hoped she wouldn’t have reason to regret her transparency. She couldn’t believe she’d revealed so much of her personal life in front of two future students! Even if Mr Greyback had tried not to press it upon her, she suspected there was still at the very least a mild compulsion upon her to be so open, and she resented it for a moment before admitting to herself that it was probably for the best.

She’d gotten a lot off of her chest. Ultimately, this was a delicate situation and she figured it would be valuable in the long run to have his trust and cooperation. If having to bare her heart was the price of doing business, well - easily said, easily done. 

The man in question seemed very aware of and respectful of just how much of herself she had laid bare, and he didn’t respond for a few moments. He ran a hand over the scruffy beard on his face, and hummed thoughtfully. With his other hand on his knee, he turned to Harry “What do you think, my son? Would it bring you great pain for people to think your sister is the child of your parents killer? It sounds like this is all an even more complicated web than we believed.”

“Do you think people won’t believe that Nene’s mum was who we say she is? Or say that she’s not really my sister? I don’t want them to think she’s a liar or an imposter. Even if it’s dangerous I think we should just be ourselves, dad. I’m just as proud to be a Greyback as I am to be a Potter,” he said with gusto, and Minerva felt a whisper of instinct that this brave boy would belong to her house one day soon.

“Yeah!” his sister chimed in next to him a bit viciously “we’re not sheep, we’re wolves. We’ve got nothing to fear from frightened people’s talk. Let them say what they will,” she finished imperiously, and Minerva got the distinct sense that there were not one but two little lions in the room with her. She couldn’t help but grin, and everyone joined in with her. 

Then she remembered the very real problem that still remained despite her many assuaged concerns this visit had resolved “Now there is another important matter, and unfortunately I truly don’t know how to address it tactfully, so please excuse me, but if Harry and Hermione will be openly attending Hogwarts as werewolves we must have an official plan in place for how and where they will transform. Whatever we decide upon can be part of their educational records, documented and approved, but it must be very clear and there must be safety protocols,” she insisted firmly. 

Greyback eyed his children and gave this some thought, “What did you do for Lupin when he was at your school?” Minerva winced, “When Mr Lupin was a student with us the wolfsbane potion had not yet been invented, and so he had to be fully contained in a locked and warded location off campus every full moon for his seven years of schooling. We used the shrieking shack in Hogsmeade, as there is a secret passage from the grounds leading directly into its basement. We do have an exceptionally gifted potions master on staff who is fully capable of brewing wolfsbane, and if your children are willing to take the potion we may have additional less-restrictive options available to us,” she offered weakly. 

All three members of the little family before her seemed outraged by this, but the girl passionately spoke up first “Locked up? Every full moon? No wonder he hates being a werewolf! He’s kept his wolf in jail its whole life!” She shook her head and crossed her arms, disgust clear on her face. 

Her father *tsk*ed in agreement with a nearly identical look of contempt “I appreciate the spirit of your offer professor, but what you don’t understand is that the wolfsbane potion is the magical equivalent of… of chemical castration essentially. It’s not the sedative or relaxant it is described as, but rather a deadly poison to the essence of what we are. Damocles Belby had good intentions when he created it, but didn’t fully understand what effects his potion would truly have on us. I would sooner they not go to school at all then have them destroy their wolf in such a way. I will never consent for my children to be given it, for any reason,” he said, leaving absolutely no room for argument. 

Again Minerva found herself shocked, and was uncertain as to how to proceed “Alright,” she said mildly “No wolfsbane. It’s expensive and time consuming anyways. However, I’m afraid that if they don’t have it then we’re limited to the most restrictive methods to prevent them from attacking anyone. We can use the shrieking shack again I suppose, but Miss Greyback seemed mightily opposed,” she raised an eyebrow at the girl, who bared her teeth and flashed her eyes silver in response.

She leaned back, startled at the show of aggression, and Greyback placed a firm hand on his daughter’s shoulder “Easy little wolf, easy. Forgive her, she’s been blessed to grow up with a great deal of freedom,” he chuckled. 

He shook his daughter’s shoulder lightly, and she snapped to attention, immediately hanging her head low “I’m sorry ma’am, but we’re good wolves, we’ve never attacked anybody but rabbits! When our wolves get to run free and happy they never go crazy or hurt people like the lone wolves do. It’s because they’re scared and angry, they don’t trust their own wolves and so their wolves don’t take good care of them while they’re in control,” The girl got a funny look in her eye, and as if he knew she was about to do something she shouldn’t Greyback reached for the back of her neck but she ducked to avoid him and grinned at Minerva.

Her canines were sharp and her eyes flashed silver as she said “Look, professor, I’ll show you just how safe it is!”

And she slid from her seat on the sofa onto the floor, and with a shimmer and a whooshing wave of emerald green sparks, there was a little brown wolf pup sitting demurely at Minerva’s feet with a very doggy smile on her face. Her fur was the exact same color as the girl’s curly hair, and her eyes were silver. She was roughly the size of a Labrador retriever, and to Minerva’s continued shock she shortly began going through a few standard dog tricks. 

She stood on her back legs and spun around, then laid down, then rolled over. She handed Minerva a paw that the woman mechanically took and shook up and down in utter disbelief. She chased her tail in a circle for a few moments, chomping the end of it in her mouth happily. Finally, she rose to her hind legs, lifted a paw to her chest, and dramatically fell down slumped as if dead with her other paw over her eyes.

“Bloody showoff,” muttered her brother from the sofa, and Minerva couldn’t help the laugh that barked out of her. Greyback rolled his eyes but was clearly very amused by his daughter’s display “You’ve given the professor quite the fright little wolf, that wasn’t very polite,” The wolf yipped softly in response, before laying her head down on Minerva’s lap and angling big wet puppy eyes up at her quite manipulatively. 

She laughed again, still thoroughly shaken and with a sense of wonderment and awe, and gently stroked two fingers up the silky bridge of her snout and down over the top of her soft furry head. She glanced back at the girl’s father who had a very fondly tender expression on his face, and couldn’t help herself “This- Well, I’m no expert Mr Greyback, but this isn’t exactly standard is it?” She breathed out, hardly believing her own gumption. 

“No professor, it absolutely isn’t,” he said with a great deal of pride in his voice “My girl is a trueborn wolf, the first one in generations. She was born to an alpha and his true mate, and since the very first full moon after her birth she’s been able to transform completely at will. She’s a rare anomaly of our kind. The rest of us have similar control when transformed because of our lifestyle and how we connect with our inner wolves, but she’s the only one who can shift outside of the three days of the full moon. Even I’m not capable of such a feat, other than small partial transformations of my hands and teeth,” he practically crowed with fatherly adoration.

“How absolutely remarkable,” she whispered back, almost afraid to speak for fear of spooking away the incredible creature whose attention she had captured. She rubbed her thumb along the satiny soft ear and the girl lolled her tongue out and panted. Harry laughed from the sofa and came over and sat on the floor next to her. He looked up at her with a smirk “She promised when we’re bigger I can ride her like a horse, but only once and there can’t be any witnesses,” he proclaimed, and the girl lifted her head from Minerva’s lap to yowl at him and nip at his toes. 

“Like a horse?” She replied foolishly, still caught up in the moment. Greyback hummed from the sofa “Yes, adult wolves are quite large. Anatomically indistinguishable from them at a glance, but much bigger than true wolves. I think she probably won’t actually ever get quite that big, but she’s convinced herself that she’s going to be even bigger than I am one day-”

“And he’s the size of a pony!” Harry cut in. Minerva’s jaw dropped “A p- a pony!?” She cried, to the boy’s delight. He giggled away on the floor as his sister head butted him and tried to push him over. She glanced between the three of them “You’re having me on” she said sharpish, and they all shook their heads impishly “You’re not?” She rose a hand to her forehead and fought a wave of lightheadedness “Gods be good,” she mumbled.

The girl transformed back in another shimmer and wave of sparks, and dragged herself and her brother back to the sofa with their father, who returned his gaze to her seriously “If the only options at the school are to be locked up or poisoned, then I have to insist that they come home for the evening of the full moon to transform here. We’ve tried to stay very isolated, but I suppose we can install a floo connection if that will make getting them here and back more convenient,” he offered in generous compromise. 

“Miriam said there’s a huge forest, I still think we should be able to transform there,” Hermione muttered grouchily, and to Minerva’s great relief her father waved his hand at her in clear dismissal.

“Ignore her,” he retorted “would that be acceptable, professor? Flooing or portkeying them home one night a month?” She considered this thoughtfully “I don’t see why not. We’ve made bigger accommodations for other medical conditions. This seems like a perfectly reasonable solution. I’ll reach out to our contact at the Department of Magical Transportation and tell them we need a secure two-way floo connection established. They’ll be able to come and go from my office, or their head of house if they’re sorted elsewhere,” she said with a mischievous little smirk “But I think it’ll probably be my office they end up using.”

A bright spark of an idea suddenly came to life at the edge of Minerva’s mental landscape, one she couldn’t help but feel would solve several matters at once. She turned her attention back to the other adult in the room with a twinkle in her eye “Now that that’s all sorted Mr Greyback, it occurs to me that you may find yourself needing help educating the magical children that you have here. Inviting Mr Lupin to visit Harry might also double as a job interview; he was one of my very best students, he received ten OWLs and seven NEWTs, and although I don’t believe he finished it I know he pursued and began a history of magic mastery before his mother passed away. His lycanthropy has made it difficult for him to hold a job in the wizarding world, but I know he’s worked as a tutor for muggle schools and families off and on over the years. He’s incredibly bright and well read. If the two of you can successfully reconcile when you meet again, I’m sure an arrangement could be made that would be very beneficial to you both,” she suggested slyly. 

He raised a brow at her in mild exasperation, but shook his head and smirked “You sell your student well, professor. I’ll keep it in mind, give it some thought. I can’t help but feel as if I owe him for the difficult life he’s had. Please tell him what I’ve told you, and let him know he’s welcome here.”

She smiled at the man, happily agreeing to do so. She was feeling warm and glad for herself that she had been so wrong in what she thought she might find here in his home, and yet sad for Remus that he had been missing out on being a part of this community for so long. Thinking of him made her remember something he’d asked her to find out about. Looking between the two children, she considered how to ask delicately “Mr Greyback,” she began, and when she had his attention again she pulled the two Hogwarts letters out of her handbag and handed them to him. 

“The book of names and the quill of acceptance automatically generate invitations of admission to be mailed out to students the day before their eleventh birthday. This is how it’s been done since the founders created them. Even magical households with multiple children in the same school year don’t get sent together unless they share the same birthdate. When I saw two letters printed on the same day I assumed your children were twins until I saw their names. Remus was particularly puzzled, seeing as he was there when Harry was born and distinctly remembers it occurring in July and not September. Do you know what might have caused the school’s magic to recognize them as magical twins if they’re really only adopted siblings?”

The two children looked both confused and intrigued, though she swore she caught a strange hint of a pleased look cross the girl’s face. That little lassie was shaping up to be a hard one for her to read. Mr Greyback hummed and nodded, scratching at his scruff “I can’t say I was aware exactly, but I’m not surprised to hear it. Wolf magic and family magic were combined in ceremonial blood ritual the night he joined with us. Both are powerful, and when used together in tandem they can do great and wonderful things. I first adopted him into our pack and family in blood and in magic. He physically changed, his hair and skin both lightened a bit, and his hair took on a bit of curl it hadn’t had before. Then as the family magic was still settling around him my daughter bit him and gave him our gift, her wolf spirit awakening his own within him. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen…”

He shook his head and thought for a moment “Twins, though… I suppose as the alpha heir, her wolf may have tried to make it’s claim on him take precedence over mine by making my son her twin. Purely subconsciously of course, I don’t think it could have been intentional,” he said, but then noticed his daughter’s smirk had grown more pronounced “What am I saying, look at you. You planned this?” He asked, exasperated. 

“Of course I did, I’m just surprised it took anyone this long to notice,” the girl crowed, and both children laughed.

Remus Lupin wasn’t necessarily a skeptical man by nature. He was a wizard, and a werewolf on top of that. He knew the world was full of wonders, many of which he was sure he couldn’t even begin to imagine. He tried to keep himself receptive to new information and ideas.

This, however, was a bridge too far even for him to believe in without seeing it for himself. 

As he listened to his favorite former professor report on what she’d seen and heard in Greyback’s home, he found himself for the first time ever doubting her credibility, questioning whether he could really trust what was coming out of her mouth. He certainly believed that she believed every word she was saying, but he sincerely doubted its actual veracity. What she told him simply couldn’t be true, it challenged too many of the unshakeable pillars he upheld in his life as absolute fact, no matter how much pain they had caused him and how many times he himself had wished they weren’t. 

“Is it possible he targeted Harry intentionally, to ensure his own daughter’s Hogwarts admission? Perhaps on the supposition that she wouldn’t be allowed to attend, he assumed she wouldn’t be turned away if she had an important enough sibling. Even if he weren’t a member of the sacred 28, no one would turn Harry Potter away from Hogwarts. Not even for being a werewolf. It’s diabolical, but brilliant,” he mused.

The professor looked at him with tremendous disappointment clear in her eyes, and the heart of him that would always be a Gryffindor wilted in the face of her wrath. So much of who she was had shaped who he had grown up to be, and he still pathetically craved her approval. 

He opened his mouth to try and backpedal but she held up her hand and it was enough to stop him in his tracks “Have you even listened to a word I’ve said young man? What we thought we knew about him was wrong. That man loves those children, and when you see him with them you’ll understand. You begged me for any news of the boy - I swear now on my magic as a witch of clan McGonagall that I’ve seen him with my own eyes and he looked happy and well! You begged me to find out if you could see the boy, meet with him somehow - I tell you again by the same vow that you can see him if only you can bring yourself to accept that he is that man’s son by magic and by law! Those rituals are sacred, Remus. They aren’t done for schemes and plots. Family magic is ancient and true, and the repercussions for abusing it would have made themselves apparent by now if he had violated it.”

A tingle came over them both and lingered in the air as the weight of her oath swirled and settled around them. She looked surprised but unbothered, she clearly hadn’t meant to make it binding, but it was enough to give him pause.

Her eternally stern face softened, “You’ve lost so many people you love, lad. And you’ve lost so much time with him already. Why not take this opportunity to be a part of his life while he’s still young? He wants to know you, he’s desperate for knowledge about his parents. Greyback didn’t know anything that he could share and Petunia actively lied to him. All he knows are their names, he’s never even seen pictures of them,” she said miserably, her face pained.

That cut at Remus so severely he nearly doubled over in grief. For all that he’d lost he still had pictures and stories. A lifetime of memories with his friends before having lost them. It broke his heart to image their son knowing nothing about them, not even their faces. For all the pain he’d weathered this was too much, and he simply couldn’t bear it “Alright,” he choked out, already regretting it “I- I’ll… try to keep an open mind. For Harry.” 

“Good. That was his only condition, that if you respect their family you can see the boy whenever you want for as a long as you like. Take him up on it, go see for yourself. I can tell you’re having a hard time believing me, and I don’t fault you. It’s not something I’d have ever taken someone else’s word for either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” she encouraged gently. 

Her open acknowledgment of the sheer unbelievability of the situation somehow made it ring ever so slightly more plausible to his ears, and the tiny seed of unbearable hope he’d tried to quash suddenly blossomed in his chest. He didn’t want to get his hopes up only to have them dashed yet again, but the buoyancy of a sliver of hope made it impossible for him to brace for devastation in quite the way he normally would. 

She hesitated, but added on “You should know that there are other werewolf children there too Remus, magical ones that need an education because they haven’t or won’t get letters to go to Hogwarts. They didn’t have a father in politics or an important pureblood house, and so their names were never listed in the book. They need a teacher and I recommended you highly, my boy. This might be an opportunity for you not just to reunite with Harry, but to reconcile with your own condition and become part of a community. Like you promised, keep an open mind. I think if you play your cards right this could be very good for you.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Remus showed up in the middle of the woods in Snowdonia unsure of what to expect. His own dark fears told him he was headed into a monster’s lair where he would ultimately be killed. But he kept coming back to the professors words that lifted his spirits like a life raft, and promised him he would find good things here. 

As he was preparing to send off a patronus requesting entry as she had advised him to do, a gangly young man materialized in front of him and welcomed him warmly. He shook his hand and smiled with all his teeth “You must be Mr Lupin, the kids are very excited you’ve come. The professor made it seem like we might be waiting a while, so thanks for not taking too much time mulling things over! I’m Matthias, you can follow me in.” 

And just as she had described he was lead along the wall, through the gate, and into the compound. The wolves standing guard were enormous, with easily twice his muscle mass if not more, and they painted an incredibly intimidating picture. Thankfully they didn’t say a word, despite surely being able to hear the rabbit-quick beat of his terrified heart.

He hiked along behind the lad to the most centrally located cottage, where he saw that two children were taking turns pushing each other on a large sturdy swing-set in the garden. A few houses away other children were doing some kind of bar climbing game. Not too far away at the edge of a small pond several children were swimming and others were on the banks skipping stones into the water.

He could smell that they were all wolves, but they seemed fed and clean and happy.

Remus was so distracted by the joyful noise and the incongruous sight of such spirited werewolf children that he almost didn’t notice the man sitting in the shade of the house on a wooden garden bench keeping a careful eye on them all. He jumped slightly, and scolded himself for not being more alert. He huffed and walked over to the man, remembering all the things he’d always promised he’d say to him if he ever met him face-to-face, and putting those in the past. He didn’t need the rage here. This was clearly a sanctuary, the nature of which he hadn’t fully discovered yet, but a sanctuary nonetheless.

“Greyback,” he bit out, barely holding back a snarl.

“…Lupin,” the other man said completely calmly. Infuriatingly calmly. 

From across the yard he heard the girl cry “Be nice to him daddy! He’s nervous,” and the tips of his ears heated. Greyback smirked “Thank you for reminding me, little wolf. Harry, come over here my boy. Though there’s clearly much he and I have to say to each other, this visitor is for you, my son,” he didn’t bother to raise his voice, he didn’t need to. Both little wolves perked up and the girl grabbed the swing chain to drag it to a stop so the boy could clamber down. He hardly waited for it to slow down before launching himself off of it and across the yard to where the men were. 

The boy clambered onto the bench next to Greyback and turned his gaze to Remus, who felt cut to the bone by how bottle green his eyes were and how familiar his features were “Merlin’s beard, but you look just like your dad,” he muttered, pressing a hand to his chest “and you’ve got your mothers eyes,” he whispered, near tears. He fumbled with his pockets, pulling out and expanding the book he’d brought with him. 

Taking in a deep breath and trying to calm himself, he held it out to the boy “Hello Harry, I’m Remus. I was friends with your parents, and they would have wanted you to have this. It’s a scrapbook your mum made, a photo album from our time together in school. I’d love to go through it with you and answer any questions you might have,” he said, and tried to plaster on a blandly pleasant face in spite of how anxious he was. 

The boy looked at the book like it was a priceless treasure, and took it carefully from him with both hands “Thank you so much, this has got to be the best present anyone’s ever given me,” From across the yard he heard the girl cheekily mutter “Liar, that’s what you said when I bit you,” and the boy sputtered as a pink blush rose hotly to his cheeks “Okay yes, thank you again for the blessing of being a werewolf Nene, but please shut up,” he glared at her “this is the best physical gift I’ve ever gotten,” he corrected smugly

From across the yard she scoffed “The bite is physical” she said a bit petulantly as she started pumping her legs on the swing to give herself air. Remus couldn’t help but laugh awkwardly in amused confusion. He’d never heard anyone in his entire life refer to a werewolf’s bite with anything other than abject horror and revulsion, and these two children were joking about it so cavalierly. He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing, briefly wondering if it was a dream or hallucination. 

He turned to Greyback a split second later when his brain made the delayed connection “Hang on, did you not bite Harry?” The man grumbled low “I would’ve, but my girl got there first. Some things are just meant to be,” he shrugged. Remus saw red, and though he’d promised to control his temper he felt it slipping “How irresponsible could you be? Minerva told me you weren’t as bad as the rumors said but not only are you going around biting children, you’re letting them bite people as well?” 

Without having heard her get off her swings or move across the yard, the girl was suddenly standing between him and her father, with a finger pointed at his chest “Don’t speak to my dad that way! You have no idea what you’re talking about, loner. You’ve never been a part of a pack before, and if you want to learn then you’ve got to forget what you think you know, because I guarantee that almost all of it is lies,” she hissed.

She flattened her palm and gave him what looked like a light shove, but to his shock the strength in it was enough to send him skidding backwards several feet. She snarled at him and flashed her eyes silver, and he felt quite intimidated by the child, and also a bit pathetic when he realized that. 

“Well said, little wolf,” her father praised her with amusement in his voice “but let’s all try to get along for now. Lupin, come sit and show us the pictures. Hermione, go have a cuppa with Miriam. You can come back when you’ve calmed down some,” he ordered, not unkindly. The girl snarled once more, but nodded and trotted off to one of the other nearby cottages.

Remus hesitantly sat and started reliving some of the best years of his life. It felt like whiplash.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry was beyond thrilled with his photo album, it was incredible to see pictures of his parents. His father had been handsome, and his mother beautiful. He could see himself in both of their faces. He quickly noticed something that confused him though “Why are they never together in any of these?” He asked Remus, and was surprised to see the man blush fiercely and avoid eye contact with him.

“Remus?” He asked again.

The man sighed, and crossed his arms “It’s a bit awkward for me to have to explain, and I’m sure if they were still around they’d have found a charming way of explaining it, but it took quite a long time for your parents to… warm up to each other, I suppose. Your dad liked your mum right away from our very first year at school, he was always trying to get your mother’s attention. But he was… a bit of a prankster, and so your mum didn’t exactly like him at first. He played a lot of jokes and tricks on one of her friends, and she thought he was a bully. It took a long time of your dad pining after her for your mum to notice him and like him back,” he admitted reluctantly.  

Harry narrowed his eyes, and Remus realized he had somehow forgotten that he was surrounded by other people who could also hear his heart rate and smell his sweat, and he cursed mildly under his breath. The boy groaned “There’s something you’re trying to avoid saying… ugh, my dad was a huge prick wasn’t he?” Remus let out a nearly sub-vocal whine, and that told Harry all he needed to hear.

“Listen, I loved James like a brother. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part he was a very kind and friendly man, but he could definitely be a prick at times. He made an arse of himself going after Slytherins in particular. We tried to excuse it as house rivalry, but back then it was also a response to the very real blood prejudice that the snakes didn’t bother trying to hide. Your mother was a muggleborn, and your father often tried to impress her and defend her honor by acting out against particularly bigoted purebloods, most of whom were in Slytherin house,” he said defensively. 

The boy thought this over, scrunching his brows “I know the Potters were purebloods, did he only start hating blood prejudice when he met my mum?” The boy asked disapprovingly. “No! No,” Remus hurried to correct the misunderstanding “the Potters had been considered blood traitors in pureblood society for a long time before your dad ever showed any interest in your mum.” 

“Blood traitors!?” Harry muttered to his father in utter bafflement, to which the man made a sound of disgust and shook his head vehemently “only inbred fucking cunts could think marrying outside the family is a crime,” he drawled and his son giggled at the coarse language. Next to him, Remus made a poor effort to disguise a snort as a sniffle. 

“It’s exactly as your father says. The Ancient and Noble house of Potter had long since been struck from the sacred 28 houses for being willing to brush elbows with muggleborns. Although no one outside of Slytherin would have cared about such a thing. The Potters were good and kind, and they took in me and several other friends of your fathers with open arms and hearts. Your grandparents Fleamont and Euphemia Potter were two of the most warm and welcoming people I’ve ever met. They both died of dragon pox just after we all graduated in ‘78, before the war had reached its height, and your father was absolutely gutted by their loss. They’d have cherished you, they always wanted more children but James was an only child. I think that must have been why they were always willing to take in so many poor strays,” he said with a sad smile on his face. 

Harry felt for the man and remembered how painful it was to be so vulnerable, and he leaned his head onto his shoulder “I’m glad they took good enough care of you that you’re here to tell me about them now. Thank you Remus, I really appreciate it.” 

The man sounded choked up as he responded “That’s very kind of you to say Harry. Your dad- ah, well your birth father, he would be very proud of the fine young man you’ve become,” and he laid a big warm hand on the top of Harry’s head. It was nice “I’ve missed you terribly over the years, I looked everywhere I could think of trying to find out who you’d been placed with. I never in a million years would have guessed that you’d been left with Petunia, your mother and her sister hated each other. She’s the last person your parents would have wanted you to even stay the weekend with, I know it can’t have been what they planned for you.”

Harry closed his eyes in resignation as finally a confirmation of his father’s suspicions washed over him, and he took a moment to process the grief that came with knowing how different his life should have been “It took a long time with my new family to help me realize that what the Dursleys told me had been almost entirely lies, and it’s still hard to forget sometimes. They always said such horrible things about my parents, it’s honestly a bit pathetic that they went to such extremes when they could have just said nothing at all. The years of being away from them and healing have changed me so much, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am to hear the truth from someone who knew them and was there.” 

He was no mind reader, he knew only what his senses told him, but his ears and his eyes screamed at him that the man next to him was truly devastated by what he’d said. As Remus flexed his hands to keep his claws from coming out, Harry looked up at him seriously “It wouldn’t help either of us for me to say what kind of lies they told me. It’s in the past now, and it’s enough to know the real truth. You were there, right? When I was a baby I mean.”

The man grabbed onto that conversational thread like it was a life raft, and hurried to answer “Yes, of course! I was there in the room at St Mungo’s the day you were born, I saw your father place you in your mother’s arms. I wasn’t always around, there was a mission Dumbledore sent me on that had me away for long stretches of time, but I was there enough to see how much they adored you. They loved you, anyone with eyes could see that you were their entire world. After your grandparents passed, they couldn’t bring themselves to stay in Potter Manor anymore, and so they settled into a cottage your family owned in a small wizarding village called Godric’s Hollow. That’s where you lived for the first year and a half of your life. It was such a lovely home, there were always flowers everywhere; from the garden to the window boxes to the kitchen table. I can’t recall its name, but your mother had a calico kitten she’d gotten as a graduation present, and you loved to crawl around after the thing.”

All three of them had tears in their eyes. Remus coughed lightly to clear his throat and continued “The house was seized by the ministry after the end of the war, and has been turned into a public memorial now. There’s a statue of your parents too, it’s across the road and there’s a bench and a fountain. Every time I see it I imagine your mum telling your dad what a big head he must have had to have a likeness of himself made in bronze. The nearby churchyard cemetery is where they’re buried, they share a gravestone. If you didn’t know anything about them I doubt anyone’s ever taken you there, although that’s probably for the best. It’s a crying shame, James and Lily would have absolutely hated to see their home the way it is now. It’s still half destroyed from you-know-who’s attack, and it looks a fright” the man said in an attempt at some levity, but the depth of his pain still rang clear in his voice.

“That is a shame,” mumbled his father on the other side of him “I’d have taken you to see their graves before now if I’d known. We can go and pay our respects if you feel like it. Anytime you want to, my son,” he could see his father visibly rise in the other man’s esteem as he said that, and he approved heartily.

He desperately wanted these two important parts of his life reconciled, and the people at peace with one another. He considered how to proceed to get the most answers and cause the least clashing between his father and the man before them. There were so many more questions he wanted to ask, but the man seemed practically on the brink of spiraling into a depression right in front of them. 

Briefly, he wished his sister had stayed for this conversation as she was far better at carefully thinking things like this through than him. Nearly smacking his own forehead, he concentrated his hearing and realized she was still well within his range, only a house away having tea with Miriam, so he must still be within hers. From what felt almost like the back of his sinuses he whined a short sub-vocal pattern, their private signal for when they wanted each other’s attention and help.

He heard her startle and immediately bid the woman goodbye and head his way. He grinned slyly, she had a head start on him and therefore often remembered their abilities and used them more instinctively and naturally, but he was catching up. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hermione was peeved with the ratty old man who had dared to come into her territory and insult her father, and she was doubly peeved that she’d been sent away from what promised to be an extremely interesting conversation about her brother’s birth parents. 

Her temper simmered and cooled as she quickly realized that her father never truly intended to leave her out, and that from Miriam’s kitchen she was still well within range to hear everything they said loud and clear. She supposed she’d have to have him show her the pictures later, but they were ultimately less important than the stories, and she was grateful to be able to at least overhear those. 

She grinned at Miriam’s exasperated eye roll. The woman thought it was rude to listen past one’s walls even if you didn’t exactly mean to, but never denied Hermione the pleasure of a good eavesdrop. She often asked her to repeat things she’d overheard as her own ears were starting to fail her, claiming she preferred to hear gossip at her table if she had to entertain it at all. They quietly sipped tea and chewed biscuits, and Hermione commentated for her friend like a sports broadcaster “Wow, apparently Harry’s dad was an arsehole when they were our age!” To which Miriam replied “Language, my dear girl - and be more specific!”

With a laugh she pretended to be a court stenographer reading back what they said as they were saying it, until things suddenly took a heavy turn and she wasn’t sure if she should be breaking their confidence the way she was. She awkwardly went back to paraphrasing, and Miriam laid a soft and sympathetic hand over her own with a knowing look in her eye. 

“You’re a good girl, duckie,” the woman whispered to her, and her heart felt warm and squishy. She let silence fall back around the two of them again, mentioning only the important things here and there, until she heard her brother give their special call for her to come bail him out of trouble. She startled as she wondered if something had actually happened, but upon thinking back to the last few things they’d said she realized that he was probably just starting to feel a little socially drained. He had likely gone back to being the emotionally awkard boy he usually reverted to after moments of being particularly charming or insightful. 

She snorted. Like clockwork, she thought as she stood to go and rescue him. She kissed Miriam’s papery cheek “Sorry Nana M, boy wonder needs me,” and after putting her cup in the sink she headed off.

She passed Matthias, who had been waiting for her and guarding the front door, and rolled her eyes at him “You should have come in and had a cuppa with us, Matty. It makes me sad when you wait outside like a puppy in the rain,” he sputtered indignantly as he followed her through the garden “Nene please, I’m trying to do my job while we have a guest,” he hissed at her, comically aggrieved, and she carelessly shrugged like a little emperor “I know, but you’re family. It just makes it kinda weird when you act so serious.”

He huffed and muttered “Clearly someone has to,” under his breath, causing her to flash her eyes at him with a glare. He grinned and ducked his head submissively “There’s the little alpha, glad she decided to join us!”

She huffed at her brother “I can be serious when I need to! This whole business with the loner just has me unsure of how to act. You’d think he’d be a savage, but he seems more scared and sad than anything else. Did you hear what he said about dad? I know they have a difficult history, but if he’s gonna be coming here someone needs to teach him some respect,” she said gruffly, trying to emulate the way her father often left no room for argument. 

“Wise words, little wolf,” she heard her father chuckle from the garden next door. She smirked and rushed towards the picket fence between the cottages and vaulted over it, somersaulting into a smooth roll on the other side. From where he sat on the bench in between the two men, Harry held up both arms like he was holding a sign “She sticks the landing! Ten out of ten,” he started to cheer and her father let out a low rumble imitating the roar of a crowd. Hamming it up, she bowed and waved “Thank you, thank you!”

Meanwhile Matthias was very slowly and emphatically opening and walking through the gate “What was that about being able to be serious?” He said sarcastically, which she promptly ignored.

She dashed over to her family, and climbed up onto the arm of the bench closest to her father “Do they look like you imagined?” She asked Harry excitedly, and he passed his photo album over to her to see. She cried out and cooed “Is that you as a baby? You were so cute, what happened?”

He shoved her backwards off the bench and she tumbled down laughing. Her father and the loner had both snorted at her jab as well, and she knew she had them exactly where she wanted them. She scrambled back up and sat on her father’s lap this time, and pulled the book over again “Sorry sorry, you’re officially the cutest little brother that ever there was. Now let me take a real look this time,” she said primly.

“Wow, so that must be your dad, then. The professor wasn’t having us on, you really look just like him” she said, removing one of the close-up photographs of James Potter from the album and holding it next to his face, comparing them intently. “Yeah?” He asked with more emotion in his voice than he probably meant to let show, and she softened to him instantly “Yeah, bro. I definitely see it, plain as day,” she replied as kindly as she could. In her peripheral she saw the lone wolf next to them press the back of his hand to his mouth, and blink away a tear.

She made eye contact with Harry, her best friend and brother, and communicated with him without words. She could tell when he called her over that he needed her help socially, but now in the environment with him she could easily intuit the exact nature of his frustration. He didn’t want to push the man too fast or too far and risk not getting the answers he was desperate for. She could handle that, and she steeled herself to be a little bit more manipulative than she was usually comfortable with. 

Hermione put on her best innocently curious face “Say Mr Lupin, who’s this handsome bloke here? He’s in nearly all of these photos” she asked as guilelessly as a newborn babe. She didn’t miss his sharp inhalation, and she tilted her head at him like a puppy to further reduce any suspicion. 

He cleared his throat noisily, and ran his hand over his messy scruff “Goodness I’d hoped to avoid this, but… well that’s Sirius Black, he was Harry’s godfather. Minerva told me you children are aware of what he did, or what we think he did anyways. I didn’t want to believe he could have done it either, he loved James like a brother. But there was just never any other explanation for what happened,” he said brokenheartedly, and she almost would have felt bad for making him relive such a horrible memory if it weren’t for the cause of finding out what her brother needed to know. 

“He would’ve been my uncle, right dad?” She asked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, to which the man whipped his head around to her with a slack jaw. Her father hummed “Not exactly, little wolf, more like second cousins I think. Your grandfather Alphard was his uncle, and he and your mother were cousins,” he answered, quickly picking up on and playing along with her little game. 

“You’re joking,” the loner looked between the two of them “You’re a black?” He asked looking at her, then turned to her father “and you were married to a black?” He stood up from the bench and paced in a circle in front of them before facing them again with his hands on his hips “I don’t understand, I thought Alphard left everything to Sirius because he didn’t have any children. I lived with him in the flat he inherited from the man!” 

Her father growled at that, and she was none too happy herself to hear that territory that should have been theirs had gone to another. She held her tongue though, knowing that wizarding matters outside their little compound were often needlessly complicated, and trusting her father to respond appropriately to something she didn’t fully understand. 

“My mate had a compassionate heart.” Her father rumbled, and she settled in closer to him as he spoke about her mother “Alphard Black was a good man, and he was supportive of our relationship. He originally planned to leave Hydra everything he had, it would have been her birthright as his only child. Instead she encouraged him to give her inheritance to her poor cousin who had been disowned by his parents. She thought he’d need it more than she did, even with the Potters taking him in. She made sure he left something for Andromeda as well, even though she was older than Sirius and had already established her own family. She hated her family’s cruelty towards their own children. She knew I would provide for her, that she would want for nothing by my side, so she made sure all of the black sheep of the Black family were taken care of before taking a single knut for herself,” he paused and pressed his nose into her hair like he used to do more often when she was small. She nuzzled into his shoulder and let herself be still and warm in his arms for a moment. 

“It’s been such a long time that it’s easier to talk about her now, but the pain never truly goes away. We share that in common, Lupin,” he said somberly to the other man, who still looked quite shocked where he was standing in front of them on the lawn.

He seemed to deflate before them at that, and came back over to sit again with his head in his hands “There’s the answer to a mystery we didn’t know we had” he snarked, and her father chuckled. The man’s eyes ran over her features and as she stared him down fearlessly he furrowed his brows “I don’t know how I didn’t see it until now but you have the look, alright. The curly hair, the grey eyes. If you weren’t a brunette I’m sure I’d have spotted it immediately. You could be Sirius’ little double” he said wistfully, with a shake of his head.  

As the two men went back to talking, Hermione made eyes with her brother again, raising her eyebrows as if to say good enough or keep digging? He smiled and barely suppressed a giggle, but then shook his head and gestured with his eyebrows back towards the man. She sighed and nodded, and waited for the right moment to interject. “Mr Lupin, if everyone was so shocked that he betrayed his best friends and no one could believe he’d done it, what grounds did they actually put Sirius away on?” She asked, with a great deal of effort to make the question sound casual and not sharply pointed. 

The man ran a hand through his short sandy hair, and sighed deeply. His face was a renaissance masterpiece of grief “The thing is, I don’t know that he did betray Harry’s parents. There was never any evidence to prove it other than the fact that he had been their secret keeper. He should have been the only person able to reveal their location. I don’t know how You-know-who found out where your parents were hiding Harry, but I’d bet my life that he didn’t find out from Sirius” he shook his head sadly. 

Hermione was stunned at his conviction in his friend’s innocence “Then why is he in prison if he didn’t actually do it?” She asked quietly, with the genuine innocent curiosity of her age. 

He smiled at her wryly “The real reason he sits in Azkaban is that there were witnesses to him murdering our friend Peter that same night after the Potters were killed by you-know-who, and over a dozen nearby muggles were killed as well in the blast that took Pete out. He is inarguably guilty of that, whether he was in his right mind at the time or not. They say he was laughing like a madman when the aurors brought him in, loudly confessing to the crime to anyone who would listen. What I believe is much more likely than him ever actually having betrayed James and Lilly is that the Black madness must have finally overtaken him when he realized they were gone, and he turned on our friend mistakenly or in confusion. I wish I’d been there, maybe I could have helped him, maybe Peter would still be alive, maybe we’d have answers”

She had nothing else clever or prying that she could think of to say to that, and let the silence settle around them. Harry nudged her leg with his foot, and she jolted at the light impact “What does it mean that Sirius was their secret keeper? Is that an official title?” She rushed out, not taking the time to couch her question as casual conversation like before, and he looked over at her amused and fond. A hearty belly laugh bubbled up out of him “You are a devious little Black after all aren’t you, far too curious for your own good” and she scowled, equally peeved at him for being perceptive and herself for blowing her own cover. He shook his head and took his wand out, drawing glowing pictures in the air in front of them of a house and a man and then animating them. 

“The spell that was used to hide Harry’s parents is called the fidelius charm, and the way it works is that the knowledge of a location is removed from the mind and memory of anyone who has ever known it except for a single person. No one can speak it, or write it, or even read it if it’s right in front of them except for that person. That person is the only one who can in any way communicate where the location is, and they have to willingly reveal it. It can’t be forced or tortured from them, and they can’t be tricked into telling it. The secret keeper hides all knowledge of it in their very soul. Sirius was the secret keeper for the location of their house in Godric’s Hollow during the last few years of the war, when we found out that You-Know-Who was targeting your parents. The only possible explanation for how he found out where you were is that Sirius told him, but like I said, it doesn’t make sense. He’d have died before he betrayed his friends. Something must have happened, or changed. I don’t know what”

She sat back and pondered this with fascination, with a fuller picture of events it really was quite the pickle. A man desperate to find a secret and a man who swore not to give it to him; an immovable force and an unstoppable object “There has to be another variable” she found herself whispering as the thought came to her. The man looked at her sharply “What did you say?” He demanded harshly, to which her father grumbled low at him for his tone.

She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, suddenly shy “Well there has to have been another factor at play. It’s just simple logic, like the kind you use in maths or physics if you will. If Sirius wouldn’t have given up the secret, and you-know-who had the secret, then someone else must have been able to give it away. He can’t have been the only person who had it” she argued defensively. Another thought occurred to her “Did anyone ever ask him why he went after your friend Peter? Maybe that’s why, maybe he had the secret too and was the one who really gave it away. Can a single place have two secret keepers?”

All three of them looked at her with different types of surprise on their faces. Her brother looked at her wide-eyed and awed like she was a genius, which was fair and correct. Her father looked at her with contemplative approval, as if to say that he found her reasoning sound and had reached a similar conclusion, which delighted her. The loner however, looked at her with such an intensely resonant desperation she was taken aback “Yes, that’s exactly what I tried to tell people for years and no one listened to me!” He nearly bellowed, and she growled in response to his unwelcome energy, causing him to back up and raise his hands in submission. 

He swallowed roughly and looked away “Sorry, I just… everything I’ve done for the last decade has been to either try and find Harry or try and figure out what really happened with Sirius. Every single time I expressed doubt, people told me I was seeing the boy I knew instead of the man he’d become, that I was blinded by our years of friendship. Even others who didn’t think he could have done it told me I was wasting my time!” He was on the verge of tears, and she felt cruel for having pushed him the way she had. 

“I’m sorry Mr Lupin, that sounds very frustrating” she turned wild overwhelmed eyes towards her father, begging him to carry the conversation somewhere less fraught and he nodded subtly at her before pushing her off his lap and onto the bench next to him. He rose and passed around her to kneel in front of the man, placing a hand on the back of his neck and pushing their foreheads together. He resisted at first, but gave in limply with a shudder. Her father’s voice was gentle when he spoke.

“You’ve been alone for a long time Remus, but you don’t have to be anymore. What I did to you was wrong, I bit you to teach your father a lesson that he refused to learn, and it instead became a punishment that fell solely on your shoulders. Although I consider the wolf to be a gift, I know you see it as a curse, and I owe you a debt of honor for burdening you with it. Come stay here with us, help our magical children learn and in return let me teach you how to make peace with your wolf. I see your scars, I know how hard your transformations must be and I grieve for you, because they don’t have to be. They shouldn’t be. A balanced wolf at peace with themself transforms as easily as breathing, and needs no poison to keep their own mind under the moon”

Huge wet tears rolled down the man’s face, and he keened lowly, and her father shushed him and continued softly “Let the past be behind us, and you can have a home here. Lay your burdens down and rest, heal the wounds that the war between your man and your wolf have ravaged on your heart” 

Hermione took her brother’s hand and squeezed it tight, and they scampered away to give the two men some privacy.

Chapter Text

A few weeks later, Fenrir braced himself for a serious conversation he wished he didn’t need to have with his children yet. More accurately, that he wished he didn’t need to have with them at all. He’d sent scouts out to listen to the buzz around some of the larger magical hubs, and they’d all eventually come back with the same news. What both the professor and Lupin had reported were true. 

The rumors were overwhelmingly consistent that he was apparently not only a marked death eater in the service of the Dark Lord, but that his lust for blood was unquenchable and his tastes for the flesh ran young. He couldn’t be more sickened, and he vowed to get to the bottom of it. First though, he had to make sure his children weren’t unprepared for what they might face when they met other magical children their own age who had actually grown up in the wizarding world, and not on an isolated rural werewolf compound. 

As they finished cleaning up after lunch, he told them to stay at the table with him instead of going back to the schoolhouse to start their usual afternoon lessons. He could tell that they were instantly on edge, there had been a lot of big upsets in their lives and routines recently. He dreaded adding something so negative to what should be an exciting time of happy childlike preparation for going away to school. 

In as simple terms as possible, he explained to them what he’d learned. He wanted them to be informed, but they were still so young and he left out many of the worst details. For the first time in a long time, his wolf scratched uncomfortably under his skin, circling his psyche restlessly. He could see his astute and intuitive daughter pick up on his stress immediately, and she whined low in the back of her throat “Dad, we know it’s not true. You would never do the things they accused you of,” she insisted. 

He reached out and held her hand, running his thumb over her fine boned knuckles. With his other hand he held his son’s as well. His feelings were getting away from him, but he was safe and they were safe “Thank you, little wolf. Your faith only makes me stronger,” his hand rose to cup her cheek, and she pressed her face into the touch like a cat.

“That’s not what I’m worried about though, what truly concerns me the most is your safety when you begin to enter the magical world and you go to school next year. We know these rumors are false, but so too must the death eaters who served the Dark Lord. They never saw me by their side or at the feet of their lord. They surely know that I never received his wretched brand or did his bidding. While everyone else will most likely be too terrified of the two of you to even glance at you sideways, the children of those death eaters may very well attempt to take revenge on me through you for their lord’s defeat.” 

With his gaze as stern and serious as he could make it, he looked between his two children and pushed as much alpha command into his voice as he could muster “The two of you must stay on your guard and keep each other safe. The world can run itself to the ground outside our walls and the people there can think whatever they want of me, as long as you two are alright. You are my most precious treasures, and I want you to protect yourselves as such. Your lives are valuable not because you are the Black and Potter heirs, not because you are an alpha and a beta, not even because you are already powerful young wizards. You are important to me because you are mine - MY children. I expect you to come back to me hale and hearty, safe and sound, with not a hair harmed on your heads. Am I understood?”

“Yes dad,” they spoke in unison, and their eyes flashed at him. Silver for his daughter, Green for his son.

He’d been restless and angry lately, more so than he felt comfortable saying, but it had been a long time since Fenrir had been truly nervous. New things happen every day, he thought to himself with bitter humor, no need to panic over change. But it wasn’t change he was beginning to panic over, it was exposure and the sharp tang of  vulnerability that crept in along the edges of his senses. For the briefest moment he closed his eyes and let his wolf take over almost completely, bathing in the sounds and smells around him until it was content that there were no immediate nearby threats. That the only things he had to worry about were his son and his daughter a few steps ahead of him on the narrow cobblestone street. 

They skipped down the crowded alley, pressing their little noses up against window fronts, and stared down fascinated into bushels and barrels full of bizarre and sometimes still alive and wriggling potions ingredients. He heard his daughter exclaim that the one she was looking into was full of bugs. Every shop front they passed had cheerful jack’o’lanturns sitting in the windows and on the steps leading up to the doorways. Nearly every other adult wore tall wide-brimmed conical hats like the muggles imagined witches to wear, and he secretly thought they looked quite silly in them. There was a tantalizing scent of buttery baked apples in the air, and rich sweet cider. Red and orange and brown fallen leaves stuffed the gutters on either sides of the street full, and if it rained it would surely flood. 

His two children were thrilled beyond measure to take their first baby steps into the wizarding world, and had been willing to compromise greatly to be allowed to be here unescorted by extra guards. They were heavily disguised and looked nothing like themselves, but he could track them by heartbeat alone if need be. There was nowhere they could go that he wouldn’t find them.

He’d asked the children’s magic tutor Geetha to place glamours on the three of them, as she was significantly better at charms than he was. After some thought, she had declined and chosen instead to use a foul smelling potion that she insisted was the more sturdy option. She had taken hairs from her own husband and children to transform his family’s appearance, and his children were ecstatic that they looked more alike than ever before.

Harry’s skin had only darkened a shade, but for Hermione and himself the change was as dramatic as if they’d spent an entire summer doing nothing but laying in the sun like lizards. All three of them sported pitch black, straight, and silky hair. It took a while for Fen to get used to how short his was, and every time he reached up to push back heir that wasn’t there one of his children smacked his hand.

While there were many things his excited little jumping beans were eager to look at and buy, they had business to conduct at the bank first and foremost. He nudged them in the direction of the Greek revival facade of Gringotts, its tall white pillars reminding him of the bars on a jail cell. He shook his head in the hopes of driving the anxiety from his mind. He hadn’t done anything wrong, their appearance was just to protect them from attention - he was an innocent man!

The heavily armed and armored goblin guards eyed him with suspicion as he approached their doors, and the copper plaque warning against the consequences of theft glinted in the bright sunlight. With a hand on each child’s shoulder he ushered them in, nodding respectfully as they passed. It was the middle of the week and the middle of October, and there was no line to speak of. Adults went about their business as usual, but the only other children they’d seen anywhere in the alley so far were their age or younger, all the older ones long since having gone off to school already. 

They walked up to the desk of the first teller they came to. He cleared his throat and bowed his head slightly, and when he spoke his voice was low and hushed “Well met sir, I would speak with Griphook and Gornuk to conduct my business, if they are available on such short notice. I need to discuss the Potter and Black accounts” 

It’s arched brows shot up above its beetle black eyes, and the ambient noises of the bank around them, whispers and shuffling parchment and the clink of coins, all drew to a halt. Someone dropped something that clattered loudly and the sound around them resumed as if nothing had happened, but the rattling sensation of being exposed came to life in his chest again. Though he stood on his own two feet he felt as if he might as well have been belly up. 

What the goblin did with it’s face in response to his request couldn’t accurately be called a smile, but it curled its lips and bared its many long and sharp teeth in a way that made his children gasp with awe and delight. It winked at them almost too quickly for him to perceive, and he recognized fond amusement in its eyes. It’s pudgy little body dropped down from its too-high chair awkwardly. It was half a foot shorter than Hermione, but with a longer torso and shorter legs. Before he could stop her, his daughter’s mouth was going like it always did “Excuse me Mr Goblin, if your horde owns and operates the bank then why aren’t the chairs and desks a more appropriate size for you? Isn’t it uncomfortable?” She asked not unkindly, but devoid of tact whatsoever. His girl and her big heart, he closed his eyes and groaned. 

While one of the witches at a teller stand a few feet away gasped and loudly exclaimed “Well, I never!” The goblin his daughter had addressed seemed unbothered. It merely turned to her and gestured up to her father “Our institution was designed for the comfort of the clientele we serve, young mistress. Were our desks any lower a wizard might have to needlessly crane their exalted neck” it rasped dryly. 

She humphed and crossed her arms “Sounds like a small price to pay for keeping their money safe for them!” She responded, and Harry nodded enthusiastically next to her. “Yeah,” he piped up “They should at least let you have a little ladder up to your chair if it has to be so much taller than you” he added passionately. His sister hummed her agreement, and though he wished they weren’t such troublemakers he was proud of his son for the way he often instinctively supported his sister in her endeavors. It was one of the many signs of a good beta in the making. 

The goblin ever so slightly inclined its head at the two of them “Wise words from the mouths of babes” it replied. Ignoring entirely the stares that followed them from the minor scene they had caused, the goblin turned and beckoned them to follow it with the crook of a single spindly finger. It waddled as it guided them silently out of the foyer and down a severe marble hall. It brought them to a set of richly carved mahogany doors and knocked twice, the sound echoing loudly and reverberating through his head. 

As the doors opened it gestured them in and fully bowed to his children with a shine to its eyes, nothing like the sneering nod he’d received earlier, rendering him speechless. Their species notoriously took great pleasure in being as rude as they could possibly get away with to humans. Following closely behind him, he nearly would have missed his children bowing at the waist back to the goblin if it hadn’t barked out a short and sharp laugh. 

New things really do happen every day, he thought to himself again, and snorted in disbelief. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the office of Gornuk, senior Gringotts accounts manager, Fenrir sat awkwardly in a plush antique velvet chair that was a good few inches too narrow for his arse to fit in comfortably. His children flanked him, sitting like little kings in identical chairs that were the perfect size for them. The goblin sat across a wide gleaming desk and glared at him. To his abject dismay, their disguises had inexplicably dropped the instant they passed through his doorway and had caused quite a commotion. 

He shifted painfully, trying to get some feeling back in his upper thigh “Listen, I swear upon my magic that I wasn’t trying to hide our identities for nefarious purposes against your horde, I only intended for my children not to draw undue attention in the alley. You have eyes in your head, surely you recognize that one of the children in your office is Harry Potter, though he is my adopted son now. And though you can be forgiven for not knowing her on sight, the other is my daughter who is a member of the Black family,” he explained as apologetically as his pride would allow, trying to appeal to the banker’s sense of client confidentiality. 

The scowl dropped from its face and it turned contemplative “We will of course need to confirm this,” the goblin replied much less harshly than when it had chastised him before. He nodded warily, not sure what exactly it was intimating “Very well, then please proceed,” It pulled two sheets of parchment from one of the drawers of its desk, briefly seeming to hesitate over whether he needed a third, and ultimately deciding against it. It also withdrew a gleaming dagger from its waistcoat.

“A single drop of your blood should suffice” it remarked to the children toothily, and only raised its eyebrows mildly when his daughter popped her claws out on one hand and pricked first the tip of her own finger, then her brother’s. They dripped their blood onto the parchments in front of them and red lines began to spread, forming words and neatly printing their names and their parents names. His eyes briefly skimmed over them, but they didn’t contain anything he wasn’t aware of. 

 Hermione Elena Greyback (Sept 19, 1979 - )
daughter of Hydra Leonida Black (Aug 5, 1940 - Oct 23, 1981)
and Fenrir Lokir Greyback (Apr 1, 1928 - ) 

*candidacy for Black Heir:
direct birthright via main branch line 
other contenders include:
Nymphadora Calliope Tonks,
Draco Lucius Malfoy,
and Harry James Potter Greyback*

 Harry James Potter Greyback (July 31, 1980 Sept 19, 1979 - )
son of Lilly Evans (Jan 30, 1960 - Oct 31, 1981)
and James Fleamont Potter (Mar 27, 1960 - Oct 31, 1981)
and Fenrir Lokir Greyback (Apr 1, 1928 - ) 

*candidacy for Potter Heir: direct birthright via only surviving family branch, with no other living contenders*

*candidacy for Black Heir:
godson of Sirius Black 
other contenders include:
Hermione Elena Greyback,
Nymphadora Calliope Tonks,
and Draco Lucius Malfoy*

They passed them back over to the goblin, who gave them little more than a glance and nod before returning them “Excellent, most excellent,” it mumbled “thank you for your cooperation,” and began scrawling a brief note that it then sealed into a canister and shoved into a pneumatic tube on the wall behind it. It was sucked away, and a few moments later, a different one shot back out. It opened it and read it, and nodded again “The manager for the Potter accounts will be joining us shortly,” it announced.

As if it were an entirely different goblin than the one who had been conversing with them just moments before, it turned back to them and politely addressed Hermione directly “Miss Greyback, allow me to warmly welcome you to Gringotts. I am Gornuk son of Nograk, and I have been serving diligently as the accounts manager for the Black family for the last 168 years,” it proclaimed proudly, with a respectful little bow of its head. Without moving her head he saw her eyes peripherally glance his way and flash silver, and she smiled at the goblin. 

“Well met Gornuk son of Nograk, I am Hermione daughter of Fenrir,” she responded in kind “This is my father Fenrir and my brother Harry. We need to take a balance of our accounts and get some money to buy our school things, but we also need to know who the actual black heir is. If I understand the papers I’ve just seen correctly, it appears that there are several contenders, myself amongst them,” she said devoid of ego, but as primly and regally as the queen of England nevertheless. 

It nodded eagerly “Of course young mistress, of course! I can tell from your lineage papers that you have a very good claim indeed, of slightly greater legal standing than your Tonks and Malfoy cousins, and significantly greater than your brother. Seeing as you are here, and you are eligible, and none has yet made a challenge before you, would you like to try and take the seat today? It eagerly awaits an heir,” it said far too casually. 

She openly turned to him for guidance, and he could only wince and shrug sheepishly, wishing he had come sooner and taken care of this for her so she wouldn’t have to be the one who made these decisions now “Is there really no adult currently acting as Lord or Lady Black?” He asked somewhat desperately, feeling as if he were grasping at sandbags to hold back an ocean. The goblin squirmed slightly in its seat “That is a more complicated question than you realize Mr Greyback,” it wheedled. 

“Unfortunately the only remaining living adult members of house Black are all ineligible to claim the title. The former Lord Black was Arcturus, and he died earlier this year. His daughter Lucretia and his nephew Cygnus are technically both still with us, but he is infirm and not in his right mind and she has renounced her claim voluntarily. Sirius and Bellatrix, his eldest grandchildren, are both interred in Azkaban prison for life, therefore forfeiting their right to claim either the lordship or the hereditary wizengamot seat. Unfortunately, though she is a free woman of good social standing, Narcissa has also forfeited her right due to having already claimed the title of Lady Malfoy. Finally, although she is in equally good standing with our bank, her sister Andromeda is unfortunately also ineligible as she has been disowned and is no longer an active member of the Black family,” he reported dutifully and without consulting any documents. Fenrir was impressed by his memory. 

“There are an entire branch of descendants that are technically Blacks by blood, but that are of very low standing in the family due to their ancestor being the youngest children of youngest children. None of them have shown interest in their claim whatsoever, and some would argue that they are unable to do so. Depending on your interpretation of official versus unofficial disowning, any of Arthur Weasley’s children could be considered eligible for the claim, but they are two entire generations removed from their Black grandmother who was disowned, and if they weren’t listed among the candidates on your parchments then the magic would most likely thoroughly reject them if they attempted it.”

“And so with no adults in the family to take over the lordship, it falls to your generation, young mistress,” the goblin kowtowed blatantly “As your papers state, your cousin Draco has a claim, but as the only Malfoy child he will undoubtedly be claiming that lordship and therefore could not in good faith challenge for the Black heir with no intention of ever actually becoming Lord Black. Additionally, you are older than him by nearly a year and - most critically - you are here first,” he said a bit smugly, as if she was the horse he’d had in the running all along.

She frowned at this “But what about cousin Nymphadora? She’s much older than me, wouldn’t she currently be a seventh year at school?” She asked, but the goblin shook its head “I’m afraid that while she could technically make a claim, Nymphadora’s birthright is nowhere near as strong as yours. Although her mother Andromeda was disowned by her mother Druella, it was never officially confirmed by the head of the family at the time, which is the only reason her daughter retains any claim at all, weak though it is,” it explained, as shamefaced at his daughter’s obvious disapproval as Fenrir had ever seen a goblin. 

She huffed and crossed her arms “That’s absurd! Is there nothing we can do for them?” She asked angrily. For a millisecond the goblin grinned like a shark, and he could have sworn he saw more than one row of teeth before it smoothed its expression back out “…If you make a challenge and are successfully accepted by your family magic as the new Heir, you could easily reinstate their line back into the family with all rights and privileges, and your numerous Weasley cousins as well if you so wished,” it said almost casually, and Fenrir growled low “Don’t taunt her with sob stories of disenfranchised family members she’s never even met! If this is what she wants then it’s what she’ll do, but I won’t see her better nature provoked into making a claim she’s not yet ready for!”

It held up its hands as if it were a poor cornered defenseless creature “I’m sure I have no idea what you refer to Mr Greyback, I seek only to keep my client well informed of her opportunities… and potential responsibilities,” Hermione’s stern look had melted, her brow was furrowed and for the first time since they entered the bank she seemed uncertain “Gornuk I don’t know my cousin Draco, but I’ve heard bad things… he would never reinstate Aunt Andy and her family, would he?”

The goblin seemed entirely earnest as it shook its head, and its long pointed ears waggled slightly “I have not met the boy myself, but I have overseen some of the business his father Lucius has conducted and he is as unkind as they come. Not only that, but the man has seen fit to throw around the weight of the Black family name, which belongs only to his wife and child, to increase his own prospects. It falls short of our definition of theft or counterfeit, but only barely. For this the horde considers him a bad actor.”

Fenrir knew there had always been the potential that she could end up being the head of house Black one day, but he could still scarcely believe how candid and deferential the goblin was being with his eleven year old daughter. She nodded at the goblin solemnly “I suppose that decides it then. Is there paperwork or is it just a verbal thing like the swears and oaths wizards make sometimes?” She asked it fearlessly, and he felt his heart nearly come to a stop in his chest. His son laughed in delight next to him and he glared at the boy. 

The goblin looked beyond elated, and it took a small box from its desk “A bit of both and neither, young mistress. I took the liberty of having these brought up from the vaults as soon as I felt your magical signature enter the building,” it said with the barest hint of a greyish flush rising to its cheeks and ear tips “The rings will decide,” it said almost reverentially.

“How does it work exactly?” She asked curiously as always, opening the box and staring down at two huge tarnished gaudy rings with distaste clear on her little face. The goblin hesitated tellingly “You must invoke your magic and verbally state that you have a claim to the seat of the heir and are challenging for right of it. Then you place the ring on the index finger of your right hand, and… and then we’ll see what happens” it finished lamely. 

Fenrir rumbled low and bared his teeth at it “What exactly will happen?” He demanded furiously, his temper leaping to the surface. It squirmed behind its desk and wrung its long fingered hands, obviously not wanting to answer. 

He outright snarled at it, making it yelp and hurry to speak “It depends! If the family magic accepts her as the heir, then the ring will resize to fit her and the gem will change to her birthstone. If it rejects her any number of things could theoretically happen, all of which will make themselves… immediately apparent. Most likely it will just fall off of her hand, possibly with a light stinging sensation. However I sincerely believe that the Black family magic will accept her, she has the best claim and her magical signature is powerful. I tell you again sir, I felt it when she entered the building!” He exclaimed in a terrified rush. 

His daughter reached out to take his hand, and he was awestruck to see the resolve and acceptance on her face “It’s going to be alright, daddy,” she told him sweetly, squeezing his much larger hand in her small one. She let go and held her hands in front of her, glancing at him sheepishly “Don’t get mad, I’ve been practicing this with Geetha,” she said with a grin “alright, invoke my magic… invoke my magic,” and as she flexed the fine tiny muscles in her hands ribbons of soft emerald green light swirled to life between her fingers like a miniature aurora borealis. 

As she moved her hands back and forth above her lap, sparkles in every shade of green lit off of the tips of her fingers, shimmering in the air before disappearing. The sight of it took his breath away, and before he could work out the words to ask her what exactly she was doing her eyes flashed silver and her voice echoed strangely from her chest “I, Hermione Elena Greyback, daughter of Hydra Leonida Black, granddaughter of Alphard Hyperion Black, claim a birthright to lead this house and do so challenge the Black family magic to find me worthy!” She intoned as she took the ring from the box and thrust it onto her finger.

They watched with bated breath as the ring shook and rattled her knuckles around, spinning and buzzing, before shrinking and settling into a much finer band with a lovely cobalt blue sapphire. In the process it had seemed to shake off its patina, and it shone brilliantly where it rested on her hand. None of them spoke or even breathed, not even his usually loquacious daughter. 

When he looked at the goblin he expected to see it as thrilled as it had been when her lineage was revealed, but instead its face was slack and pale. He shot to his feet “What, what’s wrong?” He growled, reaching out to grab it by the collar. It didn’t even try to move away or stop him, and he feared the worst. 

As if it were in a trance it pointed down at the box on its desk where a smaller ring still remained inside “That is the heir’s ring that she was supposed to try on. The one that just accepted her was the Lord’s ring. She grabbed the wrong one,” it said in almost comical disbelief “I- I don’t know what this means! She shouldn’t have even been able to pick that one up. She’s a child and yet the magic accepted her as head of the entire family. She’s eleven and she’s the Lady Black,” it said, its voice veering towards hysteria as it reached up to tug on its own ears.

Gornuk let out a braying laugh that sounded viscerally and uncomfortable inhuman “Well… You can definitely restore your family now, my lady,” it wheezed out. His girl had the nerve to look incredibly self-satisfied at this, and asked if she could have a larger tree made out containing the whole family with all its wayward and winding branches. He stopped listening when she began pointedly digging for information about the specific wording of reinstating members. 

Fenrir sat back in his own uncomfortable chair heavily. He had no frame of reference for this. He was born into common poverty and his mate had abandoned the life of leisure she had been born to. Now he had to figure out how to continue parenting a member of the peerage. He lived in a cabin in the woods for the goddesses sakes! 

As he tried to think of anything he could say to attempt to control or somehow manage the quickly escalating situation, a jarring knock at the door startled them all. Another goblin bustled in and bowed low in his son’s direction “Greetings Greyback family, I am the Potter accounts manager. I am Griphook son of Axecleave, at your service”

His son beamed at the goblin “Griphook my man, you are not going to fucking believe what you just missed,” he told it, and his daughter burst into laughter.

On a viciously cold fortress on a rock in the North Sea, battered by driving wind and freezing rain, beset by wailing wraithlike demons, a wretch of a man shivered in his dank and dark stone cell. It could barely be considered indoors, as a glassless window with heavy dimeritium bars left him exposed to the elements. He twitched and shook, and rose as a dog. Suddenly more alert and aware, he circled his cage desperately, feeling something he couldn’t explain. 

For the first time in over a decade the Black family magic reached out and touched him, and it was warm and soft and gentle. It felt good and different and loving in a way he had never experienced in his thirty years, not even as a child. Though he was confused he couldn’t bring himself to feel fearful. Hope sparked dangerously in his chest for the first time in a very long time. Someone was thinking of him kindly. Knowing nothing else, that was enough to lift his spirits. 

He spun around three times and laid back down on his cot, falling asleep almost immediately, and getting the best night’s rest he’d ever had in his cell. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In an opulent manor in rural Wiltshire, a beautiful arrangement of garden tables were laid out amongst the rosebushes, each set for a generous tea service. Tiny cakes and cucumber sandwiches on tiered trays popped into existence, and gilded teapots levitated to pour cups of steaming earl grey and darjeeling, jasmine and rooibos. Though the attendees of the party were children, not a single one was so crass as to clink their spoons or lift their saucers. They were far too well bred for that sort of behavior. A violin was charmed to play itself, and it was doing so quite finely. 

It was one of the last sunny days of fall, and though it was clear and bright there was a distinctly crisp chill in the air. None of the guests were bothered though, as warming charms hung heavy around the party. Nearly every house in the pureblood coalition had a young member present, excited to celebrate both their last year at home and the upcoming Halloween festivities. The gathering was shaping up to be an overall success until a harsh gasp pierced the air nearly as loudly as a scream, and brought everything to an immediate flabbergasted halt. 

Narcissa Malfoy was the quintessential hostess, never a hair out of place or a word less than perfectly polite. Queen of society, queen of occluding herself into an icy fortress. Yet as she felt her ancient ancestral family magic lurchingly stir in a volatile and unfamiliar manner, she crumbled to pieces. As she staggered to her feet, dropping both the cup and spoon she’d been holding, she clutched her chest and ruined her coiffure shaking her head  wildly. Her eyes sightlessly searching for someone who wasn’t there, her breathing ragged and fast, she frightened the children terribly. Her son shot to his feet and rushed to help her. 

“How? WHO?” She moaned, leaning on him heavily as he arrived at her side “Without even consulting the family? Who DARES?” She cried angrily, unable to contain the furious tears rolling down her cheeks. She dropped to her knees, and unable to support her full weight her son only barely remained upright next to her “Mipsy! Get father!” He called, terror in his trembling voice as he lowered himself to the ground next to her. 

As suddenly as she had fallen to despair, Narcissa felt the magic shift again, something returning to it that she had feared would never return. Her gasp this time was awed and wonderstruck “Andy? My sister!” She whispered disbelievingly “Thank you, thank you whoever you are” she wailed gratefully, the tears now from joy, the smile on her face was bigger than it had been in years. 

As Lucius arrived in the garden he was horrified to see the state of it, children frozen everywhere in confused fear, his wife and child on the ground. Yet as his eyes fell upon her and he really took her in, as disheveled as she was, she looked more gorgeous to him than ever as he recognized the genuine elation on her face that he hadn’t seen in over a decade. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the bowels of the ministry of magic a large cohort of seventh year Hogwarts students who had been selected as potential auror trainee cadets were taking their academy entrance exams. A grizzled older man with an eyepatch and a limp paced vigilantly along the perimeter of the hall as he proctored the test takers. His uncovered eye was a brilliant blue, and it roved over the room, seeking out cheaters and general trouble making. 

Near the back of the room, a young woman with candy pink hair fell out of her seat with a loud laugh. She had already been seated precariously and it was more of a slow slide to the floor. He picked up the pace and made his way over to her as quick as he could “You alright lass?” He growled.

She rubbed her chest, and looked up at him with a look of absolute wonder on her face “It’s so friendly, and it’s playful like a kid!” she enthused ridiculously, making no sense to anyone around her. She shot to her feet, knocking the parchments off of not only her own desk but somehow the desks on either side of her as well “Look, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go!” She exclaimed, dodging around him and heading for the door. 

It took him a moment to process that, and he bellowed after her “You leave this room and you can say goodbye to your chance of ever making it into the academy!” His booming voice drew the attention of everyone else in the room who hadn’t already been distracted by her commotion. She looked over her shoulder back at him, still moving forward and knocking into another desk but grinning all the while “I have a feeling that’s not going to be a problem moving forward, sir! I think my prospects are looking up” she said as she sailed out of the testing hall with another mad laugh. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The weekly meeting for the senior residents to catch up and get on the same page was going long, and healer Tonks had a headache. She’d been feeling a bit peaky all day and had avoided taking a pepper-up because she’d been with patients and hadn’t wanted to look silly, but was slowly coming to regret that. She could feel her heartbeat pulsing behind her eyes, and there was tension building in her forehead. She dug the knuckle of her index finger into her eyebrow to try and relieve some of the pressure on her sinuses. 

Healer Borowitz wouldn’t shut the fuck up about needing more medi-witches on his floor, even though his patients were non-emergent and he already had the lion’s share of them and everyone else always needed more as well. What St Mungo’s really needed were more healers, but the mastery took longer and was harder and the number of incoming recruits had been dropping significantly. Practically everyone who wanted to go into healing these days stopped as soon as they received their medi-wizardry quals. 

A hospital’s staffing makeup was always going to be composed of more medi-witches than healers, but at St. Mungo’s it was getting ridiculous. They needed competent young people willing to commit to finishing the program, or in a decade’s time every healer in the building would be middle-aged or older. She couldn’t help but think of her daughter and feel terribly guilty. 

Dora had wanted to follow in her footsteps, but on top of being a long and difficult mastery track, healing was also an expensive one. While their small family had always been relatively comfortable, they simply couldn’t afford it. They had never starved, her uncle had made sure of that when she was disowned, but there were no extra savings she could scrounge up to put her girl through a mastery and it ate at her terribly. 

Her precious girl had decided on the auror track as it was a ministry subsidized program that the trainees didn’t need to pay for. The very thought of her seventeen year old daughter chasing down dark witches and wizards under the dubious supervision of that absolute nutter Moody nearly made her stomach turn. She wished more than anything that she had saved or invested more cleverly or even set aside her pride and gone to beg her sister for money, anything that wouldn’t have her baby running off towards the seedy criminal underworld. 

Feeling the beginnings of what she thought might be a bit of minor indigestion, Healer Tonks was about to stand and excuse herself from the farce of a meeting when the sensation shifted and turned very warm and familiar. Her hand rose to press flatly and firmly against her chest, drawing the attention of several of the other residents. It was a gesture everyone was intimately familiar with in a medical setting. Healer Greengrass rose his brows in alarm next to her “Alright there, Andy?” He probed quietly. 

She raised her other hand to wipe away the tears she could feel rolling down her face “I can’t bloody believe it Edwin… I think I’ve just been reinstated?” She barely dared to say it aloud, and her voice shook as a breathless laugh bubbled up out of her throat. 

“Merlin’s pants, what are you still doing here? Go find out!” He encouraged, and she nodded and rose, not caring or even noticing the screech of her chair on the tile as she shoved it back and out of her way. She raised her hand to wave at her colleagues “Er, family emergency. Gotta go” she muttered to the room at large as she dashed out, leaving whispers behind her. She couldn’t keep the grin off her face as she raced to the bank of elevators.

As she reached the ground floor and passed the front desk, she burst into laughter as she saw her daughter standing there waiting for her “You feel it too?” She asked joyously. They hugged fiercely “Mum, is it what I think it is?” Her daughter responded, and she squeezed her girl even tighter. Closing her eyes and sending a thanks to whatever gods had allowed this to happen, she spun them around joyously “It is Dora, it is! Whoever they are, the new Head of the family’s very first act was to bring us back into the fold”

She kept her hands on her daughter’s shoulders but pushed her back to stare at her at arm’s length, raking her eyes over the sweet face she so loved “We need to- gods be good, but we have to get to Gringotts now darling. Right this very minute!” She looped their arms together, pulling her child along with her to the exit and out onto the street. 

As soon as they were outside of the hospital’s anti-apparition wards she side-alonged them both to the doorstep of the bank. The goblin guards looked at them with intense suspicion, most wizards chose to apparate into the leaky rather than into the alley directly.  It was considered quite imnpolite, and some businesses even had anti apparition wards set up on their doorsteps to prevent it. Thankfully the bank was a hair’s breadth too mercenary to be one of them. One of the goblins grunted at her “Highly irregular, madam. Not planning on making any trouble, are you?”

She shook her head vigorously, slashing her hand out horizontally away from herself “Absolutely not, sir. Sorry for startling you. Very urgent family business happening inside that we need to be there for!” She said politely, and hardly waited for him to nod gruffly before rushing in. To her immense relief, she recognized one of the junior Black family accounts managers waiting for her in the foyer, and it urged her and Dora to follow it “Come madam and miss, after me please” it said as it waddled away faster than she’d ever seen a goblin move. Hurrying along after it, she hesitated before asking “Do you know who-”

It shook its head and grimaced “I’m sorry madam but I’m not at liberty to say. You’ll see for yourself in just a second anyways” it said not unkindly. She realized it really did mean a second as they stopped abruptly in front of the office she remembered coming to with her father so very long ago. She looked at it and it gestured for her towards the door. She raised her fist, and looking back at her daughter, she braced herself and knocked loudly three times. 

If you had given her a thousand house elves and a thousand typewriters and a thousand years they wouldn’t have been able to come up with the sight that greeted her as the carved wooden doors swung open. 

Fenrir fucking Greyback sat awkwardly in a chair too small for him, next to Harry bleeding Potter, savior of the entire goddamn Wizarding world, and a girl who had the Black hair and eyes and looked startlingly familiar. A laugh barked its way out of her chest before she could stop it “Am I hallucinating? I think I must be having a bloody out of body experience” she said coming over to the desk and not even leaning against it but flatly sitting upon the top of it and cradling her head in her hands.

Her daughter followed her into the room, tripping over something and spilling to the floor, but instantly shooting back up casually as if nothing had happened. The little goblin in the halls eyes widened and it quickly shut the door. She thought she heard its feet scurrying away on the other side, and laughed again desperately. She looked back over her shoulder and nodded at the goblin seated behind the desk “Hullo then Gornuk, how’s the family?”

It cleared its throat and tilted its head back and forth “Well enough, well enough. Pleasure to see you again, madam” it looked at the girl sitting in front of her “Allow me to introduce Lady Hermione Elena Greyback, daughter of your cousin Hydra and… the new head of the Black family” Gesturing at herself, it continued “My lady, allow me to introduce your cousin Andromeda Persea Tonks and her daughter Nymphadora Calliope Tonks” her daughter grumbled at that “Please just call me Dora” she said under her breath.

She rolled her eyes, and stood back up and came over to crouch in front of the girl. She took her little hands in her own and looked up into her eyes “I don’t know how to thank you, my dear girl. I never thought I’d feel this again in my lifetime” she said, scanning her eyes over the child’s face, exploring every inch of it “I didn’t even know Hydra had a child before she- well,” she winced. Smooth move, Andy she thought to herself bring up the girl’s dead mum the very moment you meet her. 

“You’ll have to tell us that story” she said, turning her eyes towards the large man who had remained suspiciously silent, narrowing them at him slightly. To her great surprise the tips of his ears turned red and he reached out as if to touch her hair before stopping himself “You look so much like her” he rasped out, looking supremely uncomfortable and grimacing. She hadn’t even had time to flinch away, the most bloodthirsty werewolf who had ever lived had almost touched her because she looked like his dead… wife? Lover? She started to hyperventilate.

To her utter bafflement, the little girl reached over and grabbed his enormous hand without even looking “You’re making her nervous, daddy” the child said quietly, and got up from her chair to clamber over and sit on the arm of his, perching herself like a bird on a bear. She could scarcely believe her eyes, until the girl looked at her and tilted her head “You should sit Aunt Andy, please” she said gesturing to the chair she had just gotten out of. She did so, again feeling like she was having a vivid out of body experience. 

The girl looked at her father, “Did we do everything we needed to do here today, dad?” And he let out a strangled laugh “Are you joking little wolf? No, we literally haven’t gotten to a single one of the things we actually came here for” he huffed, much more gently than she was expecting. 

“We were just supposed to get money and go buy your school things” he said with the very familiar drawl of an overwhelmed parent “But apparently you’re Lady Black now, so I guess that’s on the back burner. We haven’t even gotten to- hey, where did Griphook go?” He looked around, and to her astonishment she realized there was a second goblin in the room who was staring at her wide-eyed, and looked like it had been trying very hard to blend into the walls. 

The boy finally spoke up “Oh yeah, why is Griphook here again? Is there Potter stuff we need to do too? Because I don’t care how cool that looked, I’m not putting one of those rings on” he turned to meet her daughter’s gaze “It did look so cool though” he said again emphatically, and Hermione nodded and grinned “It was cool as hell” she confirmed. 

Her father rolled his eyes “I never said it wasn’t cool but you scared the life out of me, child” he muttered low. Her daughter looked back and forth between the three of them, and like a sixth sense Andromeda could tell her daft child was about to say something stupid or tactless. “Not that it’s not neat, but why is Harry Potter here?” She asked the room at large, and the man glared at the goblin “This is why we had glamours on Gornuk!” He exploded, and to her surprise the goblin looked sheepish. “Greyback” the boy said mildly, apropos of nothing, and she was shocked at how casually he addressed the man.

“What about him?” She asked hesitantly after an awkward drawn out moment of silence, to which the three laughed and the boy responded “No, Harry Potter Greyback. I’m adopted, so I’m part of the family too. That’s why I’m here” he said pleasantly with a smile, before furrowing his brows “Hang on, how have we never discussed this, am I actually part of the Black family? Hermione’s mum didn’t adopt me, only dad did” he glanced at his… father apparently, and then at the goblin who was still impersonating a credenza.

“Griphook, the parchment said my claim was based on Sirius being my godfather. Is that my only tie to the Black Family?” The goblin seemed to consider this extremely carefully before replying “Your great uncle Charlus, your grandfather Fleamont’s brother, was married to Dorea Black, who was sister to Alphard, making you and Lady Black cousins by marriage before your adoption. You were indeed already a part of the family, and coincidentally were also cousins with your godfather Sirius, as his grandfather Pollux was your great aunt Dorea’s other brother”

The boy and girl both looked fascinated and thrilled by this, and reached to hold each others hands sweetly. The man had a very fond look on his face as he watched his children, and Andromeda was beyond confused, but remained determined to not insult the man whose daughter was her new head of house. “It wouldn’t matter either way though” the girl said confidently “the ritual that bound us together let both dad’s blood and mine run in your veins. You’d have been related to my mum through me even though she wasn’t there for it” and Andromeda wasn’t sure about the maths of that statement, but the child sounded absolutely certain. She came back to herself and shook her head slightly to clear it. 

“As fascinating as that is, I’m really terribly sorry for the way we interrupted your family business. I just had to find out who reinstated us and thank you for it. You really have no idea what you’ve given me back, I’m so grateful. If you want us to get out of your hair though we can leave now?” She trailed off, the self-preservation driven part of her hoping that her and Dora would be dismissed, and the part of her that burned with curiosity selfishly hoping to stay and get to the bottom of whatever was going on here. 

The small family shared intense eye contact, and clearly had a full silent conversation, before the girl turned back to her “You can leave if you want to, but would you like to go shopping and have have lunch with us?” She blushed slightly “Also are you good at charms because we maybe need someone to help us put our glamours back on. Dad’s not good at them, and Harry and I don’t have our wands yet” she said meekly, and Dora burst into laughter from where she had just sat down on the floor “Oh yes mum, lets!”

What a sweet girl she thought mildly, and felt a warm feeling rise in her chest “Well, alright, if you’re sure that its really not an imposition. We can at least give you some privacy while you finish your business though. Come on Darling, lets wait in the hall” she tugged her daughter back up and dragged her to the door. 

As she was pulling the door closed behind her, she heard the man address Hermione “Little wolf I love you completely unconditionally and would die for you, but I can already tell that this business is going to be a monumental bloody pain in my arse” he grumbled, to which her and her daughter both burst into laughter. 

After the absolutely disastrous conclusion to the autumnal garden party, Lucius wasn’t sure how his family would ever redeem themselves in the eyes of the rest of wizarding high society. He still wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that whoever the new head of house Black was, they had reinstated his wife’s errant muggle-loving sister. He stomach turned slightly sour at the thought of someday having to refer to a halfblood as his niece, and he could barely fathom the possibility of ever having to entertain his sister-in-law’s muggleborn husband on Malfoy soil. He sincerely hoped she would know better than to bring him if she ever came to visit. It would be an affront to practically everything he held dear. 

Yet despite the ruinous life choices the woman had made, that he would frankly never understand, she was still his wife’s beloved elder sister. And having been somehow officially reinstated into the Black family, she was a pureblood woman of technically good standing once more. So as much as he detested the situation and was of the firm belief that banishments and disownings were traditionally permanent for a reason, the saying ‘happy wife happy life’ was not just a meaningless platitude. 

Or that had been his attitude until his curiosity had gotten the better of him and he’d decided to peruse the Black family tapestry in his wife’s study, a duplicate his mother-in-law had woven and charmed herself as a wedding present for them. He had immediately felt lightheaded at what he’d discovered, and had used Narcissa’s fainting couch for its actual intended purpose for perhaps the first time ever. 

Calling an elf to summon his family to him, he tried to arrange himself with some dignity, and considered how to best present the situation. His wife was exceedingly clever, and though he knew she wouldn’t challenge him in front of their son, she would not hesitate to call his bullshite what it was when they were alone together. He briefly considered how long he could avoid private contact with her for, but then dismissed that thought. He did so enjoy her company, and it would clearly be more of a punishment for himself than anything else. 

The doors swung open silently and his beautiful wife swanned into the room with a lightness of foot about her that charmed him down to his very toes. Though she had not deteriorated over the years in any way, a piece of her had been missing since she lost her sister, and an ever present sadness had lain over her like a permanent shroud that she had tried so admirably to hide. The creature before him now though practically glowed, this was once again the Narcissa he fell in love with. 

She came to him with a press of fingertips and a kiss, and from the doorway their son made a lurid retching noise. He glared at his progeny “Cease that at once you little beast, you only exist because of the love your mother and I share” his voice cracked like a whip, and his son straightened and sat obediently like a little doll on the sofa across from him. 

His lovely wife only rolled her eyes and sighed, but exquisitely as if in never ending ecstasy, as she often had the last few days. Not even dirt on her gleaming floors or food spilled on her spotless table had killed her fantastic mood. He hoped it lasted, but he didn’t dare get used to it. She sat so close to him as to almost be in his lap, and he immediately occluded so as not to blush in front of his own son.

“I hate to be the bearer of troubling news, but I have discovered something that necessitates a candid family discussion between the three of us” he said firmly, to which she gently nodded in encouragement. Standing, he drew her over to the wall and beckoned their son to join them “I have been inspecting the tapestry your mother made for us to see if it would reveal who exactly the new head of house Black is. I assumed it had to be one of the elders, as they are the only living members, but I was wrong” he pointed with an elegant manicured finger to a branch he thought had withered away long ago. 

Beside him his wife gasped delicately “Hydra had a daughter!” 

“Yes” he responded grimly “there must have been powerful enchantments concealing her marriage and birth that only recently broke, but look at the dates. Shortly before she died your cousin had a child, Hermione Elena. I don’t know how it’s happened, but this girl, an eleven year old child, is the new Lady Black” he looked down at his son, whose face was scrunched in confusion as he examined her portrait on the tapestry “I have much to explain to you Draco, but know that if we aren’t extremely careful this child could be the death of us”

His son raised his Black eyes to him, silvery grey like his mother’s “But father, she’s just a girl my age, what could she possibly do to hurt us?” The boy said, not arrogantly but with genuine curiosity in his voice. He sighed heavily, leading his family back over to where they had been sitting previously. 

“I know that this is a strange situation, and I’m sure there are important details we are not yet privy to, and that we may never know. The hows and whys are not important at the moment. I am going to tell you a difficult story, and I need you to listen carefully and remember every word. It may sound different than what you’ve heard before but it is the absolute truth, and you must not breathe word of it to another soul besides your mother and I. Do I make myself clear, Draco?” His son nodded, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, preparing himself to reveal his darkest secrets. 

“What you must first understand is the reason my father’s generation joined the Dark Lord. At the time, he presented himself as a brilliant radical. He claimed he wanted to protect our wizarding traditions and safeguard the place of purebloods in our society. His philosophy and ideology gained him great support initially among our ranks, and he made tremendous strides to bring conservative values back into vogue at the ministry and block progressives in the wizengamot. However, by my generation he had begun to change significantly. He started calling for the death of muggles and the enslavement of muggleborns, and he chose to lead his own followers with fear and control us with torture. People started comparing him to Grindlewald. He had become a terrifying madman that many of us didn’t willingly choose to follow, but rather were enlisted into his service by our fathers. By the time he was defeated, many of us were glad to be rid of him. The atrocities he committed upon wizarding Britain were innumerable”

He paused, deep in his worst memories, and had to physically shake himself out of them. He glanced at his son “Explain it back to me so I know you understand” he commanded lightly.

Draco thought for a moment, before summarizing succinctly “The Dark Lord started out smart and subtle, but he took it too far and was too obvious. He stopped behaving like a Slytherin. You didn’t really want to serve him, but grandfather Abraxas made you do it. That’s the part I don’t really understand, everyone says the Malfoys were the Dark Lord’s favorites” his son said, his brow furrowed. He sighed, he had hoped to get out of this conversation without having to go over this part, as it painted him in a poor light. His son was too astute for his own good. 

“It’s not technically false, but it isn’t the whole story. My father was zealously dedicated to the Dark Lord, and he committed a great deal of our fortune to his cause even after the man had clearly turned to madness. It could be generations after I’m gone, if ever, before our vaults are returned to the state they were before my father foolishly gave the Dark Lord free reign over them. Anything he wanted, my father threw galleons at like they grew on trees. When I took over my father’s role in the Dark Lord’s service I was expected to be little more than a walking coin purse, and I gladly acted as such to avoid having to engage in more distasteful behavior. By the grace of the gods I was able to avoid having to torture or kill anyone. I had a safe and important position, but that in no way guaranteed me his favor. In truth I rather suspect the Dark Lord actively disliked me, as he often mocked my social standing and appearance. It was quite humiliating” he admitted, feeling exceptionally vulnerable.

His son looked outraged “So he was crazy and he used us for our money? What a cheap tosser!” The boy exclaimed, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Cheap tosser indeed. From the mouths of babes. 

“My thoughts exactly, but don’t repeat that in front of anyone else. Now that you understand that, there’s another important thing I need to explain to you. When the Dark Lord was defeated, many of his followers were brought to justice and stood trial before the wizengamot. The ones that committed the worst crimes were either given the dementor’s kiss or sent to Azkaban - your Aunt Bellatrix for example resides there on the charges of torturing the Longbottoms. Most who committed only minor and nonviolent crimes got off by paying fines or serving short sentences. However, many were able to get off completely by claiming that they had been under the imperius curse and weren’t responsible for their actions. The trouble was that the Dark Lord and his followers really had imperiused a great deal of ministry employees, and it was therefore not a far-fetched claim to make. It was nearly impossible to tell who had actually been controlled and who was lying - but probably twice again as many people who were actually cursed claimed that they were to get out of a harsh sentence,” 

“I was charged with only financial crimes, which I paid steep fines for in reparations, but when you go to Hogwarts you may hear children falsely claim that I pretended to have been imperiused. This is patently untrue, but you must ignore them as arguing will only make us look worse from their perspective. For every follower like myself that didn’t want to serve the Dark Lord, there were three more who did so gladly and proudly. Your Aunt was one of his most faithful, a true believer if you will. In their opinion, it was the greatest honor to either die in his service or be jailed for having done his crimes. To deny having served him is the ultimate treachery to them, and they loathe and wish vengeance for their Lord on those of us who got off easy”

“This is why I’ve told you all of this. The father of the new Lady Black is Fenrir Greyback. Do you know who he is?” when the boy shook his head he continued, despite wishing to spare his son the knowledge “He is a werewolf, and he was one of the Dark Lord’s most vicious followers. He killed indiscriminately and gleefully, eating his victims and turning the survivors into more wolves for his monstrous pack” he said with disgust. His son looked absolutely terrified, and though it brought him no joy to scare him he was glad his child was listening “I genuinely do not know whether Greyback was a true believer of the Dark Lord, or simply a violent opportunist happy to slake his bloodlust wherever he could. Do you understand now why I’m scared for our family, Draco?”

His son swallowed audibly, and his eyes were wet and frightened “If-if he was a true believer and he thinks you renounced the D-Dark Lord he might want t-to hurt you, father” he whimpered, his voice trembling “A-and he could… he c-could have his d-daughter command mother and I to-to do anything… She could make us do whatever she wants! Merlin’s beard, w-what on earth are we going to do, father?” He cried, panic rising and beginning to hyperventilate.

Narcissa moved to kneel in front of him and rubbed his chest “Breathe slowly, my dragon. No matter what happens your father and I shall protect you. Calm yourself’ she shushed him softly, running her fingers rhythmically through the strands of his short hair, brushing it back away from his teary red face. She was such a loving mother, twice again as affectionate as his or hers had ever been, kinder and more maternal. He wondered where it had come from, her goodness of spirit. Certainly not from Druella Rosier. 

She hummed to their child softly “Your father didn’t tell you this to frighten you, my love, but to protect you. Knowledge is power - think about how you will act towards her now versus how you might have acted if you hadn’t known about the girl’s power over us. And while it is true that she is our new head of house, she could not force us to harm ourselves or your father. The family magic would punish her if she did, so we do have some measure of recourse there. We have to try and balance what we know with what we know is unknown, and the only way to do that is by keeping an open mind. For whatever reason, her first act after challenging the magic was reinstating my sister Andromeda, who I have so dearly missed these last fifteen years. The girl could very well be a tremendous ally if we remain cautious and keep our options open. If we can win her favor, it could be a great boon for our family!” She said enthusiastically. Their son looked far less frightened. 

“My brilliant wife, you could be a Hufflepuff for how optimistic you sound right now” he murmured, and she flushed a lovely rosy pink “Lucius, really” she demurred “It’s true. We must prepare for the worst but remember that the best is also possible. There is no other reason I can possibly think of that the child of a true believer would reinstate a disowned family member. The circumstances are confusing, but we’ve received a sign that there may be much more going on than we know. I’m going to reach out to Andromeda, I can only hope she will be willing to speak with me” she said. 

He felt a tremendous rush of love for her, and pride that he had made such a fine choice of a match. Though he hesitated to embrace her cheerful outlook, it certainly helped to remember that good outcomes were possible when one was used to bracing for the worst. Maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed. He stifled a chuckle at the thought - maybe the wolf was housebroken. 

Chapter Text

October 12th, 1990
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the woods 

To Gornuk son of Nograk,

Greetings sir, it was a pleasure meeting you at the bank the other day. I am very pleased with the assistance I have received from you so far in matters relating to my house and inheritance. I am writing to ascertain whether or not the Weasleys can be restored to the Black family in the same manner in which Andromeda and her family were. I meant to do so while we were in your office with you, but there was rather a lot going on and it slipped my mind. 

Additionally, I cannot help but wonder if it will cause the same degree of magical drain. As far as I understand there a great deal more of them, and I was a bit worn out afterwards with just the two family members returned to our magic. Are there any other considerations to make before I undertake this effort to restore my cousins? Do I need to be at Gringotts again to make it official? I know the other day was stressful for my dad, and I’d prefer to do this from our home if possible. 

Whether I am able to restore them or not, I want the Weasley family to be able to access the trust vault that belonged to their ancestor. That’s my most important priority. Can you do a balance of it for me and see if there’s anything left to give them from it?

Kind regards :)
Hermione Elena Greyback

12th day of Winterfyllēdth, 1990
Office of Black Accounts
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley
London, England

Lady Black,

Thank you for your kind words and for reaching out to me with your questions. It was a true honor to observe you claim your seat, my lady. In response to your queries, the magical exhaustion you felt at the bank was much more likely a result of your ascent to lordship conducted previously to the reinstatement. 

When an entire branch is returned to the family, such as you intend to do with your Weasley cousins, the personal magic of the head of house only directly touches the single member who is being brought back into the fold. From there the family magic is funneled through that individual and travels on its own downward through their descendants. 

Your magic embraced Andromeda and pulled her back into the family, and from there the family magic reached out to her daughter on its own. The same should happen with Arthur Weasley and his children. What may cause some difficulty is the fact that his mother who was disowned from the black family is no longer with us. Reconnecting a branch through a disowned AND deceased member may prove challenging in ways I cannot estimate. 

You are more than welcome to come to the bank to attempt this if you are at all concerned or uncertain. As for the act itself, the wording and ceremony should be identical. Invoke your magic and call on the Black family to bring Cedrella and her descendants back into the fold. If this does not work there are other methods that can be attempted, such as ritually adopting Arthur and his siblings into the black family, but I advise you not to attempt those on your own, my lady, powerful though you are. 

The front of house staff have been made aware of the permission you have granted to allow the Weasley family access to Cedrella’s trust vault. There is a sum total of roughly 30,000 galleons within it (equivalent to 150,000 pounds at the current exchange rate), as well as several heirlooms that belonged to her personally. 

In your service,
Gornuk son of Nograk

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

October 13th, 1990
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the woods  

Lord Weasley (Prewett?)

Hello sir, you don’t know me but we are related. I believe we are distant cousins, but I am not certain of the exact connection as I have not seen a full copy of our family tree yet. My grandfather was Alphard Black, and through him I have claimed the lordship of our house. 

I have reinstated my cousin Andromeda and her daughter Dora, and I would do the same for your branch if you wish it. As far as I understand it, there is a sizable trust vault at Gringotts for Cedrella Black that should have been inherited by you and any siblings or children you may have. I have informed Gornuk that you are to be allowed to access it whether you wish to be reinstated or not. 

Family is important to me, and I understand that you have several children my own age whom I would be more than happy to consider cousins. I regret that we did not get to grow up together, but am excited to attend school with them. Please inform them that they may write to me if they wish, as I would be delighted to correspond. 

Please do not be fearful of my last name. My father is a good wolf, and the rumors about him are false. He taught me to be kind and to help people who need it. The only things he has ever killed are deer and rabbits. 

Kind regards,
Hermione Elena Greyback :)

13th day of Winterfyllēdd, 1990
Office of Black Accounts
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley
London, England

Mr Arthur Weasley,

This letter is written to inform you that you have been granted hereditary access to a Black trust vault belonging to your mother Cedrella. A new key has been forged for your use, and you may collect it at any teller stand in the bank at your convenience. 

In service of the House of Black,
Gornuk son of Nograk

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

14/10/1990
From the desk of Arthur Weasley
Office of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts
Department of the Improper Use of Magic
The British Ministry of Magic
London, England

Lady Black,

I cannot thank you enough for allowing my family access to my mothers vault. Though I have worked hard in life to provide for my children, it is no uncommon knowledge in our community that we have often struggled from a lack of galleons and many hungry mouths to feed. I still have five children to put through school, and I feared the worst. Even if there is only what others may consider a pittance, it will surely help see my family through the times ahead, and I am sincerely grateful. 

As to your generous offer, I am unsure if my line even can be restored, as my mother Cedrella passed away while still disowned from her family. I have heard that her removal was in word only and not deed, but I do not know how accurate that is, or if it at all changes the circumstances. I would be honored for my family to be brought into the house of Black if it is possible, and if it is not then I am still honored for my children to have such a compassionate young woman as their cousin. Once I inform them of our new circumstances I am sure they will be thrilled to write to you.

My oldest is Bill, he’s 20 and a curse breaker at Gringotts. Next is Charlie, he’s 18 and has just gotten a job at the dragon preserve in Romania! Percy is 14 and he’s a fourth year at Hogwarts. My twins Fred and George are 12 and are second years. Ron is 10 and he’ll be a first year next year. My youngest is my daughter Ginny, she’s 9 and she’s very sad that she has to wait two more years before starting school. 

Thank you, and may magic bless you
Arthur Weasley

14/10/1990
From the desk of Arthur Weasley
Office of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts
Department of the Improper Use of Magic
The British Ministry of Magic
London, England

Andromeda,

Hello, dear cousin. I would say you won’t believe the letter I’ve received, but as it informed me of your reinstatement to our now shared house, I’m sure it’s safe to say you’re probably already in the know. Do you know what on earth prompted the new head to start restoring pruned branches as her first acts as Lady? She seems like a lovely sort, but she really told me very little about herself other than that she’s my children’s age (which as you know could mean anywhere from nine to twenty!). 

Have you met her by any chance? I wrote back to thank her, and didn’t realize until I’d already sent poor old Errol off that her last name is Greyback. She can’t be related to… THAT Greyback can she? Only that I’ve never met or heard of anyone else with the same surname other than him. She seemed very kind in her correspondence. I’m not quite sure what to think.

You’ve just missed this week’s Sunday dinner, but you should come over for the next one this coming weekend. I’m sure Molly and the children would be thrilled to see you all. Give Ted and Dora my love.

Hope to hear from you soon,
Arthur Weasley

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dated the 15th of October, 1990
From the desk of Healer Tonks
Spell Damage floor
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
London, England

Arthur,

I can’t believe she’s really done it. I felt your magic rejoin with ours the instant it happened, congratulations! I should have written you sooner, she said she was going to reinstate your family next but it completely slipped my mind. Dora doesn’t have to go through auror training, I can afford to put her through a healer’s mastery now. I’m getting emotional all over again just thinking about it. Is this how you felt when Bill was accepted at Gringotts?

Now I don’t mean to frighten you, but she is very much related to THAT Greyback. She is in fact his daughter, whom he appears to dote on. I met them the day she reinstated Dora and I, and was shocked to find that they are a seemingly perfectly normal family. I think a great deal of the things we’ve heard about him since the war must simply have been false. In the time I spent with them that day he acted every part the typical parent of a child soon to head off to Hogwarts. 

That’s another thing you should know, the new Lady Black is no young woman by any means. She’s an eleven year old child. It’s utterly remarkable. As far as I understand it she was only there to challenge for the heir’s ring and accidentally grabbed the wrong one from the box. The lord’s ring shouldn’t have even let her touch it, but for some reason it accepted her and now she’s our head of house. Gave poor Gornuk the fright of his life, she did.  

If Molly’s cooking, I certainly won’t miss it for the world! I’ll bring the family and we’ll be more than happy to help set the table. There’s more to say about the situation that I need to tell you in person. Things that can’t be said in a letter, you understand. 

Have a nice rest of your week,
Andromeda Tonks

Dated the 15th of October, 1991
From the desk of Narcissa Malfoy
The Lady’s Solar
Malfoy Manor
Wiltshire, England

My dearest Andromeda, 

I cannot begin to describe the elation that overcame me when I felt your magic return to the Black Family. I earnestly and eagerly welcome you back, my beloved sister. I have missed you desperately these fifteen years. Even the innumerable joys of motherhood have barely numbed the pain, and I have felt your absence every day since like a severed limb. 

I wish nothing more than to let you know that you still hold my heart, and that you never stopped. I would be delighted to see you and meet your daughter and husband if you will allow me to. Any terms or conditions you have I will obey without question, if only I could embrace you once more. 

When your name returned to my tapestry I wept, and when your daughter’s sweet face was revealed beneath yours I couldn’t take my eyes away from the niece I should have been able to watch grow up. Nymphadora is such a lovely name, you chose well. Although there was a strange weft to the cloth of her portrait that I don’t recognize, was she born under any peculiar circumstances?

I am beyond grateful to our new head of house for reinstating you, and though I would like to thank her personally I have been quite unable to reach her. I have searched quite thoroughly and have found nothing more than her name and age, which is what was revealed via my copy of our family tapestry. 

I visited the ministry and they have no record of her. I sought out answers at Gringotts and the goblins would tell me nothing. I even sent a missive to the school asking simply for conformation of her enrollment in the book of names, and was informed in no uncertain terms by fussy old Professor McGonagall that student information is confidential! 

I am left endlessly curious about this child. She is Hydra’s daughter. I wish I had known, but when I think back to that time, when the war was at its most dangerous and chaotic height and everyone was constantly terrified, I can’t blame her for hiding what joy she had from us. I can’t help but wonder what happened to her, and why her child grew up motherless. To be a Black alone in the world is a terrible thing, and I feel great sympathy for the girl. 

Please write back to me, my darling sister, even if only to tell me you never wish to hear from me again. I will understand, and I could never fault you for it if that is how you feel. As I stated I wish nothing more than for you to know how much I love you still, but to know that you are well and happy would lift my spirits to heights they have not known since our childhood together. 

With great fondness and affection,
Your Cissa

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dated the 16th of October, 1990
From the desk of Healer Tonks
Spell Damage floor
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
London, England

My Dearest Narcissa,

Whatever cynicism the circles I run in now may warn me to guard myself with in my correspondence with you, I find that I cannot bring myself to. Your letter touched my heart, for surely you must know that you never stopped holding mine in your hands either. Imagine all the worry and despair you felt for me, cast out as I was, magnified in my concern for what horrific untold punishments that you might be bearing in my absence. 

I thought I understood how cruel our family and our culture could be, the prejudice and bigotry I faced for daring to love a muggleborn felt astronomical. Yet my separation was a clean cut, an exile. I have come to realize that the ones who truly had to suffer the most were the ones who remained and bore the shame and scorn. I have worried more for you and your tender heart in the last fifteen years than I can comfortably say. 

I cannot apologize for the love that I found, but forgive me my darling for leaving the way I did. I know you could not have reached out to me until now for fear of censure, but I could have done more to keep myself in your life. I hear that you have a son, but I know nothing of him. I should have seen my nephew grow as well, and I’ll never forgive myself of depriving us that. 

I have indeed met Hermione, and will gladly introduce you. She is a fascinating child, and there is much about her circumstances that cannot be safely said in a letter. I arrived at Gringotts moments after her ascension to the role of Lady Black only to discover that the entire situation was caused by her accidentally grabbing the lordship ring instead of the heir ring from the box! Can you believe such a thing could happen? One might say it’s lucky the ancient stubborn thing didn’t kill her, but she is very magically powerful for her age and I’m sure she was never under any real risk from it. 

She reinstated me before she even met me, my dear. The Black accounts manager told me that she was appalled to hear that my daughter Dora (who is perfectly healthy and happy, she was simply born a metamorphmagus!) who was older than her had a poorer claim due to my status. She’s very fair minded and wanted to do whatever she could to help us. Now that I have access to my trust vault once more I’ll be able to pay for Dora to become a healer like myself! 

Life among muggles is certainly different, but nothing so bad as what we were told. I know you feared for me not just because of my removal from the family, but also because of who I left with. I implore you to believe me when I say that I have never been in any danger from my husband’s family or friends. You might remember Ted from Hogwarts, he was head boy with me when you were a third year. He’s a good sort, and he’s always made me laugh.

They do not wallow in the mud or carry parasites and diseases like Bella used to tell us. They are people, and their lack of magic has made them incredible innovators and hard workers. Imagine a society run and built by industrious Hufflepuffs! The things they have created and discovered about the world around us would stun you, and I beg you to keep an open mind and be willing to let me introduce you to their world. It is now a world I and my daughter are a part of. Their technology is as ever-evolving as it is mind-blowing. 

Reading your final paragraph nearly broke my heart my darling, so I will state clearly that you may of course feel free to write me whenever you wish. There is nothing you could ever do or say that could possibly make me wish not to hear from you, so put those fears away from your mind. I do not wish to overwhelm you, so I shall leave off here, and we shall converse more at a later date.

(And yes you WILL be meeting my husband and daughter, as I will be meeting your son and your… Lucius. I will attempt to arrange a meeting for you with Hermione but be warned her father is…protective. And surly)

With all my love,
Your Andy

Dated the 16th of October, 1990
From the desk of Healer Tonks
Spell Damage floor
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
London, England

Dear Mr Greyback,

I must thank your daughter again for her generous gift of reinstatement into our family, and impress upon you what a tremendous thing it is that she has done. To my knowledge no other noble British house has brought back a disowned branch in over a century. I eagerly anticipate the waves I’m sure young Lady Black is sure to continue to make. 

I could intuit that the business at Gringotts was overwhelming for you, and the changes that come with your child’s Ladyship will be significant. If you have any need of advice or a shoulder to lean on, please reach out to me and I will gladly make myself available. As the eldest child of my branch, I was educated in house management. I was once raised expecting to take on a set of responsibilities similar to what she now faces. 

Additionally should you ever need legal services you should contact a Mr Asmund Rowle, he is the current solicitor for the Black Family. You may or may not find yourself contacted by him proactively, in introduction as it were. If you ignore all other correspondence she receives, do not ignore his as they could very well be of a highly important nature. He’s a good sort, and continued to take care of my legal matters even after I was disowned. 

Finally I must beg your consideration in arranging a meeting between your daughter and my sister Narcissa. She wishes to thank Hermione personally for what she has done for us. I know you have done much to keep your children out of the limelight, and I swear I have made no mention of your son whatsoever. If this is acceptable to you sir I am more than willing to host or chaperone said meeting. 

Fond regards,
Andromeda Tonks

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

17/10/90
Written at the kitchen table
Greyback Compound
Fuck off I’m not telling you where I live

Madam Tonks,

I will pass your thanks on to Hermione, she adored the day we spent with you and your daughter. If Dora wished to visit sometime, I’m sure that would delight my little wolf to no end. 

It gives me no pleasure to go around disappointing ladies of high society, but under absolutely no circumstances do I plan on allowing my daughter within a hundred meters of a Malfoy, no matter the location, escorted or not. Don’t think I’m not familiar with exactly whom your sister is married to. It isn’t personal, you seem lovely and I’m sure she is as well, I just don’t trust death eaters. I don’t know how the rumors started that I was one, or that I kill and eat people, which is absurd, but it’s safe to assume that nearly everything you’ve ever heard about me is false (Other than the fact that I am a werewolf, that is true).

I have no idea what the death eaters think about the rumors that I was one of them but I’m sure they’re not best pleased about it. I have already had to give my kids the uncomfortable talk that the children of death eaters may target them, and I don’t want to confuse them more or needlessly complicate things. I’m already worried about their safety, and am only sending them to that school because they would never forgive me if I kept them away from it. 

I appreciate your offer of advice, and will keep an eye out for anything from Mr Rowle. Please apologize to your sister for me. I’m sure she means well, but I’m not comfortable allowing her to meet with or learn more about my daughter. She may send a letter if she wishes, but I will thoroughly review it before it reaches Hermione’s hands, and I cannot promise that it will be replied to. 

Fenrir Greyback

October 17th, 1990
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the woods  

Lady Malfoy,

Hello and well met. You don’t know me but my name is Hermione Greyback. My dad will be unhappy with me for writing you, but I saw the letter from Aunt Andy and she said you wanted to meet me. I didn’t want your feelings to be hurt, but I’m quite certain he doesn’t want us to meet. 

You should know it’s because he’s very scared of my brother and I being attacked by death eaters. It’s really quite confusing, there’s all these rumors that he served the Dark Lord and hurt a bunch of people, but he didn’t! He would never have. He’s a good dad and a good wolf. He thinks the people who were death eaters are going to want to punish him for either not actually serving the Dark Lord or for believing that he must have defected because of the rumors. 

I don’t fully understand it to be honest, but either way he won’t let us meet because he thinks your husband wants to kill us. I think you probably don’t, because I felt your magic and it was friendly like your sister’s, but adult stuff is more complicated than I realized. 

As to your thanks that Aunt Andy sent, I appreciate it but you don’t owe me a thing. I brought her back into the family because it was the right thing to do and I know in my heart it’s what my mum would have wanted. I don’t remember her and it hurts dad to talk about her so I don’t know much, but I’ve heard that she was kind and she loved her family. I hope you get to make up with each other, I know she missed you a lot. 

Dad said that we’ll get to have cousin Dora over to visit sometime, so maybe if I’m really good I can get him to let your son visit too! Nothing is more important than family, I’ll work on bringing him round. (We can still exchange letters even if he doesn’t change his mind!)

Kind regards,
Hermione Elena Greyback :)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dated the 18th of October, 1990
From the desk of Narcissa Malfoy
The Lady’s Solar
Malfoy Manor
Wiltshire, England

Andy, 

We need to meet without delay, I have enormous news

Narcissa

Dated the 18th of October, 1990
From the desk of Healer Tonks
Spell Damage floor
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
London, England

Cissa,

Agreed, I have major news as well. I suspect it is of a very similar nature. I can be at the 3Bs in two hours, meet me there. 

Andromeda

Dated the 18th of October, 1990
From the desk of Healer Tonks
Spell Damage floor
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
London, England

Arthur,

Sorry for bothering you in the middle of a workday, I wouldn’t have if it weren’t important. I know there is no love lost between your family and the Malfoys. That being said, our house has critical information to discuss that, as I alluded to in my last letter, cannot be entrusted to the written word. 

I will be meeting with my sister Narcissa at the three broomsticks in two hours. Join us once I’ve had a quarter of an hour to reunite with her privately. I trust you to keep this business private, but you may bring either your wife or eldest son if you feel uncomfortable meeting with us by yourself. 

Hope to see you soon,
Andromeda

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Narcissa Malfoy waited anxiously in a back corner booth at the Three Broomsticks. She was a unique and thrilling mix of excited and terrified. Her sister would arrive any moment, and though she had said everything she needed to in her letter earlier in the week, she had still spent most of the night before going over what she would say when she saw her again. 

The front door of the tavern slammed open with a burst of frigid highland air, and the bell chimed wildly. A flurry of red and brown leaves were carried in on the breeze and quickly banished away by one of the servers. A much beloved figure darkened the doorway, and though she had planned to stay seated and remain casual she shot to her feet in breathless anticipation. Those curls, those eyes - her sister!

She came around to stand in front of the table, and brushed down her skirts and cloak of nonexistent dust. Her fingers itched to reach out and grasp, but she forced herself to stay still as her sister approached her. Her eyes took in every detail and read the story they wrote. While she wasn’t dressed in the fine silks and velvets they had grown up wearing, her clothes were still well made and clean. She looked like she was warm. She wasn’t overly thin or hungry looking, she hadn’t starved. There wasn’t even the faintest shimmer of a glamour charm. 

When they were no more than a foot apart, she let herself finally finally reach out her hands. Palms up, trembling, she waited with hope in her heart for her sister to reach back to her while her eyes drank in the changes that fifteen years had wrought upon her favorite face. And she did reach back. Their fingers met and squeezed, and then tangled together, and then she was pulled in for the tightest and most satisfying hug she’d had in years. 

The love of her husband and child were a blessing. The friends she had cultivated through her school years were a comfort. Even the acquaintances and enemies she’d made as a society wife were at the very least entertaining. Her sister was a balm on her very soul and magic, and a reminder of the implicit safety of home and the soft warmth of childhood. 

Her sister’s touch carried with it the scent memory of the smell of a baby and the nursery they had lived in together as very young girls. She was certain she could get drunk on it if she let herself, it was so heady. Her hands traveled, up her sisters arms and over her shoulders, reaching up to cup her face on either side. They stared into each others identical grey eyes for long moments and said nothing at all, only smiled and cried. 

Dragging her sister to sit across from her at the table, Narcissa signaled to madam Rosmerta for a round of butterbeers. The barkeeper nodded and started pouring from the taps of the massive keg. Frightened to wake up and find out it had all been a beautiful dream, she couldn’t bring herself to let go of her sister’s hand. She kept it gripped tightly in her left, and with her right she reached into the pocket of her cloak and drew out the letter. 

“The new Lady Black sent this to me, read it and tell me what you think Andy,” Narcissa said, and her sister’s eyes widened comically “Hang on, Hermione wrote to you? Greyback wrote to me saying he wouldn’t let her meet you,” Andromeda replied as she pulled out her own letter, and they exchanged them and read silently. Both of their brows shot up and they made disbelieving eye contact over the tops of their parchments. 

Her sister looked back down at the letter in front of her “I suppose it’s safe to say that this significantly changes things, wouldn’t you agree, Cissa?” Andromeda asked hesitantly. Narcissa let out a startled laugh “I’d say so indeed, Andy. He’s afraid of us. I’d never in my life have believed this letter for a second if it hadn’t been you who put it on the table in front of me. Earlier just this week Lucius gave Draco the talk about being careful of the girl because we aren’t sure where her father’s loyalties truly lay after the war. Now we have reason to believe, with word from his own mouth and the mouth of his daughter, that he was never a death eater to begin with and resents being called a killer. It simply doesn’t add up, and it begs much further discussion. Which he is apparently extremely resistant to. I have no idea what to make of it,” she resisted the urge to run her hands through her hair and twirl the ends of it like she used to as a child. It had always calmed her and helped her focus, but she had appearances to keep. There could always be eyes anywhere. 

“It almost makes me want to consult Lucius and Severus on the matter, but can they be trusted with the information? It’s going to come out eventually, but are we not required by the family magic to keep safe our head of house’s secrets until she reveals them herself? Her father has said in his letter he wants nothing to do with any Malfoy, but I have to imagine it’s because he thinks Lucius was a true believer, and nothing could be further than the truth!” she exclaimed, sincerely put out and shaking her head with indecision. 

“Really?” Her sister asked her hesitantly “I had always hoped as much, but I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it you say it. I remembered him as being vain and a bit of a dandy, and perhaps darker than I’d have chosen for you, but not cruel or gods forbid murderous. Part of me thought I must be a fool for trying to think the best of a death eater,” she shrugged quite sadly. Narcissa paled, and her face fell. 

“I am so sorry for ever giving you reason to doubt me. I knew it was wrong when you were disowned, and I never planned on letting you leave without knowing how much I loved you. I swear I wasn’t going to turn my back on you, but Bella became crueler and madder than either of us could have ever imagined, and she threatened horrible things if I ever even tried to contact you. I feared for your life, and I let that fear rule me. Can you ever forgive me?” She pleaded beseechingly, as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. 

Across the table, her big sister huffed very toughly, trying to hide her own wet eyes, and reached out and tugged on one of her lovely bouncy curls “Of course I do you silly little twit, though I don’t think there’s anything to forgive. Surely you know there’s nothing you could do that would ever make me love you any less,” her eyes darted to the door where a familiar redhead had just ambled in, and she winced. 

“I hope you reciprocate that sentiment though, dearest. You see, I’ve invited our cousin to join us. You had to have felt the magic shift again a few days ago, he deserves to hear this. It involves him and his children as well,” she muttered sheepishly, blowing a strand of her own dark hair off of her forehead “Though in my defense he was supposed to give us a bit longer before he arrived. Politely punctual ponce.” 

Narcissa narrowed her eyes and furrowed her elegant brows archly “You didn’t! Andromeda, he and my husband are on opposite sides of a generational blood feud. And don’t tell me he’s brought one of his endless supply of children,” she hissed between her teeth as the man and another tall young redhead that had to be one of his eldest made their way over to their table slowly, saying hello to nearly everyone they ran into along the way, as guileless and unsubtle as a careening bludger. 

Her sister rolled her eyes at her exasperatedly “Yes and it’s frankly an idiotic one. And if your husband is really as toothless as you claim, then he’ll get over it once he realizes we’re all a big happy family, won’t he?” She snarked back a bit more sharply than she must have meant to, because she softened it with another press of her fingertips to Narcissa’s own. 

Arthur Weasley and his son reached their table and the man cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, but smiled with an earnestness Narcissa’s Slytherin nature bucked against wholeheartedly “Hello Andromeda, Lady Malfoy. What surprising times we live in that things as these can happen so out of the blue! May we…” and he gestured at the empty chair. Her sister nodded immediately, and then nudged Narcissa with her foot, prompting her to nod begrudgingly as well “Of course Arthur, please do sit and introduce us. I’m so glad you’ve come!” Andy said pleasantly, the wretched cow.

He placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder, who looked to be in his very early twenties “This is my eldest son William,” he prompted “Please call me Bill,” his son added on softly, inclining his head at both of them respectfully. They sat and she tensed when the young man took out his wand, but all he used it for was to quickly beef up their privacy charm before putting it back away. He had the decency to blush “Pardon me, it’s just that dad said we’d be discussing sensitive matters,” he said reassuringly. Narcissa was impressed despite herself, he at least had good manners despite practically dressing in rags. She didn’t think she’d ever even seen trousers made of a material like that before. It was a lumpy blue weave that looked quite rough spun, and just the thought of a textile such as that against her skin made her nauseous. She swallowed a bit thickly, feeling rather lightheaded. 

Andromeda generously ignored her internal crisis and nodded seriously “You’re correct, Bill. Things are happening in the house of Black that are soon going to start causing some pretty big waves in Wizarding society. A well-meaning mutual acquaintance has rather thrown our three families together, not knowing or understanding the disagreements and differences we’ve shared over the years, and we’re simply going to have to work together to overcome them,” she said firmly, but not unkindly. The two sisters in perfect unison passed Arthur and his son the letters they had received. Arthur perked up excitedly “Oh my, well you see I’ve received one as well!” He said as he patted his own pockets before pulling out the letter he’d been sent and handing it to them to take turns reading. 

Andromeda hummed as she read “This girl really is the quintessential Slytherin. She’s exceptionally bright and clearly making a concerted effort to control the narrative surrounding her father’s reputation,” and her sister’s eyes lit up as she considered this “Ah but is she truly scheming, or is this merely a burgeoning Gryffindor sense of pride making itself known - demanding that others accept her version of history? Lions do tend to roar loudest, my dear,” Narcissa quibbled.

Bill snorted rather crassly at that “You snakes could send my head spinning with all the guessing and second guessing about people’s motivations! Doesn’t it tire you out?” He said mildly with a shake of his head, to which Narcissa couldn’t help but sniff with disdain “Social graces are simply another layer of the English language that we are taught as children to observe and make inferences from,” she said, well aware and uncaring that she sounded a bit snotty. He wisely backpedaled “I suppose that’s a fair way of seeing it madam, speech and body language and so on. It doesn’t pay to be oblivious after all,” and she nodded sharply in approval. 

As they finished reading, the younger man leaned back in his seat and rubbed at the peach fuzz on his cheeks “This definitely explains some of the weirder things I’ve overheard at the bank this last week,” Looking up at the confusion on the sisters faces he smirked rather charmingly “I’m a curse breaker trainee. Needless to say, there’s been a huge scandal that the higher ups are desperately trying to keep hush hush, and every goblin you ask from here to Egypt has a different version of the story. All I could have told you before reading this was that it involved a noble British house and something wonky that happened with their line of succession,” he eyed them mischievously “I’m guessing the two of you have a better idea of what really happened?”

“That is a clever one you have there, Arthur,” her sister said mildly to the man, who puffed up with pride. She turned back to Bill “To answer your question, young man, yes. You could say I heard what happened from the hippogriff’s mouth itself,” she chuckled, and Narcissa couldn’t help but roll her eyes and gesture her to get on with it. Andromeda quickly filled them in on what she knew and what she’d seen. That the ring and the lordship were claimed accidentally, that a child was their new head of house, that said child was the daughter of a known war criminal, and that they ought to perhaps keep an open mind on that last point. Father and son were appropriately stunned. Narcissa reread both letters again as her sister caught the Weasleys up. 

“The letter mentions a brother her same age - are they twins?” She asked mildly “she must be the older one to have been made Lady,” she thought out loud, only to see her sister shake her head emphatically. Andromeda surreptitiously glanced around them, double checking that the privacy charms were still in place, and leaned in close “No Cissa, that’s the part that I couldn’t say in writing. I don’t know how or why their circumstances came to be as such, but her brother is none other than Harry Potter,” she said in a hushed voice, to the shock of everyone at the table. 

Arthur and his son both reeled back in surprise “Surely you can’t mean to say-… the Boy-Who-Lived? Goodness! But her letter says that her father isn’t-… she says here quite clearly that he isn’t the monster he’s known as. How on earth did they even find him?” The man babbled helplessly, getting himself quite worked up.

“I haven’t the foggiest!” Andromeda responded “I told you that I showed up at the bank with my daughter when I felt the family magic embrace me, and they were there meeting with Gornuk. They let us join them for the rest of their shopping in the alley, and rarely have I seen a family more affectionate and in synch with each other. If they took a show on the road with your Fred and George I wager they’d make an absolute racket. I’ll eat my hat if those children haven’t been raised together for at least half their childhood years. They were well behaved and friendly, and they got along with my Dora like a house on fire. Extremely tight-lipped with the personal details though, I’m certain I didn’t learn a single thing about them that they weren’t entirely comfortable with me knowing. They very pointedly made no mention of the matter of his fame, didn’t even acknowledge it. They were heavily glamoured in Diagon Alley to hide their identities, he said it was to protect the children. He was almost militant about their safety,” she reported. 

She wracked her brain for anything else of importance, and sat straight up with a gasp “At one point it was mentioned that the Potter boy had been adopted, but nothing more about how such a thing came to be. But the boy corrected my daughter when she referred to him as Harry Potter - he said very clearly that his name was Harry Potter Greyback! I have no idea what the ramifications of that will be, but I can't imagine anyone will be particularly happy about it on either side of the aisle” she said a bit pessimistically, to which her sister frowned thoughtfully. 

The Weasleys at their table were absolutely stunned by that, and Arthur looked particularly gutted “If he’s claimed another surname it was a blood adoption for sure,” he said closing his eyes briefly and sounding devastated “Can he even still continue the Potter line if he’s been ritually adopted into another family? Is this the final collapse of yet another of our Light aligned great houses?” he asked miserably. Bill placed a hand on his shoulder “Come on now dad, we’ve got to hold out hope. Let’s not make assumptions until we know the whole story,” he urged his father plaintively. 

“The boy might be just as interesting as the girl,” Narcissa mused aloud meanwhile “You say he didn’t outright reject the Potter name, but he did insist on the addition of the Greyback name... I can scarcely hazard a guess as to what it might mean for him socially. You don’t think he’s made them little werewolves like himself, do you? I’ll admit it was my first fear upon seeing her name. He was rumored to have gone after children specifically, but in the letter she wrote me she calls her father a good wolf. How did they behave in relation to him, Andy?” She asked seriously, and to her surprise her sister hesitated. 

“When I first arrived Greyback was shouting at Gornuk about security, and the girl calmed him immediately just by telling him he was scaring me. Now that I reflect on it, I’m not sure if she’s particularly empathic, deeply intuitive, or if she could just literally hear my heartbeat. That seems to be one of the more reliable facts I’ve learned about werewolves over the years of healing them after the full moon - just how scary good their hearing is,” Andromeda told them. 

“One of the rumors going around-” Bill started haltingly, looking at his father who nodded in encouragement “Well… one of them was that there was a wolf animagus who transformed at the bank that day. That they used their own fangs or claws to cut themselves for the lineage parchments they needed to complete their inheritance. It’s one of the weirder ones that nearly everyone who’s heard has dismissed as totally false, but the goblins who told that version were very insistent about that detail, that the client refused the ritual athame the account manager offered… maybe she is a werewolf? Can werewolves even control their transformation to that degree?” He asked thoughtfully, his voice a low whisper.

His father hemmed and hawed for a moment “I just don’t know, Bill. What I do know is that… and please do keep this between us, ladies,” he said with a great deal of trepidation before continuing. “When I worked with-” he gulped audibly “with Dumbledore’s resistance group during the war, I met a young man who happened to be a werewolf. He was often sent on dangerous field missions trying to find Greyback and either spy on him or convince him not to join You-Know-Who. There was a great deal of fear that if he could seduce the werewolves to fight for him then he would also add entire legions of other dark creatures to his side of the war. Vampires, dementors, giants, Merlin know what else all fighting alongside the death eaters. It would have made our isles a living hell if he’d succeeded,” he shuddered, lost for a moment in a memory of much darker times.

“Our spy could never find hide nor hair of Greyback though, not for all the many years of the war. It always seemed odd for how rumors at the time seemed to imply he was going on killing sprees every which where all over the countryside. It plain didn’t make any sense back then… But if what Greyback says is true, that he’d been in seclusion for years before the fighting ever even started, I suppose certain things start to add up. Their senses are enhanced, if he’d truly been out and about committing murders left and right, he should have left a fairly easily traceable trail for our spy to find him,” he reasoned soundly. 

Andromeda nodded in agreement “It’s not common knowledge outside of the hospital, but documented attacks only barely increased even at the very height of the war. Everyone was terrified of the full moons and werewolf attacks, but we only ever saw a few more here and there than on average. Certainly not enough to quantify an uncontrolled spree of attacks. Granted all attacks are preventable, but if the carnage and bloodshed people were talking about ever actually happened then we never saw any of the many supposed victims darken our doors at St Mungo’s… and without nearly immediate medical intervention, victims tend not to survive a werewolf attack,” she said firmly “all those alleged victims who never saw a healer should have ended up a mountain of unfortunate corpses, but there weren’t any official reports of those either.”

She looked back at Arthur “What ever happened to the man you knew, did he make it through the war?”

“Yes, I believe he did. Or at least I hope so anyways. I haven’t heard from him in quite a while, but I can try and get in contact with him and see if he has any information that could help us. The poor lad always lived a bit on the ragged edge. It was quite a shock to realize how poorly he and others like him are forced to live because of our collective fears,” he said wistfully, a sad somber quality entering his voice. The sisters locked eyes, neither quite knowing how to respond to that. 

“That… would be a great deal of help Arthur, if nothing else than to give an idea of how to best approach Greyback. If the situation were different I’d prefer to just go directly to the girl and avoid him entirely, but we’re obviously going to have to go through him and his overprotective paternal instincts if we want any sort of access to his daughter whatsoever,” Andromeda said insistently “As a parent I hate even thinking about trying to subvert a father’s rights. It unsettles me greatly to even consider. We have to do this properly, we need to try and win him over.”

Bill tilted his head and furrowed his brow “Maybe we’re overcomplicating this a bit, Mrs Tonks. This kid is the new Lady Black, and it’s weird and we want answers, but we have confirmation she’s going to Hogwarts next year, right?” He asked Andromeda pointedly, who nodded hesitantly, unsure of where he was going with that train of thought. 

He raised his shoulders in a rather rakish shrug “Do we really have to do anything ourselves right now then? I don’t think there’s any real need to rush. Lady Malfoy you have a son headed to school as a firstie next year. We have a boy headed to school who’ll also be a firstie next year. What we should be doing as soon as possible is introducing your boy and ours and getting them on the same page while they’re still at home. Give them each a firm talk about forming an alliance and working together to make friends with their new cousin and find out whatever they can about her while they’re doing it. Get it through their little skulls that they’re on the same team now. If they have a little mission to work on together then maybe they could even end up friends and we’ll end the blood feud. We can make moves in the background slowly over the rest of the year and let the kids be the ones to reach out to her. She liked Dora, and Dora’s good mates with Charlie. Maybe have her reach out first and get them all corresponding, and they’ll be our in for introducing the boys once they’re ready.”

His father was speechless, but Narcissa was beaming “That is positively conniving, young William. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought a plan like that came from the very depths of the dungeons. I had my doubts, but you may well be a Black after all,” she said with an absolutely vicious grin. Arthur looked a bit horrified, and she happily ignored him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The flames in the hearth at the Burrow flared green, and Arthur stumbled in through the floo followed closely after by his eldest. Like it was charmed to do in most magical homes, the soot fell neatly off their clothes as they stepped through the hearth and into the house proper. The house was warm and the delicious aroma of a rich meaty gravy wafted tantalizingly throughout the ground floor. He headed into the kitchen and out of the corner of his eye saw his eldest start to trot up the stairs. 

Molly was making shepherd’s pie, and Arthur stood leaned against the countertop watching her bustle about for a few precious moments before she noticed him there. His eyes greedily took in his domestic goddess, it was like a dance the way she cooked and there would never be a day of his natural life that he grew tired of seeing her work. Charms animated the cookware around her, carrots chopped themselves and the beef stirred itself on the stovetop. The pot of potatoes she was mashing by hand, but a tidy line of spice jars levitated next to her and she plucked them from the air as she used them.

She had been the very first person he’d shared the news with when he’d received the letters from the bank and from Miss Greyback. She’d fainted straight away when she saw the bank balance he’d had Bill request of the new vault, and they were still trying to decide if they wanted to have a discussion with the children or just gradually loosen the purse strings without overtly saying anything about their new circumstances. Though they’d had good reason to until now, they’d raised their little brood to be humble - and he didn’t want to see them suddenly strutting around like Malfoys. Drat, he supposed he really should refrain from such language going forward now that they were rubbing shoulders. Wouldn’t that have given his mum a laugh - Malfoys and Blacks voluntarily making friendly with the likes of them! 

His Mollywobbles adored children, and had been absolutely tickled by the polite formality of the girl’s letter. She had been curious to know more about her and excited for the kids to meet their cousin. What a story he had to tell her now! He came up and took her in his arms, pressing his face into her lovely red curls and breathing her in “You simply would not believe the afternoon I’ve had, my love. I attended a clandestine meeting with the Andy and her sister Narcissa to discuss this family business! It was all very cloak and dagger,” he said over her shoulder “Silencing charms in public and everything,” he purred in her ear, and she laughed at him cheerfully. 

“It’s even more complicated than we realized, my darling. I’m going to have to have a conversation with the children after all,” he sighed wearily, hating to spoil the mood, and she made a despondent noise and leaned back into his chest. “It’s not trouble is it, Arty?” She asked with a bit of a wild look in her big lovely eyes as she looked over her shoulder at him, starting to shake like a leaf in his arms.

He hummed to comfort her “Surprisingly enough, my gut is telling me no. Nothing is life or death, her father is just so overprotective that we might have to wait for the children meet her at school until we can actually get any answers. I’ll need to tell the boys the situation once they’re home for the holidays, get them up to speed. It’ll be like a little project for them, find their cousin and make friends, maybe write her some letters next summer to get a head start.”

She blew out a breath she’d been anxiously holding “Alright, well that’s not so bad then. We might have to give Ronnie and Percy some pointers, but the twins have always been good at making friends,” she said optimistically, and he was glad to see it hadn’t wrecked her good humor. She’d taken all of this in stride so far, and he was immeasurably proud of her strength of spirit. Losing so much of her family in the war had nearly destroyed her, and since then she’d held on so tight to what she had left. She often watched the Weasley clock like it was one of their own flesh and blood. He knew she was prematurely anxious about their youngest boy leaving the nest, but she’d put on a brave face and hidden it well so far. 

He helped her assemble their dinner, and as they waited for it to finish baking in the oven he filled her in on everything he’d learned that afternoon. She was as gobsmacked as he’d been to discover that the Boy-Who-Lived was involved somehow, and desperately curious to know what the connection had been. How had they found him, and if was able to be found why was he not protected as he should’ve been. She’d had words to say about Dumbledore having assured them all after the war that the child was safely and soundly hidden, and he couldn’t help but agree with her. 

They agreed that they’d talk to the children when they were all back home together for the winter holiday break in a few months.

TWO MONTHS LATER
(it’s a different shepherd’s pie) 

The older ones had gone straight up to their rooms to unpack as soon as they’d gotten home from the train station, and the little ones had eagerly followed them up in the hopes of hearing stories not fit for parental ears. He and Molly had spent the last few days decorating the house and there were garlands of silver and golden tinsel threaded into greenery on every wall. A lovely tree stood proudly in the living room next to the hearth, which crackled merrily as it ate away at a pile of logs. 

When their dinner was ready he called the children down and began to set the table. A stampede of little feet tramped loudly down the stairs like a herd of elephants, and he had to practically jump out of the way to avoid being barreled over by one of the twins. He shook his head and rolled his eyes “Let’s bring the energy down a bit, eh my boys?” He suggested, to which a chorus of laughter greeted him. 

As everyone took their places around the table and plates and cups were filled, he was pleased to see his eldest tumble in through the floo, as they hadn’t been expecting him to come home for a few more days. As Molly came in from the kitchen she shrieked with joy at seeing him, rushing over and pressing kisses all over his exasperated face. He laughed as the lad groaned “Oh mum, really! It’s not like I’m living overseas, you just saw me the other day,” Bill said, ducking his head away once he thought she’d gotten enough direct hits on him. 

She shook her head with a soft smile dimpling her cheeks “A mother never stops missing her little birdies that have flown the nest. You could live right next door and I’d still greet you as if you’ve been gone for years every time I saw you,” she said to his great distress and the other children’s delight. Fred and George were guffawing “Don’t be that way silly Billy-” one of them intoned rather obnoxiously “Mummy wuvs you so!” The other finished. 

To their great surprise their mother merely grinned at them “It’s twue! I simpwy wuv evewy one of you!” His darling wife replied with the same inflection, tapping the nose of the nearest child, and the twins fell off their chairs in their laughter. It was a lovely mood for dinner, and he couldn’t help but feel fulfilled and satisfied at the life and the family he and Molly had built together. 

Reaching over to take her hand, he cleared his throat “I’d like to talk to you all about something a bit serious,” he began, and as several little faces paled he rushed to smooth their worry “No one’s in trouble and nothing bad has happened!” He exclaimed, and everyone calmed. Percy shushed the twins who had started throwing out wild guesses about what the news might be, everything from an impending eight Weasley child to them selling Ronald to a nunnery, and he sent his middle child a grateful look. 

“Now then! As you all know, over the years we’ve often had more mouths to feed than galleons to rub together. Your mother and I have worked hard to provide for you all. Though we’ve never starved, it’s been closer than we’ve been comfortable with at times. We’ve had to keep the purse strings tighter than we’d like, and we’ve budgeted like goblins down to the very last sickle and knut to stay afloat. I’m happy to report to you all that in these last few months our circumstances have changed somewhat. Things are going to get a little easier from here on out, and we’re going to be able to loosen those purse strings some,” he stopped as the children started cheering and chanting, and the twins pretended to cry and hug each other. He knew he had to put a stop to that as quick as possible so they didn’t get the wrong idea. 

He held out his hands and spoke firmly “To be clear - we are not rich now! We’re not going to be showing off and living like kings. We will keep our home here in the Burrow and most things will stay the same,” he felt awful at the way all their little faces fell. “Some things definitely will change for the better, though. It’s safe to say it’s going to be a very good Christmas for all of us this year. Ron, before this we were going to have to send you to school with Charlie’s old wand. Now we can afford to get you your own brand new one from Ollivander. A wand that chooses you almost always performs better than one that’s been inherited,” the boy jumped up from his seat, fists pumping in the air “Yes! Thank Merlin” he exclaimed with relief.

Percy pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at him curiously “How exactly did this windfall come to us, dad? Is it something you won like a raffle or earned like a work bonus?” He asked astutely. Arthur looked at his middle child with a smile “Good question, Perce. If I’m being perfectly honest it’s not anything any of us did. I’ll tell you all, but the answer is a little complicated and I still don’t have all the details yet,” he said apprehensively, and saw the boy frown in contemplation. 

“You all remember grandma Weasley, my mother Cedrella. What you may not have known about her is that she was born into the house of Black. She lived a very posh upper crust life before she married my dad Septimus, your grandad Weasley. You see, her parents didn’t like him and didn’t want her to marry him. When she decided to marry him anyways despite their disapproval, they disowned her from their family. She was cut off completely from the Black family magic and fortune. And as we all know you can survive without much money, but nothing feels better and more welcoming than the embrace of your family magic. She was very sad, but she made a new life with my dad and learned to live differently than she had before.”

Percy was polishing his glasses, and placed them back on the bridge of his nose “Did we inherit something from her now that she’s passed? That’s it, isn’t it dad?” He asked, confident and sure of himself. He nodded and smiled proudly at his bright son.

“Right on the money, Perce. In fact it’s something we should have gotten a long time ago, or rather she should have. You see, there’s a new head of the Black family and the very first thing she did upon claiming the seat was to start reinstating disowned branches of the family - our cousin Andromeda and her daughter Nymphadora were also restored. The new head wrote to inform me that since being brought into the family we now have access to my mother’s old trust vault. It was to be held for her to bring with her into her marriage like a dowry, but when she was disowned her father and brothers spent a great deal of it themselves. There’s still some left over though, and to answer your question that’s where our money is coming from. Those Blacks really are rich as Croesus for there to be anything left after how much they took over the years, I don’t know what the initial amount was but it must have been tremendous.” 

“Have you met her, the new head of house? What’s she like?” Asked his youngest little treasure, with stars in her eyes at the thought of a kind stranger out there doing good deeds and acting like a fairy godmother. He almost hadn’t the heart to continue, but they had decided to be honest with the children, and Molly placed her hand on his arm supportively. “Well that’s the thing my little Ginny-bean… Your mother and I haven’t actually had a chance to meet her yet. The only contact I’ve had with her so far has been through her letter of introduction. All we really know is this; she has done a very kind thing for us, she lives a secluded life away from society, family is important to her, and she is roughly eleven years old,” he said smartly, or at least he thought so. 

He looked over at his youngest boy, whose mouth was agape like a fish. All of his children were struck momentarily speechless, a rare and uncommon feat “In fact, Ron,” he went on “she’ll be starting school with you next year. All of you should write her letters introducing yourselves. And those of you who will be at Hogwarts with her - Percy, Fred, George, and Ron - your job is to be friendly, to help her however she needs, and to find out what you can about her circumstances. Do you understand?”

Percy’s frown deepened “What aren’t you telling us dad? Why can’t we just go meet her?” The boy asked, and he dithered a bit as he tried to find the right words. He puffed his cheeks and blew out heavily “What you have to understand is that she seems like a very nice girl. Andromeda met her and told me as much. But her father is someone we thought was a death eater during the war, and now we aren’t sure if he really was or not. She insisted in her letter that he wasn’t, so we aren’t quite sure what to believe. He’s apparently very protective of her and doesn’t want to let her leave his sight until she goes off to school,” he admitted uncomfortably, avoiding saying the name as long as he could. 

His children exchanged nervous wide-eyed glances and started talking over each other “A death eater dad, really?” And “Which one? Some were a lot worse than others,” rang out loudest. His littlest, his precious girl, came over and stood next to him “Daddy I thought you said you can never trust a death eater,” and the fear on her face was enough to nearly bowl him over. He drew her onto his lap and stroked his fingers though her long tangled red hair. 

“Oh my darling Ginny-bean, don’t be afraid my dear. At the end of the day no matter who her father is or isn’t, she’s just a little girl like you. It wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t our new head of house’s father, we could just ignore him and not have to worry about it. But because we have to get to know her, we have to also get to know him. And I’d rather know the truth for certain than just believe rumors, wouldn’t you my dearest?” She nodded and he pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. 

He looked up at the rest of his children, and sighed “Her name is Hermione… Greyback.”

Expectedly, it was the twins that exploded into noise first, taking over each other’s sentences in the way they sometimes did to make fun of people. They were clearly doing it now as a coping mechanism. 

“Sorry, excuse me, hang on-”
“Do you mean her father is Fenrir Greyback-”
“The insane bloodthirsty werewolf-”
“Who spent the entire war killing and eating people-”
“On You-Know-Who’s direct orders?”
“THAT Greyback?”

They finished in unison, in a disbelieving huff. He winced, flinching under their scrutiny “Yes, that Greyback,” he replied lamely. 

The dinner table was in an uproar, and he raised both hands to try and soothe his family “Now listen up, Weasleys! Listen up! I will admit I didn’t know what to think when I saw her name on the letter. The rumors surrounding Greyback are terrible, and part of me was afraid to even open it. But I’ve heard directly from our cousin Andromeda’s mouth that she met them and they seemed like a perfectly normal family! We’re all a bit confused here, things aren’t quite what we expected. But she’s just a child, one who’s done a very generous thing for us, and part of me wants to find out more before we make any decisions. She insisted to me in her letter that all the rumors are false, and so I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Can everyone live with that?” He asked his family plaintively, and looked around at each of their faces. 

He was incredibly grateful when his wonderful wife finally spoke up “While she is not our direct head of house, she is the head of a magical house that we now find ourselves a part of. She has already made our lives easier without even knowing us, simply because we are family. I know you children think I sometimes have old fashioned ideas and opinions, but I was born into a family that was quite similar to the Blacks. The Prewetts were old money, formal, well-respected in society. You all know how uptight auntie Muriel can be, before the war there were a good deal more relatives just like that on my side of the family,” she chuckled at her children’s looks of horror. 

“Oh yes, nearly every stuffy old pureblood family had a minimum of three or four intolerable aunties, and we Prewetts were no exception. In fact, my uncle Ignatius was also married to a woman from the Black family, my aunt Lucretia. What a snobby pair they made! It was always like they were competing to see who could hold their noses higher in the air,” she said with a grin and their children laughed in shocked delight. His wife almost never talked about her family, and it was a delight to hear her reminisce.

“What I’m trying to say,” she continued on “is that in these types of very formal wealthy families, a truly warm and kind hearted person is uncommon to come across. You must treasure them when you find them. Maybe it’s just that she’s like you lot, and simply wasn’t raised that way. For whatever reason, we’ve seemed to stumble upon a situation where it looks like one of the good ones is behind the reigns, and I think we ought to hitch our wagon to her while we can,” she said quite shrewdly. 

His son Ron asked what he thought was probably the best question of the night “Can we read the letter she wrote you, dad?” And he patted his pockets down to find it “Yes, of course! Good instinct, my boy. Your mother and I have already gone over it but why don’t you read it aloud for everyone else to hear?” And he handed it over and Ron did so. 

His son snorted “She tried so hard to be so adult and formal, but then look - she sort of ruined it at the end by drawing a little smiley face next to her name where she signed it,” he said with a grin, passing it around for his siblings to see “I guess she really is a kid just like us,” he said easily. “Should we all write separately, or share a big letter?” He asked Molly, who beamed at him with pride “Oh what a nice idea, Ronnie! I’ll get a parchment and some quills and you can all take turns writing a note for her. Such a sweet boy,” she said, bustling past him and ruffling his hair as she did. The tips of his ears were pink but there was a huge smile on his face. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

19/12/1990
The kitchen table
The Burrow
Ottery St. Catchpole
Devon, England

Dear Hermione, 
We hope this finds you well. Thank you again for your kind and generous actions in reinstating us to the Black family. Our children have decided to take you up on your offer to write you, and they hope to hear back soon. They are delighted to get to know a new family member. If there’s anything we can do for you or anything you need from us, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our second eldest Charlie would write but he’s away in Romania apprenticing at the dragon reserve, if you can believe it. Hopefully we’ll see him for Christmas at least. 
Arthur and Molly

Miss Greyback,
I’m a bit older than the rest of my siblings, but I’m visiting home today and they insisted I needed to write to you with them. I work at Gringotts, and I was there the day you claimed your seat. All the goblins in the bank felt your magic, it was incredible. They haven’t stopped talking about it since. I hope you have a nice Christmas, and a wonderful new year. 
Bill (William) Weasley

Dear Lady Black,
Thank you for thinking of us, and for your generosity in allowing us access to our grandmother’s trust vault. It has already changed our lives for the better. Your letter to our father was very well done, I’m sure you’ll do fine at school with writing skills like that. I look forward to meeting you. I will be a 5th year at Hogwarts next year, and if you ever find yourself lost or in need of assistance, please look for me at school. 
Sincerely, Percy Weasley

Little Miss Hermione,
That was quite the prank you pulled getting everyone worked up like that! We thought it was great fun. You’ve got our whole family buzzing with curiosity about you, we say keep it up! Nothing’s grander than a good mystery (But please keep the two of us in the loop, we’re very good secret keepers). Are you a werewolf like your dad? Ow! Okay sorry we weren’t supposed to ask that, you don’t have to answer (but please do sate our curiosity). What’s your favorite joke? We’ll save a seat on the train for you next year with all the other cool third years. 
The Twintastic Trickster Twuo, Gred and Forge

Hermione, 
We’re going to be first years together, do you have any idea what house you’ll be in? Weasleys have always been in Gryffindor. I heard Harry Potter is coming to school with us this year too, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for him. Do you like wizard chess? My grandad taught us all, and I’m the best at it out of my whole family. Thanks for what you did, by the way. Now I don’t have to use my brother’s old wand, I’m gonna get my own! It’s cool that you’re our cousin, and we all want to meet you but dad said we might not be able to until we start school together next year. I don’t really know what else to talk to girls about, sorry. 
From Ron

Dear Hermione,
I’m so jealous all my brothers get to go to school with you next year and I don’t. I can’t wait to meet you and be friends, I’m so sick of being around boys all the time. Thankfully it’ll just be me and mummy by ourselves at home all next year, but still I hate being left out. Do you like to fly? They never let me play with them so I sneak out at night sometimes and steal my brothers broom from the shed and practice, and I’ve gotten really good! I could fly circles around them if only they’d let me!
Love, Your cousin Ginny :)

From all of us,
The Weasley Family

December 20th, 1990
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the woods

Dear Arthur and Molly,
No thanks is needed! I only did what I felt was right. I’m glad they’ve decided to do so, please encourage them to continue our correspondence if it’s not too much trouble. They seem lovely, and I would enjoy getting to know them. I loved reading the notes they sent on your family letter. It made me really happy! Mrs Weasley maybe if you write to my dad he’ll let Ron and Ginny and I have a play date. He trusts mums. 

Dear Bill,
I didn’t know there were humans who worked at the bank! You are human right, and not an adopted goblin? What do you do there if I may ask? If you are human, do you know why the goblins have to sit in chairs that are too tall for them without access to stairs or ladders? Does Wizarding Britain fall under the muggle disability accommodations legislation? If so the bank needs to provide reasonable accommodations to its workers! I read about it this week at the library, it’s very interesting. Happy Christmas to you as well. 

Dear Percy,
Please, we’re family, you don’t have to call me that. It’s so embarrassing! Thank you for your kind offer. I will make sure to look for you if I ever need help, but I’m not exactly the type to get turned around easily, if you know what I mean. I’m not sure yet what house I’ll end up in, but Ron said all of you are in Gryffindor. What if we’re in rival houses? Would you still help me even if I were a Slytherin?

Dear Fred and George,
I honestly didn’t mean to trick anyone at all - it was a complete accident! If anything I feel like my account manager Gornuk tricked ME - he said to take the ring but there were two of them in the box, so I just grabbed the one closest to me. My brother called me an idiot for not asking which was which! To your question - of course I’m a werewolf, what else would I be? And there’s no reason not to ask, it’s perfectly normal. In fact, I’ve already met professor McGonagall and talked to her about it, and she says my brother and I can just come home for the full moon every month and it’ll all be fine. Dad was happy to hear that! Are you all humans, then? I’ve only ever met a few and you fascinate me. Is it true that you’re all very fragile and heal slowly? Nana Miriam says I have to watch my strength when we play, and that you can’t hear as well as I do. That must be weird! I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of what joke might be my favorite, but Matty told me a very funny one once about two rabbits, only I don’t think it would make sense if you’re not a werewolf. Am I even allowed to sit with third years on the train? That’s a long time to be thinking about where to sit. Miriam has told me about riding it when she was our age but she didn’t really describe what it’s like. I’m very excited for that part of the whole thing to be honest. You two write a very entertaining letter, I hope to hear back from you soon!

Dear Ron,
I don’t know what house I’ll be in, but when I met her aunt Andy called me a sneaky little snake (she meant it in a nice way I think) so maybe Slytherin? I hope we’re not in rival houses though, I’m excited for us to be friends! It’s funny that you mentioned Harry, I’m not really supposed to talk about it but let’s just say you’re in for a fun surprise. I’ve played muggle chess, is it very different? I wanted to like it but I got bored the times I’ve played. I was so disappointed because I read a book about chess strategy and it was so interesting! I’m gonna work on my dad and I hope that he’ll let us visit, but letters are fine until school if he won’t budge. I don’t think girls and boys are that different, just talk to us like you’d talk to your brothers and it should be alright. 

Dear Ginny,  
I’m jealous that you get to spend all year by yourself with your mum. Mine died when I was a baby and I don’t even remember her. For my whole life it’s just been me and my dad and the rest of the pack of course, and then my brother joined us. I’ve never flown before so I have no idea, but I’ve never exactly liked heights which seems like a bad sign. I like to keep my feet on the ground, ideally all four of them. I can do a forward flip while I’m running, though. I don’t know if it looks as impressive as it feels, but if it does it’s gotta be pretty cool. I like that you didn’t let them leave you out! Don’t tell anyone but I sort of haven’t told my dad about a bunch of the letters I’ve sent recently and I’m probably gonna get in trouble if he finds out. He likes us to keep things really secret and hidden, but we’re gonna leave eventually to go to school and everyone’s gonna find out then anyways so what’s the point, right?

With much love to all of you, Happy Christmas
Hermione (Nene) Greyback

23/12/1990
The kitchen table
The Burrow
Ottery St. Catchpole
Devon, England

Hello Mr Greyback,

As you may know, upon becoming head of the house of Black your daughter began reinstating disowned branches to the family. We are very grateful to be one of them. In corresponding with Hermione, we have come to appreciate how kind and friendly she is. Our youngest children Ginny and Ronald would love to meet her and have a play date with their cousin if at all possible, and if you could discretely pass on to me her measurements I might even be able to make a Weasley sweater for her in time for Christmas. They’re a bit of a tradition in our house, you see. 

We understand that you may be concerned about certain social elements, but we Weasleys have always resided firmly in the light. Your daughter has assured us that the rumors about your reputation are not true, and after having heard from Andromeda we are inclined to believe her. There is nothing and no one in our home that would threaten her safety. That being said, if you would like to accompany her here to keep an eye on her yourself you are more than welcome. 

We hope to hear back from you soon, Happy Christmas!
Molly Weasley (née Prewett)

Chapter Text

Harry and Hermione felt like they were on something akin to a madly out of control sugar rush, and they knew it couldn’t last forever. This business of writing secret letters to people their dad would definitely not approve of had rather grown its own feet and started walking. Their clever scheme had a built in expiration date, and they had the unenviable position of not knowing when exactly that would be.

They had really only intended to write to Gornuk at the bank with their questions, but then afterwards it had only seemed right to contact Mr Weasley and let him know what was going on. And then their dad had just left that letter from Mrs Tonks laying out on the kitchen counter, and it had been so easy and fun to pick up a quill and try to sound as much like little adults as they could. It had spiraled from there, and now they had piles of letters they were frantically trying to keep track of and not mix up. 

On a crisp December morning they made their way as coolly and casually as possible out into the snow towards the little shed that served as the owlery on the compound. To their horror their father was already there waiting for them, leaning against the door with his arms crossed and a furious look on his face. They drew to an abrupt and not at all casual halt a few meters away from him, and he lifted a single knowing eyebrow “Confess now and I might not tan both your hides completely raw,” he growled expectantly. 

Harry sucked in a deep breath and Hermione immediately knew exactly what he was about to do. Her brother was as predictably loyal as he was foolish, and he would surely try and take as much of the blame as he could if she didn’t intervene. She closed her eyes in despair, and imagined digging a hole where she was standing that she could bury herself in. She could practically hear their father’s voice in her head Gonna let your beta take the fall, little alpha? and knew that she had to jump on the dung bomb herself. She elbowed Harry in the ribs and shook her head emphatically at him “No, no don’t listen to him, dad. We may have worked together but this whole thing was my idea.”

Her father bared his teeth with a snap and a snarl like the wolf he was “And what exactly did you do?” He rasped lowly in a tone he rarely ever took with either of them. She could feel the shudder it sent through Harry’s spine next to her. She held eye contact with him and mustered up all her courage. She had been the ringleader after all, she might as well take credit for her little dog and pony show. 

“We’ve been writing letters to people! Even though you didn’t give us permission to. Mostly to family, honestly. We started with the goblin at the bank, Gornuk. Then to Mr Weasley to let him know I reinstated his branch back into the Black Family… We saw your letter to Mrs Tonks and how you weren’t going to let her sister meet us, so I wrote Mrs Malfoy and introduced myself. She has a son our age and the Weasleys do as well. We’re all cousins and we want to meet each other, but if you’re going to make us wait until school starts next year I thought we should at least be able to be pen friends,” she paused as father’s face fell and he paled dramatically, and her stomach sank as she suddenly suspected she was about to be in much more trouble than she had predicted. They must have somehow miscalculated terribly. 

She rushed to finish her confession before he made any sweeping decisions “We wrote all the letters together and we were really careful not to give away any pack secrets! We never said where we live, or even mentioned Harry at all, and we told everyone we talked to that you’re a good wolf and that the rumors are wrong! Please don’t be mad, we were just excited to have cousins to talk to and it got out of hand and we’re very sorry,” she trailed off as she realized she was babbling. Her eyes darted to her brother and was distressed to see he had completely clammed up, opening and closing his mouth with nothing but faint wheezes and whimpers coming out.

Her father’s teeth were clenched tight, and he took what felt like forever to collect himself and calm down enough to push away from the shed and come pull her into his arms “I didn’t make this home to be a prison for you. I never wanted you to feel trapped or isolated here, I wanted to protect you from a world I can’t control. The world out there, I know it’s big and it’s interesting and there are lots of exciting things to do and people to meet and talk to,” he put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arms length, ducking his head down a bit to make very solemn eye contact.

Her grey eyes met his blazing yellow, and she gulped weakly, with what felt like an enormous lump in her throat. His eyes softened, although his voice didn’t.  

“But that incredible magical world out there also just so happens to be one where the three of us don’t have the same basic rights as other witches and wizards. Someone could kill one of us in the street and claim they were afraid for their lives, just because of what we are. The secrets I’ve had us keep are for a reason, they’re to keep us alive. The cat’s out of the bag for me, there’s no helping it. There isn’t a wizard alive who doesn’t know the Greyback name means werewolf. But I had hoped to spare you pups that for as long as I could. Please for the love of the goddesses tell me you didn’t let anyone know that you’re also a werewolf,” he begged, and she felt her blood turn to ice in her veins.

He grimaced, and she knew he understood plainly from her reaction. She forced herself to say it anyways, to confess aloud her terrible mistake “I told the Weasley children in our letter to them. They asked if I was and I didn’t even think about it. I-I’m so sorry dad. How do I fix this?” She croaked out as fat tears started to run down her cheeks, and she began to hyperventilate even as he pulled her back into his embrace again 

“What have I done, why did I tell them that? It was just so fun to write to someone new. Did I ruin everything dad?” She felt Harry’s hands on her back, and she sobbed in earnest “I’ve never felt like this before, everyone we know has always known exactly what we are. Is it always going to be like this outside of our home? Being scared of people finding out the truth about us? I thought we were supposed to be proud to be wolves!”

She felt on the verge of hysteria as he shushed her and stroked her hair softly, running a finger over the tip of one of her ears and tugging gently on the lobe in a weak mimicry of discipline “Oh my little wolf, how can I be mad at you when you’ve learned your lesson in the hardest way there is. It’s a terrible feeling to be frightened that you told the wrong thing to the wrong people.”

“Frankly though, I do think we’ll probably be fine. I’ve heard good things about the Weasleys, and I can’t imagine they’re the type to turn us in to the ministry or pick up their pitchforks and lead a mob to our doors. You made the best mistake you could’ve possibly made. You were still careless though, and it could have gone terribly wrong. I’ll have to punish you. Using these birds to send mail through our wards is a privilege - one you’ve lost for a week,” he pressed his fingertip under her chin and lifted her head up so she looked him in the eyes, and he smiled softly at her. 

“But… once that week is up, you’ll get to visit your cousins at their house. I’ve gotten a letter from Molly, and we’ve arranged for your cousins Dora and Draco to also be there. I’m still not happy about the Malfoy boy being included, but his mother promised that he’ll be on his best behavior,” he said with a huff, and she laughed and threw herself at him. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hermione was an incredibly good sport about her punishment for the entire week, never once complaining or even implying that it was the slightest bit unfair. It had helped that they had Christmas to celebrate and enjoy only a few days later. She knew she’d gotten off easy, and with a reward to boot. Still, the enthusiasm with which she had thrown herself into their household chores was frankly upsetting. No one should be in such good spirits and cheer as they shoveled knee deep snow drifts and mucked out animal pens.

Her extra labor was unasked for and performed with an almost perverse gusto, but it proved worthwhile as it earned their father’s clear amused approval. After the third night in a row that she’d rushed after dinner to wash every dish and pan and scrub the kitchen from top to bottom, he told them that it went a long way towards not only putting them back in his good graces, but to earning back his trust.

Harry on the other hand was more than a little restless, knowing that he hadn’t really lost anything but feeling like he was being left out all the same. He occasionally half heartedly joined in on his sister’s efforts, mostly keeping her company while she toiled, but refused to punish himself with physical labor as she had. There were two punishments she bore, although one was self-imposed, meanwhile he didn’t truly suffer under either of them. 

After several days had passed he hesitantly approached their father “Dad, am I also forbidden from sending an owl for the rest of the week?” He asked uncertainly, not sure if that was what he really wanted to know but also not knowing how to word his real question. His father seemed to pick up on that quite clearly, and hummed contemplatively “Do you want to be?” He asked him mildly, to which he shrugged and his dad chuckled at him. 

“Take a minute to really think about it. Do you actually want to write a letter to someone, and do you feel like you deserve to? I know you mostly just helped your sister with her own nefarious little plot, but you still snuck around and didn’t tell me when you could have. I can say you’ve got the same punishment and ban you from the owl shed too, if you think it’ll make you feel better,” he said with a bit of a smug smirk he always got when he’d read one of them particularly well, and Harry scoffed and crossed his arms. 

On paper, all of the letters they had written together had been sent solely from his sister. Though he technically at any point could have written to Dora or the Weasleys himself, he hadn’t done so once in the whole time they’d been scheming and sneaking about. 

“I’m more upset realizing I didn’t when I could have, and not even done anything wrong. You’d have let me send a letter if I’d wanted to, right?” His dad nodded “Yes, of course. If you’d have asked me I’d have let both of you send your cousins as many letters as you liked. Your sister just gets tunnel vision and shoots for the moon. Can’t believe you audacious little brats actually encouraged Mrs Weasley to contact me and somehow still thought you’d get away with it,” he said with a belly laugh.

The rest of the week passed, and their dad had been gracious enough to send an owl to the Weasley children and Dora informing them that Hermione wouldn’t be able to write them back again until they had their visit, and asking them not to tempt her by sending any post in the meantime. He’d even been willing to concede that it could be awkward to meet someone they didn’t know for the first time in front of other kids they’d at least talked to, and had allowed them a single letter of introduction to and from their Malfoy cousin. He’d made them write it in front of him, and he’d reviewed it thoroughly before allowing the owl to take it off. 

The response they had received was as brief and formal as their own message had been, but was at least polite. His name was Draco, his father worked at the ministry, he had lots of pureblood friends that were probably all going to be Slytherins. Not much of substance, Harry wasn’t particularly impressed. The boy hadn’t outright said it as plainly as she had, but he was clearly as excited to meet her as she was to meet him. He could respect that at least, his sister was indeed very fun and she deserved to have their cousins think so. 

After a great deal of back and forth, the adults had compromised and agreed that the Tonks home would be the best place for their big family meet and greet a few days after the new year. It went unsaid that the Weasleys would be uncomfortable at Malfoy manor and that Lucius would sooner fall down dead than willingly darken the doorway of the Burrow. The Tonks lived in a modest but well kept magical home in a thoroughly muggle neighborhood, one that had never before been used to house farm animals. Compromise.

The entire Tonks family was present in their sitting room, which was still decorated festively for the holidays. Fenrir and his children were already there making pleasant if slightly stilted small talk when the fire blazed green in the hearth and Narcissa and Draco entered through the floo. She elegantly siphoned the soot away from their clothes with her wand, and made eyes at her sister desperately, unsure of how to proceed socially. 

Andromeda stood and cleared her throat “Welcome Cissa, please do come in. Happy new year! And you young man, must be the nephew I’ve heard so much about! Let me take a look at you,” she said warmly as she stepped over to embrace her sister and then inspect her nephew. He bowed towards her politely, and a pair of stifled giggles came from the couch where two children the same age as her son were sitting with a teenage girl who must be her niece. She heard the boy say “Dora whatever you do, don’t try and curtsy - you’ll be flat on your bum in an instant,” And another giggle rang out. She forced herself not to glare at them, this was already not the best first impression and she didn’t want to make it worse. 

Andy rolled her eyes with a smile “Don’t mind them, dear boy. You have very nice manners, if a bit old fashioned,” her sister told Draco with a wink. The tips of his ears went a bit pink, but her darling boy smiled politely and thanked his aunt with all the graces she’d instilled in him. He turned to his cousins sitting on the sofa, and she saw his lips twitch as he visibly fought the urge to sneer at the children who had laughed at him. She suppressed a sigh - it was such an ugly expression, and she dearly wished her beloved husband hadn’t taught their son that particular quirk of his. 

She placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly, and he bowed his head in their direction as well “Hello, I’m Draco Malfoy and this is my mother Lady Narcissa Malfoy,” he said. The younger girl rose from the sofa and to Narcissa’s shock bowed back to him even lower than he had towards his aunt, bending fully at the waist with a flourish “Sorry if I really was supposed to, but I don’t actually know how to curtsy,” she said with a puckish grin on her fey little face, and Narcissa saw her cousin Hydra in the girl’s features. 

“It’s nice to meet you Draco, and you as well Lady Malfoy. Happy new year! Thank you both for writing to me. I’m Hermione, and this is my father Fenrir and my brother Harry,” she said very earnestly with a real smile, gesturing to where her family still sat. She glanced pointedly at the boy, and he crossed the room to join them near the fire. He waved in that awkward way children do at times, “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Harry, and I helped write all the letters we sent over the last few months,” he said with a sheepish smile and a childishly carefree shrug. She couldn’t help but find herself somewhat charmed by them, they were much warmer than most of Draco’s little society friends. Diamonds in the rough, the both of them she thought to herself absentmindedly. There were good bones there, she could work with that. 

She stepped around her son and came over to stand in front of the girl, reaching out and taking her hands, leaning down until they were eye to eye. She saw the girl’s father across the room perk up and frown at her, but she ignored him as best she could and cleared her throat “Miss Greyback, I want to sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you’ve done for my sister. I’ve missed her for longer than you’ve been alive on this earth. I cannot ever begin to repay your kindness,” she said as transparently and as genuinely as she’d ever said anything before, and with a real smile on her face. 

The girl’s gaze turned surprisingly solemn, as she replied “There’s no need to thank me Lady Malfoy. Like I said in my letter, family does what’s best for family. Someone should have done it long before me, but no one stepped up so I had to,” she said, putting her big personality on display. Narcissa immediately felt like she had a very good idea of who this child was - she was a little girl that cared a great deal about justice, and fairness. She was a bit dazzled by her. 

Her bright boy was quick on the draw, and picked up a bit of her own slack that could be blamed on emotion “How did you do it, by the way? You’re a child, why didn’t you just claim the heir ring?” Her son asked with genuine curiosity in his voice, that sarcastic drawling affectation he’d been practicing that last few weeks thankfully given up or forgotten. The girl blushed and fidgeted and her brother next to her had to cover his mouth to prevent himself from laughing “It was an accident really. Gornuk said to take the ring, but he didn’t say which one and they were both in the same box! This is so embarrassing, I’m never going to live it down,” she moaned, her hands covering her red face. 

Her brother barked out a laugh and she glared at him hotly “Shut up, you saw them - they were practically identical! They should have at least been marked or in different boxes or something. It’s hardly my fault,” and he just laughed at her harder. Her son chuckled, and held his hands up in supplication when the girl glared at him as well “I’m sure it was an easy mistake to make,” he said diplomatically. 

“…Not that I’ve ever heard of it happening to anyone else” he muttered under his breath, and to her surprise their father laughed at that comment, shaking his head “It’s always my kids the crazy shit happens to,” he mumbled despairingly. Her son had broken the ice fairly well, and the mood improved significantly. She was very proud of him. 

She couldn’t help but let her eyes rove across the girl’s face and over achingly familiar dark curls, and sighed wistfully “You truly look like a little carbon copy of your mother, my dear,” she told her, and the child’s face lit up like a lumos. Eyes wide, she smacked her little palm to her forehead “Of course you knew her! I should have realized, but really you’re lucky it didn’t occur to me. The letter I sent you would have been ten pages long with all my questions,” the girl said with a grin, not seeming to catch on to how heartbreaking her words were. 

Bottom lip trembling, eyes threatening to water, she reached out and held the girl’s hand “I knew her very well, Hydra and I were nearly the same age and she was always my favorite cousin. Ask me anything at all, at any time. I’d love to tell you about her,” she said softly, trying not to crumble. The girl lunged forward and hugged her, and it forced the breath from her lungs leaving her feeling windswept. 

They hastily moved out of the way as the floo activated again and a crowd of redheads poured out of it. This would be the real test. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The noise level in the room increased by a factor far greater than the number of bodies that had entered, to an improprietous extent. These people were loud, and Draco already didn’t like them. They had interrupted him meeting his cousins for the first time, and he wasn’t pleased about having to share them right after he’d barely gotten a chance to say hello or make a good impression. 

There was an adult man, four boys, and a little girl, and every single one of them was more eye-searingly redheaded than anyone else he’d ever seen. It was garish. They weren’t dirty or smelly like he’d feared, and they weren’t exactly dressed in rags like his father had warned, but their clothes were shabby and worn and nowhere near as nice as his or his mother’s. Whatever circumstances had resulted in their less than respectable appearances could have ultimately been forgiven, but the way they cheerfully talked over each other like excitable puppies was simply unthinkable to him. He looked desperately at his mother for guidance, who was just as stunned speechless by their wall of noise as he was. 

The man cleared his throat, and raised his voice “Settle down, Weasleys!” He shouted “one at a time, Merlin’s beard. Perce why don’t you start us off, hmm?” He gestured to the oldest boy, who held himself stiffly and somewhat apart from his siblings. He pushed his glasses up his nose “Hello everyone, I’m Percy Weasley and I’m the third eldest after William and Charles, who are not present,” he said with a bit of a condescending sniff.

The two twins stood behind him miming him quite rudely the entire time he spoke, and when he turned and noticed what they were doing he blushed furiously and swatted at them “You two are impossible!” He said angrily. Turning back around he addressed the room again “And these are Fred and George and they’re not nearly as funny as they think they are,” he hissed. They hissed back at their brother, less like snakes and more like geese. It was really rather amusing, and Draco hated that they were starting to grow on him so quickly. 

The youngest boy was rolling his eyes at all three of them, and came forward to shake hands. This was the one he’d exchanged a few stilted letters with in the last week and a half, and had the highest expectations of. The boy had been rather dull on paper, but that was not always necessarily a great indicator of any substantial interpersonal shortcomings. Theo was absolute pants at letter writing but had by far the drollest and cleverest sense of humor of all his friends. Still somewhat shell shocked by the sheer volume, Draco mechanically thrust out his hand and allowed it to happen. “Hullo I’m Ron, and this is Ginny,” the boy said, pointing to himself and then to the little girl that was half hidden behind him “She’s normally the loudest of us all, I’m not sure what’s got her so shy. Say hi, Gin,” he encouraged kindly, nudging her gently to come out from his shadow. 

The girl narrowed her eyes at her brother, but stepped around him and gave him a wave and a small smile “Hi” she said quietly. Draco couldn’t help but smile at her “You remind me of my friend Daphne’s little sister Astoria. If you’re going to Hogwarts the year after us then she’ll be a firstie with you. Maybe the two of you can meet and have a play date or two next year once we’re all away,” he found himself suggesting, then realized that it was actually quite a good idea. “If you ask my mother I’m sure she’d be happy to write a letter to Lady Greengrass for you,” he offered, and the girl’s face blossomed into a wide brilliant smile.

“Really? I’ve always wanted to meet other girls to be friends with. There’s Luna, but her dad is absolutely nutters. I’m really excited to meet Hermione,” she said, and like she’d been summoned the girl appeared before them. His cousin’s smile was sincere and friendly “Hi Ginny, I’ve been really excited to meet you too. You can call me Nene if you like. I loved that you and all of your siblings all wrote me a letter together, we had such fun reading it!” She gushed, and Ginny grinned “I glad we did, but I’m sorry you got in trouble for it,” she said without a hint of remorse “Was it too bad? The last time I got punished for something I had to clean out the chicken coop,” she said, scrunching up her little face in disgust. 

Draco was appalled “But what about the house elves whose job it was?” He asked without thinking, and the two girls exchanged disbelieving glances with each other “We don’t have a house elf, Draco,” Ginny said, and Hermione nodded in agreement “I’ve heard of them but I’ve never even seen one. I think you have to be really rich to have them,” she added. This stopped him in his tracks and he looked at her askance “Hermione you’re the new Lady Black. You’re richer than anyone else in the entire British Wizarding Community,” he said a bit unintentionally sharpish. 

She had the decency to look a bit put out, and a flush rose to her cheeks “Maybe I am now, but I grew up in a cottage in the woods. My mum left her inheritance to other people who needed it more. I guess I sort of forgot that the title came with money,” she shrugged helplessly, and he could hardly parse the sentence that had just come out of her mouth. He had to sit down on the arm of the nearest chair and take a breather trying to make sense of what she’d just said. 

“I don’t understand,” he muttered “You’re a Black, and your mother was in good standing in our house. How did you grow up in the middle of nowhere knowing nothing?” She clearly took great offense to that, and her hair started sparking as her hands balled up into fists and she snarled at him “I know lots of things! My dad did his best after my mum died, but he didn’t know all the things she was supposed to teach me. He taught me what he knew, and it was more than enough to hunt and track and lead our pack and survive!” She cried angrily, starting to work herself up into a temper. 

The other boy finally spoke up, raising his hands up as if soothing a spooked horse “I don’t think he meant it like that, Hermione. It’s like how in your letter you wrote to us more formally than you actually speak, right? Mum’s told me about how there’s tons of secret protocols and stuff like that in pureblood high society that they learn how to use to communicate with each other,” Ron said, gesturing towards Draco who was surprised to hear something so astute come out of the other boy’s mouth. 

Ron was grinning at her now “You faked it really well, but I noticed that for all you tried to sound so adult in your letter you still put a smiley face next to where you signed your name. It gave you away dead to rights. And you addressed our dad as Lord Weasley even though he’s not,” his eyebrows shot up as she swore colorfully, and Ron laughed “See, the other kids that were raised like him would never have made those mistakes in a million years, cause it’s the tiny details that give you away and break the illusion. It all comes naturally to them cause they were raised to be perfect little aristocrats,” he said, putting on airs and raising his nose as he said the last bit. Hermione and Ginny both giggled, and even Draco found himself chuckling. 

“You’re pretty clever,” he told Ron sincerely, surprised to find that he really did mean it. They took turns sizing each other up, and exchanged grins “My grandad has been teaching me logic and chess strategy since I was in nappies. He’s a Grandmaster and took the international championship title a couple times in the fifties and sixties,” the other boy said with pride, and Draco was suitably impressed “We’ll have to play a game some time. I learned from my godfather and he’s very good and the smartest person I know, but I don’t think he ever competed so you might have to go easy on me,” he admitted sheepishly. 

He turned back to Hermione and held his hand out, and was relieved when she shook it without hesitation “I’m sorry for not thinking through what I said better. Ron’s right, there’s a great deal of etiquette and social lessons that… most pureblood children start learning from a very young age. You have a noble title, and so people are going to expect you to speak and act a certain way. My mother and I can help teach you, and clearly the Weasleys have important lessons to impart as well,” he said earnestly. 

She nodded in acknowledgement “You’ve got a good point, Draco. There’s a lot I never learned, and I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive. I only really recently-” she looked around the room, and he saw her make eye contact with her father who frowned but then shrugged. She sighed and furrowed her brow, gesturing for him and the two Weasleys to pull in closer. 

When they did, she lowered her voice “I knew things weren’t great, but I only just found out recently that werewolves basically don’t have any rights at all. If Harry and I weren’t from important houses we wouldn’t have even been able to go to school with you guys. There are other magical children in our pack that didn’t get Hogwarts letters, and it’s made me really sensitive about how few opportunities we have. When you said I didn’t know anything, it just made me think about that and get really mad. I’m sorry for taking it out on you, Draco.”

Ron and Draco both inhaled sharply as she inadvertently admitted to being a werewolf, and she winced “Yeah, I guess I just didn’t realize how serious of a secret it was supposed to be. That’s why I really got in trouble. When my dad found out that I told your brothers he told me about how bad it really is here for us. I had no idea it was so dangerous for people to know what we are, I’ve been on the compound my whole life, and everyone is like us there! It’s going to be so weird trying to hide it and having people not know.”

Draco desperately fought his first instinct that told him to get as far away from her as possible, to run and hide from the monstrous predator he was standing less than a meter away from. Instead he made every effort to stay perfectly still. He tried to bring himself to say something, but his mouth felt impossibly dry. He had shaken her hand, what had he been thinking? Father would definitely have told him if lycanthropy could be transmitted via handshake, wouldn’t he? He glanced nervously at the other boy, and was glad to see he wasn’t the only one affected. Ron was standing next to him stiff as a board.

To his monumental surprise though, the tiniest ginger fearlessly rush forward and embraced the other girl. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ron raggedly inhale and frantically reach out to pull his sister back before freezing and putting his hand back down. The two boys exchanged wild-eyed glances. Neither of the girls seemed to notice or care though, and Ginny cooed at their cousin comfortingly “That’s absolutely terrible Nene, it’s just not fair! We saw what you said in the letter, but we weren’t sure if you were joking or not. Fred and George never should have asked you that in the first place. We won’t tell a soul, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us,” the little girl told her “and mum is gonna whack the living daylights out of them for sure,” she added cheerfully. 

Giving himself a moment to unclench, he tried to breathe and think rationally back on all the frantic research his father had done on werewolves after finding out about Hermione. Just because she was capable of turning into a bloodthirsty ravenous beast didn’t mean she could do it at will. It only happened once a month, and the full moon had been several days ago on the night of New Year’s eve. The thought of a pack of werewolves howling in the new year almost certainly would have wrung a laugh out of him if he wasn’t so tightly wound up and nervous at the moment. He just had to think and be objective, and consider the facts.

Everything father had found, the old books and scrolls and text fragments from old carvings, all agreed that werewolves were relatively harmless outside of the night of the full moon. When in their human forms their saliva was rendered inert and they were not contagious. Their disease could not be passed on through simple skin contact, not unless blood and teeth were specifically involved. He was fine. He was safe. She couldn’t hurt them and she probably didn’t want to anyways. She was a nice girl. She was his cousin. 

With a start he remembered his father’s warning about how sharp the senses of the werewolf were, that they were rumored to be able to hear well enough to make out other people’s heartbeats. His hand rose to press against his sternum, as if to tell his own heart to shush itself. If that was true she probably knew all about the panic attack he’d nearly just had. His eyes shot towards her in mortification, and over the Weasley girl’s shoulder he saw that she was staring straight back at him knowingly. Her grey eyes were so like his and his mother’s and he was comforted by it until a moment later when they flashed glowing silver for a split second. He gasped, and she winked at him with a small smile playing about her lips. 

Suddenly the younger girl’s face scrunched up in confusion, “Hang on, did you say your brother is also from an important family? Is he not another Black like you are?” She asked completely guilelessly, to which Hermione laughed a bit awkwardly “Oh boy, are you lot in for a surprise.”

They were finishing up a lovely meal in the kitchen at the Burrow after an afternoon spent playing in the orchard. To Hermione’s absolute delight, after visiting and closely inspecting the wards around the house and property, her father had allowed her relatively unrestricted access to visit her cousins whenever she pleased. She had thanked him what felt like a million times since he’d announced his verdict. 

She and Harry had come over to visit nearly every day since, Dora had come one or twice, and even Draco had managed to convince his father to let him come join them when he wasn’t busy with what Ron continued to call his “little lord lessons”. Even though it was still bitterly cold out, they bundled up warmly and a great deal of their playtime took place in the air on brooms (or watching from the ground in her case). In her refusal to participate and resultant boredom, she often spent her time while they flew curled up and snoring on a blanket with a big pillow on top of it in the form of her little brown wolf. 

Her cousins had been absolutely flabbergasted to see her transform for the first time, but once their initial trepidation had worn off they’d taken turns petting her silky ears and admiring her large paw pads. Fred and George had nearly fallen down in their laughter when they saw her spin around before laying down like a dog would, and they’d been persistently trying to get her to perform tricks for them ever since they’d first seen her do it. She took great delight in refusing to sit or shake no matter how much they begged her to. 

She absolutely loved the Burrow and the land surrounding it. When she wasn’t dozing under an apple tree or gamboling through the snow chasing garden gnomes, she was firmly attached to Molly’s hip like a little barnacle. There were children in their pack and there were women, and there were even a few mothers with children. But Molly was openly and happily a mumsy mum in a deeply maternal way that none of the wolf mothers she knew had ever allowed her in close enough to see. They were perfectly kind and friendly, deferential to her as the alpha’s heir and polite to her as their children’s friend, but they saved that motherly side of themselves for the privacy of their own homes and the company of their own children. 

Molly truly delighted in caring for her family, and she was never happier than when she was cooking and baking for them. The joy shone out of her like a physical thing, like a mother’s love made manifest. The woman was soft and warm and kind, and though Hermione had certainly been raised knowing love and affection from her father, this was something she’d never quite experienced before. It was something she hadn’t realized she’d been craving until she was exposed to it for the first time, and she felt as if she’d do nearly anything to stay with her and be her little helper and get to bask in her attention.

To her great embarrassment she could tell she was being very obvious, but if Molly noticed she’d very kindly not said a word about it. She couldn’t believe her cousins had such an amazing mum who loved them more than anything and they’d rather go play outside on stupid brooms. She’d gladly pick up the leftovers of what she felt they were thoughtlessly wasting. 

In the week since their first visit Molly had taught her how to bake Christmas cookies and gingerbread, they’d made cakes and pies and tarts together. Her elder brothers in the men’s dormitory on the compound cooked larger meals in their cafeteria, but only barely. Molly cooked as though she were feeding a small army, and no one went hungry at her table - not even little wolf children who had twice the appetite. Feathers had gotten a bit ruffled at dinner on their first visit when Ron had watched aghast as they ate seconds and thirds and fourths and not gotten their hands smacked for gluttony like he always did when he tried to go for thirds. His mother had sternly informed him that she had written confirmation from the pack healer that growing werewolves needed nearly double the caloric intake of their same age human counterparts for healthy development. 

With his cheeks and ears red, Ron had mumbled something about not wanting to get fat anyways, and that had been that. 

Molly had also started teaching her to knit, which was much more difficult. Hermione had been easily able to help out in the kitchen, more than willing to fetch things and cut things and clean up afterwards, lift heavy bags of sugar and flour. Though she was normally quite coordinated she always seemed to get into a tangle of yarn no matter how hard she tried to concentrate and keep her needles organized. She felt like she’d be able to put them to better use as weapons than crafting tools, but Molly was endlessly patient. Apparently Ginny had never really gotten the hang of it either, and that soothed her wounded ego a bit. 

As she struggled to put together a single lumpy tea cozy, the woman seemingly effortlessly produced scarves and mittens and jumpers and socks and hats. She was beyond touched when Molly had presented her with a beautiful heather grey jumper with a large chocolate brown H on the front and a tiny line of little brown wolves running along the hem. It was softer than any of her other sweaters, the yarn was heavy weighted and felt like chenille. It was wonderfully warm and very comfortable - in fact it had fit her so perfectly she had wondered how Molly had guessed her size, and the woman had sheepishly admitted to owling her father and asking for her measurements. 

That evening as dinner drew to a close, one of the twins eyed her suspiciously “If you’re both werewolves, how come you can turn into one whenever you want and he can’t?” He asked her a bit sharply, much like a curious and frustrated researcher after a long period of fruitless observation. Their mother was clearly mortifiied, her eyes had widened and her cheeks had turned pink. If she were a teakettle her nose would be whistling and her ears steaming. 

Hermione hummed apologetically as Harry grumbled next to her “He’s been asking me the same thing since we were six years old. It’s because I was born a wolf, and he was turned into one,” she said softly, reaching out and holding her brother’s hand under the table. She grimaced as he squeezed at her hand tightly, and held out her other hand palm down for the twin to take “If you think that’s cool, look at what else I can do,” she said with a wry grin, a touch of pride creeping into her voice.

Without any strain or effort, a green shimmer flowed down her arm and swirled over her hand, and a teensy weensy razor sharp claw popped out of each nail bed where a human fingernail used to be. She flexed the muscles in her hand and clacked the long claws noisily against the tabletop. She lifted her lips up to the gums and her magic shifted again and her canine teeth grew dramatically in length and sharpness. She chomped the air in front of her playfully, and the snap of her teeth meeting rang out in the silent room. It had taken her years to master this partial transformation so smoothly, and she was very proud of it. 

No one said a single word, and after a moment she realized everyone was staring at her very intently. She suddenly felt incredibly self conscious. Her face fell and she pulled her hand back away from her Weasley cousin and jammed it away out of sight underneath her leg. She squeezed Harry’s hand tightly and started to backpedal “I always thought it was… pretty neat. But maybe it’s not,” she mumbled through her enlarged teeth, and felt foolish. She shouldn’t have said or done a thing, of course humans would be scared of something so new and dangerous looking. She let her magic pull her claws and fangs back in and began to stammer “I- I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you. I’d never bite anybody that didn’t want it. I’m a good wolf, I promise,” she said pleadingly, as her eyes and nose began to burn. 

A soft warm hand touched her shoulder lightly, like a little bird on a branch. She looked up and was surprised to see Molly crouching next to her with a sad smile on her face “You have nothing to apologize for dearie. My extremely rude son who wouldn’t know how to be polite if the queen herself sat down and taught him, is the one who should be apologizing for asking such an invasive question in the first place. We appreciate that you felt comfortable enough to share that with us. It’s different, and we’ve certainly never seen anything like it before! Not scary though, you’re just too cute to be scary aren’t you?” The woman said sweetly, pinching her cheek and tapping the end of her nose. 

As she felt the tears in her eyes start to fall of their own volition, she threw herself into the woman’s arms and tried to cry as quietly as possible “Thank you Mrs Weasley,” she said a bit nasally, her nose all stuffed up and congested. She sniffled and felt her brother rub her back as the woman’s arms wrapped around her and hugged her tight. It was one of the best hugs she’d ever had and she told her as much, to the woman’s clear delight “Aren’t you such a sweet little thing?” The woman crooned into her hair, and she felt very safe and comfortable. 

As she pulled back and tried to hide her face and surreptitiously use her sleeve to wipe away the evidence of her tears, Molly tutted and pulled her face back into view and used the edge of her own apron instead “It’s okay little love, nothing a good cry can’t fix,” she whispered. Her face changed dramatically as she turned to look at her son who had caused all this drama “And what do you have to say to your cousin, Frederick Gideon?” she demanded with a venomous glare, as he stood there stunned. 

He quickly cleared his throat and came to his senses, though his face was still pale “I’m sorry Nene, I was just curious. I suppose it wasn’t very nice of me to ask you a question like that,” a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth “I’ll save all my werewolf related questions for future letters” he mouthed at her smartly, just loud enough for her to hear and his mother not to. She winked at him and he and his twin both mimed doubling over in laughter. What a pair of silly clowns. 

She looked over to smile at her brother, and was dismayed to see a frown on his face “What?” She mouthed at him, starting to feel a bit anxious again “What is it?” His eyes darted to Molly and then back to her, and he tilted his head down so no one else could see his lips moving “You know you can show her that part of yourself, right? It’s clear she adores you, she’s not gonna suddenly get freaked out,” he huffed under his breath, too low for anyone else in the room but her to pick up.

She stiffened in embarrassment, feeling a bit caught out. She had hoped he wouldn’t have noticed or at least would have had the decency not to mention that she’d kept her transformations strictly outdoors with the other children. It wasn’t that she necessarily thought Molly would reject her in her wolf form, but she’d rather not wanted to find out if she was wrong about that. Her brow furrowed, and she wasn’t sure what to say. “If you don’t ever give her your trust, how can she ever prove her own,” he whispered again insistently, echoing one of Ófnir’s most frequently repeated aphorisms. 

With a whine low in her throat she pressed her forehead to his and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent that reminded her of their shared den and father “You really are going to be a good beta someday,” she told him softly, to which he smiled and his cheeks became rosy. He gestured towards Molly, and Hermione nodded and slid off of her chair and to her knees next to the woman who had gotten back up into her own seat.

She looked up at her and tugged on the woman’s hand, putting it against the side of her head and letting her transformation flow over her in a wash of green shimmery sparks. Molly’s eyes widened in wonder, and though she gasped and brought her other hand up to her breast, she didn’t pull her hand away from where it rested on the ear of the little brown wolf that sat docilely at her feet. Her eyes watered, but no tears fell “Oh you brave girl, you really are a sweet thing,” she breathed out with a shaky smile, as she stroked her fingers through the fur of her muzzle. She let out a sudden laugh “Whiskers! You’ve got whiskers, oh my goodness me! Do they help you to see better in the dark? I’ve been so curious, the children have been talking about this other form of yours nonstop but you just didn’t seem ready to show me yet. I’m so glad you did dearie, what a lovely little wolf you are,” she said warmly, her eyes and smile soft as the chenille of the jumper she had made her.  

This seemed to break the rest of the children from whatever spell had kept them silently glued to their seats, and they rushed over and crowded around the two of them. Molly narrowed her eyes and her angry voice came back out that she thankfully hadn’t yet had cause to take with her and hopefully never would “Now you lot have gotten to have her all to yourselves this whole week, at least let the two of us have a proper hello first!” She barked at her children, and Hermione howled out a yowling laugh that made the other children fall down laughing.

She heard her brother start to answer Molly’s question seriously, and she so appreciated him in that moment that she reared up on her hind legs and licked all over the side of his face. He was so used to this he didn’t even blink or stop what he was saying “-and our eye sight is actually quite good, especially at night because we have a special reflective layer in our eyes. It’s called Tapeta Lucidum, but you might have heard it referred to as eye shine. So the whiskers help more with like, generally knowing where you are and what’s around you. Dad calls them a sensory organ, but I’m not sure exactly what that means, all I know is they’re just as important as our ears or nose or eyes. Hermione would have a much better answer because she’s a swotty thing who’s read a million books and spends more time in her form than any of the rest of us,” he said rolling his eyes good naturedly. 

She woofed at that and nipped his ear, causing him to push her head down away from him, and she whined and sat mulishly on the floor with her paws over her snout and eyes. When she opened her eyes both of the twins were under the table with her on their bellies, mimicking her posture with mischief sparkling in their eyes. She crawled a bit closer to them on her belly, and they did the same until they were nearly touching noses. They breathed in fast and shallowly through their noses, pretending to sniff her. 

Her nose twitched and she snuffled and actually took in deep whiffs of their scents; the dinner they’d just had, the family smell all the Weasleys shared, the grubby cheesy smell of teenage boys, broom twigs and other outdoor smells, a faint lingering hint of something sharply spicy and metallic… gun powder? She reared back - whatever it was also had a terrible underlying fecal smell mixed in with it. What on earth had they been doing? Making… homemade dung bombs??? She put that thought away and saved it for later, eagerly looking forward to having something to hold over them. 

She laid her head back down flat on the floor and wiggled forward as close as she could get, licking first one then the other across their noses. They made brief eye contact with each other, and one of them stuck his own tongue out and licked her nose back. She was so surprised she had no idea how to react to that, and after a moment of delay she batted him on the top of his head lightly with her paw, and whuffed. He looked thoroughly startled, and his twin laughed at him.

After being caught red handed and punished for it within such recent and vivid memory, Hermione had made one of her resolutions for the new year to allow her father to personally inspect every piece of correspondence that left the desk of Lady Black in any official capacity. For his wise guidance and peace of mind, but also her own continued freedom to use the pack post owls. She was regretting that now, as he read through the letter she’d brought him. She shuffled her feet anxiously, and wrung her hands. 

As he read through it his eyebrows raised higher and higher until they were nearly brushing his hairline, and when he finished it he stared at her in incredulous disbelief. He wheezed a hysterical laugh and shook his head “I can’t believe I’m saying this and I’ll deny it if you ever tell anyone, but for as much trouble as it brings me, your absolute gall has probably got to be one of my favorite thing about you, little wolf… the things you’ll do as alpha one day - I can’t even imagine!” He said with another breathless chuckle “And where on earth did you get the idea to do a thing like this, from another one of those old stories Remus told your brother that you eavesdropped on?” 

She smiled at him a bit smugly “Yes I did, and thanks dad - I happen to think it’s one of my best traits as well. That and my resilience of spirit. Anyways, I heard them talking about it and realized I couldn’t not do something. I feel a bit bad about going behind Remus’ back, but this is someone who’s going to be in a position of authority over Harry and I soon, and I need to protect both of us by making things square with him. From what I heard, he’s a very unpleasant man. I might have to make more of an effort than this, but it should at least let him know I’m serious,” he nodded in approval, and she continued. 

“Also, whether he’s our teacher or not, there’s another important factor to consider. He’s a person who’s had an awful experience with a werewolf, and most likely carries a fear and prejudice towards us because of it. If I’m going to be away from home, I need to be an ambassador for our people. Laying the groundwork with him will be my first major project. We aren’t like what he saw, and he needs to be shown that. Even one less person who hates us is worth working for,” she finished passionately, her fists clenched at her sides.

Her father scratched at the scruffy stubble on his chin, and looked at her with a glimmering sheen of unshed tears in his eyes “Goddesses be good but I’m awfully proud of you, my girl. I really am, Hermione. Every time I think you just couldn’t be better, your kindness and compassion always simply astound me all over again,” he said, beaming at her with the biggest smile she’d ever seen on his face. She threw herself into his arms, laughing in delight and pressing kisses all over his face. 

“I know you’re a frightfully clever little sprog, but how on earth did you manage to sound so mature? I’d never in a million years have guessed a child wrote this,” he pressed curiously, to which she blushed and pulled out of her pocket his mate’s ancient dog-eared old copies of Dracula and Pride and Prejudice that had lived untouched on the nightstand next to his bed for nearly a decade. She ducked her head, and pressed her forehead to his chest “Got some help from mum,” she mumbled, and he bussed a kiss into her hair “I’m sure she’s glad she could help,” he replied, trying desperately not to choke on his words. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Severus ran his fingertips lightly over the thick expensive card stock of the envelope on his desk. The last time he’d gotten anything nearly so fine in the mail had been an invitation to a Malfoy gala at the height of the war. His attendance at such events was no longer required, but there had been a time when it was absolutely mandatory, and the invitations had been entirely for show. Dress up and dance or risk offending the Dark Lord and have your life forfeit. 

The wax seal holding it closed was flat and bore no crest, which was unusual and had given him pause. The types who shelled out for such opulent stationary generally wanted their audience to know exactly who was addressing them as soon as they held the letter in their hands. Was it a show of arrogance, or humility? He wasn’t yet sure. It was beautiful paper, but slightly darker off-white than the currently reigning nobles of wizarding Britain tended to use, and allowed him to immediately rule out a great deal of possible senders by that clue alone. 

Hesitantly, he brought it up to his face and wafted it below his nose. No recognizable scents added, no musky colognes or noxiously cloying perfumes sprayed upon the envelope itself that could be detected from the outside, although a good charm could feasibly hide that if it had been applied to only the parchment inside of it. There was something earthy that he just barely caught a hint of, but he couldn’t identify what it was and his gut instinct told him it was natural and had not been applied intentionally. 

Finally, he pulled out his wand and began casting his usual array of diagnostic spellwork on the letter. There were no curses hexes or jinxes attached to it, though there was a mild standard mail charm to keep it clean dry and uncrumpled. It was totally free of dark residue, not a hint of malicious or hostile magic had ever been cast anywhere remotely near it. He decided that it was safe to open and peruse, but remained vigilantly on his guard. 

Summoning a sharp little knife from his work station across the room, he sliced open the envelope and pulled out the pages of parchment. They were tidy, and to his great surprise were numbered. A little on the anal retentive side, but something he often did himself. The penmanship was neat, but he noticed that it was slightly too uniform to be hand written, and suspected it had been dictated with a particularly well programmed auto-quill. He stopped short at the name at the bottom of the last page, and nearly threw it in the fireplace without even reading it. 

…But something in his gut told him it was essential that he see what this letter had to tell him. He found himself instantly suspicious at the feeling, and angrily checked the parchment for compulsion charms or behavior modifying spells. To his consternation there were none. He would simply have to read it if he wanted to sate his own curiosity. He began to occlude heavily for safety’s sake, and his guard was up as he read. 

January 25th, 1991
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the woods

Dear Mr Severus Snape,

I hope this letter finds you well. I write to you today as a show of good faith, to begin making up for a grievous wrong that was done to you by a son of my family. On behalf of the House of Black, I would like to extend to you a sincere formal apology for the actions of Sirius Orion Black at Hogwarts School in 1976. As the new head of our house, I was shocked to discover that this matter had been left neglected of any official action on our part for decades. It is my understanding of the situation that he not only intentionally endangered your life, but was also never suitably punished for it in any meaningful way. I do not know him and have not spoken with him, and thus I do not know if he ever personally apologized to you, but I hope he did just as much as I hope he eventually came to regret his behavior. 

I find this entire matter to be a reprehensible display of poor judgment and lack of discipline all around, both in his actions and in the way they were handled. While I have no wish at all to buy you off or imply that your life has a set value, I am of the opinion that you deserve to be compensated for the very real crime that was committed against you and any suffering you may have endured since. I have contacted my accounts manager at Gringotts and he has informed me of an appropriate wergild for such an attempt against your life, given the motive and how close Sirius came to ultimately succeeding. 

I have seen fit to ensure that the amount will be available for you to collect at the bank should you desire to do so. I had considered asking Gornuk to simply transfer the funds directly to your account, but he argued that such a presumptuous move may be offensive to you. If this offer indeed offends you in any way, you are by no means obligated to accept it, and are more than welcome to simply ignore this missive altogether. If you have not collected it within a month of receiving this letter, it will be automatically placed in a trust in your name should you ever at any point change your mind and decide to claim it.

Another important matter I wish to address are the facts of what you actually witnessed. Mr Lupin is an acquaintance of myself, and it was from him I indirectly heard of the events of that dreadful night. I beg nothing more from you Mr Snape than that you read the following with an open mind. You see, Mr Lupin’s condition was passed to him via my father Fenrir Greyback, a politically motivated mistake he made only once and never again, despite rumors otherwise. 

As a werewolf bitten against his will and fearful of his own condition, Mr Lupin had no ability to control either his shift or his mind while under the full moon. Although popular mythology would paint us all as similarly slavering beasts who attack with bloodlust, this is in truth a rarity of our species that only the lone wolf tends to exhibits signs of. Historically speaking, attacks from werewolves have almost always exclusively been from loners who do no belong to a pack, and when we find them within our territories we often take care of them ourselves. 

Werewolves are highly social and form large packs with a fairly familial structure. When we are balanced within ourselves and at peace with our wolves, the full moon’s light brings a painless and controlled change where we spend our nights running and hunting playfully, nearly indistinguishable from true wolves. We are predators, but we do not instinctually seek to harm humans, and in fact we do our best to live in isolation as far away from them as possible. We stick to our own territories, and we live on heavily warded and highly sustainable compounds. 

I tell you this not to propagandize, but to express that I am greatly saddened that you had such a genuinely dangerous and terrifying experience. I cannot imagine what fear and hatred of our species such an encounter may have inspired, and it would be entirely justified given what you’ve been through. I have immense sympathy for both yourself and Mr Lupin, who were both traumatized by this event in entirely different ways. As a young man who already hated and feared his own nature, for him this event could only possibly have reinforced such self-loathing, compounding it infinitely greater. I cannot imagine the pain that would come from being used as a murder weapon by your own best friend. 

All of this is to say that what happened was a tragedy all around, and I reiterate that I am deeply ashamed of the actions taken by a member of my house. I bear no misapprehension that this gesture will heal all wounds, but I only hope it can begin to soothe the very worst of them. If there is ever anything that you require, please reach out and I will do my best to see it done. Needless to say, if you have any further questions I am willing to answer any and all of them. I am additionally willing to make a formal statement to both the wizengamot and the press offering you an official apology, but do not wish to do so without first obtaining your consent. 

If I don’t hear back from you, I look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts in September. Please try and have a restful summer, I’m sure you will have well earned it after teaching rambunctious youngsters for another year :)

(Should you find yourself doubtful of my character or intentions please contact your colleague Minerva Mcgonagall, whom I recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of and whom I believe should be willing and able to vouch for me if need be)

Kindest regards,
Hermione Elena Greyback
The Lady Black

“What the bloody buggering fuck,” he whispered aloud to his classroom, and a frog croaked loudly in a tank along the wall in answer. 

He read the letter all the way through three more times, and kept coming back to the last line. She would see him at Hogwarts? There were no current students that he knew of who could have claimed the Black seat, and this letter could not possibly have been written by a ten year old child. Both statements were to his knowledge true, but together they presented an impossible scenario. Unless the new Lady Black was an adult who was going to be one of his fellow teachers… But Albus had already informed them all that cowardly quivering lump Quirinus was coming back to take over the defense position this year, which meant that there shouldn’t be any new staff members he didn’t know. 

He inspected the letter again, more closely than he had before. The last line, it had ended with a smiley face. What adult did that? The heading at the top, it was addressed from “the desk in my room”. Adults had their own offices or studies, which noble ladies sometimes referred to as solars. She had even mentioned her father in the letter, and he had never heard of Greyback having children before or during the war. 

The tone was formal, and they had used a great many large and complex words in the correct context. Propagandize, misapprehension, indistinguishable, reprehensible. They had even mentioned the wizengamot and referenced correspondence with a bank manager about archaic compensatory practices. He briefly wondered how degrading the pittance would be that the goblin attaché had come up with in an attempt to placate him. Though she had claimed not to want to ascribe a monetary value to his human life, giving him money in payment for nearly being killed was essentially doing exactly that. 

Putting that thought aside for later and doubling down on his occlusion, he was forced to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that this letter had indeed been written to him by a child. An extremely clever and sneaky child, but a child all the same. All the clues pointed towards it, and the use of the auto-quill tied it all together. Even the brightest children still had very distinctive handwriting. She hadn’t outright claimed to be an adult, but might as well have. He wondered how much help she’d had writing the letter, if any. She’d probably read an old epistolary collection, the tone matched. 

He’d barely gotten around to considering the actual content and the gargantuan implications of a Black holding one of their own accountable for his sake, when a little Hogwarts elf popped up next to him “There is being another delivery for the potions master, sir,” it said, bowing and placing yet another letter on his desk before softly popping away again. 

He picked it up hesitantly, casting the same spells he just had on the other. This one was clean as well, but had substantially more robust mail charms. It was from Gringotts. He opened it and read, and as he did his jaw dropped inelegantly. 

25th of Æfterra Gēola, 1991
Office of Black Accounts
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley
London, England

Mr Severus Tobias Snape,

I am writing on behalf of my patroness, the Lady Black. In light of discovering an attempt on your life was made by a member of her house, that you were never compensated, and that the assailant was never punished accordingly, she has decided that she owes you a formal wergild. As her financial advisor, taking into account all known factors regarding the crime that was committed, including time passed since and the fact that you are still among the living, as well as your current career prospects and earnings, I arrived at an actuarial estimate in the amount of 30,000 galleons as an appropriate reparation. 

Upon presenting this number to her she dismissed it summarily, and insisted on paying no less than 128,000 galleons. She seems to believe your life has a great deal of value. (For your convenience, at current market value and with today’s exchange rate and rate of inflation, this is equivalent to 640,000 British pounds)

Per the Lady Black’s kind and generous instructions, this sum will be available for you to collect at any teller station in the bank for one calendar month starting today, after which it shall be invested in a trust vault in your name which will accrue an annual interest rate of 2.89% in perpetuity. The vault has been pre-approved to be grandfathered to your surviving heir should it be claimed posthumously. 

In service of the House of Black,
Gornuk son of Nograk 

“…Jesus fucking wept,” he announced to his empty classroom, in a daze. He felt a bit lightheaded. The parchment fluttered from his hand onto the surface of the desk. He pushed his chair back and leaned back as far as he could go, his hands reaching up to run through his hair. He tried to remember his maths, and what a galleon was worth in pounds. It was something like one to five. 

He made roughly six and a half thousand galleons a year, which was thirty two thousand pounds. Standard educator’s salary, not too shabby but certainly not glamorous. One hundred and twenty eight thousand galleons, or six hundred and forty thousand pounds, was exactly twenty years worth of wages at his current salary. He could quit today, and that would be two decades where he could do fuck all but his potions experiments if he wanted to. All because of one scary night he’d had a big fussy strop about at age sixteen. 

Gods but that was so much fucking money. He picked up the bank statement to read it again, certain he must’ve misread the numbers, it had probably just said 12,800 galleons. He moaned in dismay as he confirmed that it did in fact say exactly what he’d initially thought. He was quite confident it was several dozen times more than what his house was worth. What business did a child have handing him such a blank check? Had it really been her idea or had someone put it in her head? And what on earth did he think about the second half of her letter where she had rhapsodized for pages about the werewolf condition? Could a werewolf even be trusted to provide impartial information about their own monstrous nature?

Then again - what did he care? He could happily forgive and forget for that much money. He didn’t give two shits, for that much money he’d be perfectly content to keep an open mind like the girl had asked him to. What had the goblin called her, his patroness? He could have an eleven year old werewolf aristocrat patroness. Why the fuck not, his life was already so goddamn terrible and strange. 

He’d been passed around from father to dark lord to headmaster, he’d never really been free a day of his life. Every single one of them had wanted something from him. None of them had ever wanted a damn thing to do with him until he had first proven himself useful. At least having a child as his new lord and master would probably be interesting. At least this one seemed to consider his human life innately valuable for more than simply what he knew or could provide. It might actually make a refreshing change of pace. 

Tossing back three fingers of the good scotch Minerva had given him for his birthday earlier in the month, he scrambled to find parchment and quill before his better judgment kicked in and stopped him. Frantic, he scratched out a response as quickly and as eloquently as he could, but found himself opening up much more than he intended to. He felt almost compelled to let this young woman know his side of things, comforted by the strange sense of responsibility and propriety she’d already displayed in reaching out to him. Merlin knew no one else had ever stepped up to even try and do right by him.

Overcome and out of his depth, he sealed it and rushed off to the owlery in a billow of his long black robes. 

26/1/91
From the Desk of S. Snape
Office of the Potions Master
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland 

Lady Black, 

I thank you for the apology. It means more to me than you can possibly know. 

I have carried so much helpless anger since that night, with nowhere to direct it. You have given me all I ever really wanted out of this situation - for someone to tell me that my life meant something. That what he did was wrong, and that he could have killed me, and that it would have mattered if he had. I admit to having possessed a cruel curiosity, I suspected Lupin and wanted to know what secret he was hiding. It got the better of me, and I allowed Black’s taunts to lure me almost to my own death. It has taken a very long time for me to acknowledge the guilt I bear, and I don’t think I ever would have come to fully realize it had someone such as yourself not reached out to me with compassion and shown me the dignity and respect that you have. 

All I remember hearing in the aftermath of the incident was how very important it was that I not spread Lupin’s secret about, as if his comfort and privacy was easily worth as much or more as my life that had been risked in the process of me learning about it. I was made to feel like utter scum, because while Black’s friends were furious with him it was clear they were more upset that he’d risked exposing their friend than endangering my life. The headmaster threatened to make me swear an unbreakable vow to never reveal Lupin’s secret, he said he’d have to consider expelling me if I refused. 

Only Lupin stepping up and telling him it wasn’t necessary saved me from that indignity. I had never considered until now to be grateful to him for that. It was just another thing for me to be furious about - that his whim had saved me from being bound to potentially die if I revealed his secret. It felt like my life was at risk twice that night, first from a werewolf and then from the man who was supposed to protect me from it. It felt like my life had been saved only to find out it could be taken away at any time if I didn’t earn the right to live. 

I spent the entire rest of my seventh year occluding constantly whenever I had to be in their presence, putting up mental barriers to keep myself in control and my temper in check. The fear I felt of swift and brutal retaliation from his friends should I dare speak word of Lupin’s condition was tantamount to the paralyzing terror of actually seeing him transformed within arm’s reach, wild and vicious and lunging towards me with clear intent to kill.

I have never spoken about this with another living soul, it has until now been too painful and too raw edged a wound to even bear thinking about other than to rage and to seethe silently. I regret to say that I have frequently taken out my pain on those around me, and have been a generally unpleasant man to be around. In my misery I’ve been needlessly cruel to others who had no hand in hurting me. 

I desperately wish to believe that what you have revealed to me is the truth, that what I saw was an outlier and not the norm. That there are entire fey communities of werewolves as happy and as harmless as the Hogwarts house elves. What you have described to me sounds as beautiful and far fetched as an impossible utopia, or a child’s lovely dream of a perfect world. I have never in my life heard anyone refer to werewolves as a species distinct from humans, only ever at worst as dark creatures to defend against, or perhaps at best as the diseased who must be pitied and put out of their misery. 

Though I doubt my own capacity to unlearn what I know, I appreciate your willingness to teach me that the world may be different than I thought it was, better than I realized. I find myself eager to teach you potions come September, and I look forward to seeing you in my classroom. If you are as clever and sneaky as I suspect, you may even be sorted into my house 

Severus Snape
Professor of Potions
Head of Slytherin House

Chapter Text

The first half of the year had flown by blisteringly fast, and Draco’s 11th birthday was swiftly approaching. Afterwards they’d have only a few months of summer before finally packing up and going off to school in September. The cousins had been given ample opportunities to get to know each other better since their first visit at the beginning of the year, and had indeed all become rather good friends. As much as he told himself he was still scheming and spying on them to learn as much as possible, Draco found he really did like the other children despite their wildly different upbringings and circumstances. 

He, the two youngest Weasleys, and the Greyback twins were becoming quite close. Inseparable, one might even say. They often spent the afternoons together at the burrow or at the Tonks house. Occasionally they were allowed to visit the werewolf compound and play with the other children who lived there. It was surprisingly peaceful, like a quaint little country village. They had even ventured forth out into the muggle world on a few memorable occasions with Hermione’s father and Mr Weasley playing guardian as they visited a library and a zoo and a museum. Draco had been thoroughly shocked by the complexity and richness of the culture the muggles had built, and the eye opening experiences had turned nearly everything he thought he knew about the world on its head. 

The only place they hadn’t all come together so far was his own house, Malfoy Manor, and no one had to sit him down and explain why. It was very clearly because they didn’t entirely trust his father. At first he had wanted to scream and shout that his father had been a death eater in name only, but with what he had learned about muggles and muggleborns like Mr Tonks, and werewolves like his cousins and their family, he couldn’t help but start to wonder if maybe that was just as bad as having been a death eater and actually supporting in the cause. Was it not worse to stand by and let someone use you for something evil that you didn’t even believe in? He loved his father, but he had questions and doubts now that made him feel funny. It didn’t seem fair that he was having guilty feelings over something he had never personally done. 

As he had grown closer and really started to become friends with his cousins, his mother and aunt Andy had both started pushing harder and harder on uncle Fenrir to let them start training Hermione in the ways of pureblood society and etiquette. She would need to know what was expected of her and what the boundaries of her new social rights and privileges were if she was to act as Lady Black when she joined wizarding society, they had argued relentlessly. Her family name and the way she carried herself as a lady would be her only real protection if society found out she was a werewolf.

And wasn’t every bit of that whole situation still a surprise every time he thought about it? 

If he was being honest it was a tremendous relief, really. For the longest time they had thought that there simply wasn’t anyone else available or eligible to take the seat. He’d always sort of figured that the Black family would either die out or that he’d have to take up the mantle of both his houses when he was of age, being forced to juggle the Black and Malfoy households and responsibilities. His mother had been simultaneously preparing herself for the potential despair of her house falling, and him for the potential burden of carrying her house as well as his father’s. It was good news all around that neither of those unfavorable outcomes would take place. 

As he sat in his mother’s solar observing yet another frustrating etiquette lesson, he shook his head in flummoxed disbelief at his normally brilliant cousin’s bizarre lack of knowledge about their society. He’d said it before but it was like she had been raised by wolves… heh, literally. In her defense he’d learned all of this so young it had sort of just been forced into his mind without much personal reflection or analysis. Looking at it from the outside as an older child capable of more complex thought, it occurred to him that… some of the things his mother and aunt were trying to teach her might not make complete or total sense. 

The table rules they were trying to get her to learn were not even remotely observed at the burrow, nor at her own home, or even at the Tonks’ house when his mother wasn’t there. Hermione was clever and absorbed the information like a swotty little sponge, but it was more than apparent that the knowledge of all the forks and spoons and knives and plates and bowls and cups and goblets of a proper formal place setting would never be useful in her daily life. There had to be a better use of the time they had left to teach her, this banal minutia seemed utterly unnecessary.

He was momentarily scandalized that he’d even had such a plebeian thought. No matter how dull the subject he was sure his mother had the best of intentions. A bitter sense of resentment arose as he realized that he shouldn’t have had to learn this either, and his own time spent memorizing all the stupid little details had been wasted as well. 

The Weasleys never ate with more a single set of cutlery, but they were still polite and mannerly about their meals. They leaned their elbows on the table while eating sometimes to hear each other better or if they were talking about something that got their blood up, and the table didn’t flip or even creak indecorously. None of his cousins had ever had their shoulders set with a sticking charm to the backs of their chairs to learn to sit up straight, or had their pinky fingers petrificused so they stuck out straight and high while they drank from their teacups. He knew because he’d asked, and they’d looked at him like he belonged in the Janus Thickey ward before emphatically telling him that no they absolutely had not. 

He didn’t love it that the boys sometimes spoke with their mouths full or often ate more than he thought was socially polite, but the world hadn’t ended when they behaved that way. It had been jarring to say the least. It had made him think that his mother, who admittedly treated him like he was a little prince, had probably had those things done to her as well as a child, if not worse things that she wouldn’t have ever inflicted on him because she loved him so dearly. His father had always heavily implied that his grandmother Druella had been a heartless demon of a woman, and he strongly suspected that his mother’s etiquette training had most likely been much more strict than his own. Less gentle to say the very least. 

And so with many tumultuous thoughts swirling around his head he found himself a bit disgusted at the idea of having to learn the place for every utensil on a table setting, and the order that people at a dinner table were to be addressed in, and the correct way to hold and use a fork and what the different positions on a plate the fork was angled at meant to the waitstaff. It suddenly rang hollow to him as being stupid beyond belief that there was a secret fork language for whether or not you were done eating. Not to mention the secret language of flower arrangements, and the secret language of dress texture and color, and the secret language of subtle eye contact and body posture.

There were so many intricate unspoken secret rules and rituals. Why were they like this? Why didn’t they just say what they meant?

He found himself panting, and as if waking from a trance he noticed two red spots flushed high on his mothers cheeks and realized he’d loudly exclaimed his last thought to the room at large. Bugger… He felt the tips of his ears grow hot and steadfastly ignored his cousin who he could tell was on the verge of laughter, her hand clamped tightly over her mouth and her eyes wide with delight at his outburst. “Please forgive me ladies, my mind was elsewhere,” he attempted weakly, to clear disapproval from both adult parties. 

Like the Lone Ranger, his cousin rode in to save the day. Thank bloody Merlin. 

“Really Drah-co, our fine manners are how we tell all of our friends acquaintances and enemies that we respect them and appreciate their time and presence, even if we secretly don’t!” Hermione said with a horrendously bad posh accent, her hand clutching her non-existent pearls, with her nose high in the air and a reproachful look in her eye. He couldn’t help but giggle at the ludicrous display. Even his mother tittered with amusement, though she was still glaring daggers at him. His aunt Andy seemed absolutely overjoyed, but then again she adored the girl and praised anything and everything she did. Hermione could fart at the dinner table and aunt Andy would probably compliment her pitch and intonation. 

He had noticed early on that she was never one to stand on ceremony except at the manor, it was like she was a different person here than she was everywhere else. Thankfully though Hermione’s joke seemed to have finally broken the ice enough to loosen her up a bit. She sighed, her eyes still crinkled in amusement and the smile on her face bright “Oh wouldn’t you say they’ve done enough for one day Cissa? Let’s let them have the rest of the afternoon to go play, hmm,” she said cheerfully, to which his mother agreed without a second thought. 

Not wanting to push their luck, the two children locked eyes in disbelief before politely thanking the adults and dashing away out to the grounds. The second they crossed the doorway Hermione made a running leap forward in the air as a girl and landed on all fours as a little brown wolf. Shaking her fur out, she ran in happy circles around him yipping and barking and then took off across the lawns like a dart towards the pond. He excitedly jogged after her. It was a nice warm sunny day and she could float like a cork in the water. They would have lots of fun throwing sticks and stones for her to chase. 

Passing the abraxan stables, he was surprised to see his father outside tending to one of the animals himself. It was a task he almost always left to the house elves except for when he was showing off to other gentlemen who could only afford horses. He peeked his head in and was absolutely gobsmacked to see his father up to his elbows in a mare’s rear end. He blinked and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating “Father? What are you doing?” He cried when the sight before him remained the same. 

His father’s cheeks were bright red as he whipped his head around, and he pulled his arm out with a horrifying squelch “Honestly Draco what in Salazar’s name do you think I’m doing? Keep your voice down or you’ll spook them all!” father shook his head and took a long glove off of his arm. He didn’t want to think about why it was wet.

Gross, so gross. 

His father was rather agitated, and he patted the abraxan’s rump absentmindedly “I thought poor Buttermane was too old to have another foal, but it seems like she’s pregnant again. I was really hoping she’d just started getting a bit fat. I tried to keep those wretched stallions away from her but one of them must have been determined. They’re too valuable as studs to geld, and now I might lose my best mare because she’s… in the family way past her prime,” he said with a surprising sadness in his voice. Draco recalled being told once that Buttermane had been a gift to his father from his grandmother, the first abraxan he had ever gotten and the matriarch who had birthed most of the other animals in their small herd. 

Though their relationship might be awkward at times, and though he might be currently undergoing some troubling realizations about the man’s complicity in war crimes, at the end of the day he did dearly love his father. Thinking about the mental breakthrough he’d had earlier, about their upper crust society being so needlessly stuffy and secretive and withholding, he decided to forego convention and see where being open and vulnerable might take them. Not giving himself a chance to change his mind, he rushed forward and hugged his father tightly, thoroughly ignoring whatever unspeakable substances might be on that arm. 

“I’m sure she’s going to be fine father, you always take such good care of her,” he said as reassuringly as he knew how. His father was still for a moment, and as that moment stretched he was briefly terrified that he would be rebuffed. But then he felt hands pat his shoulders and back “Thank you son, I think that’s just what I needed to hear. Logically, I know she’s in fine health. I just worry because she’s the last thing I have to remember my mother by. She would have loved you so much, Draco. You remind me of her constantly,” his father said softly. He almost sobbed at the tenderness in his voice, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to him like that. If ever. 

“You should come play with us by the pond, father. Get your mind off of your worries for a bit,” he suggested hopefully, even while knowing that was probably a bridge too far for the stern man. To his utmost surprise, his father smiled amiably and agreed. As they made their way out of the barn and towards the pond, it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure if his father had ever seen Hermione transformed up close or not. For a split second he was terrified that she might act too aggressively dog-like and he might hex her out of instinct. He needn’t have worried though. 

She was waiting for them patiently by the water, and wagged her tail eagerly as they approached. As active and reckless a child as she was, her keen intuition always caught him off guard. It was like she could tell that his father was hesitant and maybe even a bit fearful. She reared up on her two hind legs and crossed one of her front legs over her chest with the other splayed out wide, ducking her head as low as she could without falling back over. It was a clever pantomime of a very flamboyant courtly bow, and it was apparently exactly what his father needed to see to know she wasn’t a danger. 

His father laughed a deep belly laugh and copied her motions exaggeratedly. Left hand over his chest, right hand in the air with a flourish, left foot back left leg bent, right foot forward right leg straight, bent fully at the waist. It had gone out of style over a hundred and fifty years ago, but could still be seen every now and again among the very old fashioned. He didn’t think he’d ever seen his father bow like that before, and he certainly couldn’t remember the past time he’d seen him so playful, and a shocked giggle bubbled up and escaped his mouth before he could stop himself. 

They spent the next half hour tossing a quaffle his father had summoned into the pond for Hermione to swim and chase after. Dobby brought them out cool drinks that were deliciously refreshing, and they basked in the lovely sunny afternoon. At one point Hermione came over and shifted back and forth from wolf to human to take a sip of her drink, and then back to wolf again so quick he’d have missed it if he hadn’t been looking in that direction. He laughed and called her a show off like her brother often did, but his father seemed perturbed by the sight. 

When he next tossed the ball it went extra far, he must have put a bit of a repulsing spell onto it. As she dashed off to chase after it his father spoke to him in such a low voice he had to strain to hear “I was never quite as adept at transfiguration as your mother is, sad to say. More of a dab hand at charms. If I didn’t know better I’d swear that girl is an animagus the way she transforms so seamlessly. So… painlessly. Whatever she is Draco, I don’t believe your cousin is truly a werewolf. She’s something special, something entirely different. Her father might be a werewolf, and she might live in a werewolf pack, but I’ve seen wild lone werewolves transform and the sight is like something out of a nightmare.” 

“When I was… in the service of the Dark Lord. He had a few in his entourage that he like to make fight each other for sport. It was absolutely horrific to witness, when the full moon rose they screamed like they were dying and you could hear their bones breaking and twisting from across the room. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There was no human mind to be seen when they were transformed, and they tore into each other like beasts. I don’t know if any of them actually survived those fights. It’s what I was terrified would become of us when your cousin came into our lives, and I’m glad to say it’s something we seemingly no longer have to fear after having seen her like this. But still I’m left curious and confused. What is she, because I don’t believe for a moment that she could possibly be the same as those poor miserable creatures I saw once.” 

Draco had no idea how to respond, and thoughts spun through his head as he took in what his father had revealed to him. But then he recalled one of his very first visits to the burrow “I’ve heard them talk about how she was born a werewolf, and that she shifted for the very first time when she was only a three week old baby. Uncle Fenrir always insists that a peaceful transformation is an aspect of embracing the wolf and having a pack. Maybe that’s the difference, father. It sounds like those werewolves you saw transform didn’t have anyone else to teach them any better,” he speculated a bit meekly as he looked down and away, not wanting to cause upset or offense. He hugged his knees to his chest. He didn’t really understand how such a small thing as self-acceptance could have such a big physical difference. But then again he’d never heard his cousin’s bones break while she shifted. Just the thought of it was awful. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her slink closer slowly and low to the ground as if sensing the atmosphere between them had become awkward and not wanting to interrupt. She laid her head on his leg and looked up at him with a question in her big intelligent silvery eyes. He sighed and ran his fingers through the silky fur on her ears, rubbing his thumb into the velvety skin inside the ear itself. Her eyes fluttered shut and her back leg started to thump the ground reflexively. He huffed a laugh and she whined at him, and under his breath so his father wouldn’t hear he apologized for gossiping.

At regular speaking volume for his father’s sake he said “I’m pretty sure she caught all of that. Her hearing is ridiculously good. I can see it in your eyes Nene, if you want to know you should just ask,” He encouraged gently, and saw his father stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “Forgive me dear girl, I shouldn’t have spoken of such things,” he said between clenched teeth. 

With a rush of familiar shimmery green sparkles she was her human self again, and she shook her head emphatically “Please don’t feel bad uncle Lucius, I was the one who eavesdropped without you knowing. Dad always says the loners are different from us, violent and dangerous, but he never says much more. Is it really so terrible for them as all that?” She asked rather innocently, and he wondered how much of it was artifice. She was quite good at getting information from adults by playing up the curious little girl act, he’d seen her use it to great success on numerous occasions. 

Whether it was genuine or not his father bought into it hook line and sinker, and his face immediately softened. He supposed that just must be the effect girls had on the parents of boys. “I’m afraid that’s what I’ve seen, Hermione. I don’t know if the average werewolf truly lives every day in such abject misery, but rumor would have us believe that they certainly shift that way. The Dark Lord took particular sadistic amusement in the pain and suffering of others, and he loved nothing more than to see those who he thought were beneath him tear themselves apart at his command. He would often order his lieutenants to torture their subordinates for no reason at all. The werewolves he brought in were forced to transform and battle to the death like dogs in a fighting ring. It was brutal and terrible to see, but not staying and watching would have made me a target of his wrath. He wanted everyone else to enjoy the show and relish in the cruelty just as much as he did.”

He had never heard his father actually sound guilty about anything before, even when he had sat him down last year and talked to him about his history as a death eater. At the time he had been frightened, but not exactly guilty or particularly remorseful. Here now talking to his cousin, a werewolf, about the ways that werewolves suffered under the hand of his former master, his father sounded sad and ashamed. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, and for the second time in as many minutes wondered if it was genuine or artifice. 

Hermione tilted her head to the side like he’d seen a puppy do once, and furrowed her brow “My dad takes good care of us as the alpha, but he would have us never see or interact with the loners. He thinks they’re too dangerous to reason with. But some have joined our pack over the years, the ones who have come to the compound for refuge and begged sanctuary, and he lets them in if they swear to stay. It’s never made sense to me, I know he has a good heart. Why would he ignore the ones who are alone if they’re suffering,” she said, more to herself than to either of them. He thought about that himself for a moment and didn’t have a good answer. 

His father had a pained expression on his face “The muggles have a queer little saying regarding travel safety on their aeroplanes. I had to take a flight on one for business once and I’ll never do it again as long as I live, but the stewardess said something that has stayed with me since. When she was describing how air masks for breathing would fall from the ceiling in an emergency, she said that adults must always put their own on immediately before helping their children. I thought this was cruel and nonsensical, why on earth would a parent not make every effort to protect their child first and foremost? In that instant I thought everything I’d ever heard my peers say about muggles must be true. Their barbarism really did know no bounds. However, a moment later the passenger next to me casually remarked that you have a better likelihood of saving both yourself and also your child if they lose consciousness then a child could ever possibly have of saving you and themselves should you be the one who passes out. Even still it took me time to further reflect and really make sense of it. It doesn’t leave you feeling particularly good or noble, but sometimes you have to make sure your own house is in order before you can do anything to help your neighbors,” he said as if he’d imparted a greatly meaningful lesson.

Then his father looked at the two of them with a wry smile “I’m sure your father does care Miss Hermione, but keeping you and your brother and your whole pack safe will always be his first priority before he can reach out to other werewolves who might not even know he can help them, let alone want him to do so. People in a difficult situation often reject help to give comfort to their own sense of pride or self-reliance. It may be that he has tried to help in the past and been burned, desperate individuals will sometimes bite the hand that tries to feed them,” his father reasoned, sounding much more like the man Draco knew and was familiar with. The one who had a smooth excuse or justification for any offense given and any bad behavior he was no longer proud of.

He should have known the complex and compelling father from earlier was only a temporary visitor. 

He rolled his eyes and looked away, hugging his knees to his chest and feeling utterly bereft. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it still stung to think of his father angry at a muggle on his child’s behalf only to realize they were right and he should prioritize his own safety first every time. What a thing to say to your son - and it was even meant to be comforting! Of course that would be the first and only thing he had ever thought was worthwhile from their society. An iron clad sense of self preservation. His father probably cared more about that bloody horse that was up the duff than he did his own flesh and blood. 

It took all his etiquette training to keep a pleasant face for the rest of the afternoon until his cousin went home. She gave him a knowing look and an extra tight hug on her way to the floo, and he knew he hadn’t fooled her. Bugger. She really was too intuitive for her own good. 

Dinner came and went perfectly normally. At the firm insistence of his elf Whimby he reluctantly took a bath, although he supposed he had rolled around outside on the grass and a scrub was due. He had just put on his coziest fluffiest fleeciest pajamas and was crawling into his bed when his mother came to tuck him in. She leaned down to brush his damp hair away from his forehead, and he held onto her hand and tugged it until she was sitting next to him, a soft and sweet expression blooming upon her face. “What is it, my darling dragon? Are you feeling like a cuddly boy this evening?” She asked in the special silly voice that she only ever used when they were alone together.

For a moment he considered shaking his head and reminding her that he was nearly a man grown already, but a bit of a cuddle sounded like just what he needed actually. 

Accepting her arm around his shoulders and placing his head in the crook of her neck he fidgeted and thought about what he wanted to say “Mummy, if there were an emergency and you had to… cast a bubblehead charm on both of us to keep us from drowning or inhaling poison fumes or something terrible like that, whose would you do first - mine or yours?” He asked quietly and nervously, suddenly worried she’d say the same thing his father had. She looked down at him askance, both of her elegant blonde brows raised to her hairline practically. “Merlin and Morgana, Draco - of course I’d do yours! Your precious little lungs are not as large or as developed as mine, and could not survive nearly the same amount of distress and debris and detritus,” she hugged him close, and sniffed “what in Salazar’s name has made you think of such a thing, my darling?” 

He avoided her gaze tight lipped, not wanting to say. She tugged on his ear gently, “Tell me what’s on your mind, my dragon,” she prodded. He hesitated. She had said what he had wanted to hear, but it hadn’t felt like the relief he thought it would. She hadn’t heard what the muggle had said and she didn’t know why they did it that way. In a rush he told her of the entire conversation and the confusing jumble of how it had made him feel. 

She cooed at him, stroking his hair and rubbing circles on his back “Your father may often have ulterior motives, but he loves you very much Draco. Almost as much as I do. However in this instance I’m afraid he might actually be right. Think about what would happen if we were in a building that was on fire and I cast your bubblehead charm first and promptly fainted from smoke inhalation! You’d be able to breathe, but we’d both still be stuck in a burning building. You wouldn’t be able to lift me without magic, you most likely wouldn’t be able to use my wand if you tried, and even if you could you wouldn’t know how to cast a bubble head charm on me or a levitating charm to safely get me out of the fire. And then even if you somehow managed to, what if there were fallen walls trapping us inside? My instinct as a mother tells me it’s my duty to protect you first, but doing my own charm first might keep you safer in the long run. It’s a more complicated question than I would have thought dearest, and I’m not surprised your father said what he did. He’s really very practical that way,” she said thoughtfully. 

He supposed that sort of made sense.

Uuuuhhhghh did she always have to be so perfectly reasonable? If what she said was correct, then maybe his father hadn’t been acting like a slippery weasel. Maybe he really had been thinking of how to put his son’s best wellbeing before his own. He supposed he shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to such an uncharitable conclusion, but knowing what he did it was difficult to see his father in the best light these days. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As the sun rose on the morning of his birthday, Draco was woken abruptly and the breath was forced from his lungs by two boys a girl and a wolf jumping on his bed and piling on top of him. The children cheered and the wolf howled happily, and the noise was overwhelming to the boy who had been dreaming only moments before. Catching his breath, he rubbed the morning crust from his eyes and drool from his mouth “Salazar’s sagging sack,” he grumbled “I don’t want to know how you’d have woken me up if you didn’t like me!” He said with a dry chuckle. 

The wolf yipped and her brother laughed heartily “Yeah, a lot more teeth would have been involved,” he proclaimed with a grin “Happy birthday, mate!” Harry said, wiggling up to recline next to him against the plush headboard. The other children echoed his sentiment cheerfully. Hermione shifted back into her human form with a puckish smile on her fey little face, and pulled a large package out of her pocket that shouldn’t have been able to fit inside it. His eyes narrowed accusingly, and she sheepishly admitted that her older brother Matthias had expanded it for her while practicing his charms spell work. Without much further fanfare, she handed it to him and wished him a happy birthday. The paper was silvery holographic cellophane, and it crinkled as he rotated it in his hands. 

Finding the seam with the edge of his fingernail, he tore through the tape and unwrapped it excitedly. He knew better than to say it aloud or he would surely risk being called a materialistic little princeling, but he really did so love getting gifts. Birthdays and Christmas and Easter and any other holiday that could remotely be finagled into a gift-giving occasion. Pulling back the paper, his breath left him when he saw what it held nestled within “…You didn’t,” he whispered breathlessly, a disbelieving laugh building in the back of his throat.  

It was so ugly, he absolutely loved it. He had nearly fallen down laughing when they saw an advert for them in the window of a store in muggle London, and he couldn’t believe they’d actually gotten him one. It was a troll doll - a little rubberized orangey-brown bloke with crazy pink candy floss hair and a starry blue robe and pointed hat and a little golden wand taped to its hand. It had pointed ears like a house elf, frighteningly dead shiny black eyes, a manically happy grin, and a nubby squashed nose that actually looked quite a bit like the Parkinson girls now that he thought about it…

“I’m going to call it Tonks,” he announced proudly, to laughter all around from his cousins. His chest swelled with pride that he had family his own age that enjoyed his company, and that he could make laugh. They liked him for the things he said and did, not because of how much gold was in the family vaults or how far his pedigree went back. The friendships he had with other pureblood children seemed shallow in comparison. He and Theo were good mates and always would be, and Daphne and Astoria were alright for society girls, but after such a great start to his birthday he dreaded the idea of having to spend the rest of it with the traditional Slytherin circle he knew would be in attendance. 

He suddenly had a brilliant idea, and he hurried to the side of the bed and onto his feet before he could change his mind. Looking over his shoulder at the four of them still perched on his bed in confusion, he grinned and told them to come along and help. They eagerly scampered after him, out of his room and through the manor all the way to the small dining room his mother always used. He took in several breaths to psyche himself up, and strode in confidently with a smile he knew she thought made him look handsome. 

Looking up from her morning oats she smiled and stood “Well hello children, I wasn’t expecting to see you all again quite so soon! And happy birthday, my darling dragon. You may not yet be a man, but today you are a wizard,” she proclaimed joyously “This came for you a few minutes ago, dearest. I was going to deliver it to you before your party but I just couldn’t wait to see the look on your face when you open it!” She said excitedly, and holding it reverently with both hands she passed him what could only be his Hogwarts Letter. The wind was taken out of his sails a bit, but he was no less excited to see it than he might have been otherwise.

He sat heavily in the chair next to her, and gestured for his cousins to take their seats around the table as well. Ron had gotten his a few months ago in March, and Ginny wouldn’t get hers for nearly another year still. He had heard the story of how Harry and Hermione hadn’t actually gotten theirs on their birthday last year and that it had instead stayed with professor McGonagall until she had gone to visit them at their home, and he felt tremendous sympathy for them that they had missed the magic of this wonderful milestone. He couldn’t imagine how devastated he would be if this precious letter he’d been waiting for his entire life had been delayed by even a day. 

The ink that spelled out his name on the front of the envelope was nearly the exact same shade of emerald green as Harry’s eyes and as the magic that surrounded Hermione when she shifted. He could scarcely bring himself to look away from it.

Draco Malfoy
The blue bedroom suite 
Malfoy Manor
Near Biddestone Village
Wiltshire county, England

It knew! He heard but mostly ignored his cousin quoting from that book about the school she was always reading and rereading, apparently there were a magically bound book and quill that wrote out the name and address of every magical child in the British isles. He adored her but she never shut up about that book! He looked at her a bit harshly with narrowed eyes and she sheepishly grinned and urged him to open it already. 

The contents of it were more or less unremarkable, a list of required supplies and a form letter telling him he had a place at the school. There wasn’t anything in it that he didn’t know or hadn’t been expecting, but it still felt like an accomplishment nonetheless. He was officially a wizard, and the place where wizards learned their magic was where he officially belonged. There hadn’t been any doubt about it, but his chest felt warm with happiness all the same and he was glad for the good company while he read it. 

Looking up at his mother who was beaming and looked more than a bit watery-eyed, he tried to think of how best to word his request. “Mother I know it’s quite short notice, but can we cancel the party and do something with just the cousins instead for my birthday? We had such fun the times we went out with uncle Arthur and uncle Fenrir to muggle London, do you think maybe we could go again somewhere we haven’t been to yet? Would that be too much trouble? I know you’ve been planning it for a long time, but it just wont be the same if they can’t be there,” he pushed as much softness and vulnerability and youth into his voice as he possibly could without utterly humiliating himself, and widened his eyes dramatically “I’d really like to celebrate with family today if that’s alright,” he added for a bit of extra oomph. 

He could see from the tender wobbly look in her eyes that the last bit had done its job, and it took everything he had not to crow with glee “Oh that’s such a lovely sentiment, my darling boy. Family really is the most important thing... Alright, yes! Yes I don’t see why not. We’ll have to send out notices of cancellation and apology to your guests but I’ll see to that, don’t you worry about it one bit. I’ll tell people the whole house has come down with bowtruckle flu, that should help keep even the most determined guests away for the day,” she said, rustling her skirts and summoning a stack of parchment. 

She looked at the other children “Ronald, why don’t you go ahead and use the floo to call your father and have him come along through with your mother and the rest of your siblings. Harry, you do the same when he’s done. Ginny and Hermione, why don’t you girls help Draco decide where he’d like for us all to go today hmm? Something we can do as a large group without drawing too much attention or suspicion,” she clapped her hands happily and elegantly wrote out a brief note while calling for one of the Malfoy elves “Mimby! Yes, hello dear. I need you to take this to Andromeda, please,” she commanded gently, handing it off to the little elf who bowed and popped away. 

She cleared her throat delicately and Harry and Ron promptly rushed off to the entrance hall to use the floo as she’d instructed. The girls came around the table to sit closer to him and start brainstorming, and he made eye contact with his mother “Thank you, I know you love parties and you probably worked really hard planning this one, and I’m sure it would have been wonderful,” he said to her, stretching his hands out so he can grab hers and squeeze them. Her eyes softened and she smiled beautifully, turning her hands over so she can hold his and squeeze them back  “Thank you my dragon, but there’s always another occasion for a party, and I’m sure you’ll be a perfect little gentleman at all the other ones I’ll be throwing this summer to make up for it,” she said with a smirk. 

…Bugger

The last night in August saw the pack celebrating bittersweetly with an outdoor party in the central pavilion of the compound. Everyone brought a dish or a desert to share, and her father had set up a barbecue cooker and stood vigil at it grilling meat all evening. Hermione had lost count of how many skewers of spicy venison  sausage she’d eaten, and he’d laughed and sworn she was about to have the mother of all growth spurts. Although he’d tried valiantly to hide it from her, the sadness in his eyes was plain to see. It went unsaid between them that if it happened while she was away at school he would miss it.

He would miss a lot of her firsts while she spent the year away from him. 

Remus had spent the afternoon telling her and Harry stories about all of the fun he’d had during his years at Hogwarts, the mischief and trouble he and his friends had gotten themselves into, and what the castle was like. He told them everything he could remember about the ghosts who floated through the halls, the happy little elves who lived down in the kitchens and worked day and night to feed everyone, the squid that lived in the lake and sunned itself on the surface when the weather was fine. 

There was a sadness there too like she’d seen in her father, born from those lovely stories Remus told. Both abject sorrow in him for all that he’d lost over the years, and a more subtle mourning in the other magical children who’d listened and realized just how much they’d never get to see and be a part of. Her rage and fury at the injustice burned in her chest for them. She would see change happen, whether the wizarding world liked it or not. With the goddesses as her witness, she silently vowed that werewolves would have rights and their children would get to go to school. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. 

As night began to fall the party began to wind down and the younger children were dragged home by their parents. Her father’s beta came to sit next to her by the main fire pit with a calculated look about him. She’d heard the stories of some of the pranks Harry’s father and his friends had pulled while they were students, and even seen first hand some of the antics Fred and George had gotten up to over the summer. For all that he never played tricks or pranks on anyone, Ófnir had the most mischievous air of anyone she’d ever met. There was a perpetual twinkle of amusement in his eyes, and even in the most serious situations there was always an upwards curl to the corners of his mouth. 

In a funny way he almost reminded her of Santa, who she’d once heard referred to as a jolly old elf, and she thought such a description was particularly apt. “Halló litla,” [hello little one] he said to her conversationally in his native Icelandic, his voice deep and rumbling but his words musical to her ears all the same. She understood it better than she spoke it, and it took her a second to formulate her response “Ertu að skemmta þér vel?” [are you having a nice time?] she asked him haltingly.

He only grimaced slightly at her terrible accent, hiding it almost immediately with a kind smile “I appreciate your efforts little alpha, but please do my ears a kindness and stick to the wretched Danish your colonizer father made you poor children learn,” he said merrily, without a hint of the scorn or distaste that his words implied. She couldn’t help the graceless snort that left her nose, and she shook her head at him “How can you sound so nice while you say such rude things Offy? I feel like you and Narcissa would get along really well, she’s good at that too,” she said with a giggle as she imagined the two of them interacting. It would be a sweet sounding snarkfest.

He laughed with her for a moment, but then his face became as serious as she’d ever seen it. When he turned fully to the side to look at her, his green eyes felt piercing and hypnotic, and she sobered instantly “What is it, Offy?” She asked, voice low and ready to obey whatever her father’s beta told her she needed to do. Somehow she instinctually knew he had a task for her. 

“I have something very important to tell you little Nene. Ever since we discovered what the outside world thinks about your father, I’ve been on the trail of who started the rumors. Whoever they are, they chose to hurt our alpha and our pack in a way we might never recover from, in a way that has made us vulnerable. I don’t like it, the whole thing smells rotten to me. I wanted to get to the bottom of it, find out who came up with the lies and why they did it.” 

Hermione gasped softly “You found something out. What do you know?” she breathed, scarcely believing that he was trusting her with this crucial information, hoping he would stay in a talkative mood and wouldn’t come to his senses and clam up any time soon. He looked at her thoughtfully, and tilted his head back and forth.                                                             

“Yes and no. There are a lot of trails that double back and go cold. Whoever our enemy is, they’re wily and they know how to cover their tracks well, snjall skíthæll [clever bastard]. I’m still not sure who they are, but I’ve unearthed what I think their motivation may be. All of these vicious lies about your father being bloodthirsty and evil, that he was a death eater, that he ate children, these rumors started with the explicit intention of demonizing werewolves. Someone wanted us to be hated and feared, to have no rights under the law, to be targeted by the aurors and the law enforcement. The terrible circumstances in society that we currently find ourselves in have been entirely engineered by this person over the last few decades. It’s a propaganda campaign against us, and we have been blind to it.”

Her temper ignited as if fueled by an accelerant. She shook with rage, eyes flashing silver and her little claws popping out of the tips of her fingers “Why? Why would they do this to us Offy? Why do they hate us so much?” And even the firm press of his hand on her shoulder could only do so much to steady her. He was impressed by the magnitude of her anger, but also by her self restraint. He hesitated, and she couldn’t bear the thought of not having the satisfaction of at least understanding this plight her people had been suffering under. She growled at him weakly, and his eyebrows rose in amusement at her sheer nerve.

“There’s a very old prophecy. Frá fornöld [from ancient times]. It was made hundreds and hundreds of years ago by one of my ancestors before they came here from Iceland. The exact wording of it had been lost to time and translation, but it was about a werewolf who would one day save the world. I was very surprised to find out that the person who hurt us knows about it, and they want to stop it from coming true. Someday, maybe soon, there’s going to be a terrible disaster that a werewolf is destined to stop. And whoever is out there hates us so much that they don’t want that to happen. They don’t even want us to have a chance to be good, and do something to help people. They’d rather people be hurt and killed than have us as their heroes, eigingjarn fífl [selfish fools]!” and for the first time since they started talking he sounded genuinely quite angry. 

She had no response, she simply couldn’t wrap her mind around the diabolical twists and turns of it. She leaned her head onto his shoulder, and tried not to cry. She breathed in and out raggedly “Why are you telling me this Offy - what can I even do, I’m just a kid?” She looked up at him in despair “I don’t even know any good spells yet!” She wailed forlornly. He smoothed his hand over her curly hair, shushing her softly. 

“I’m telling you because you’re a very special little wolf, Nene. You’re brave and smart and strong and most importantly you love your people. And I happen to think you might just be the werewolf the prophecy tells us about. I have no idea what the disaster is exactly or when it might happen, so I wanted to tell you now to stay on your guard and be alert to any dangers around you. I understand that you may need to try and blend in a bit with the humans at that school of yours, but whatever you do you mustn’t ever forget to use your natural abilities if you need them! Listen to what your ears tell you and trust your nose. Let yourself adjust but never dull your senses, not even for a minute, and not even if you get overwhelmed at first,” he instructed emphatically, and she nodded and promised she wouldn’t. 

She felt deeply humbled by his faith in her, but a thought rose to the forefront of her mind that she couldn’t ignore “You haven’t told dad about this,” she accused softly, knowing he hadn’t but not understanding why. His face fell, and for a fraction of a second he looked both very old and very sad. “You know why I can’t. Your father is brave and strong too, but you’re his most precious treasure. If he knew what an important destiny you have in store for you, he’d never let you leave this comfortable nest to go face it. I hate going behind my alpha’s back like this, it’s causing me physical pain. það særir mig djúpt í sálinni [it hurts me deepl in my very soul]. But you have to know what’s coming, and you have to be allowed to gain all the strength you need to meet whatever you might encounter on equal footing. You deserve to be trained as a wolf and as a witch, it’s your heritage and your inheritance.”

She felt wonderstruck at his words. The idea that she had some grand destiny wasn’t too ground shaking, she had already known she’d been destined to be the alpha someday. That it was something so outside of her circle of home and pack and familiarity was big and scary, and she wasn’t quite sure how to feel. She looked up at him with pleading eyes “Can I at least tell Harry about it?” He thought about this, and she appreciated his consideration. It would have been ridiculously easy to simply tell her no, and she was glad he was at least thinking about it. 

“I think Harry is probably the only other person who you could talk to about this who would actually understand. I don’t know any of the details of it, but there were rumors during the war that the reason his parents were targeted by the Dark Lord was because of a prophecy. If it’s true that you’re both touched by the fates, then it’s a gift from magic and the goddesses that you two children found each other,” he said with a gentle and heartfelt smile. 

He bit his thumb with one of his canines, and pressed the blood that welled up from it into the middle of her forehead in what felt like a crescent. Then he picked up her hands and held them loosely in his own much larger ones, and his eyes closed shut. He began to hum and rock back and forth, and as he invoked his magic it began to manifest around him in spiraling ribbons that were the color of the bottom of an iceberg. When he spoke his voice echoed strangely in his chest and reverberated. 

“Ég ákalla gyðjurnar, heyrið mig nú [I invoke the goddesses, hear me now]. In the name of my ladies Selene, of Artemis, of Hekate, the goddesses of the full moon, the half moon, and the dark moon, I ask for protection for your child Hermione Elena Greyback. I ask for a blessing upon her of wisdom, of insight, of awareness. I ask for her senses to guide her truly, for her ears and her eyes and her nose to be sharp. I ask for her life to be held safe in your gentle embrace, and her magic to be cultivated and enriched as she learns and grows. I ask for every goodness and favor you have to be bestowed upon her, for your own hands to guide her, and for her path forward to be clear. In the name of my ladies Selene, of Artemis, of Hekate, the goddesses of the full moon, the half moon, and the dark moon, do I beg the blessing and protection of your child.”

In an answering rush she felt her own magic invoke itself around her, ribbons of her emerald green dancing like the aurora and mixing with his in a spectacular light show that caught the attention of the remaining partygoers. His eyes glowed as he opened them, and she felt hers shift and flash as well. Something else touched the edge of her magic, and at first she wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps some of the Black family magic, but she quickly rejected that. It was something altogether different. Ethereal silver ribbons of light joined their magic, pulsing and thrumming over her skin. 

She looked up at the moon in the sky above them. It was a lovely waning gibbous, and as always she could feel its light on her skin with the faint weight of a bedsheet. As she gazed at the moon, she suddenly felt strongly and certainly as if something aware and curious was gazing back. It was a very warm and lovely feeling, and she closed her eyes and let her skin and her magic drink it in. 

As beta of their pack, Ófnir often served as their spiritual leader in events such as this. Performing communions and blessings and rites and rituals wasn’t uncommon, but this one had been public and particularly visually exceptional. As the light show began to fade, the pack members that were still present in the pavilion fell collectively to their knees. Murmurs of awe and whispers filled the air. 

Ófnir rose to his feet and addressed them “A blessing for the little wolf as we send her off away from home, it ended up being a bit more powerful than I expected. She is much beloved by the goddesses!” He announced loudly. The wolves around them clapped and cheered, and her father smiled at her with pride. Next to him, her brother gave her a cheeky thumbs up, and she grinned at him and nodded. They would have a long talk when they finally got some privacy on the train the next day. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That night as she was snuggled tight in her warm bed, halfway between sleep and awake, Hermione heard raised voices downstairs in the kitchen. Unwilling to pull herself from her delicious nest of blankets, she rolled onto her back so both ears were free, and concentrated her hearing. 

Her father and Ófnir were arguing about something, she could tell that much right away. One of them was pacing the floor, heart rate steadily rising. She suspected that was her father, he often had restless energy he needed to move to work off “There are things you’re not telling me, and I’m sick of it,” he growled “I have a right to know - especially when it’s about my own daughter!”

Her eyebrows shot up and her ears pricked, she bit her lip nervously. Ófnir had said he wasn’t going to tell her father, but he was obligated to be truthful to his alpha if he was asked directly. She suppressed a sub-vocal whine in the back of her throat, now wasn’t the time. “Lad, I could tell you if you really need me to, but it would change things and I still don’t think you’re ready to know it yet. You’ve trusted me for years, why are you doubting me now?” Her father’s beta asked him plaintively. Instead of exploding angrily at that she was shocked to hear her father whine and sniffle. 

“I don’t know, Ófnir. Everything is already changing, my little girl is leaving. I can’t go with her and I can’t protect her. I feel so useless and helpless. I feel like I’m waiting to get a limb amputated, like I won’t be the same and she won’t be the same if I let her go. What if she comes back different? What if she comes back and she doesn’t need me anymore?” her father groaned despondently, and she felt horrible. She had no idea her impending departure was affecting him quite this much. 

She crawled out of her bed miserably, slinking down the hallway on socked feet, and sat on the top stair hugging the bannister. She heard glasses clinking and liquid pouring, and caught a whiff of the oaky smoky smell of her father’s preferred bourbon. She grimaced, he was only going to feel worse tomorrow if he drank tonight. Her brother’s door opened with a quiet creak, and a second later he settled onto the step next to her and leaned his head on her shoulder silently. 

In the kitchen her father was only getting himself more worked up “And what about my boy - if I let him leave my side now will I ever even see him again? Dumbledore took him and hid him away with those muggles and no one else did a thing about it. What if he gets a wild hair up his arse and decides I’m not fit to keep my son? Who’s going to defend my nonexistent parental rights against the man who killed Grindelwald if he thinks I shouldn’t get to continue raising my own child?” He raged, and they heard his glass smash into the wall and the shards tinkle as they rained down on the floor. 

To their horror, they heard him start to sob raggedly “What if a death eater takes them from me and kills them? I know they’re strong, but they’re just children for the goddesses sake. How can they defend themselves against adults who might want to do them harm, or steal them away, or be cruel to them because of the name I’ve saddled them with?” They clutched each others hands desperately, and they both had tears in their eyes. 

Hermione shot to her feet, intent on going to her father and comforting him. Her brother pulled on their joined hands and stopped her “He’s too upset,” he whispered, shaking his head vehemently “he’ll just be embarrassed we heard him, and then he’ll feel even worse,” he reasoned logically, and she couldn’t think of a good argument other than “but you heard how scared and sad he is Harry, he needs us,” she pleaded back. 

He sighed and pressed his fingers into the corners of his sleepy eyes “I don’t think it’s a good idea, they’re going to be mad at us for eavesdropping,” she scoffed “Eavesdropping is my middle name. If it was supposed to be private they should have known better to say it less than a mile away,” and she dragged him down the stairs with her and up to the kitchen door, which was firmly shut. 

She tried to push it open and felt a slight magical resistance. She rolled her eyes, and easily broke through it, shoving her way inside. The two adults looked up from where they were sitting at the table, and her father hastily wiped at his eyes “Little wolf! Ah- what are you two doing up this time of night?” He asked tremulously, and then *oofed* as she scrambled up onto his lap to hug him tightly. Her brother came around from the other side and got in there as well, and their father huffed out a gruff laugh “What am I going to do with you two. What am I going to do without you,” he said, and his face fell. 

“We don’t have to go,” she found herself saying before she had even thought it through. Her father and brother looked at her mouths agape, and she continued in a rush “We could learn everything we need to know from Geetha and Remus and you and Óffy. Professor McGonagall was nice but… Fuck Dumbledore!” She exclaimed to her brother’s delight “Yeah fuck Dumbledore!” he agreed through his giggles without a second’s hesitation. 

“I should tan your hides for speaking like that,” their father laughed “my mother certainly would have,” he said with a shake of his head “thank you my girl, but I think it’s a little late for that. Everyone’s expecting you at the school, you’re on the teachers’ lists, and I’m sure there’s already a little bed and desk and wardrobe for you and everything. You need to go and spread your wings, and you have to leave my nest to do that. I’m going to miss you so much, but it’s going to make the times I get to see you even sweeter. You’ll come back for the full moon every month, and I’ll see you at winter for your holiday, then again at Easter,” he said gently, his voice soft and low, and his face still damp and blotchy.

“And you’ll write your father at least one letter every week to let him know what you’re learning and how you’re feeling,” his beta sternly added, and the two of them nodded enthusiastically from where they were burrowed into their father still. 

“You know I love you, right dad?” Harry spoke up a bit timidly “I won’t let anyone take me away from you. I’ll always be your son, even though I have another set of parents that gave birth to me,” and to his dismay their father started crying again in earnest this time. Next to him Hermione nodded emphatically “No one’s gonna steal Harry away from our family, and no one’s gonna stop us from coming back home to you!” She promised, and her magic tingled in her chest with the weight of a vow.

Chapter Text

The owl tapping softly at his window that he had been resolutely ignoring for the better part of half an hour had started to increase its volume and frequency until it sounded more like a muggle power drill, and he finally dragged his sorry carcass out of bed to see what it had for him. He didn’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the damn night, no matter how much his stupidly rich clients paid him to be on call all hours. He was a lawyer damnit, not a fucking prostitute.

He opened the latch and the angry thing fluttered in and clawed the hell out of him, and he nearly shot a blasting hex at it. He glared at the bird “This better be important or I’m going to harvest you for quills,” he snarled. Understanding him and clearly unimpressed, the thing fluffed itself up twice its size and flew above his head to the top of his wardrobe. It turned around and stuck its tail over the edge and he immediately knew exactly what it was threatening.

“I’m sorry!” He shouted, in disbelief that he was apologizing to a fucking owl. He stuck his open hand out towards it hesitantly “I’m sorry, I know you’re wide awake and feisty but this is when people sleep. Can I please just have your letter?” He reluctantly begged. It turned around and peered down at him over the molding at the top of his wardrobe, as if judging his sincerity. Slowly it stood up and lowered its leg down, and he reached up and untied the letter that was attached to it. What a ridiculous display. He shook his head, and shuffled back over to sit on the edge of his bed and read.

He nearly cracked the wax without even glancing at it twice, but at the last moment he realized it didn’t have a seal. That was unusual for his clientele. They were all showy bastards who loved to let you know exactly where their money came from. With a hum of curiosity he opened it and read, and his jaw slowly dropped farther and farther.

Dated August 31st, 1991
From the desk in my room
Alpha House
Greyback Compound
In the wood

Dear Mr Asmund Rowle (Esquire?),

I’m sorry for writing you so late, I assure you I would not do so if it weren’t an emergency. You do not know me, but I am the new Head of the Black family, and I am writing to request your services for my father. You come highly recommended by my Aunt Andromeda, and I thank you on her behalf for helping her when other less responsible heads of our house may not have seen to her care or wellbeing.

There is a difficult situation that I need your assistance with, and your confidentiality is imperative. It is in regards to the custody of Harry Potter. When his parents were killed, he was supposed to go into the care of a Mr Remus Lupin, who was denied his rights on the grounds of his lycanthropy. I do not understand the full situation as I was not there nor have I heard directly from anyone who witnessed the events first hand, but for some reason Harry was placed in the care of muggle relatives who hated magic and mistreated him severely. We met when we were six years old, and became fast friends. Hearing that he was being abused, my father ritually blood adopted Harry into our family. He has lived with us since, and we have become as close as any naturally born siblings. He has taken our surname, and uses Potter as a middle name now. 

As we prepare to attend our first year at Hogwarts, my father is fearful that his custody of both Harry and myself by association will be challenged. Hearing him talk about how terrified he is that he will send us off to school and never see us again broke my heart, sir. For these reasons, I would like to hire your services to stay on retainer in the nearby village of Hogsmeade in case my brother and I find ourselves in need of your legal aid at school. I hope that it will at least give him some peace of mind to know that someone is on our side in this matter who actually understands the law and can use it to help protect us. 

Once things are already arranged (NOT before!) please go to our home and speak with my father about this. I’m sorry in advance. He’s very skeptical of outsiders, and he’d probably never invite you directly to our compound, but show him this letter and he’ll know that I informed you of it’s location of my own free will. Also, Mr Lupin should be there as well, as he can tell you more than what I know about the situation surrounding Harry and his parent’s will.

Furthermore I, Hermione Elena Greyback, give permission for this letter to be used as an affidavit for any hourly or daily legal fees you require for services rendered to be charged directly to the main Black family vault in Gringotts bank. Gornuk if you’re reading this, please provide Mr Rowle with whatever assistance and relevant information he needs.

(Fenrir Greyback’s pack can be found near Ganllwyd in The Snowdonia National Park, Gwynedd County Wales. Please use this information responsibly, and dispose of it FULLY when you are no longer in need of it. Do I understand correctly that you are already employed by our house? I am not entirely sure how hiring a solicitor works, so please forgive me if I got anything wrong)

Thank you, and I hope to hear from you soon
Hermione Elena Greyback :)
Lady Black

He read it a second time, and shook himself awake. He needed to- Merlin’s bollocks he needed to get moving now. He practically sprinted down the hall and into his study, where he ignited his fireplace and floo traveled directly to his legal offices. From that hearth he had secure access to the Gringotts 24/7 emergency floo. He tossed the powder in and stepped through, still clutching the letter and only realizing at the last moment he was in his pajamas and robe. Rolling his eyes at himself, he shook it off. The goblins had seen worse and weirder. 

The room he stepped out into was essentially a small waiting room. A snoring goblin stationed next to the hearth startled awake as he came through, and slurred slightly as it asked how it could be of service. “I need one of the Black accounts managers to authenticate a letter for me,” he whispered harshly, and the pudgy little thing nodded and waddled off to collect someone who could help him. 

After he’d been waiting for what felt like an hour, right as he was starting to feel both bored senseless and keyed up beyond belief, Gornuk himself finally entered the room. It bowed to him and he nodded back as politely as he could manage. “Well met,” he groused at it, and it responded in kind “Yes yes, well met Solicitor Rowle. I hear you have a letter from my patroness?”

He held it out for the goblin to examine, and was startled to see the thing grin toothily “Isn’t she just the kindest child?” It said with more sentiment than he’d ever heard a goblin display before “Worried about her poor father of all things,” it said with an amused shake of its head. He felt like he was in wonderland or some other upside down fantasy. It seemed to realize how unusually it was behaving, and closed itself off like he’d seen wizards do when they occluded. 

It cleared its throat “Yes this is indeed from Lady Black, and I see the notes for us she’s included. What is the rate you’ll be charging her for your services this evening? I’ll have it drawn from her accounts and deposited into yours immediately if you’d care to write me out an invoice,” it said, withdrawing a parchment and quill from its little waistcoat and handing them over to him expectantly. 

Still feeling incredibly wrong footed he took them and thought for a moment. This creature was clearly very fond of the little witch. Staring down at the parchment, he wrote a very humble number on it, on the end of his pricing scale that he usually reserved for children’s hospitals and war widows, and passed it back to the goblin “You can keep that on file as my per diem and I’ll owl you with the dates it can be charged for, but let’s call tonight pro-bono,” he said weakly. It grinned at that, taking the parchment back and tucking it away “Very good sir!” it barked at him happily, and he felt he’d somehow stumbled upon the correct move. 

He bid it goodbye and trudged back through the floo to his office, firecalling his personal assistant to come help him get to work. He immediately delegated, having her send for his entire staff of paralegals and a few of the better junior associates to come in for the night. He’d need all hands on deck if he wanted to get a base of operations set up in Hogsmeade before the new Lady Black arrived at school tomorrow. He scrubbed his hands over his face, and moaned tiredly. He would have to contact an estate agent, get a lease agreement signed, and have staff transferred to the new office. Why hadn’t they set up a second office in the village there before now? They could easily double their business with another location. 

Most importantly he had to make sure that the appropriate parchment work had been filed at the ministry when the boy had been adopted, or they could very well be completely fucked right out of the gate. He needed to find out what had happened with Dumbledore and why no one had stopped him from essentially kidnapping a child. He needed to be ready to have a protection order in place to be filed that referenced the kidnapping should there be any foul moves made by the headmaster. He needed to get in touch with Greyback and Lupin and get the whole story about the Potter boy. 

Somehow he had to cram what could be arguably be considered two-to-three business days worth of work into roughly 14 hours. He wanted to cry. He took out his favorite quill with the auto-sharpening charm, and began to pen several letters. He’d wait until morning to send them, but they had to be written while he was still in the right frame of mind and still had two ounces of focus to rub together. 

He flexed his dominant hand, it had begun to cramp halfway through the second letter and they weren’t even the last things he would have to write before dawn. Leaning back he took a breather and called for his house elf Tootsie. She arrived next to him, displacing the air around her with a pop like a bubble. Her skin and hair were similar shades of light blue and her eyes were a vibrant turquoise that glowed faintly as if illuminated from within. The tiny poncho she wore was a sweet pink and purple tartan, and he thought he recognized it as a corner of a picnic blanket he’d used as a child. She sat on the edge of his desk and swung her little legs. 

“It is being very late, Master Asmund! How cans Tootsie be serving?” She asked in her high squeaky voice, and he sighed heavily “I know it’s late, and I’m sorry for waking you. Unfortunately I’ve got urgent business and I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to bed anytime soon,” She frowned at this and crossed her little arms, “It is being night time, Master should be sleeping! Can Masters clients not be waitings until morning? And can Tootsie not be helpings work get dones faster?” She asked hopefully. He resolved not to drink anything she brought him in case it had a sleeping drought mixed in. The dear thing was very protective of his wellbeing. 

“I do have an important task for you Tootsie, one that I can’t trust to anyone else,” he said, and she perked up eagerly, practically vibrating with excitement. He held up the two letters he’d written “In the morning I need you to personally hand-deliver these to my clients. The person I’m doing all this work for in the middle of the night is the new Lady Black. She’s just a little eleven year old witch who’s going to start school tomorrow, if you can believe it,” Tootsie’s tennis-ball sized eyes widened comically larger and she gasped “such a young missy!” She whispered under her breath in awe. 

“The letter for the girl can be delivered at any time, in fact that would actually be a good task for Thorfinn… Give it to him in the morning before he leaves for the train, and tell him to find her and make sure she gets it. Encourage him to be nice and make friends if he can. She’s going to be an important client in the years to come, and having an in with her would be a smart move. Tell him to help her out with anything she needs at school - firsties always get lost or forget things at home,” she repeated his instructions back to him verbatim, and he was satisfied. 

“Now, this next part is delicate so pay close attention. I need you to deliver this second letter to her father, but I have good reason to believe he is a werewolf,” she squeaked in terror and covered her eyes with her hands “I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man, but he’s scared for his children’s safety, Toots, so please do try and comfort him. That being said, he might be dangerous if he gets upset, so you have my permission to defend yourself with your magic if you need to. Just try not to hurt him too badly if that happens. Do you understand me Tootsie? I don’t want you risking your life in any way shape or form,” he commanded, and she reached up with her spindly fingers to tug anxiously on her long floppy ears “Yes Master, Tootsie be understanding. Tootsie will be givings the letter to Mr Wolfy and staying safes,” she crooned.

He patted the top of her head, and continued “Good, I’m glad we’re clear. Now this is the part that might get a bit complicated. What I need for you to do is wait at the train station until it’s come and the children have all gone, and then deliver the letter to her father before he leaves. Directly into his hands, please. If you can, I’d like you to make sure he reads it there in front of you. You see it’s an invitation to come meet and talk with me, and the reason I need you to try and be there when he reads it is that I’d like to know if I can expect him to be angry or not. I’ve heard he’s got a bit of a temper,” she squeaked in fear, and he shushed her softly.

“It’ll be fine, Toots. If you don’t like what you see and you think it’s going to be dangerous, just come find me and let me know and we can try again another time when he’s calmed down. I’ll be waiting for him in Wales near his home. I’m not sure exactly where he lives, so I’ll just be in the nearest town. Mmm! Go a little early before anyone else gets there. While you’re waiting, make yourself invisible and find their family the moment they arrive. Watch them and pay close attention, notice as many details as you can like those games we played when I was a boy. I want to know everything you can remember seeing and hearing when you’re done,” he ran his hands through his hair, wracking his brain for any other instructions that would make her job clearer or easier. 

“The girl’s name is Hermione Greyback, and her father is Fenrir Greyback. Her brother is Harry Potter but it’s a secret we can’t let anyone else know yet. I don’t think they have any house elves, but if you have time tonight and you’re feeling particularly social you can go visit your sister and ask if she and the other Malfoy elves have heard anything. Those chatty things have always got the best gossip, don’t they Toots?” He asked with a cheeky grin, and she let loose a peal of teensy weensy giggles. 

“Try and find out if there are any elves still in service that belonged to the Potters. If there are, see if you can get in touch with any of them. I’m going to try and figure out what happened after their family died, and they might have important information that could help. If you do find any and they don’t want to talk or they’re scared to come forward for whatever reason, let them know I’m working on helping their young master Harry. That should light a fire under their cute little bums.” 

His elf eyed him with a bit of a judgey look that told him he was being more of a shark than usual “Tootsie be tellings his mother when he be little but she neeeever listens. Master be sneaky like a little snake! Clever, but sneaky,” she said with a huff of exasperation “And knowings much more than he shoulds about the elf families, Master does,” she said dismayed, tugging her ears again. 

He grinned and shrugged charmingly “I only know what you taught me, my dear one.”

Tootsie was having an exciting night. Master Asmund had give her a robust set of instructions, and she could feel the Rowle family magic zipping through her nerve pathways. Her mistress and her young masters were all still sleeping, and she briefly mourned that her master was determined to work all night, but she ignored that. He had been very clear that both of them had important work to do. 

She had visited her sister in the kitchens of Malfoy Manor, and Wootsie had given her a treasure trove of good gossip for her to bring back to her Master. Her Mistress Narcissa had been writing letters to the little Lady Black, and had even met her! Her young Master Draco had been having play dates with the little Lady and her brother all year, and he was much looser about what he said and let slip in front of the elves. She had gotten so much information she’d had to start writing down physical notes, and had left the manor with several sheaves of scrawled pages. 

She had been much more careful asking around if any other elves knew who had been serving the Potters before they were killed. Her kind were deeply sensitive about the loss of a family, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that whatever elves they had died trying to save their family if that was the case. To her utmost shock, it was not the case. A young elf named Pippin had been very hesitant to speak to her, but had eventually revealed that her aunt Kipper had been a Potter elf and worked at Hogwarts now. She’d asked if the little elfling could convince her aunt to come talk to her, and the thing had gotten a bit spooked but agreed to try. An hour or so later, the elfling had popped back into the manor wards with her aunt in tow, both of them looking nervous and unhappy about being there. 

Tootsie had followed her Master’s instructions and taken a very gentle tactical approach, starting by letting Kipper know that there was still a living Potter child, and that her Master was trying to help him. The elf had been ecstatic to discover her young Master had survived. Her bond with the Potters had been so shattered upon their death that she hadn’t been able to feel baby Harry, and she had nearly worked herself to death in her grief and guilt in the decade since. 

The elf had been incandescently furious to know that her baby Harry had been taken and given to her Mistress’s awful muggle relatives. After that, it was easy to convince Kipper to come and talk to her Master and tell him what she knew. Tootsie had earnestly promised the other elf that he was a good kind wizard who would be able to help her see her young Master, and maybe even arrange for her to work for him again. She had promised to come when Tootsie called her. 

Satisfied from successfully digging up all the dirt her Master had wanted her to inquire about, and certain that he’d be very pleased indeed with her for finding a living Potter elf, she popped home to Rowle House just as dawn was breaking. She spent a scant ten minutes blitzing through the house, whipping away dust and polishing surfaces, she rooted lint and dirt out of the carpets like a whirling dervish. Sinks and toilets and bathtubs and hardwood floors all scrubbed, curtains and pillows and rugs all beaten, she finally took herself a quick breather. 

In the cellar where the ward stone buzzed and glowed, she laid her hands on it and absorbed some of its ambient magical energy. Her cheeks flushed, her belly filled with tasty magic, and she was fresh as a daisy. Cleaning done and feeling rejuvenated after her little rest, she set out to ready her family for their day. 

In the Mistress’s rooms she laid out a lovely set of day robes and ran her a bath with all the fragrant oils she liked best. Down the hall she set out the littlest Master’s play clothes and put away the toys he’d left out the night before. In the Master’s room, she prepared one of his best suits and made sure it was free of any scents of cologne or perfume so as not to irritate his clients sensitive wolfy nose. She put it in a garment bag, and popped into his office to deliver it to his secretary. 

In the laundry she made sure all of young Master Thorfinn’s new school uniforms and robes for the year were washed and pressed and steamed until the edges were crisp and the buttons shone. His little black dress shoes were clean and polished until they gleamed and reflected her features. She lightly layered subtle elf magic over them lovingly so that they would resist dust and dirt and stains, and so that he would stay looking handsome all day long. 

Popping into the kitchen, she made tea and coffee and pastries and a full breakfast, and placed it all under a shimmering stasis field on the countertop. She placed a portion of everything onto a tray for the master and delivered it to his office for him, stubbornly refusing to leave until she’d watched him eat. Then she headed back home and to young Master Thorfinn’s room. 

She kneeled next to his pillow and gently poked his face until he woke, bleary and mumbling “Toots? What time is it?” He asked with his eyes barely squinted open, reaching up to scrub the drool away from the side of his mouth. She snapped her fingers and cast a mild freshening charm on his face, and his eyes popped open with a yelp. “Little warning, please!” He said sitting up and leaning against his headboard “Really Tootsie, are you just excited because it’s the first day of school?” He grumbled. 

She told him about the task his father had left for him, and told him she’d put the letter on his desk for him to carry onto the train and deliver to the girl. He nodded seriously, and got up and started getting ready for his day. He’d already packed his trunk, so she didn’t have to do that for him. She still double checked that he had everything he’d need, and added a few things here and there. Why did children only ever think to pack themselves two pairs of socks for an entire year away from home?

As the rest of the morning passed she woke her Mistress and the littlest Master, served them all their breakfast, and helped the little one wash and dress. Little Master Magnus was still her baby, but only for another year and then he’d go off to school with his brother. She had wished with all her heart the last few years that the Master and Mistress might have another baby for her to take care of, but was starting to lose hope. That was just the way the world worked though, it was rare for pureblood families like hers to have more than one or two children anymore. 

Things had gotten better for elves over the years, Masters were kinder than they used to be and chores were easier than ever. Still, she sometimes found herself longing for the days when the children were plentiful. Her Master’s father had been the oldest of five. The family magic was much more rich and vibrant in those days. Had a better chew and flavor to it as well. But those times were gone. 

She told her Mistress that she needed to leave early to take care of a task for the Master, and popped over to the train station to begin her stakeout. She disillusioned herself and pressed up against the brick wall, and watched each family that came through. It was only nine o’clock, and the station was still mostly empty. Only the most excitable muggleborn families usually arrived quite this early, not sure what to expect and not wanting to miss a thing.

As the hour passed people slowly began to arrive, and at around ten there were a steady stream of them pouring onto the platform. A huge group of redheaded Weasleys arrived, and their magic felt familiar but not quite right. The blonde Malfoy family arrived shortly after them, and their magic was a much closer match. She latched onto Lady Malfoy and read her signature, memorizing the feel of it. 

About a quarter of an hour passed, and she felt a magical signature that was very similar to Lady Malfoy’s come through onto the platform. Her eyes darted over to where it originated from, and she saw a huge man with two small children. She gulped nervously, but then steeled herself and snuck closer to follow them. The little ones were excitedly babbling about the train and the crowds of people, and although she had been afraid of the man at first he looked very fond of his children. That was always a good sign.

To her surprise, the small family joined both the Weasleys and the Malfoys, who all stood together and spoke as if they were familiar and friendly. She would string Wootsie up by her toes for not telling her about this development - the Weasleys and the Malfoys were supposed to be generational enemies! Lady Narcissa and Mrs Molly were laughing like old friends! When had this happened? She would have a lot to report to her Master indeed. 

The children were all laughing together, and talking about where they were going to sit. The youngest were dithering over what houses they were most likely all going to be in. Standard first year worries. Her ears pricked and she froze where she stood as she heard the big man whisper to Mr Arthur that someone was spying them and not to reveal anything important. How had he known she was here? She did everything she could to shore up her disillusionment, and cast a spell on herself to disguise her scent. 

As the train arrived, the big man and his two little ones all seemed distressed. The children clapped their hands over their ears when the brakes screeched metallically and the girl whined “What on earth is that terrible noise?” She cried. The big man swore “I’m so sorry little wolf, I should have cast muffling charms on you and your brother before we came. I didn’t even think of it,” he rasped as he came over to her and rubbed her temples. 

“Did it hurt you too, son?” He asked the boy, who shook his head “No, Hermione’s ears are sharper than mine. I’ll be fine but she’ll probably have a headache all afternoon,” he groused and rested a hand comfortingly on his sister’s shoulder. Tootsie hesitated for a moment, then snapped her fingers and a headache potion appeared in her hand from the family potions storage. 

Not taking her eyes off the family in front of her, she scooted over to where she saw the Mistress and her children, and tugged on the end of young Master Thorfinn’s sleeve. He looked around for her, and then down at the ground, but she stayed invisible. She hopped up onto his shoulder and pressed the little bottle into his breast pocket “The young Lady Black be having a headache. Give her that potion when you is delivering the letter to her,” she whispered directly into his ear “and don’t be forgetting to be nice.” 

Gently, she turned his head so that he was looking in the direction they were standing “That is being her by the Malfoys and Weasleys, standing next to the big man,” she breathed as quietly as she could. He nodded subtly, as if in response to something his mother said. He was such a clever boy, just like his father. He reached up as if to scratch his ear, and twined their pinky fingers together like they used to when he was little. 

She patted his shoulder affectionately and then moved back over to continue her surveillance. To her horror, as soon as she returned to the place she’d been watching them from the big man’s eyes landed on her as if she wasn’t hidden at all. She frantically patted herself down and confirmed her spells were all still in place, and tried to stay perfectly still and not hyperventilate. His eyes narrowed and eventually moved away from her, but repeatedly glanced back to where she was standing. She felt exposed and incredibly vulnerable. 

The last ten minutes before eleven o’clock passed quickly. The parents all wished their children well, the children all promised to write, trunks were trundled onto the train, and tears were shed all around. Even by fathers. The big man knelt in front of his two children and pulled them into a tight crushing hug “I love you, and I’m here if you need me. There’s nothing anyone can do to take the two of you away from me,” he told them with no room for argument. 

She felt it in her bones as magic swirled around him, his righteous passion turning what was meant to be parental reassurance into a powerful wizard’s oath. Her already wide eyes bulged in their sockets and her jaw goggled open. Master Asmund would definitely want to hear about that. 

The big man’s children very sweetly told him that they loved him and would write him and would see him soon. Soon? The children weren’t supposed to go home until the holiday break in December. Another thing to tell Master Asmund, even though it didn’t make much sense to her. Then, to her second shock of the day, as they were getting ready to step up onto the train the little girl who was the new Lady Black looked right at her and winked. Winked! Then told her father to keep an open mind and that he could trust Mr Rowle. 

The big man looked as confused as Tootsie was for a moment, and then blew out a heavy exasperated sigh “What did you DO? Why are you like this?” He said, as his children laughed and boarded. They waved from the windows, and the train slowly pulled away, gaining speed as it left the station. 

The moment it was gone he looked directly at her, and she was paralyzed with fear. He didn’t look angry exactly, but she had never met a werewolf before and maybe he was just hiding his rage because there were still humans around. He walked up to where she was hidden and dropped to one knee, less than a meter away from her. He sniffed the air around her, and inched closer and closer. 

“Show yourself,” he growled “who sent you?” He demanded as she became visible. She held up her hands and he grabbed one of her wrists, preventing her from popping away. Overwhelmed, she squeaked in terror, shaking and crying. His eyes widened and he leaned back away from her “Easy woah, I’m not gonna hurt you, I just need to know who you work for,” he said, slowly letting her arm go. He shuffled backwards a little, and looked embarrassed. 

She couldn’t believe the way she’d just shamed her poor Master in front of one of his clients! She wiped her face with the edge of her poncho, and tried to collect her dignity. She sniffled and stood as straight and tall as she could “Tootsie be belonging to the House of Rowle, Master Asmund be the little Lady Black’s family solicitor, and he be wantings to help her father and her brother. Master be asking Tootsie to deliver this letter to Mr Wolfy. He be saying please be readings it and meet with him.”

She pulled the letter out of her poncho, and held it out for him with both hands, still trembling slightly. He sat back on his haunches, and tilted his head like dogs often did “Uh…alright then,” he said uncertainly, taking it hesitantly and holding it like a bomb. She felt a zing of satisfaction rush through her as he broke the seal and began to read it in right front of her. He didn’t try to hide any of his reactions either, and though he seemed frustrated his temper hadn’t shifted yet to anger, even when he’d turned it over and inspected the whole thing, reading it a second time. 

Dated the 31st of August, 1991
From the Desk of Asmund Rowle Esq.
Law Offices of Rowle & Associates
Diagon Alley, London

Mr Greyback,

I am writing to inform you that your daughter the Lady Black has requested my legal services on your behalf, as I am the solicitor on retainer for the House of Black. She warned me that you are a little high strung, so allow me to first reassure you that everything either of you share with me is strictly confidential under attorney-client privilege. I am working to help your family, and your rights are my utmost priority. I am more than willing to take a wand oath confirming this if it is required of me for your peace of mind.

Your daughter has provided me with your general location, and advised me to come meet with you to discuss your concerns regarding your son’s custody. I am prepared to fight tooth and nail to help you maintain full exclusive parental and custodial rights, and to waylay any interlopers who may try to meddle in your family’s affairs. Additionally, I would greatly appreciate sharing the company of a Mr Remus Lupin, as I believe he has important information regarding the will your sons biological parents made before they died that will greatly help our case.

I understand that you will have escorted your children to the train this morning already by the time you are reading this, and I have arranged to be waiting in the village of Ganllwyd waiting for you upon your return. We can proceed however you wish from there. I am willing to conduct our business in town, at my law offices, or be escorted to your home. Whatever makes you most comfortable. I have been paid generously to be in your employ sir, and am at your disposal. 

Congratulations by the way, on your children starting school. From her letter she seems like a lovely child, and she obviously cares about you a great deal. 

Asmund Rowle Esquire
In the service of the House of Black

“Of course she did something like this after last night,” he said, shaking his head and laughing “That girl of mine gives me no end of trouble,” he looked up at Tootsie, and smiled at her. He held his hands up with his palms facing her “I’m very sorry for scaring you, elf. Thank you for your help. I’ve been on edge since I found out my children would be going to school. I didn’t think they’d get the opportunity, I thought they’d stay with me where they were safe,” he sighed miserably “I should be happy for them, but I’m too busy being terrified about what could happen without me there.”

She felt very sympathetic for this huge man who seemed very vulnerable and sad, and she reached out and patted his knee kindly “Master Asmund is being a very responsible wizard, he be knowings everything abouts the ministry law. He be taking good cares of Mr Wolfy and his childrens, he will,” she encouraged “Mr Wolfy just be needing to make sure Master has all the details he needs. He be asking Tootsie to make sure he be bringings the other Mr Wolfy to tells his story too,” she said assertively, proud of herself for the way she’d confidently come back around. 

He nodded at her slowly “I can do that, Lupin has been staying at the compound with the rest of my pack. He’ll be glad to share his version of events with someone who can actually do something about it. I guess I’ll go get him and… Bring him with me? Where exactly is it that I’m meeting Mr Rowle?” He asked

“Master is already waiting at the T.H. Roberts cafe. Mr Wolfy be knowings where this is?” She inquired primly, to which he said he did “Tootsie be going now and telling Master Asmund that he can be expectings both Mr Wolfies,” She said. He told her he’d need about an hour, and she thanked him then popped away to where she felt her Master waiting on her in Wales. She was very excited to be able to report a full mission success, she’d done absolutely everything he’d requested!

Asmund Rowle was waiting patiently in Wales of all places, after what had to be the single longest night of his life. He’d buckled down and gotten more done in six hours than he thought was physically possible without the use of a time turner. There was a fully staffed second office set up in Hogsmeade, and the doors had opened at the start of the business work day. He’d gotten the building for a steal, and the terms of the lease were extremely favorable. Luck had definitely been on his side in that matter. 

His investigation into the legal custody of Harry Potter was going significantly less smoothly. While he had managed to easily ferret out information left and right, none of it had been good. His contact in the ministry archives had confirmed that while the relevant records had auto-updated when the ritual had happened, exactly none of the necessary parchmentwork had ever been filed to make the boy’s adoption in any way official or legal. He had in his briefcase a full set of every form he needed Greyback to fill out, and he planned on hopefully submitting it before end of day. 

He’d pressed his contact hard and they’d told him that no one from the ministry had ever laid hands or eyes on the boy after his parents deaths, and that whatever arrangements had been made for his care hadn’t gone through any of the official channels. He couldn’t for the life of him tell who had fetched the child from his wrecked home and taken him to live with those muggles. He’d nearly blown his top off on hearing that no aurors had been sent to look for the child when he’d vanished, no case workers had been made to find an appropriate placement for him, no investigations had been done to even see if he was still alive. 

Feeling like he had to go a step farther than he normally would, he tried another avenue he usually didn’t visit to get answers. He had sent one of the best investigators on his legal team to go and try to suss out the muggle child services office. Surely an orphan being raised by extended family and being regularly abused must have caught someone’s attention at some point. What his man had brought back had him steaming like a sauna in a snowstorm. There had been dozens of reports from people concerned for the boy’s wellbeing that had been all but ignored. 

From his earliest doctor visits, reports about suspicious bruises and fearful-avoidant behavior had been clearly documented. Child-minders, preschool teachers, and neighbors had all called and reported concerns. Even coworkers of the husband had made calls about the alarming way he had talked about the boy in passing. It was an absolute shit show of governmental incompetency, and it made no sense whatsoever that there had never been any attempts to take the boy into protection or had him removed from the family. 

Their public systems had failed this poor war orphan at every possible level like clockwork, and he’d slid through the cracks and been left to survive completely on his own. It had been sheer dumb luck that the first wizards who came upon the boy were ones that had actually cared about his wellbeing enough to get him the fuck out of the intolerable situation he’d been in. 

That being said, there had been virtually no parchment trail anywhere about his wellbeing in the wizarding world or the muggle one in the years since having been essentially abducted by his current father. He wanted to believe the best about their living situation from what the girl had told him, but he wasn’t going to give anyone’s word the benefit of the doubt anymore. This was too important, this child had been so neglected that he considered it his civic responsibility going forward to make sure he ended up in a safe and happy living situation. 

As eleven o’clock approached, he eagerly awaited Tootsie’s arrival, hoping desperately that his elf had gotten information for him. There were currently far too many loose threads and questions and not nearly enough answers. He had to trust that his elf had done her job well like always. Scarcely five minutes after the hour, he felt the air displace on the surface of the table he was sat at. He subtly cast a notice-me-not charm on her, and she dropped her disillusionment. He was immediately relieved to see that she looked extremely pleased with herself, practically preening under his magic. She was a clever thing, his Tootsie, but she was never overly smug without reason, and he had a good feeling. 

“Master be telling Tootsie to listen for good gossips, Tootsie be getting very good gossips! Master be telling Tootsie to find a Potter elf, Tootsie find baby Harry Potter’s very own nanny elf! Master be telling Tootsie to deliver letter to Mr Wolfy and watch his reaction to see if he be dangerous, Tootsie be delivering letter and Mr Wolfy be apologizing for scaring Tootsie and thanking Tootsie for her help! Mr Wolfy be coming here to meet Master AND he be bringing the other Mr Wolfy!” She announced ecstatically, skipping and dancing in circles on the tabletop, kicking her heels and clapping in delight. She was in rare form, and he was left a bit speechless.

With a disbelieving laugh he took her hand and sat her down next to him on the tabletop “You’ve really done extraordinarily well tonight, my dear friend. Thank you so much for your help, I could never have gotten it all done myself” he said earnestly and gratefully. In that moment he felt a great surge of affection and emotion for the sweet little creature who had fed him and wiped his bum and taught him how to read. 

Pleased by his approval, her little face flushed a darker shade of blue, and she smiled and giggled “Master Asmund be too kind to Tootsie, but there be no time for hugs and kisses. Kipper!” She called, and with a snap of her fingers another little elf appeared by her side. She was clean and tidy but in less personal wrappings, and looked like the years had been hard on her. Though initially timid and meek seeming, the elf visibly perked up at seeing him and bowed low enough for her nose to brush the table. 

“Thank you sir, thank you for helping Kipper find her baby Harry,” she cried, and he shot a sharp questioning look at his own elf, who remained tight-lipped. Every rose and its thorns he thought with a suppressed sigh. He considered his words carefully for a moment, and when he spoke to her his voice was low and gentle. 

“Yes, hello Kipper. I’m Asmund Rowle, the solicitor who will be working to try and help Mr Potter’s adoptive father keep custody of him. I know this is probably a very painful subject for you to revisit, and I’m sorry for asking you about it, but if you can tell me everything you remember from around the time that the Potters were killed it would help Harry’s case tremendously. Can you do that for me, dear? I need all the information I can get, and there are a lot of things no one knows about what really happened.”

She nodded determinedly and sat with Toots, who had laid a hand on her shoulder in either comfort or solidarity or encouragement. Her breath left her little chest raggedly “Where to begin?” She asked him, and he took a brief moment to contemplate it “The most important things I need to know are who actually took Harry from the house, and who was supposed to get custody of him following his parents deaths. Did you ever see the will your master and mistress wrote, and if you did do you remember what it said?” He asked as kindly as he could. 

She nodded emphatically “Yes, Kipper was being there when Master James and Mistress Lilly be writing down who woulds be taking cares of the baby. They be saying it should be Master Sirius or Master Remus if something be happenings to them. Kipper be seeing the parchment, be takings it to the goblins herself she did. Kipper be givings it to Grippyhooky, she did,” He frantically jotted this down in his notepad in his own personal shorthand and nodded for her to continue. Her ears waggled and her lips trembled, but she bravely kept going. She was a very good elf, and Asmund suddenly couldn’t help but think that seeing her reunited with the Potter boy was the least he could do for her after all of this was said and done. 

“On that night…that terrible night,” she moaned “The Dark Lord himself be coming to the house, and Master James be trying to fights him off while Mistress Lilly and Kipper be going to protects Baby Harry. Then he be following her into the nursery and Mistress Lilly be the one trying to fights him off. He be telling her he is needings Baby Harry for his dark ritual, and that she is not having to die if she be givings him up. Mistress Lilly be so brave, and she be telling him no, and he be killing her right in front of Kipper!” The elf sobbed, and he felt terrible for asking her to relive what had to be the worst night of her life. He opened his mouth to apologize and tell her she could stop, but Tootsie glanced at him and shook her head. 

Trusting her, he let the sad little elf keep going “It be a terrible thing for an elf to feel their Master die. Breaks the bond, and bond connected to soul. Kipper not be remembering everything, she be barely hanging onto life at that point. But Kipper be remembering holding Baby Harry and the Dark Lord being gone, and then Master Sirius be showing up at the house. He be heartbroken, he be loving Kipper’s Master and Mistress almost as much as Kipper did. Master Sirius be holding Kipper and Baby Harry and crying, crying, crying. He be trying to ask Kipper what happened, but Kipper was not being awakes enough to tell him. Too sick in the heart and head,” she shook her head self deprecatingly, and her long ears swayed back and forth. He wished he could comfort her somehow, but she was too unfamiliar to him. She soldiered on.

“Then huuuuge man arrive, Master Sirius be telling him to take Kipper and Baby Harry. Huge man be takings Kipper and Harry to the magic school, and when Kipper be waking up in the hospital wing her bond with her Baby Harry be broken and he be gone - nowhere to be found! Kipper be reaching and reaching out with her magic but can’t be feeling him anywhere. Headmaster Dumbly be comings and tellings Kipper she can work at the school, and ever since she be staying with the other elves in the kitchens. Lots of other elvesies from families killed in the war be working there, be having a place to stay and magic to eat. The headmaster be very kind, letting us elvesies bond to the castle directly. It be very alive and aware, more than even the most magical houses Kipper ever be feeling.”

Furiously scratching away at his notepad to get every detail she’d revealed, he looked back over at her curiously “Kipper, when you say the big man you mean Hagrid the groundskeeper, correct?” She nodded, and he thanked her “Did either the headmaster or Hagrid ever talk to you about that night, about why you were brought to the school but Harry wasn’t? Did either of them ever tell you what happened to him?”

She shook her head slowly in confusion “No sir, Kipper often be wishing to know, but Hogwarts elvesies be staying busy with lots of work. It be helping Kipper forget. Have to be feeding every student and teacher. Have to be washing all their clothes and bed linens, and have to make sure nothing be getting mixed up in the laundry. Have to be keeping hallways and classrooms tidy. Have to be feeding and cleaning up after pet cats and owls and toads and rats. So much work only really be good for elvesies who don’t like to be having free time. Sad elvesies be missing their families if they not busy enough,” she said miserably. 

“I have one more question for you Kipper, and it’s very important. In just a short time, I’m going to be meeting with the man who adopted your boy. Now supposedly, according to this man’s daughter, when they found Harry he was living with muggle relatives who hated magic. They treated him very unkindly because of it. Do you remember anything about any muggle relatives either your Master or Mistress may have had?”

“Petunia Dursley,” she snarled viciously, a noise he didn’t think he’d ever heard a house elf make before in all his life. His eyebrows shot up “Uhh…Yes, that’s correct. I imagine they mustn’t have been on good terms?” He asked tentatively. To his utter shock the elf burst into manic hysterical laughter “Petunia Dursley be my Mistress Lilly’s evil rotten no-good sister. She be breaking Mistress’s heart, that foul wretched woman! She be refusing to come to Master and Mistress’s beautiful wedding. She be turning mistress away from their parents’ funeral. She be responding to Baby Harry’s birth announcement by telling Mistress she should have drowned him! If Kipper ever gets her hands on Petunia Dursley, Kipper be wringing the life out of her ugly long neck!” The elf’s volume increased as she raged, until she was nearly screaming at the top of her little lungs. 

Asmund had never seen an elf behave this way in his entire life, and he briefly wondered if it would be safe for her to be around the boy after all. To his numb horror his own elf was nodding along in supportive agreement, although he supposed in the grand scheme of things he’d want her to have similar vitriol towards anyone who so terribly hurt his own wife and children.

The volume of the outburst threatened to break the edges off of the notice-me-not he’d cast. He saw one of the muggles behind the counter glance their way in confusion, as if they had heard something but couldn’t place it. Nervously he reinforced it, keeping his wand up his sleeve. He reconsidered what he’d seen, and came to the conclusion it was a testament to the love the elf had for her family and her trauma from having the bonds broken so dramatically. 

“Alright Kipper, it’s alright,” he said soothingly “I’m sorry you had to find out about it like this. So just to clarify, your mistress definitely wouldn’t have wanted her sister raising her son? And your master felt the same way?” she looked at him like he was a little wizard she was teaching to tie his own shoes “Yes sir, Master James be hating Petunia almost as much as Kipper. Master and Mistress would be heartbroken to be knowing their Baby Harry was being anywhere near that woman. Please sir, how long is Petunia having him before he is being rescued from her?” She begged. 

“As far as I know, I believe he was six years old when he was adopted and taken away from the Dursleys,” she sobbed, and leaned her head onto Tootsie’s shoulder, keening like a grieving mother, and he was briefly but vividly reminded of the scene from The Odyssey where Anticleia walked into the sea upon hearing that her son had been killed. Her tiny body shuddered “Six! Kipper’s poor Baby Harry had to spend five years with those beasts! Alls his softests and most vulnerablests years,” she wailed.

Asmund cringed at the sheer pitch of the noise as it approached the frequency of a dog whistle “He’s almost twelve now Kip, he’s a big boy. He’s had half his life away from them and with people who say they love him. They’ll be here soon, and you can help me find out if they’re telling the truth, okay? Wouldn’t that help you feel better?” He prodded softly, desperately hoping her moods would stop swinging so erratically by the time his client arrived. Unfortunately, it seemed he was out of time, as the door’s bell rang and the man in question entered.

Fenrir felt like he was scrambling madly to collect himself and get to the meeting his daughter had arranged for him.

That girl!

He wanted to strangle her and praise her for both going behind his back so egregiously and for solving his problems so perfectly without his even needing to ask her to. How could he claim he was trying to teach her to be an independent leader and then punish her when she had managed to tie up all these tangled threads so neatly? Then again how could he say she was a subordinate member of his pack and not punish her for clearly arranging him to be led around by the tail like a fool? She kept putting him into more and more of these impossible situations as she grew up, and it made him genuinely nervous for her teenage years to come. 

When Remus had come to claim sanctuary at the compound, he had offered the man a small cottage of his own. There was one currently vacant that was little more than a shed, but that was still more private than the men’s dorm building. As he had expected, the man had politely refused. No one that desperately achingly lonely chose to continue living on their own when they had other options so readily available. Still he found himself wishing Remus had decided to settle in a little closer. 

Entering the dorm building, he was surprised to find the man in the communal area sitting down to an early lunch, not looking too terribly put out. He’d come out of his awful funk of loneliness and depression so much in the last year getting to see Harry every day and spend time bonding with him, and Fen had suspected that the children’s departure would be a difficult day for him. Remus did look a little downhearted, but otherwise seemed fine. He was glad, and already regretting disrupting his morning. 

“I know this is short notice, but I need you to find everything you have in writing from the last decade that has anything remotely to do with Harry. You said you spent years looking for him and trying to track him down - I need letters, documents, anything you’ve got a paper trail for. Hermione set up a meeting for us with the Black family solicitor and we need to meet him within the hour with as much information as possible,” he said, urging the indignant man up and towards his room. He apologized as they went “I know, I know, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I didn’t know we’d be doing this today either. Just bring the sandwich with you!” He grumbled.

He followed Remus into his room, standing a bit awkwardly in the open doorway as the man rummaged through his trunk and file folders. He pulled out sheaf after sheaf of parchments, stacks and stacks and stacks. When they were all spread on the bed the man began organizing them. Fenrir stepped closer and peeked at a few over his shoulder “That’s an awful lot of letters from Dumbledore,” he remarked a bit lamely, to which Remus responded with an arched brow and a mirthless smile “Well I sent him a letter every week for nearly a year begging to see my boy. He didn’t respond to them all of course, but enough that it added up and got a bit repetitive,” he said dryly. 

He gulped and felt so awkwardly wrong-footed, both embarrassed for shoving his boot in his mouth and searingly guilty about dragging the man into a situation which would only bring more of his trauma back up to the surface. He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back away from his face and tying it at the base of his neck. He coughed into his fist, and cleared his throat “I haven’t met the man yet, but he sent his elf to deliver a letter to me at the station after I’d dropped off the kids,” Remus looked startled at that “It was a bit of an ambush, she’d been watching us disillusioned the whole time we were there. If what she told me is true, then he genuinely wants to help me fight to keep custody of Harry. I feel exposed and weak, but it would be foolish to not at least hear him out,” he reasoned aloud. 

A part of him hoped that the other man could tell from what he wasn’t saying how much he needed the support of a friend in this, he would ask if it became necessary but he didn’t want to have to beg for companionship. For a while with his mate and their child he’d had everything he could’ve ever imagined needing or wanting. It hadn’t lasted forever though, and although fatherhood had kept him alive and been very emotionally fulfilling, it certainly hadn’t fulfilled all of his needs. He’d been lonely for the touch of another for a very long time. Something in his wolf sensed a resonant desire in Remus, and he hoped they’d be able to help each other heal from their similar heartbreak. 

The other man had the decency not to react to his confusing mix of stress and hormones and untimely desire, and reached for a much newer letter that was sitting on his bedside table. He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, and handed it to Fenrir, “I just got this last night from Minerva. It’s good timing, I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it, but maybe the solicitor can help us put the pieces together into a picture that actually make some sense.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Remus was barely a step behind Fenrir as they entered the cafe, as he found the closer he stayed the more his own nerves were allayed. The man was practically a furnace, and the abundant animal warmth of him leeched into the space between. There had been a heavy frisson of attraction between them that exploded into existence in his room earlier, and he’d had to push down the urge to roll over and expose his neck and belly to the man. 

So much of his paradigm of the world had shifted so radically in the last year and it all centered around Fenrir and his actions and his children. Remus still wasn’t sure exactly how he felt, there were a great deal of conflicting emotions buzzing around in his head.

He hadn’t wanted anyone in this way since Sirius, and it was inspiring self loathing and guilt within him in entirely new ways. Not only did part of him felt like an ungrateful beast for his lustful desires towards the kind widower who had taken him in, but another more primal part of him whined incessantly that he was betraying Sirius with his wandering eyes. The part of him that considered itself a civilized man resented his wolf’s eager willingness to blindly follow and obey the man who had ruined his life on a whim. Even if Sirius was somehow innocent he was still serving a life sentence, why should he stay celibate in loyalty to a man behind bars? He might live another hundred years if he ate healthy and stopped smoking, did he really want to spend it without love or affection?

In the year since he’d been allowed into the pack and welcomed onto the compound, he’d been treated very well. Much better than he’d have ever dreamed life in a pack could be - and thinking of the ignorant assumptions he’d lived with his whole life stung sharply now in hindsight. It was with utter mortification that he thought back on how he once imagined werewolf packs living in caves like rabid animals. The pack had welcomed him with open arms - given him a warm clean dry place to stay, he’d been fed and clothed, even been offered a satisfying job tutoring the magical children who were old enough to have gone to Hogwarts. Minerva had sent him lesson plans and he’d been making good progress with Melvynthia and Bobberty. It burned in his gut that these children should have been in their fourth and sixth years at school and had never received the letters that he and Harry and Hermione had gotten. 

For how very physically difficult his lycanthropy had made his life, it had been hard to come to terms with just how lucky he’d been to be allowed to attend a public school at all. There were well over a hundred adult wolves in the pack, two thirds of whom were witches and wizards. Only the ones who’d been bitten as adults had been educated at Hogwarts or another magical school, all the ones who had been bitten as children had been forced to either learn from others who were willing to teach them in whatever spare time they’d had or try and teach themselves from books. Though many of them were perfectly competent, there were huge gaps in their magical knowledge. 

He’d had to push down his resentment that their lives had been blessed with easy transformations, that they hadn’t spent decades screaming themselves hoarse the night of the full moon as their bones all broke and rearranged themselves. They hadn’t suffered the indignity and humiliation of being feared even by the people who loved them, and having to wonder if they’d infected anyone else after a rough night. He had to remind himself that he didn’t know everyone’s story, and some of them had probably had similar experiences to his own before joining the pack. It just still didn’t feel fair that he’d been so alone and undergone so much pain and suffering when a community had been right here this entire time under his very nose. 

Shaking himself out of his spiraling negative introspection and his terribly poorly timed lustful urges, he followed Fenrir to the table Rowle was waiting for them at. The man was well dressed and clearly wealthy, and two little elves sat on either side of him on the tabletop. He was a fairly large man, and had shoulder length greying blonde hair and a thick stubble. He stood as they approached, and rather bravely held out his hand for Fenrir to shake. 

“Welcome, thank you for joining me at such short notice Mr Greyback, I’d like to also say that I appreciate how kind you were to my elf Tootsie,” Rowle glanced his way “and you must be Mr Lupin?” He asked, and Remus couldn’t help but be a bit taken aback at how polite and professional the man’s demeanor was. As they sat across from him the man took out a file folder and began swiftly removing documents and sorting them into piles in front of them.

“Now in the matter of safeguarding your custody of Mr Potter, I’ve checked with the ministry and unfortunately none of the correct forms have been filed to make your adoption of the boy official. This puts you on incredibly shaky legal ground, so I’ve brought the necessary parchments with me today and our first order of business will be to fill them out and get them sent in to be processed as quickly as possible. First though, I’ll need you to please inform me of the circumstances regarding you finding him and deciding to bring him into your family. There are no details too small or unimportant, the more I know the more I can help,” he said, crossing his legs and folding his hands together on the table in front of himself. 

Both men were understandably gobsmacked, and shared a bewildered glance. Remus cleared his throat and spoke up “Well, I’ve only been living with the pack a short while, but I was part of Harry’s life when he was a baby. I was there when James and Lilly wrote their will, they wanted me to take care of their son if Sirius wasn’t able to. After they died and Sirius was incarcerated, I was told by Hagrid that he’d taken the boy to the school and entrusted him into the care of the headmaster. I contacted Dumbledore, begging to see my boy, and he refused. Said it wasn’t safe, said he was already being looked after, that he was in good hands. I wrote him… so many times,” he passed the bundle of letters from Albus that he’d brought with him, and the man nodded in thanks but kept listening intently.  

“Those are the dozens of letters I received from him telling me to let it go and move on, that it wasn’t my responsibility anymore and that I didn’t need to worry about him, but of course I still did! I looked everywhere for Harry, I spent years trying to find him with no leads. Tracking down extended relatives of the Potters on the continent - I even went to India to see if he’d been taken there. I felt like such a fool when Minerva told me he’d been right here this whole time with Lilly’s sister. Then I was furious, they’d absolutely hated each other. I knew it couldn’t have been a good situation for him, but I had no idea how bad it truly was until I visited the compound for the first time and he told me about the way he’d grown up. Locked in a cupboard under the stairs, barely fed, hurt and screamed at by his uncle and cousin all the time. My heart aches just thinking about it,” he paused and rubbed his chest, physically feeling the aching sensation he had described. Rowle’s face was a picture of earnest sympathy.

“I was so mad at Dumbledore for so long, but then just last night I received this letter from Minerva that I truly don’t know what to make of - maybe you can help. She says in a recent conversation she had with him at the beginning of year staff meeting that he denied all knowledge of ever having placed Harry with his muggle relatives, and expressed shock that the boy had ever been there at all. He told her he thought I had Harry this whole time, that he assumed I had taken him out of the country, that he hadn’t heard from me since the war, and that he had no memory of the two of us ever corresponding afterwards!” he said, stress clear in his steadily rising voice. 

Rowle’s eyebrows were brushing his hairline they were so high on his forehead, and he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms “That does complicated things, doesn’t it? So either Albus Dumbledore is playing a very dangerous game with this vulnerable young man’s life, someone has memory charmed one of the strongest legilimens in the world, or someone has been impersonating the most powerful and influential wizard in modern history. To what end? There’s a clear parchment trail - Dumbledore or not, someone really did send you these letters and discourage you from seeking out guardianship of the boy. If someone who wasn’t Dumbledore sent them, they clearly never expected you to ever actually come and confront the man, because they’ve left you with undeniable proof of their fraud. And if it was Dumbledore who sent the letters, he’s knowingly implicated himself in the kidnapping of a child by refusing you access to him. It doesn’t make sense any way you try to untangle it,” he deftly reasoned, shaking his head with a frown on his face. 

He turned to the elf next to him “Tell them what you told me, Kipper,” he told her, and it was only then that Remus recognized the little thing. “Kip, is that really you?” He asked in disbelief. The poor creature looked like she had aged half a century in the ten years since he’d last seen her, but there was still that shine he recognized in her eyes “Yes master wolfy, it is being Kipper,” and she came over and sat as close to him as she could get while she shared her story of that terrible night and the years that had followed. He held her hand as she spoke, and though her skin was thin and wrinkled and dry and grey, her grip was still strong. 

He felt terrible as he listened to her relive the night that had nearly killed her, and if her grip on his fingers hadn’t been so tight and the look in her eyes so resolute he’d have told her she didn’t have to put herself through it all again. She seemed determined to get through her story. Hearing how heartbroken Sirius had been, but that he’d still given Harry up to Hagrid even in his grief tore at Remus. How could he have been so reckless and foolish, he should have stayed and taken care of Harry - whatever reason he may have had in his mind, he had neglected his responsibility to their child in his pursuit of Peter. 

His mind caught on some of the details from the end of her story, and his gut told him there was something there “Kip you said Dumbledore took you in as a Hogwarts elf and that’s where you’ve been working all this time, but that a lot of other family elves came to Hogwarts around the same time after the war. Did the headmaster ever actually acknowledge that you were the Potter’s elf? Are you sure he knew who you were?” He asked, suddenly wanting to give the old man the benefit of the doubt in a way he hadn’t in years. 

She thought about this and her tennis ball sized eyes bulged in her little head “…Headmaster Dumbly never once be mentioning the Potters or her Baby Harry to Kipper!” She croaked, and addressed the other elf “Could Headmaster Dumbly really not be realizings? He and Kipper never be formings the Bond, Kipper be working for the castle itself,” She said breathlessly. Her face fell “But if the Headmaster not be knowings about Kipper, and not be taking and hiding away her Baby Harry, then some other evil sneak be doing bad all on their own!” She moaned despondently. 

The solicitor was quick to comfort the elf, and it rose him in Remus’ already high esteem “Easy now Kipper, I feel like we can probably get to the bottom of most of this if we initiate a meeting with the headmaster and see what he has to say. He sounds just as troubled by this matter,” the man said gently “you can help us make that happen. Can you take Tootsie back through the school wards with you so she can deliver a note to him for me?” The elf considered this and nodded hesitantly. 

Rowle quickly pulled out a quill and piece of parchment, and scratched out a message. Remus heard him mutter the words he was writing under his breath “urgently… regarding the Potters… meeting in Gwynedd… soon as possible,” the man handed it to Fenrir to read and when he had nodded in approval he passed it off to his elf and told her to be careful not to be harmed by the robust castle wards. 

As soon as the elves popped away, the man turned his full back to the two of them “Now Mr Greyback, I’ve heard from your daughter regarding this situation and we’ve had a good summary of things from Mr Lupin’s side, but I’d love for you to give me the lay of the land from your own perspective,” he reiterated, and Remus flushed when he realized he’d spoken over the man being asked about his son’s adoption earlier. He leaned back in his chair and firmly resolved to keep mum and give Fenrir a chance to speak.

The man in question fidgeted a bit, and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. He didn’t seem like he knew what to say, and so Remus nudged his foot with his own ever so slightly, jolting him into alertness. He coughed and cleared his throat “I never intended to have any more children after my mate died. My daughter was my whole world, and I lived solely for her and her care. Until she told me about her sad little friend she’d made at the library who wore dirty old clothes, and was too skinny, and always had bruises on his arms. I had taken children into the pack before, rescued them from bad homes and similar situations, given them our gift if they wanted it and let them join us as wolves, but they’d all gone into the homes of others who wanted children. It’s hard for us to have our own and many of us adopt, Hermione was our little miracle,” he gulped loudly, and Remus placed a hand on his shoulder. He was glad to see the other man smile, that he’d been able to provide some small comfort. 

“Harry was special, my daughter and I both felt a connection with him instantly. When she took me to meet him and I asked him about his home life I thought he would shrink away like a beaten dog, but instead he got mad. Others had promised to help him and never succeeded, and he didn’t want to hear the same false promises from us. I felt like I had to do something drastic, as quick as I could. I asked him if he truly wanted to escape from his muggle family, and when he said that he did I took him home with us that very afternoon. On the next full moon, we held a ceremonial blood adoption ritual. Hermione bit him and gave him our gift, sealing his place as her beta when she becomes the alpha after me, and her and I adopted him into our family. He’s a Greyback by blood and by magic. The school’s admission book recorded them as having the same birthday and the bank records did as well. The combination of family and werewolf magic during his adoption rendered them more than just siblings, they became magical twins,” he said, with a glowing look of pride on his face as he talked about his children. 

In that moment Remus found himself helplessly attracted to the man. Perhaps it was simply the irresistible allure of a clearly devoted single father, but whatever it was - it was potent. It took everything he had to ignore it, and think of other thoughts than Fenrir’s deep raspy voice, his thickly corded muscular forearms, and his rich masculine scent. Remus felt like a bitch in heat, and like everyone else in the room knew it. The depth of his desire was utterly mortifying. His eyes threatened to flutter shut and roll back in his head. 

He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. In his peripheral vision he noticed Fenrir’s nostrils flared dramatically, and heard him sharply inhale through his nose. As he spoke, Rowle was filling things in on the parchment forms he’d brought with him, nodding along. He paused at a line “Now Mr Greyback can you please clarify, you said that you’d brought home similarly abused children before, but not adopted any of them. Do you have any other biological children aside from Lady Black?” He asked matter-of-factly. 

Fenrir nodded, and Remus was expecting to hear him mention Matthias. What he was not expecting was for the man to rattle off a list of names nearly as long as his graduating class, including many of the young men in the dorm he had been staying in. He and Rowle both stared open mouthed at the man, neither one of them quite sure of what to say. Rowle was able to put his neutral professional face back on far quicker than Remus “I’m sorry I’m not quite sure I’ve understood you, so you’re saying you have twenty three children all by different women?” The man asked in a far calmer tone than he could have managed at the moment. 

To his continued shock Fenrir nodded, a winning smile on his face “Oh yes, certainly. If not more. Before finding my mate I had a great deal of bed partners, and many of them whelped me pups - all strapping lads like their father. I’m much older than I look, and I spent decades traveling and sowing my wild oats before settling down. I could have more children out there I don’t know about, but those are the ones that sought me out to join my pack. Wolves like their father, every one of them. The ones out there that never came to me I mourn, but I’ve never turned one of my children away. If they came to me I took them in, no questions asked.” 

His voice turned unexpectedly tender “That’s what makes my Little Nene so different from all of her half brothers, and so special. I care for all my many boys of course, but none of their mothers were my mate. Her mother Hydra was the other half of me, heart and soul, and that carried over on to the precious baby we made together. From the moment she was born a connection was lit within the two of us, like a little ever-burning flame in my chest,” he said, and he cupped his breast as if there was really something tangible there he could feel. The smile on his face was so sweet it made Remus’ teeth ache from it. 

“That sounds very special indeed Mr Greyback, thank you for sharing something so personal,” Rowle replied with masterful tact, avoiding mentioning the man’s veritable army of sons laying around. It occurred to Remus that he should have thought before now to ask why there was an entire young men’s dormitory on the compound. Goddesses be good but the man had sired nearly a fifth of his own pack. He really was… just potently virile. Remus squirmed in his seat and pressed his legs together tightly. 

Fenrir let out a low growl next to him, far too quietly for a human to hear, but it had the opposite of its intended effect, and it set him panting. Finally in desperation the man reached under the table and grabbed his leg, gripping it firmly and pressing sharp nails in hard enough to feel through the denim of his jeans “Control yourself this minute or I’ll command you to leave,” the man said on the faintest exhale through gritted teeth. 

Turning back to the solicitor across from them who had an all too bland and unbothered expression on his face, Fenrir tutted and dithered “There’s something else that is probably important. I’ve avoided telling Remus this because it would only have hurt him,” he glanced his way and shrugged apologetically before continuing.

“Before I took Harry back home with us the day I found him, I took him back to his muggle relatives house to retrieve a personal item. Hermione and my son Matthias and I all accompanied him as far as the property line before we were repelled by incredibly strong anti-werewolf wards, anti-animagus wards, and anti-house elf wards, but nothing else that would keep out anyone doing harm to the child. When I examined the array schema, it was clear they’d been regularly maintained and recast. The only logical conclusion I can think of is that they must have been specifically intended to keep Remus and Kipper out.”

The little elf shook where she sat, having returned a few moments previously while he was discussing his other children, and some color rose to her greyish skin as her cheeks flushed an angry dark green. Tears welled up in her huge eyes, and she made a horrible noise like a cat wretching up a hair ball “So long master wolfy is being looking for baby Harry, chasing his tail in circles going nowheres. So long Kipper be reaching and reaching for her connection with baby Harry she thought broken. Not broken, not nowheres, just hidden. Hidden! Please Mr Rowle sir, surely it must be being a crime for sneaky thieves to be keeping a nanny elf from her baby?” she asked the man furiously, and he looked very affected by her plight. He reached out and patted the little elf on her shoulder, and his own elf hugged her tightly. 

“I can’t make you any promises Kipper, but I’ll tell you right now that we’re going to make sure you get to see your boy again. Right, Mr Greyback?” He asked pointedly and Fenrir nodded emphatically “You are under no obligation to serve us, but as long as Harry lives under my roof you are welcome in it as well, elf,” he said gruffly but kindly. She sobbed with joy, throwing herself at the table in front of him and holding onto the hems of his shirtsleeves “Mr wolfy is being good and kind, thank you. Thank you Mr wolfy!” She cried, and he patted the top of her head a bit awkwardly and smiled down at her tightly. 

Suddenly in a swirling burst of brilliant white and gold flame, Albus Dumbledore appeared before them looking as world-weary as he did flamboyantly showy. With a bone-deep sigh the old wizard inclined his head, and the long tall hat he wore swayed forward “Thank you for inviting me, gentlemen,” he demurred softly.

Albus was having a difficult week. Year. Decade, really.

(Actually, if he thought about it the last century hadn’t exactly been anything to write home about.)

As much as he resented accusations of his frequent meddling in the affairs of his friends and associates, he had to admit that if Remus hadn’t taken the initiative after the war and fled the country with Harry, he probably would have insisted on the pair of them staying and remaining within sight of his watchful gaze. He didn’t necessarily want to control anyone’s lives, he just wanted to keep all his ducklings close and under his protection. It had eaten at him that they were so far away, and that their location and actions were utterly unknown to him, but he had to let people go eventually and no one had needed more space and time to heal after the war then those two. 

He’d heard nothing from Remus after the war other than the furious letter the young man had sent rightfully blaming him for the Potter’s deaths, for not drawing Sirius in to heel soon enough, for not doing enough to stop Voldemort sooner, for not being in enough places at once to save everyone, for every and any imagined slight under the sun. It had been eye opening and very sad, but had ultimately made him reflect on many of his own actions and try to see them from an outside perspective. He had known he hadn’t done enough and hadn’t acted as soon as he should have. He hadn’t needed anyone to tell him that.

What he hadn’t considered was how his own unwillingness to go public and openly provoke Tom had prevented wizarding Britain from realizing the magnitude of the threat they were under until it was too late. 

After having a decade to ruminate on his own mistakes and wonder nearly constantly where Remus and Harry had gone and if they were safe and well, he had been most confused at the 1991 annual August staff meeting when Minerva waspishly informed him that his scheming had failed and that the boy-who-lived had ended up being raised in a happy home after all. Did everyone think he had performed so poorly during the war? But that wasn’t the point he needed to immediately follow up on. 

“I beg your pardon, Minnie?” He croaked, still not quite believing either what she’d said or the sheer venom it had been delivered with “What in Godric’s good name are you referring to, my dear woman?” he said as politely as he could manage in the face of such a baseless accusation from a close friend and colleague.

She’d scoffed, and her brogue had rounded the sound in a lovely highland way that he tried to not be amused by “Don’t act the fool, Albus!” She’d scolded as if he were a naughty school boy “I visited Harry Potter myself, and he managed to escape those wretched muggles and be adopted by a perfectly lovely family. No thanks to you, you old goat,” she said with an angry shake of her head. 

What she said made so little sense it took him a good moment to find an adequate response “I’m afraid you have me at quite a disadvantage, Minerva. What muggles? And why would he have needed to escape them?” He asked tersely, not yet losing his patience but losing the ability to pretend this wasn’t becoming a fraught conversation.

Her eyes narrowed as they inspected his face and posture searchingly “Albus really, what are you playing at? I-I’m talking about Lilly’s sister Petunia that you left the boy with. I spent all day watching those awful magic-hating muggles, and then had to watch you place him on their doorstep yourself. I told you it was the wrong decision, but you insisted it was where he had to be raised for his own safety. Poor Remus told me all about the way you never let him even see the boy, no matter how he begged!”

At this Albus conjured up two plushy chintz armchairs and sat down heavily, not caring that they were in the middle of a corridor. No students or teachers were around and he-… he needed to sit and breathe and think. How could this have possibly happened. He looked at his deputy head and lifelong friend where she still stood, an angry flush rising high on her cheekbones, and gestured wearily at the chair next to him. 

“Minerva I tell you in all seriousness, I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of these events you’ve described,” With a wave of his wand he conjured the letter, which he had kept close all these years “as a matter of fact I was under the impression Remus had taken Harry and left the country, where I was perfectly happy to let them stay,” he said with what felt like the weight of the world on his chest and shoulders. 

He sighed and stretched his back, his bones creaking ominously “Someone has cruelly played us against each other, my dear,” he said, running a hand through his long and luxurious white beard “causing division and leaving a defenseless child stuck in the middle. You say that Harry was adopted and left his muggle relatives home. Do you know anything about the family who took him in?” He asked, almost not wanting to know the answer. It couldn’t be good news if whoever had arranged this oversight on both his and Remus’ parts was involved in the child’s placement. 

To his surprise his deputy artlessly dodged his question, twisting around it like a Slytherin but with none of the effortless social grace “I’ve visited his home, and they love him like their own. He’s been taken very good care of in the years since he was adopted,” she replied firmly. He nodded hesitantly “That’s good, very good. And they are?” He left off, trying to encourage her to continue. “Kind and trustworthy folk,” she said, staunchly avoiding his gaze. 

He sighed again, letting the last edges of the grandfatherly affectation he put on to put people at ease fall away “I see,” he said quietly. He rose slowly on knees that hadn’t had any cartilage left since before Thatcher was in office, and silently vanished the chair he’d conjured. He patted her shoulder kindly as she passed “I hope you’ll come to me when you’re ready to talk, my dear,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back to his tower. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was the first day of the term and Minerva still hadn’t come back to him, either to continue their conversation or for anything else for that matter. In years past she would have been in and out of his office all day getting ready for students to arrive in the evening. She’d instead sent castle elves in to fetch things for her and deliver messages to him. He was starting to feel sincerely concerned that whoever had manufactured this scandal had done significantly more harm to his interpersonal relationships than he’d initially realized. 

At around half past noon one of the elves he recognized from the kitchens popped onto the surface of the desk in his office holding hands with another elf he couldn’t place. They stepped closer to him and both bowed very low, and the kitchen elf rose first and addressed him “Headmaster Dumbly sir, Kipper is bringing a friend who is having an important message,” she said with a shaking voice. He smiled softly at the pair “Thank you very much Kipper. Could you please introduce yourself, my dear?” He asked the other elf. 

She rose and nodded, smoothing out her smart little purple tartan poncho “Tootsie is being the Rowle family elf, Master Asmund is meeting with clients today and sends Tootsie with an invitation for the headmaster to join them,” she said primly, handing him a neatly folded note that he opened and read. 

1/9/1991 12:25 pm

Headmaster Dumbledore,

I am working as legal counsel on behalf of a Mr Harry Potter, whose adoptive father has been trying to ensure his custody remains unchallenged. So far we have heard conflicting reports about how he came to be placed in the muggle household where he was recovered from. There is also an urgent matter to address regarding the Potters’ will and testament. We are currently meeting in Gwynedd if you would be kind enough as to please join us and perhaps help clear this matter up.

Asmund Rowle Esquire
In the service of the House of Black

He read it a second and then a third time and nodded, swiftly rising from his chair and gathering his wits “Thank you my dears, I’ll join them there as soon as I’m able, please feel free to head back,” he told the little creatures, and they popped away. He headed into the personal quarters behind his office, and made for his private study. Collecting the letter he’d read and reread and meditated on so many times, his stomach was in knots at the thought that it may have been a fraud all along. Could it really be that the letter he’d so fixated on for years had not actually been the cutting words of a friend and former student he had failed, but the manipulation of an agent saboteur? Either way he had to know. He tucked it into his robes and called for Fawkes. 

As his familiar perched upon his shoulder and curled its vibrant tail feathers around his neck, he stroked its head and asked it to follow the pair of house elves that had just left the castle for Wales. In a starburst of fire, he appeared in a humble muggle cafe. On instinct he wandlessly and wordlessly laid down one of his punchier notice-me-not charms, and without a second thought tempered it with the mild muggle-repelling ward that usually accompanied. He winced as many of the patrons checked their watches and began draining out of the business. He’d make sure to leave a rather generous tip in the jar on the counter. 

He sighed, bowing and thanking them for inviting him, and made his way to the table where he conjured one of his own standard armchairs and a tea service and made himself comfortable. He turned to the impeccably dressed blonde man “Mr Rowle, I believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting once before while you were helping a young Mr and Mrs Tonks with their inheritance from Alphard,” he mused as he looked at the two other men at the table. 

He nearly dropped the cup he’d been preparing for himself when he realized that the man directly to his left was none other than Remus Lupin “Merlin’s beard! Remus I scarcely recognized you my, dear boy,” he said, setting down his cup and reaching out to shake his former student’s hand. It took him a moment to register the expression of fear and intense distrust that weighed on the young man’s prematurely aged and scarred face, and it gutted him when he became aware of it. 

“I see,” he said quietly “I will be straightforward with you gentlemen, clearing up this matter with Remus is the primary reason I came today. I have had no contact with him in the last decade other than this letter I received in November of 1981,” he continued, drawing it out of the inner pocket of his robes and passing it to the man in question. The young man’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

He took the letter and read it, and as he did his cheeks flushed and his eyes widened “Professor I assure you I did not write this! I know we were all hurt and frustrated after the war, but I can’t believe anyone would say such things to you. I have to assume that means you didn’t send me any of these?” He asked, passing Albus a thick file folder of letters. The older man immediately began skimming through a few and his heart dropped to his toes, and he swore softly “Merlin’s curly beard, my boy! No, Remus, I didn’t write any of these letters to you, all this time I thought you had Harry. If I’d had the boy in my possession you would have been the very first person I’d have brought him to, I swear it on my magic,” he intoned seriously, and his magic invoked and swirled around him in twisting purple and pink spirals through the air before sinking into his skin. 

Rowle spoke up as the magic faded “So then we have reasonable evidence that a third party has been impersonating the headmaster via correspondence for at least however long as the letters continued between Mr Lupin and the unknown fraudster. The other matter we must determine is how this individual managed to place young Mr Potter with his muggle relatives - did they do it themself disguised as the headmaster, did they alter professor McGonagall’s memories, or did they somehow force the headmaster to do it himself and then memory charm him? Do you have any insight sir? We know you are an accomplished legilimens, do you also practice occlumency?” He asked quite astutely, and Albus considered this carefully. 

“It is true that I am a natural legilimens, and with time and effort in my younger years I was able to become a skilled occlumens as well. I have a hard time believing that anyone could have successfully overcome my mental defenses sufficiently to modify my own memories without my knowledge. The only person I can think of whose abilities might allow them to do such a thing is someone whom I trust implicitly. Minerva is no slouch herself, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why someone would modify her memories and yet not remove the incriminating evidence of themselves impersonating me. Why would they not assume that she and I would eventually confer and realize their duplicity? Did they compel her not to bring the matter up again? If they did it must have been a powerful compulsion, as it has lasted nearly a decade. I find this mystery highly disturbing indeed.”

Albus began casting on the stack of letters that were ostensibly from himself to Remus. There were in fact hints of compulsion charms on the pages, growing stronger over time. He eyed the young man, who hadn’t spoken again since denying sending the letter “It must have taken a great strength of will and determination to overcome the charms on these and continue writing, Remus. It speaks to your resilience and the care you have for Harry that you kept trying,” he said tentatively, trying to offer the man some measure of comfort. 

To his surprise Remus’ eyes narrowed and he frowned “Frankly I think it speaks more of my desperation, sir,” he shook his head and gritted his teeth “I’m sorry, I know now that it wasn’t you who wrote these, but I have spent years being angry with you for dismissing me and it’s going to take time to get over that,” he muttered, looking down and away from him with suspiciously wet eyes. Albus’ heart clenched in his chest, and he wanted to reach out to comfort him but the young man seemed entirely too closed off. 

“I’m terribly sorry about what you’ve been through, and the pain this person caused. I understand that trust will have to be built back slowly. I hope we can come to better terms eventually,” he said, folding his hands together on the tabletop in front of him, unsure of what else to say. 

Remus cleared his throat, and rested his hand on the shoulder of the Hogwarts elf that had been sitting near him “Professor, you know Kipper, she’s been working at the castle for the last decade. Well, she was the Potters’ elf, and more than anything else she wants to be able to serve Harry again if you’ll let her,” he said gently, rubbing the poor little dear’s back as she quietly wept. He imagined there would be many more loose threads like this that would find themselves unraveling as the web of lies came to light and began to untangle. 

He nodded and held out a hand to her, which she grasped firmly “Kipper, thank you for your service to the school. You may of course remain at the castle in service of your young master while he is a student there, and tend to him personally. I’m very sad to hear that the two of you were separated for so long,” she nodded and whimpered.

Bowing even lower than she had in his office, the elf sniffled and wiped her nose and eyes on the tea towel she wore like a toga “Kipper be thanking headmaster Dumbly, she be missing her baby Harry all these years, missing him like her own arm or leg!” She cried, huge tears rolling down her cheeks, and his heart went out to her “Of course my dear, of course. The bond of a nanny elf and her human child, why the only thing stronger is a mother’s love. I hope seeing him helps you heal from the pain of losing your master and mistress. I had no idea the Potters even had an elf, I hope you can forgive me for not seeking you out and discovering this entire mess sooner,” She broke into even more ragged whole-body sobbing at that “Headmaster Dumbly be a good and kind wizard!” She wailed, and he winced, but smiled weakly at her.

Having remained silent the entire time he’d been there so far, the man between Remus and Rowle suddenly spoke for the first time, his voice much deeper and rougher than Albus was expecting “Kipper I’m not sure exactly what happens at the school once the children arrive from the train, but after they’ve had dinner and are settled in for the night you should go and find Harry and introduce yourself. I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see you, he might even let you help him unpack his things. You can tell him I said hello and that I love him and his sister very much,” he said, to which she nodded eagerly, a radiant smile completely transforming her face, and popped away with a much more energetic crack of displaced air than she had earlier. 

He looked at the man thoughtfully “That was kindly done, you must be Harry’s adoptive father. I assure you that despite the way things may look, I have no personal interest in who Harry lives with or where they make their home, as long as he is safe and well taken care of. You don’t even have to tell me your name if you do not wish to. It is no business of mine, I am merely distressed that my likeness was used to harm a friend, and that my good reputation has now been called into question because of it. As a show of good faith, please allow me to use my position as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot to push those forms through any red tape they may encounter and have them expedited by the Office of Births Deaths and Marriages in the Department of Registry and Archives,” he implored the man, whose eyebrows had risen higher and higher as he had addressed him. 

He perhaps ought to have been disappointed by the disbelieving scoff he heard from Remus, but he supposed his imposter had quite earned the man’s scorn. However Albus was a bit taken aback when a rather wolfish grin came over the man’s face.

Hours later that evening as Harry Potter Greyback was called up to the sorting hat, when he could hear a pin drop in the utter silence of the great hall, he realized that he really should have insisted on getting that gentleman’s name before leaving.

Chapter Text

As Thorfinn followed the little firstie onto the train, he wondered what sort of trouble she could possibly be in to have gotten his father’s entire legal team working all night trying to sort it. Tootsie had told him she was a real Lady of a noble house, but she looked like any other eleven year old boarding the express. Although… no, her eyes were a little too mischievous. He wasn’t terribly older than her, he was only starting third year himself, but he was sure she looked far too knowing to be just any other firstie. She was different somehow. He was going to find out. 

As he ducked past rowdy students heaving their trunks and animal cages up onto luggage racks, he nearly tripped over the obnoxious older Weasley that was standing in the middle of the walkway acting like a pompous little junior conductor. He rolled his eyes at the way the officious bloody ponce seemed to think he owned the damn train, whoever had decided to make him prefect this year was a grade-O industrial strength nutter. Looking around himself, he gave the prat a swift kick in the shin as he shoved past him. 

He caught sight of the girl and her brother up ahead, and was surprised to see them head into a compartment with Weasley’s younger siblings and the Malfoy brat. Quite the mixed company. He leaned against the opposite door and listened for a minute, even more surprised to hear snatches of hushed Danish from inside. His eyes widened at what he could make out of the girl and her brother’s conversation. 

Her voice reached his ears first “-og du vil aldrig tro, hvad Ófnir fortalte mig i går aftes, det var vanvittigt. Tilsyneladende er der profetier om os! Skæbne og bestemmelse, det er latterligt,” [-and you'll never believe what Ófnir told me last night, it was insane. Apparently there are prophecies about us! Fate and destiny, it's ridiculous].

“Du laver sjov - profetier om os? Men vi er bare børn!” [You’re joking - prophecies about us? But we’re just kids!]

“Ja! Jeg ved det, det er vanvittigt. Han sagde, at hans forfædre i det gamle Island bragte historier om dem herover, da de kom. Der kommer til at ske en eller anden form for katastrofe, vi er nødt til at forhindre den... Vent et øjeblik, jeg sagde for meget, nogen lytter...” [Yes! I know, it’s crazy. He said his ancestors in old Iceland brought stories of them over here when they came. There’s going to be some kind of disaster we have to prevent... Hang on, I said too much, someone is listening…]

He startled where he stood, straightening up and narrowing his eyes as the pocket door rattled open with a slam. He was certain he hadn’t made a sound, how in Salazar’s name had she known he was there? He tried to affect a casual air, but failed utterly as her gaze passed over him. 

She stood in the doorway to the compartment, tiny of body and huge of hair, and her eyes found his instantaneously. They held an intensity he hadn’t ever seen on another child before, and he felt a sudden jolt of fear zip up his spine. It was as if one of his parents had just leveled their sternest gaze his way - if he hadn’t already been flat against a wall he’d have reared back. He would have sworn for half a second he’d seen those grey eyes glow molten silver, but that had to have been a trick of the fall morning light. 

With a slight flare of her nostrils, the ferocious expression fell from her face and her mouth curled up into a sweet cherubic little smile. She beckoned him to come closer with a pointed tilt of her head, and as if in a trance he followed blindly and dumbly as she made her way back inside. She sat next to another dark haired child and the Malfoy brat, and on the bench across from them were altogether too many redheaded Weasleys. The previously loud and boisterous compartment was suddenly silent as the other children stared at him. 

He squeezed in next to her, and patted his robes down, pulling out the letter for her. He cleared his throat “Sorry for eavesdropping, I was looking for you. I’m Thorfinn, and this is from my father, Asmund Rowle. I’m to tell you that he’s been working on your request since the moment he received your owl last night,” he said as he handed it over to her. 

She grinned as she took it, and then to his utter shock she twisted her wrist and a razor sharp inch long claw popped out of the tip of her index finger. She pulled it along the seam of the envelope, casually and effortlessly cutting it open like he’d seen his father do a million times in his study with his own letter opener. Before he could even blink the claw had disappeared, and her little hand was back to normal. 

He nearly slid off the bench when his mind caught up and put it together. Hermione Greyback. Glowing eyes. Claws erupting from her hands like nothing doing. This little girl was a fucking werewolf. His simple animal instincts told him to press up against the wall of the compartment as far away as he could get from her, but his body froze instead. He stared at her and began to hyperventilate as she read the letter from his father as if nothing was the matter. 

The twins that were in his year glared at him rudely “She’s just a kid, mate. Don’t overthink it,” one scolded, and his doppelgänger nodded in agreement. He felt heat rise to his face. As much as he didn’t want to engage with the notoriously mischievous twins, his pride had been called into question “A kid who happens to be a werewolf?” He shot back petulantly, not missing the hurt looks that came over her and her brother’s faces that they quickly hid. 

He hesitated for a second, realizing he’d angered all the other children in the compartment. His curiosity got the better of him, and though he felt like he was digging his own grave he couldn’t help but ask “How did you even get invited to Hogwarts, I thought dark creatures weren’t allowed to attend. Is that what my dad’s helping you with? Did you have to appeal the board of governor’s to get a place at the school?”

Whatever hurt or anger she was feeling, the girl’s face gained a thoughtful expression “You can do that? I guess it’ll be our next move then to try and get the others here,” she said, addressing her brother rather than him, even though it had been his question. He felt a pang of annoyance at being ignored “What others, do you mean to say there are more of you filthy half-breeds trying to get into our school?” He asked thoughtlessly, only realizing how very undiplomatic his question was after it had already left his mouth. 

This time she fully scowled at him, lips curled back and brow furrowed in disgust “How dare you, get out! I don’t owe you answers about our home life just because your father is in my employment,” she hissed at him, rising from her seat and cornering him against the door of the compartment. He noticed with a spiraling panic that the teeth in her mouth looked sharper than they had a moment ago and he scrambled desperately for the handle of the door behind him, pulling it open as soon as his fingers got a grip on it and sprinting out and away without a second thought. 

He didn’t give two bronze knuts if she was an important client or not, his dad could get stuffed. He’d just come face to face with a bloody werewolf. He was lucky to be alive!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ron sat a bit dumbfoundedly between his older brothers, unsure of what to say to comfort his cousins. It was immediately apparent to him that neither of them had the slightest idea of just how frightening most of the other students would likely find them. He had spent the last eight months getting to know the sweet and funny children he now considered his best friends and they still absolutely terrified him out of his mind sometimes without even meaning to. 

He made eye contact with Draco, who he knew had a harder time than him or any of his siblings getting used to the idea of being friends with a pair of werewolves. Even that spoiled snot-nosed prat had never called them dark creatures or half-breeds, and it occurred to him that they should have perhaps made more concerted of an effort to warn them of just how extreme the general reaction to their wolfishness might be. The blonde’s eyes were wide and a bit guilty, and he knew the prat was thinking the same thing. 

His brothers beat him to the action before he could even open his mouth “We’ll find a way to fill his bed with frogspawn,” one said confidently “Yeah, Malfoy junior over there can help us sneak into the Slytherin dorms to do it,” the other intoned cheerfully. Hermione smiled but her eyes were tight and her lips stayed covering her teeth in a way that told him they hadn’t shrunk back down yet. She leaned her head against Harry’s shoulder, who rubbed his hand over her opposite arm “Who even was that tosser?” He asked mildly.

She sniffed and wiped at the corners of her eyes with her sleeve “That’s one of the things I was going to tell you a bit more privately but… after how upset dad was last night I sent a letter to the black family solicitor and asked him to help dad make sure his custody of you is all legal. I wanted to give him some peace of mind and help him feel better about us being gone. This is a letter back from him, apparently that was his son he had deliver it for him,” she picked it up off the floor where it had gotten stepped on, and after her brother had given it a look they passed it around for the rest of them to take turns reading. 

Dated the 31st of August, 1991
From the Desk of Asmund Rowle Esq.
Law Offices of Rowle & Associates
Diagon Alley, London

Lady Black,

Where to begin? Thank you for reaching out to me, I am more than happy to help you take care of this matter. Custody law is one of my specialties, and I am well versed in what we will need going forward to resolve it to your family’s satisfaction. You are correct that I am the official solicitor for the House of Black, but unfortunately I haven’t worked in that capacity for a while. Your family vaults have already paid the annual fee for my retainer, and I have arranged a daily rate with your accounts manager Gornuk. 

My entire legal team is working overnight to set up a second office in Hogsmeade. My immediate first step once that is complete will be making sure the correct parchments were filed for your brother’s adoption, and correcting that if they were not. This will be our biggest stumbling block going forward if it isn’t done or was done incorrectly, and seeing to it will give your father ironclad protection in the eyes of the law. 

I will investigate, and interview both your father and Mr Lupin as you suggested. Thank you for that lead by the way, I anticipate getting nearly everything I need from the two of them. I will contact you again as soon as I have more information to share. Please be reassured that I am working on this and you and your family are not on your own. I am in your corner. 

Have a wonderful first day of school, and do enjoy the train ride. I will approach your father gently, have no fear of that. 

Asmund Rowle Esquire
In the service of the House of Black

Ron felt a brief spike of jealousy that she was able to so easily have adults beg and scrape for her favor, but it faded quickly as he reminded himself that she wasn’t just a normal kid like them. It was really only fair that adults treated her like one of them when she had adult responsibilities she had to take care of. She was good at them too, if this morning’s little kerfuffle wasn’t counted. If he had gotten a fortune and a noble title dropped into his lap like she had, the first thing he’d done certainly wouldn’t have been to think of family members he’d never even met before. 

Across from them, he heard Draco inhale sharply as he read it “This is really good, Hermione. Rowle’s one of the absolute best in the business, I’ve heard father call him a shark and that’s saying something! Oh and supposedly he’s never lost a single case. He actually successfully countersued his own clients for ignoring a legal will when grandmother Druella tried to bring charges against Aunt Andromeda over the inheritance she received from your grandfather Alphard, it was totally unheard of at the time!” He said, making his eyes extra wide. 

The girl giggled, and it was a relief to everyone in the compartment “Listen to you tell us as if we weren’t all there when she shared that story over Easter,” she snarked back at him, and he sniffed imperiously and turned to his eagle owl’s cage to give the mean thing a treat “The thanks I get for trying to cheer a friend up!” he muttered under his breath, to all of their laughter. Rolling her eyes, she leaned back and smiled, and this time it was genuine and her teeth were back to normal “Thank you Draco, that does help,” she said softly. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A bit later there was a knock at the door of their compartment so quiet the humans didn’t hear it at all. Her and Harry did a quick rock paper scissors to see who would answer it, and she lost and swore mildly. She stood and was about to open it, but caught a whiff of nearly unadulterated humiliation unlike anything she had ever smelled before. She turned baffled back to her brother with a searching look on her face and he sniffed in deeply, making the others go quiet. He gagged, clearly smelling what she did, but had no helpful knowledge she didn’t already possess, and shrugged with a grimace. 

She opened the door as gently as possible, putting on as welcoming a smile as she could “Yes, hello?” She asked the boy standing in the hall outside of their compartment. He was a little chubby, but clean and well dressed with soft brown hair and eyes. He was trembling like a little leaf, and was drenched in the thick and unpleasantly sour scent of anxiety. She’d have only guessed that he was a bit nervous if she hadn’t had her ears and nose to rely on. Thankfully her exceptional hearing told her that his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest so hard she almost wanted to call the conductor to summon a healer for him. She wished she had a calming drought she could give him. 

The boy stood staring at her having something akin to a prey response, and she wanted more than anything to comfort him and take some of his fear away. She clasped her hands in front of her so he could see they were unoccupied “Can I help you with something?” She asked as gently and warmly as possible. He relaxed just the slightest bit and she saw his shoulders physically lower a fraction of an inch, she considered it a win even though he was still tense. Timidly, he met her gaze and cleared his throat “H-hello… I-I’m Neville Longbottom, and I w-w-was wondering if- erm if y-you’ve per- perhaps s-s-seen my toad?” He fought to get out, and as sad as she was for how scared he was, she was proud of him. 

“Did he get out of his cage while you were loading your things into the overhead compartment?” She asked conversationally, only trying to get him to open up a bit more, but to her dismay his face crumpled “I kn-kn- erm, well I know he should’ve been in his tank… B-but it’s put away in my trunk and I d-d… I didn’t want him to… to get scared in the dark” he finished a bit pathetically, volume at nearly a whisper and sounding absolutely miserable. Her heart ached for this boy, and unthinkingly she reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder as lightly as she could, giving him what she hoped was a comforting little squeeze. He jolted like he’d been struck by lightning, and his eyes flung open wide, but he made no move to get away. 

“That was really very thoughtful of you, honestly! I don’t think toads get scared of the dark so he probably would have been fine in your trunk, but I get the impression that most people don’t care much about their pets feelings like that and it shows a lot of compassion that you did. Have you seen all the poor owls in their tiny little cages? I know I’d much rather spread my wings and fly ahead to the school than ride on a train if I were a bird! Oh - but your toad, right. So if you don’t mind me asking, where was he if he wasn’t in his tank?” She asked, keeping her voice light and her tone easy breezy. Support and comfort, nothing to fear here. 

The boy was staring at her completely slack jawed, and she was starting to wonder if she had said the wrong thing when he blurted out “It’s all my fault, I had him in my pocket like a silly twit and he’s probably fallen out somewhere and gotten stepped on,” he moaned, covering his face with his hands. She realized then that he might not have been exactly as fearful as she had initially thought, some of the sour smell on him could possibly be explained away if he had really been holding a toad in his hands. She relaxed fractionally, the smell and his elevated heart rate combined had painted a rather grim picture. He must just be a very nervous person. 

She thought about his predicament for a good moment, not wanting to upset him more than he already was, but deciding there was something terribly sweet about him that she felt inexplicably drawn to “I can help you find your toad, but it might be a little strange and I don’t want to scare you,” she said only just loud enough for him to hear. He looked up at her with hope shining in his eyes “You couldn’t possibly scare me,” he rushed out, and then the tips of his ears blushed beet red and his eyes shut briefly in mortification. “I just mean… You seem very kind,” he said, and she bit her lip to avoid giggling. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him. 

She looked both ways down the hall to make sure no one else was around to see, and grabbed his hand and pulled it to her nose. She closed her eyes in concentration and sniffed in deeply, getting every scent she could off of him. There was surprisingly little of the grubby unwashed smell she’d come to associate with boys in general, and an overwhelming smell of dirt and earth and green things. She let out a bright laugh that echoed down the hallway - he was a gardener! Of course he had a toad, everything she’d read suggested that they were excellent assistants for growing magical plants. As soon as she realized that it was very easy to locate the distinct smell of his toad, and she knew she’d be able to run it to ground as long as it was still on the train with them. 

She knew when her eyes opened again they must have shifted to silver because he gasped and his heart rate increased again wildly. But interestingly enough he didn’t pull his hand away. She felt a bit self-conscious, and shuffled her feet a bit “You’re going to learn some things about me when I tell you my name,” she said “So maybe I won’t yet. But I’m good, I promise. I can prove it,” she said, tugging his hand and pulling him along after her as she followed the trail of the toad’s distinct scent down the train. 

It had hopped, lazily lingering in some places and frantically evading people’s footfalls in others, down the hall and into the boy’s toilet at the very end of the train car they were in. She reached back behind the sink and pulled its soft lumpy body out of a small puddle of standing water that had gathered there from a leak somewhere in the plumbing. Crouched on the floor of the loo and holding his toad in both hands, she looked up to see him standing over her, his entire face beet red and his eyes as wide as dinner plates. She rushed to her feet just as he bent down to gallantly help her up, and her forehead smacked painfully against his chin. 

“Ow! Bloody buggering hell,” she ground out, and he wheezed an incredulous laugh “Merlin’s pants, my gran would skin me alive if I she ever heard me swear like that,” he said, sounding more comfortable and relaxed than he had in the entire time they’d been acquainted. She grinned “That was nothing. You should hear my dad swear, he makes it an art form,” she crowed proudly. 

Rubbing her forehead with one hand, she hefted the toad up with her other and thrust it towards him “Well I’m sorry about that, let’s just say it was both our faults. Anyways, here he is. I think he must have just been thirsty - they like to be wet right? Because they drink through their skin? Something like that. I think in the future if you keep him with you outside of his tank he can probably be convinced to stay put if you just make sure to wrap him in a damp flannel,” she reasoned. He looked at her like he had something to say but seemed speechless, his mouth opening and closing silently. 

“G-gosh,” he finally worked out “you’re just as clever as you are-“ and he blushed again “A-a-as you are… kind. You’re very kind. Thank you, please tell me your name, I promise I won’t be scared,” he begged. But she only shook her head and smiled “I want to be friends for the rest of the train ride at least,” she said, pulling back her hand that still held his toad and bringing it to clutch against her body like an ugly squishy little baby. With her other hand she dug her hanky out of her pocket and wet it thoroughly in the sink, then wrapped the little creature in it gently. It looked like it had little white robes on, like a tiny toad Gandalf. 

She barked out a laugh at the thought, and when he looked at her curiously she told him what she’d just imagined. To her dismay he’d never read the Lord of The Rings, so of course she had to fill him in on what he was missing. He was spellbound as she recounted one of her favorite stories in as much detail as possible, and before long he had slowly started to come out of his shell. Hours later as the train came to a stop, she and Neville were still sat right there on the floor outside the loo laughing and talking up a storm when her brother approached them.

“Goddesses be good Nene, but I thought you’d fallen off the bloody train! I’ve been imagining dad and Óffy taking turns beating me half to death the whole ride since you disappeared,” he exclaimed, voice thick with exasperation “Introduce me to your new friend at least” he demanded petulantly. Next to her she heard Neville whisper “Nene? She doesn’t seem like a Nene” under his breath. She bit her lip to keep from laughing at him and stood, brushing her pants and jumper off. She reached down to help him up, and he seemed shocked by how much of his weight she was able to take. 

Her face fell a bit, realizing this would be the moment she’d lose her new friend. It had been nice for a while. She sighed sadly, and tried to hide her disappointment as best as she could “Harry, this is Neville. I helped him find his toad Trevor. Neville, this is my brother Harry. He’s in the same year as us. He’s adopted but we’re technically twins, it’s kind of a long story,” she said shrugging and hoping to swiftly move past it. 

Both boys eyebrows shot up, one set in disbelief and one set in indignation. Her brother scoffed “That’s how you introduce me to people? Rude! So rude. I’m going to start telling people you’re the one who’s adopted,” he muttered, and hip checked her. He turned to Neville “Please excuse my sister, I’m Harry Potter Greyback,” he said matter of factly, and then froze when she snarled at him with real anger. She had to control herself to keep from swiping a paw at him. 

There were tears in her eyes as she turned to her new friend, the timing was terrible - other children were starting to stream out of compartments all up and down the train. She panicked, and dragged the two of them into the loo with her, shutting the door and accidentally slamming it and pulling one of the sets of hinges out of the wall. She swore, pressing the butts of her palms into her eyes. 

“I’m so sorry Neville, I was hoping to avoid this for as long as possible. I really wanted us to be able to be friends, but it was going to come out eventually… Harry and I are Fenrir Greyback’s children, and we might be werewolves like him but all the rumors about him are false. I told you I’m good, please believe me,” she pleaded, feeling foolish and out of her depth and hoping he wouldn’t react like Asmund’s son had earlier.

She felt her brother’s hand on her back “I’m sorry Hermione, I didn’t mean to… I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

She sniffed, wiping at her eyes “No, I’m sorry I worried you. I should have come back to the compartment but I was having such a good time. I- I made a friend all on my own,” she said quietly. He chuckled at her, and she heard Neville make an indignant sound in the back of his throat in her defense. She couldn’t help but smile, he’d come so far from being so frightened just a few hours ago “It’s alright mate, good things happen when she makes friends. I’m proof positive of that,” Harry said with a cheeky wink “She met me and made friends with me and brought me home and that was that. Only a light bit of kidnapping, but a happy story all ‘round.” 

She banged her fists on her brother’s chest and he turned away squealing with laughter “Stop telling people I kidnapped you!” She cried, and was startled when Neville laughed loudly. He raised a single eyebrow, which impressed her tremendously as only the coolest adults were able to do it “You do seem to have a bit of a bad habit of dragging people away from where they’re supposed to be, don’t you,” he said warmly, gesturing around them at the boy’s loo they were standing in and smiling hugely. 

She gasped “Neville Longbottom, don’t you start too!” She said with a happy grin “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, we met someone earlier today that… wasn’t very happy when he found out who and what we are. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make any friends at all here once everybody finds out, and you were so sweet that I couldn’t bring myself to scare you,” she said in a rush, crossing her arms and looking down at her shoes. She was shocked a moment later to feel his hand on hers, grasping it tightly “I thought I told you, I couldn’t possibly be scared of you. No matter what,” he said sweetly, and she smiled and threw her arms around him in a hug.

“Plus I had a bit of a feeling you were special. You tracked my toad down by scent on a crowded train. Hermione’s a great name by the way - and I’m pretty sure there’s a dahlia varietal called that too. Is yours like from Shakespeare or from Greek mythology?” He asked genially, and he laughed again when she just hugged him all the more tightly.

Neville Longbottom was fairly certain he was in love, but at the very least he was positive he was having the best day of his life so far.

It hadn’t started nearly as well, his gran had rushed him through breakfast and double checking that he’d packed all his things. He knew he had probably forgotten a few here and there, but the stack she’d come up with of items he’d neglected that were apparently essential was taller than their elf Thistle. He’d barely been able to cram all of it into his trunk. He was certain he didn’t actually need at least half of what she’d insisted on adding. 

To make matters worse, her parting gift at the station had been just about as useless and humiliating as possible. With his shiny new rememberall he would be able to perform the spectacular task of knowing the exact moment when he’d forgotten something important. Critically though, she had stressed that it wouldn’t give him a single hint about what he might have forgotten, instead encouraging him to remember for himself. What a bloody joke, it was like she wanted him to be made fun of as much as possible. 

The tight smile he gave her was probably closer to a grimace, and as per usual neither of them tried to hide their overall disappointment. She gave him an awkward kiss goodbye on the forehead, and both of them seemed to have disliked it. 

Trunk and toad in hand, he boarded the train with scarcely a look or a word backwards, and quickly found a compartment where he could sit quietly by himself for a little while before having to try and be social. He was glad he at least had Trevor with him, he didn’t think he’d be able to do this by himself without any friends or even a wand that had actually chosen him. He felt ridiculously unprepared for the beginning of his school career, and was almost certain he’d be turned away at the doors. His anxiety rising as the train began to pull away from the station, he stuffed his hand into his pocket to pet Trevor’s wet skin and realized it was empty. 

His heart fell down deep into his stomach, and he frantically checked all his other pockets and then dropped to his knees to check under the seat and on the floor around him. It hadn’t even been an hour, how could he have lost his toad already? He hadn’t even gotten to the school yet and he’d already lost his damn toad! This had to be a record, he thought on the verge of hysterical laughter. Glancing around the compartment and coming to the realization that Trevor was nowhere in sight, he opened the door and looked out in both directions down the hall. 

Neville didn’t know what he had been expecting, but his toad wasn’t immediately visible, and he had the heart-stopping realization that he would have to actually interact with other children if he was going to check the nearby compartments. He’d almost rather jump off the train, and it was really starting to build up some speed. He had to go admit his biggest insecurity to classmates he hadn’t even gotten a chance to introduce himself to yet. 

“Hi I’m an idiot who can’t be bothered to keep track of his things, and I’m too stupid to find my own pet that’s escaped because it probably hates me. Can you please help?” he imagined himself going up and down the train asking people. That would surely go over just phenomenally. He couldn’t bring himself to actually admit to another human being what a bumbling fool he was, and for a while he just searched up and down the train hoping he’d come across his wayward toad by accident. 

Eventually he had to acknowledge that Trevor wasn’t anywhere in the halls, he knew because he’d thoroughly checked all of them. In every car. He had to start actually going into compartments and looking, or asking people to help him look. This was so bloody humiliating, he wished he could just wither on the spot and turn into dust. He decided that he might as well get it over with, and that he’d knock on the door of the next compartment he passed. He did so as timidly and quietly as possible. 

Excited that maybe they hadn’t heard him and he could move on to the next compartment, he despondently realized that after a moment the door was in fact sliding open. Bugger. He rubbed his sweaty palms down the front of his robes and tried unsuccessfully to calm himself. What was his heart doing? He’d been anxious plenty of times before but at the moment it felt like a hummingbird inside his chest, beating so impossibly fast it was almost vibrating. 

He briefly considered calling off the hunt for his toad and simply laying down to succumb to whatever death spiral was clearly overtaking him. He was just about to actually sit down and try and prevent his oncoming heart attack when he caught sight of a fey little face in the doorway, surrounded by the biggest mass of bushy brown curls he’d ever seen. He couldn’t bring himself to say a word as she fully exited her compartment and asked if he needed something. 

Internally he was crowing YES, FRIENDLY, WILLING TO HELP, GOOD. Externally he was clearly making her believe he was incapable of speech because she sweetly pressed again, asking if there was anything at all she could do to help him. He barely heard the words spilling out of his mouth as he fumbled through introducing himself and begging for her help looking for his toad, he stuttered and nearly choked on his own tongue. 

Just as his mood started to rise it fell again as she asked him how his toad had gotten away in the first place. He was forced to admit to this kind lovely soul that Trevor hadn’t been in his tank at all, that he’d gotten away because he’d had him in his pocket like a dimwitted buffoon. Then as if someone had dosed him with a truth compelling potion, he had actually said out loud with his human mouth that he’d been worried his toad might be scared of the dark in his trunk… Gods this nice girl was going to think he was such a bloody fool. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when, to his absolute shock, she put a soft warm little hand on his shoulder and told him that she thought it was very compassionate of him to have taken his pet’s feelings into consideration. She said that if she were an owl she’d rather fly to school than ride in a cage on the train, and his brain nearly shorted out at that because he’d had the exact same thought seeing all the poor birds squawking and hooting as they’d been loaded in with the luggage! 

He couldn’t bring himself to say it though, he didn’t want her to think he was just trying to suck up to her or something. He’d never tried to be friends with a girl before, but he imagined they got tired of people agreeing with them all the time. What was he thinking, he had to say something! He mindlessly blurted the first thing that he could think of, a further self-recrimination for how foolish he’d been to have his toad in his pocket in the first place. Great, he’d be lucky if she didn’t go back in and shut the door in his face. 

Hesitantly, she offered that she had a way to find his toad, and he immediately gratefully took her up on it. She must have been older than she looked, maybe she already knew the summoning spell! That would certainly make things easier. Thank the gods he’d found someone competent to help him. His faith in her faltered for a brief second when she said she didn’t want to frighten him, but he quickly assured her that she couldn’t possibly, and was gobsmacked to see a faint rosy flush rise to the apples of her cheeks. 

He may have spoken too soon though, as a moment later she had his wrist in her grasp and was… sniffing his hand like a bloodhound. What in Helga’s green garden was she doing? Her eyes fluttered closed and he would have swore he could see them move back and forth behind their lids as if she were reading a book. She laughed and he was almost offended for a moment but it was such a bright happy noise that he was instead further entranced. 

When she opened her eyes again they had changed from a stormy grey to glowing molten silver, and the sight of it took the very breath from his lungs. She smiled though, and somehow he wasn’t afraid. She said something about not telling him her name, and that she could prove she was good. It didn’t make much sense, but in his defense he was also barely listening. He was so hypnotized by those silver eyes he thought he might just miss it altogether if the train crashed right then and there. 

Pulling him along by the hand, she led him down the hall of the train to the boy’s loo in the very last car. He blushed furiously as she dragged him into the toilet with her, and ducked down low to root around under the sink. To his complete astonishment, when she pulled her hand back out, she had grasped in it none other than his wayward toad. Realizing she had actually found his pet, he reached down to try and help her up just as she was launching herself back to her feet, and they crashed into each other spectacularly. He was no stranger to bangs and bruises, and had long since learned to take it on the chin without complaint when he earned his lumps for being a clumsy oaf.

She startled a laugh out of him when she swore like a particularly salty sailor. She said something about her dad being even better at swearing, which he thought was simply a ridiculous thing to boast about, but she had smiled proudly as she said it so it couldn’t be that silly. Then she got her own hanky wet and wrapped Trevor in it, and told him that he’d probably run away because he’d gotten dry. He could have clubbed himself over the head, he knew his toad preferred to be damp, the poor thing had probably been absolutely miserable in his pocket. He was lucky Trevor hadn’t just dried out completely into a sad little husk. 

He was about two seconds from proposing to the girl on the spot when she barked out a graceless but incredibly joyful laugh, and told him his toad in the cloth reminded her of someone called Gandalf. He wasn’t familiar and told her so, and she had proceeded to sit him down on the floor outside of the loo and spend the next few hours telling him the most incredible story he’d ever heard. 

The friendly little creatures she described called hobbits reminded him of house elves, and the stout warlike dwarves sounded more like goblins, but he listened all the same, totally enraptured. The men and elves and dwarves and hobbits and the powerful old wizard (who sounded a great deal like Dumbledore) and giant walking trees (Incredible! That had been his favorite part) all fought against an evil leader who controlled others with rings and commanded armies of monsters. He sounded a great deal like you-know-who to him, but she insisted her story had been written decades before they were even born and by a muggle of all people!

It was an incredible tale of action and adventure, and he so enjoyed hearing her tell it. He realized quite suddenly that he could probably listen to her read a floo directory and get a similar amount of entertainment from it. She was just such a presence, such a big personality. Kind and funny and bossy and helpful. He couldn’t believe that they’d spent hours laughing and talking and getting to know one another and he still didn’t know her name. 

As the train pulled to a stop a boy came up to them who had apparently been looking for her, and she introduced him as her adopted twin brother Harry. He had called her Nene, which didn’t sound right. She didn’t seem like a Nene to him at all. She helped him to his feet, pulling him up with a great deal more strength than he expected from her tiny frame. Her brother seemed like a bit of a drama queen, and wasn’t happy about the way she’d introduced him. He re-introduced himself as Harry Potter Greyback, and she panicked at that and dragged them both back into the boy’s loo. He knew he wasn’t the sharpest spade in the greenhouse, but he was starting to put some of the pieces together. She had seemed properly convinced he would be scared of her if he knew who she was, and he wasn’t exactly surprised now that he was giving it some real thought. 

He’d seen her eyes glow, she’d tracked his toad down by smell, and she’d practically lifted his whole weight off the ground without any real effort. Also he was pretty sure she’d just broken some component of the door frame. Her last name was Greyback. It was pretty obvious she was a werewolf - not exactly a hard puzzle to deduce. He should be scared, terrified even. He should probably run screaming, but he realized he was already at least a little bit in love, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her side now for all the toads or new wands in the world. She was stuck with him. Hopefully for forever. 

He finally learned her name and it was the most musical lovely collection of sounds he’d ever heard strung together. Hermione he thought blissfully. Hermione Longbottom someday maybe, he thought dreamily. Somehow he managed to rid his head of that insane thought and say something a little bit smooth and clever, and it seemed to actually work to make her feel better. That was a massive win in his book, and her bright smile and tight hug were well worth all the many times he’d embarrassed himself earlier throughout the day. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Getting off the train with her and her brother, he still felt like a million galleons. He almost couldn’t believe he’d so successfully made a friend, and he had an in with another person who he might be able to become friendly with as well if he kept this up. It was miraculous. They drew him over to a crowd of chattering redheads and a smirking blonde who he recognized as the awful Malfoy boy he’d met at a few dinners and functions. His heart sank, but he tried not to let it show on his face. 

She made her way right into the center of their group, pulling him along with her “Hey guys, sorry for disappearing like that. This is my new friend Neville. Nev, these are all of our cousins I was telling you about! The redheads are all Weasleys; this is Ron he’s in our year, and the twins are his older brothers Fred and George, and the oldest is Percy who’s a prefect this year. And this is our other cousin Draco, he’s also in our year,” she said happily, and they all waved and smiled at him, even the Malfoy boy who had been so rude to him in the past. 

What upside down world was this where he was suddenly making friends and being smiled at by poncy pureblood scions? Better to not question it.

They said goodbye to her older cousins as an absolutely enormous man called them over to the shore of the lake. They were going to take little boats across, and his heart sank yet again as he realized it was only four to a boat. She had a brother and two cousins, he would have to ride alone or with strangers. He nearly kicked himself for getting so attached so quickly, he already felt as if his heart wouldn’t be able to take it if they were separated so soon. 

To his surprise and her family’s visible and vocal disappointment, she swapped places with a mousy looking boy and hopped into the next boat with him behind two twin Indian girls with inky black eyes and long dark hair. He nearly fell out when he saw something moving in the water next to them, but she gripped his arm tight and told him she wouldn’t let him drown under any circumstances. From anyone else it would have seemed like a useless platitude, but having felt her strength already once when she lifted him up from the floor of the train he was significantly more confident on her ability to make good on such a promise. 

The view of the castle up on the cliff side as they crossed the lake was spectacular, and he knew the image would stay with him the rest of his life, no matter how much more forgetful he may become. He was glad they got to see it together, and he tentatively pulled his arm out of her steely grip to hold her hand instead. She squeezed his hand back tightly, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her smile outshine the billions of stars twinkling up above in the sky. 

As they got out at the boat house and made their way up the steep steps carved into the cliff side, he began to worry a bit that he was perhaps even more out of shape than he realized. He was huffing and puffing while she was cool as a cucumber next to him, and he started to feel a bit self conscious. She leaned over and whispered softly in his ear “Werewolf, remember? I could do full speed sprint runs up and down these steps twenty times before starting to get winded,” she told him, which made him feel a great deal less pathetic. Additionally she pointed with raised eyebrows and a smirk at her cousins Ron and Draco, who were also looking a bit peaky and out of breath. 

The blonde boy saw her pointing and gave her a two finger salute, which she cheerfully returned. As they passed he whispered a bit nastily for her to go chase her tail, but she only laughed and pretended to chomp the air after him. The boy yelped and darted away, and she laughed harder “He’s so easy,” she muttered fondly, shaking her head. 

They waited outside the main doors for a bit until a stern woman he vaguely recognized as one of his gran’s friends came out and told them they’d all be sorted shortly. Hermione lit up next to him “That’s professor McGonagall! She came all the way to the compound just to see us,” she said with a huge smile on her face, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. 

A snooty looking boy with dark hair and olive skin turned around and towered over her where he stood on the step above them, sneering down at her “Doesn’t someone only go to your house if you’re a mud- ahem! That is to say, if you’re a muggleborn?” He asked viciously, his lip curled up and his nose scrunched. Neville saw red at what the other boy had nearly just called his friend, but she put her soft little hand on his shoulder and winked at him playfully.

Taken a bit aback but knowing she could more than likely take care of herself if that’s what she wanted, he happily resolved to follow her lead. She gracefully sidestepped the boy, shooting up two steps so they were eye to eye, and leaned her elbow heavily on his shoulder “They also come to your house to make special arrangements for you if you’re a member of the British wizarding peerage,” she said, which caught the attention of everyone within a fifteen foot radius. 

She nodded at her brother, who grinned and mimed blowing a medieval horn “You, sir, are lucky enough to be in the presence of her honorable Ladyship Hermione Elena, the head of the House of Black,” he announced with a flourish of his robe, and a low and flamboyant courtly bow “My lady graces us with her general air of aboveness” he said in a rather groveling manner to which she laughed and curtsied back. She waved her cupped hand in small circles like a princess. 

The boy looked like someone had just pissed in his pumpkin juice, and Neville felt like he was going to burst a blood vessel in one of his eyes from trying to hold in his laughter. Draco Malfoy sauntered over, and to the crowd’s abject shock he sneered at the boy who had been so rude “Really Zabini, if you have a problem with the head of my mother’s house then you also have a problem with me,” he said warningly, and that caught even more people’s attention. “So do we have a problem?” Malfoy asked Zabini quite cuttingly, to which the other boy lowered his eyes and shook his head, an angry blush rising to his cheeks. 

She nodded at him regally “Thank you cousin, but I’m sure Mr Zabini just didn’t realize to whom he was speaking,” she said incredibly graciously, with a raised eyebrow at the boy. Through gritted teeth the other boy choked out the most bare bones half-arsed non-apology Neville had ever heard in his life. His gran would have had his head spinning if he’d attempted something like that in her presence. 

Before they had a chance to escalate the situation further, the professor had called for order and began leading them all into the castle. They followed her through an impressive foyer and into a grand hall where hundreds of students were already seated at long tables displaying the colors of the four houses. At the front of the hall was a perpendicular table where staff members sat, and the headmaster was right in the front in a chair that resembled a golden throne. 

The woman, who it turned out was the deputy headmistress, began calling them up one after another to try on a dusty old hat that they took turns putting on their heads and that then screamed out what house they were to go to. Of all the ways to possibly sort them, this hadn’t at all been what he was expecting. As he stood in line and waited his turn, he realized Hermione and her brother would both be going before him. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to follow her to whatever house she’d be put in. 

He had long suspected that if he was allowed in at all, that he’d surely be a puff if anything. He wasn’t smart or brave or ambitious enough to go anywhere else. He was briefly reminded that all his fears of being turned away were about to culminate. What if the hat simply said nothing when he put it on his head? Would he have to go back to the Hogsmeade train station and ride home again? Could he survive the humiliation? Could he survive being parted from his new friend? 

As Goldstein was sorted Ravenclaw and Goyle and Greengrass were sorted Slytherin, she reached out and grabbed his hand. She looked over at him a bit nervously and whispered “Friends no matter what house, right Nev?” And he nodded emphatically “Of course!” He whispered back much more confidently than he actually felt. As long as he was still at Hogwarts, they’d definitely still be friends. 

“Greyback, Harry Potter,” called the deputy headmistress, causing the entire hall to fall into a hushed silence that had a heavy weight to it. Oblivious, Hermione gave her brother a friendly punch to the shoulder as he passed them and headed up to the hat, and cheered and wolf whistled sportingly as he put it on his head. Some of the other girls around them were looking at her like she was nutters. He wasn’t sure what the hat was doing on the other boy’s head for so long, but it must have been deliberating because he swore he could see Harry’s lips move as if he were talking to it. 

After several long minutes, it cried out “Gryffindor!” And quick as a flash he saw professor McGonagall grin excitedly before she settled her lips back into a pursed line. Behind them a quarter of the hall exploded into loud boisterous cheers, and as Harry made his way to the Gryffindor table he was greeted like a returning MVP. Neville halfway expected the students there to lift him up onto their shoulders, some of them were so worked up. 

Hermione was called up next, and though he was worried and anxious that they’d be separated at best and he’d be sent home at worst, he forced a smile and patted her shoulder as she passed him. As she approached the deputy headmistress, she whispered something to the woman, who rolled her eyes but nodded “Miss Greyback would like the student body to know that although Mr Greyback comes before her alphabetically, she is in fact the older twin by ten months,” she announced deadpan, to confused whispers from all around the hall. 

The hat hadn’t even properly settled on her head, it had only barely brushed the top of her bushy curls, when it shrieked “GRYFFINDOR!” Louder and more urgently than it had for anyone else yet, as if it wanted off of her head and as far away from her as possible. Her cousins and brother all cheered loudly, and the professor clapped politely, though for whatever reason not many other people did. There were a lot of scared silent looks exchanged. He couldn’t fathom it. 

She smiled and waved at him as she rushed to her table, and though he smiled and waved back there were tears welling up in his eyes. As excited as he wanted to be for her, he knew it was the end of the road for the two of them. He was the biggest coward he’d ever met, and there was just no way they’d be in the same house now.

There were a few more sortings, and then it was finally his turn. He felt like he was walking to his own execution. As the deputy headmistress put the hat on his head and the brim came down over his eyes, he saw a vivid image of himself earlier on the train. He looked pathetic, hyperventilating and on the verge of a panic attack just from having to knock on a door and ask for help. He didn’t want to see this, and as he was about to close his eyes a jolly little old voice from inside the hat told him “Keep watching, look at how well you did.”

How well he did? Not bloody likely. 

He saw himself have to muster up the courage just to knock on the door, and even then it took him an embarrassingly long time. It was painful to watch when Hermione came to the door and he had to see himself talk to her, gods above and below had he really stuttered so badly? He watched her eyes dilate and her head tilt, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. He watched her eyes shift silver all over again as she scented his wrist, the way she’d tracked down his pet, the way she had lifted him to his feet effortlessly.

Was it just letting him relive his best afternoon like when you give an old dog one last happy day? Was he about to get kicked out of the school? Would his very memory of it be obliviated from him if he had to live as a squib? How had he not considered that terrible possibility before now?

Suddenly the perspective shifted and they were back in her train compartment. “Don’t tell her I’ve shown you this, the poor thing would be dreadfully embarrassed to know you’d seen it,” the voice said. He realized he wasn’t there in the new image, and that this must be Hermione’s memory. She was talking to her brother in a language he didn’t understand, then she opened the door and told a huge older boy to stop spying and come in. He delivered her a letter, but as soon as she opened it he simply lost the plot. 

He called her a werewolf in such a nasty tone, and then a dark creature, and then a- he didn’t! How could anyone call her that? What an awful prat! The boy ran away with his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs, and the look on his face was one of absolute terror - what was wrong with him? No wonder poor Hermione had been so worried he’d be afraid of her if she’d had such a bad experience just earlier in the day. 

The images faded, and he was left mulling over what he’d just seen when the voice spoke to him again in that same friendly way it had before “Dear boy, do you understand why I showed you that? You’re not a coward, you made best friends with a bleeding werewolf on the train today. That nasty little prick couldn’t even handle being in the same compartment as her and he’s a third year! You’re one of the bravest children who’s put me on their head in years. You don’t have to be fearless to be brave, you just have to not let your fear stop you. You Neville Longbottom, have the heart of a true Gryffindor,” it said kindly, and he felt incredibly seen. 

It rang in his ears like a bell when he heard the hat loudly and triumphantly cry out “Gryffindor!” And he took it off to see the whole school staring at him as one. He looked up to professor McGonagall to see that she was smiling, but her brows were furrowed “That was quite the hat stall, Mr Longbottom,” she said “what was it deciding between if you don’t mind me prying?” She asked a bit hesitantly. He wasn’t sure if he should tell his new head of house this, but today had already been so weird “Erm, only one choice ma’am. It was just trying to convince me I actually belonged in Gryffindor,” he answered quietly, hoping no one would overhear him. 

Suddenly a sharp whistle rang out, and Hermione and her brother and their Weasley cousins at the Gryffindor table were all standing on their benches and cheering like mad, and eventually managed to encourage the whole rest of the house to join in as well. He smiled ecstatically, for all that he’d worried they were in the same house after all! After handing the hat back to the deputy headmistress he practically sprinted over and sat heavily in the space next to her that she’d cleared for him. They hugged tightly, and he felt like he’d just caught a train that he’d been running desperately to catch. He was on it safe and sound now, and there was no falling off or lagging behind.  

Another few people were sorted, and then his friend’s Malfoy cousin was called up. She and her brother cheered and whistled again, this time to venomous looks up and down the table. He suddenly worried that as brave as she was this might not have been the best place for her. The Hufflepuffs all looked so friendly. Maybe all three of them would have been better off over there…

Just like with her sorting, the hat had barely touched Malfoy’s blonde head before screaming that he was a Slytherin. When she and her brother cheered again this time, they got sworn at rather viciously by some of the older students. She deftly ignored them, but it made him worry all the same. Why were they all being so hostile towards a first year?

There were a ton more sortings after that of students they didn’t know or particularly care about, but that they clapped politely for all the same. Finally there were only two boys left, Ron and that Zabini boy. Her cousin was called up and Neville overheard one of the Weasley twins say something about a “Guaranteed Gryff if ever there was one,” as the hat was placed on his brilliantly red head. It took a bit longer than he had been expecting. He asked the twins how long it had taken them to be sorted, and they nervously responded at the same time “Half a second,” and “Two thirds of a second.”

He was about to ask how long he’d had the hat on, when it shouted out “SLYTHERIN!” to outraged cries all up and down the Gryffindor table. One older boy actually yelled at Harry and Hermione “A Weasley not in Gryffindor? You little monsters have bloody jinxed us!” He said cruelly, and a few others nodded in agreement with him. She just looked him dead in the eyes with a murderous glare and started clapping slowly for her cousin, woo-ing and whistling deadpan.  

“Clap for your brother,” she casually commanded the Weasley twins with a voice that gave no room for argument, and they startled out of whatever trance they’d been in and started cheering loudly. He wasn’t sure if it was genuine or an act, but they at least made every effort to let their little brother hear them from across the hall. Their eldest brother looked somewhat ill at ease, but also pathologically unable to be so discourteous as to not at least be seen clapping. He heard one of the twins mutter under their breath about not being responsible for the howler they were going to get the following morning, and flinched in an involuntary nerve response. 

He’d be keeping a close eye out for owls bearing red envelopes.

It had been a long day. They’d gotten called fun new slurs by their legal counsel’s half-wit son, he’d officially lost his sister for several nerve-wracking hours, and when he found her again she’d gone and made a brand new friend without him. He was a little put out to be honest, but he could tell she was feeling a bit sensitive about it and he didn’t want to be a complete prat on their very first day of school, so he let it go for now. 

Gryffindor tower was extremely warm and cozy, and he could see himself getting very comfortable on one of those couches by the fireplace in the near future. They were still being lectured by their fifth year prefect about what they could expect from their new life at Hogwarts as Gryffindor lions, and there was no end in sight to his rambling speech. Their cousin Percy was a pompous git who loved nothing more than the sound of his own voice, and had been bloviating non-stop since the moment they left the great hall. 

He was glad they hadn’t ever really had to spend too much time with him one-to-one, as the older boy was a major bummer to be around - just a general downer. He was a self-acclaimed expert on everything and anything under the sun, and though he informed them that they were free to come to him for guidance and wisdom and tips and tricks and whatever and whatnot, he could not have sounded less welcoming or encouraging if he tried. He clearly did not actually want to be in any way bothered or inconvenienced by lost and confused firsties. 

Needless to say, Harry had stopped listening a long time ago. He was currently daydreaming about that sofa by the fireplace, it felt like it was calling his name. Actually, he concentrated his hearing and realized that someone was literally calling his name. He startled alert, and glanced around himself surreptitiously. It wasn’t his sister, she was standing over next to Neville, still making sweet dopey cow eyes at him. And wasn’t that going to take some getting used to. 

He couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit put out that she had a new buddy and that Draco and Ron had both ended up in Slytherin. He had hoped that at least one of them would be in the same house as them, but he supposed it was probably for the best that none of them were alone anywhere. He tried to act tough and cool most of the time, but he knew he’d have been absolutely gutted if he and Hermione had been separated, it wouldn’t have been worth being with either of them or even both of them in a different house from her. 

He wasn’t really surprised that the two of them had ended up as lions. As much fun as he thought it probably could have been to be a pair of sneaky snakes, his sister was the bravest person he knew and he had been confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d end up where she did. It had only made sense to let the hat place him in Gryffindor to be with her when it told him he’d do fine in either house, since he knew she was bound for this one.

He shook his head to clear it from wandering thoughts and to focus - right, someone had called him. He glanced at the stairs that curved out of view around the outside of the tower, and saw a house elf sitting on the bottom step of the right hand side. He hissed out a sharp *psst* to draw Hermione’s attention, and gestured over with his chin to the elf. She made eye contact with him, then glanced over and stiffened when she saw it “That’s not Asmund’s elf, I don’t recognize it,” she whispered under her breath, eyes narrowed with suspicion. 

His sister glanced up at Percy, who was now discussing his own OWL courses and study schedule for the year, and rolled her eyes. She hesitated before tugging on Neville’s hand, and pressing on his opposite shoulder so he’d crouch down a bit and telling him to follow her. The two of them made their way over to him, and the three of them slowly made their way around the outside edges of the crowd in the common room until they were back up against the stairs. 

She flashed her eyes at him and he ducked his head in agreement. Even though the elf was there to talk to him he would always defer to her protective nature, and so he gladly allowed her to approach it first. She crouched a few feet away “Can you show us which one is the boys’ room so we can talk to you in private?” She asked it in a whisper, to which it nodded and lead them up the winding castle steps. The first year boy’s dorm was apparently at the very top of the tower, and though it wasn’t that difficult a climb from the common room he probably would be a lot less happy about it if he was starting from the ground floor or godesses forbid somewhere in the dungeons. 

They poked their heads into the room, and he knew it was the right one when he saw his trunk in the middle of the room with three others. He ushered them in after him, and they settled on the bed closest to the window. The elf kindly snapped her fingers and his heavy trunk zipped into place at the foot of the bed they were sitting on “Thank you, what’s your name?” He asked mildly, and was horrified when the little thing promptly burst into tears. 

“Young master isn’t remembering Kipper at all! She be knowing this is coming but it still hurts her to be hearing, oh it hurts her so!” She moaned into the hem of the little tea towel she was wearing as a toga. It was clean and had the Hogwarts crest on it, she had to work in the castle so he couldn’t for the life of him fathom why she would be calling him master. His sister looked disturbed by this as well, but neither of them had any real experience with house elves outside of being briefly served by Malfoy elves during meals. 

They both looked desperately at Neville, who sighed and looked like he sincerely regretted telling his sister about being raised by the Longbottom elves. He addressed her very gently and kindly but firmly “Kipper, that’s enough of that now, please. I’m sorry you’re upset, and I’m sure whatever has you so sad must be awful, but if you want us to help you with something you need to calm down and tell us what it is in a way that we can understand,” with clear directives in place to fall back on, the change that came over the creature was nothing short of miraculous. 

Sniffling and wiping the tears and snot and gunk away from her nose and eyes, she sat up straighter with clear and alert eyes “Kipper is being very grateful for young sir, she is just being so overwhelmed to see her young Master again,” she turned to look at Harry, and reverently held out her wrinkly little hand for him to take “Last time he be seeing Kipper, he is being her baby,” she said softly, and Neville gasped and his hand flew up to cover his mouth. 

The other boy looked at him with wet eyes “Harry… Kipper must have been your nanny elf. She would have helped your birth parents raise you from the time you were born. Is that right, Kipper? How on earth did you survive away from him so long, surely your bond must have broken?” He asked the creature, and as he did Harry had a troubling thought “Is it true, were you my nanny elf Kipper? Were you there the night my parents died?” He asked, and regretted it immediately.

She had started to smile and nod her head eagerly, her little ears waggling up and down adorably, but her face fell as soon as the last sentence had come out of his mouth. He wished he could cram it back in, could make it so that the little person in front of him hadn’t gone through whatever trauma she had in service of his family. Why couldn’t he ever think before speaking? Bugger!

Trembling where she sat on the foot of the bed, her little hand left his leg and she brought it up to cover her face again “Kipper is already tellings her story three times today. Mister Rowle’s naughty elf Tootsie be getting Kipper to give up her secrets to her, then again to Mister Rowle, then again for young Master’s wolfy father and Master Remus. Please young Master, Kipper is being so tired and so sad. So happy to see that her Baby Harry is being a big boy now, but so tired and so sad at how much of him growings up that she missed,” the elf said monotonously, utterly dejected and exhausted. It was the single most depressing thing he’d ever seen, and he had absolutely no clue how to respond. 

As the other boy swooped back in to save his bacon, he vowed right then and there to always have Neville’s back no matter what. Unless it was an argument with his sister. Anyways, the boy placed a hand on the little elf’s back comfortingly and worked his magic again “Now now, Kipper, it’s alright. You don’t have to talk about that again until you’re ready. Can you please just nod or shake your head for me yes or no while we ask you a few questions? You can speak or not speak, up to you.” 

Just like before, having a clear set of instructions seemed to be the key. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy when she raised her head and nodded, and Harry felt a stab of painful guilt that he’d been so thoughtless. He wracked his brain about what to ask her, but his sister of course was quicker on the draw “Kipper, do I understand correctly that you met with our father and Mr Rowle today?”

She nodded “Yes, young Mistress,” she said quietly, and her and Hermione’s brows both shot up. He already knew what the next question would be “Kipper… are you bound to me through my bond with Harry?” She asked with awe in her voice, and the elf thought on this for a moment and nodded slowly, wide-eyed. The two of them looked at Neville, who shrugged “I’m not an elf expert, I just was raised with a few of them!” He said a bit defensively. Harry couldn’t help but laugh at the picture the three of them made. 

“Kipper, are you also bound to our father the same way? By his bond with Harry?” His sister pushed and the elf nodded a bit more eagerly now, seeming to perk up as she realized she had a whole family to serve again “Yes, yes Kipper is! She is being bound to everyones in the entire wolfy family that was involveds in her baby Harry’s adoption ritual. Master Fenrir and young Mistress Hermione!” The elf said with tears in her eyes, and an absolutely enormous radiant smile on her face. It brought tears to his own eyes, and he had absolutely no shame about it because all four of them were now openly crying. 

It was a beautiful moment, and it was utterly wrecked by the door slamming open and two boys barging in mid-discussion about the primary differences between football and quidditch. Their loud sports philosophizing came to an abrupt halt as the darker skinned boy let out a little yelp “What on earth is that?” He said pointing at Kipper, while at the same time the other boy cried out “There’s a girl in our dorm!” In a strong Irish accent.

They looked at each other than back at the four of them on Harry’s bed “Why is there a house elf on the bed?” Said the Irish boy at the same time that the black boy said “Why is there a girl in our room?” And they laughed at each other and came and joined them over by the window. They introduced themselves cheerfully, and a moment later Harry answered their questions.

“This is my sister, and this is apparently the elf that raised me when I was a baby. We only just met again now. Oh, hey Kipper I meant to ask, how did you get here - do you work at Hogwarts?” She nodded and smiled “Kipper is being bound directly to the castle, and is serving its students and professors in the kitchens,” she said with pride. Dean smiled widely at her “So you helped make our dinner? It was incredible, thanks!” He said, and she bowed happily “Young sir is being very kind! Many elvesies be working together to be making the welcome feast. Kipper lives to serve,” she gushed, and turned back to Harry a bit shyly “young Master be calling on Kipper again soon, and she be telling him about Master James and Mistress Lilly?” she asked him as if they lived in a world where he might ever possibly turn her down. 

He practically shouted “Yes! Yes, of course,” he cried, pulling her into a fierce little hug. She wiggled happily in his arms, and they laughed and giggled together. “How long do you think you need to recover from today, Kip?” He asked softly “I feel so bad that you were forced to relive bad memories, I’m really sorry they all made you do that,” she sniffled again, burrowing into the crook of his neck. When she sighed a moment later she sounded utterly content “Kipper’s baby Harry is growing up to be such a nice boy. Kipper only be needing a day or two for resting, the castle’s magic is being very strong and tasty. All young Master or young Mistress needs to be doing is saying her name when they wants to be seeing her and Kipper be popping in to see them right away,” she replied, sounding almost on the verge of sleep. 

Next to him, Neville quietly said “I’d like to speak to a Hogwarts elf, please,” and another one appeared on the bed next to them, making Dean gasp and then laugh. It looked around and frowned “This is not being a naughty prank, is it? Young sirs is not supposed to be having girls and elves in their dorm with them!” It said more sternly than Harry had expected, but its little squeaky voice was so high and darling that it painted a very cute picture despite its irritation with them, and he struggled not to laugh and undermine its authority. 

Neville shook his head and held up his palms supplicatingly “No, not a prank I promise! We’ve all just had a big surprise and learned that Kipper here was Harry’s nanny when he was a baby. They’re quite happy to be reunited, but it’s been a difficult day for her, so if you could please help her back to wherever she bunks down for the night I’m sure we’d all appreciate it very much,” he said diplomatically, and the elf’s hard demeanor softened dramatically at hearing this. 

His eyes were wide and his little ears swayed back and forth as he shook his head slowly “Goodness gracious! So many sad elvesies be coming to the castle after losing their families, but Goosie is never seeing a reunion before! Kipper is being a very lucky elf, Goosie be helping her back down to the kitchens young sirs… and miss,” he said with a low bow and a mischievous little smile, before grabbing the other elf’s wrist and popping them both away. 

All five of them continued to sit in silence on Harry’s bed for a moment, until Seamus said loudly “So I think it goes without saying that we’ll be needing more of an explanation than that, Greybacks,” breaking the tension and making them all laugh. Hermione checked her little wristwatch and groaned “I should really be getting back down, I haven’t even laid eyes on my own dorm yet! Don’t tell them too many of our family secrets” She said with a grin, pressing a kiss to his cheek. She smiled and waved at Neville, and left in a flurry of goodbyes and ‘nice to meet you’s for the two other boys. 

Dean and Seamus made brief eye contact with each other, and when they looked back at him both of them seemed quite embarrassed “I guess it’s alright if she’s really your twin sister, but please just at least let us know in the future when she’s gonna come up to visit. We’ve got to change clothes in here - what if she came in while one of us was naked?!” Dean said, dark splotches of color rising to his cheeks. Harry couldn’t help but laugh “I don’t think you need to worry about that, we’ve got very good hearing. I always know when she’s coming, I wouldn’t let her barge in while any of us were in the buff.”

They boggled at that, their eyes wide “So it’s true then, eh?” Seamus asked him a little too excitedly “You really are werewolves? Just how good is your hearing? Will you know about it whenever we have a flirty wee wank?” The boy asked with a deviously lecherous grin. Harry chuckled awkwardly and scratched at the back of his neck to try and hide how uncomfortable that question made him “I’d definitely hear it, but fair warning I’d also smell it and I’d really rather not do either,” he said scrunching his nose up in disgust. 

They all howled and doubled over laughing, and it made him relax a bit. He caught Neville’s eyes, and the boy nodded and smiled earnestly. If his sister felt like she could trust this guy then he figured he could too “Hermione has a lot more control over her senses than I do, but basically we can sort of selectively focus and decide what range we want to use when we’re trying to hear or smell something. Cause if we had our full wolf senses active all the time we’d get totally overwhelmed by all the things happening around us. So erm, like if I think I hear or smell something faint or far away that might be interesting or important I can concentrate and try and pick up on it better. Like… hang on a second,” he said and closed his eyes and focused his hearing intently to the other side of the tower. He grinned, it was easily within range. 

He listened for a minute, and opened his eyes back up to see his dorm mates staring at him with baited breath “She just made it up to her room, it’s directly across from ours. The other first year girls are asking her where she’s been,” he said, tilting his head a bit and letting his eyes go out of focus. He suddenly growled “One of them is asking her if she’s got a boyfriend already - oi, that girl just called her a slag! What the hell?” He said furiously, flashing his eyes and popping out his claws. 

He made to get up but the other boys all put hands on him and pressed him back down onto the bed “You’ve got to let her fight her own battles or they’ll never respect her. When they’re in groups, girls develop a hierarchy and it can get vicious,” Dean said knowingly “Four little sisters, trust me,” he added, which gave him some serious credibility in the boys eyes. Harry wanted to go support his sister, but he saw the others both nodding in agreement with Dean. 

Frowning, he listened in again and this time he nodded in approval at what he heard “I guess you were right. She told the girls off for being rude, but she was nice about it and the one who called her that apologized,” he said proudly “It’s really easy for her to come on too strong, it’s the natural alpha in her. She was born to be the next leader of our pack. Before I was a wolf I didn’t understand and I thought she was just bossy, but she always steps up and leads when the situation calls for it. She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it most of the time.” 

Neville was listening raptly, clearly eager to learn more about his sister. It was sweet, he thought, that the two of them had clicked so instantly and were crushing on each other so obviously. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was allowed to say - he would normally consider it his duty to guard all her secrets, but he knew she liked the boy a great deal. Would it be a betrayal of her confidence to tell her crush all about her just because they were dorm mates? 

But then again half the reason they were here was to make friends, and weren’t you supposed to be honest with friends? It was a bit of a pickle. Ever the reliable beta, he decided to deflect a bit and wait until the morning when he could get a definitive response from her one way or the other.

Ron was pretty sure he was going to get genuinely disowned from the Weasley family for this, and would end up having to beg his cousins’ huge scary dad to take him in at the werewolf compound in the middle of the woods. He wasn’t supposed to know exactly where it was, but he’d visited a few times and they’d let slip enough context clues over the last year that he was fairly certain he could find it if he tried. He knew it was in Snowdonia anyways, and that was enough of a start. 

He was glad he was at least with Draco, but he was pretty bloody peeved that he was completely separated from literally the entire rest of his family. Harry and Hermione and their new little friend had all been sorted as lions, and he was pretty sure they’d also been the only three in the entire school who’d clapped when he had been sorted Slytherin. Down in the freezing dungeons with the evil bloody snakes that all hated the very sight of him, he was starting to seriously regret letting that moldy old hat have its way. Just about the only thing worse would have been if he’d been sorted as a puff, at least he’d been spared that indignity. 

Draco had been more than prepared for becoming a little princeling of high society, he’d practically been born and bred for it like a show pony. Ron on the other hand hadn’t even considered that he might be sorted anywhere other than with the rest of the masses in Gryffindor, and had been thoroughly blindsided when the hat had whispered to him of his own sly cunning that desperately needed the proper surroundings to be cultivated. He supposed he was insightful, and good at strategy. That’s all fancy pureblood social maneuvering really was when you broke it down. 

After having been to an event or two at the Malfoy’s sprawling estate over the spring and summer, he’d been unimpressed with the clumsy machinations of the children their own age. He’d expected Machiavellian intrigue and had instead gotten stilted blood-supremacist talking points brought up clumsily over canapés at garden parties. Most of them were clearly just repeating things they’d heard their parents say verbatim, with no thought for what it actually meant or how to transform it to fit the situation’s context. 

He had thankfully recognized nearly every upturned first year nose at the table earlier, despite none of them giving him even a first glance let alone a second one. He’d met the Parkinson and Greengrass girls before, as well as most of the lads. Crabbe and Goyle were just as slow as he remembered, and he wondered how either of them would survive away from elves specifically tasked with taking care of their every earthly need. 

He figured his best bet for making alliances was to try working on Nott. His father had been a died-in-the-wool death eater, but he’d also notoriously killed his wife and his son supposedly hated him for it. Even if he did turn out to be sympathetic to the cause, he still might be willing to make friends just to get back at his old man. He’d need to tread carefully there though. 

Tracey Davis had actually introduced herself quite politely, and he’d quickly realized it was because even as a blood traitor he technically outranked her half blood status in the eyes of the other snakes. He was happy to have an ally already other than just his cousin, but wasn’t sure yet if it had been a smart move on her part or not - she’d reached for low hanging fruit that was more likely to accept her, but also risked alienating herself from the other Slytherins in the process. She might have made a mistake trying to befriend him, and he hoped she wouldn’t suffer for it. She seemed nice enough after all.

The entire house was gathered in the common room waiting for something, he wasn’t sure what. Their prefect had shown the firsties the way down from the great hall and had told them the password for the next fortnight (his poor mum would box his ears if she heard him say always pure). The furniture all looked like it belonged in a museum, antique silks and velvets and damasks upholstered the ornately carved and fragile looking wooden frames.  He’d have to be much more careful about the way he sat, no more plonking down like an elephant for him or he’d humiliate himself by being the first Slytherin to ever break a chair. Although if either Crabbe or Goyle got any bigger they might just break that record themselves…

As much as he felt a bit cheated out of getting to sit comfortably on the squashy sofas and armchairs he’d heard tell of in Gryffindor tower, the green glow filtering in the huge round window down through the lake had been absolutely breathtaking the first time he’d seen it. Draco and Nott had laughed themselves silly when he’d been startled by an enormous tentacle creeping into view, but no one had told him he’d have to interact with aquatic life in his common room!

Ron’s only mental framework for what a Hogwarts common room might look like was the cozy warm red and gold description he’d heard all his life from his parents and older siblings. He’d realized the dungeons probably wouldn’t fit that description exactly, but he had been entirely unprepared for just how dramatically different it actually was. Everything was black and green and silver, and though the walls were dark stone they were neither wet nor cold to the touch like Fred and George had suggested. There were rich tapestries and wall hangings everywhere, and they obviously helped keep in a great deal of warmth that would have otherwise seeped out. The heat in the cavernous room did seem to disperse rapidly only a few feet away from the fireplace however, and he anticipated many frigid evenings ahead. 

Just as he was starting to get quite sick of waiting around for nothing a tall thin man in black robes with a long nose and longer hair came storming through the trick wall entrance that lead out into the hallways of the surrounding dungeons. He realized the descriptions his siblings had given of the man were a bit cruel, for surely this was professor Snape. He was certainly severe looking, but not nearly as ugly and wretched as they’d claimed. Fred and George had said he looked like a tall goblin! What a pair of tossers. He leaned forward eagerly to hear what the man would say, and as he did so he was thrown off by Draco whispering in his ear excitedly “That’s my godfather, He’s the smartest wizard I know!”

What a juicy detail to save until the last minute, that absolute rapscallion. 

The room fell to a silent hush as the man stopped in front of the fire place and pushed the hair back from his face making a dramatic silhouette “Older students, do not yet retire to your rooms,” he commanded casually, and like an edict from an emperor the second through seventh years all made themselves comfortable throughout the common area. His voice was somewhat nasal, it would have to be with a beak like that, but it was also deep and smooth like butter.

He turned to address the first years “I am Severus Snape, and I am both your head of Slytherin house and your potions master. Outside of this room, we are as a whole despised by the rest of the school, and I do not only mean by the rest of the students. As a house you must present a unified face. I do not care if you hate your housemates, I do not care if you have literal blood feuds with them,” he said pointedly, eyeing Draco and himself. 

“Fight them all you like within this room. Debate each other, duel each other, turn each other’s hair blue for all I care. But outside of this room, you are allies. You will not speak a word against each other, you will vouch for each other, you will not sabotage or entrap or otherwise provoke each other! I can show you favor in only the most superficial of ways, and if you are caught breaking the rules my hands are tied. House rivalry is nothing to scoff at, and lions hunt in packs. Do not let yourself be separated from your house mates, do not walk the halls alone, and for Merlin’s sake avoid the- avoid the Weasley twins like the plague,” he finished a bit awkwardly, sweeping his gaze quickly past Ron. 

Swirling around with a billow of his dark robes he addressed the room at large “There is once again a member of the British wizarding peerage here at Hogwarts! Not merely an heir or a scion of her house like many of you are, but a genuine Lady. The head of the house of Black, no less. You all saw her and her brother sorted this evening, she is Hermione Greyback. Their circumstances are no business of mine and I could not care less for whatever scandal or gossip you may discover. That being said, know this: she is legally an adult! She can defend herself or her brother from attack, and furthermore should she so choose she is within her rights to see attackers against her person brought on charges before the wizengamot! If you must have a target for your frustrations, choose a smarter one. I will not lift a finger to help any foolhardy students of mine who intentionally provoke her,” he said with a sneer, and the silent room burst into a murmur of whispers. 

A familiar voice broke through the air and Ron’s heart dropped as they shouted out “She’s a werewolf, though! I saw her flash her eyes and pop her claws out on the train right in front of me like nothing doing. Why is the board of governors even allowing her to attend?” Said the tall blonde boy they’d had such a horrible encounter with earlier in the day. He scowled and made to stand up and tell the prat just exactly where he could stick it, but Draco gripped the sleeve of his robe tightly and wouldn’t let him move a muscle, shaking his head emphatically.

“You can’t!” The boy breathed through his teeth “We can’t, we’ll be absolutely fucked for the next seven years in here if we try!” He argued desperately, eyes wild and panicked. They needn’t have worried though, as their head of house made good order of slinking over to the boy and set about verbally eviscerating him in front of everyone present. 

He towered over the cowering third year, and bent down like a bird of prey to speak directly into his face “And what exactly did you do or say to make her ‘pop her claws’ as you so crudely put it? Mr Rowle, did you not hear a word I said mere moments ago? So she’s a werewolf, half the population of wizarding Britain that have graduated since I took up the position of potions master are of the sincere opinion that I am a vampire. There are ghosts floating down the halls of this school and one of them teaches you history. If you sit and watch through our lake view window long enough you’ll eventually see merpeople swim by. Lady Black is a member of the aristocracy! Her forefathers overflowing vaults funded the founders expedition to build this very castle that we stand in! The day that a Lord or Lady of the realm is denied admission to this school for a matter so benign as them howling at the moon is the day that Hogwarts forgets the very foundation it was created upon - that every magical child in this country be granted the right to a wizarding education.”

He looked the now trembling boy up and down in clear disapproval “Whether their fathers be lords… or the lawyers employed by them,” he hissed, straightening out and drawing his robes up around him like an owl fluffing itself. “Holy shit,” Draco whispered next to him in awe “He makes destroying people’s whole lives look so cool and effortless.” 

“Yeah alright, fair enough. But did you notice that he’s clearly got skin in the game?” Ron whispered back, and his cousin looked at him askance. He shrugged sheepishly “Don’t you think it sounded like he took Rowle’s taunt a bit too personally? I’d bet every last knut to my name that he’s recently gotten a rather interesting letter from a mutual acquaintance of ours,” he said with a bit of a cheeky grin. 

“You’ve altogether far too few knuts to be betting with them in the first place,” Draco muttered back petulantly as he folded his arms in front of his chest, proving that he clearly had no better refutation of his theory and was simply cross he hadn’t noticed it first. 

As soon as it looked like the professor was done, their prefect swooped back in to lead them to their dormitories. Even having been tempered by the shock of the common room, his expectations still left him completely unprepared for the fact that apparently the bloody Slytherins all had double rooms - no sharing six to a dorm. As they all began to pair up he whirled around desperately to find his cousin looking contemplative, the rat bastard. 

“Come on, it’s where we sleep - don’t make this political,” he heard himself whine rather pathetically, to which the great blonde prat only chortled “Everything is political, I imagine I could do quite well rooming with ,” he said as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Ron frantically glanced over his shoulder to see that Crabbe and Goyle had paired together, shocker, and that Nott and Zabini had already formed a duo as well “You absolute tosser,” he ground out, relieved beyond belief. He made his way into their room to the sound of Draco’s fiendish laughter. 

For only housing two first year boys, it certainly wasn’t small. They each had a dark wood four poster bed made up nicely with emerald green linens, a desk the likes of which you’d see in a proper lord’s study, and a fine wardrobe. Their trunks and Draco’s owl cage were waiting for them in the middle of the room. There was a door off to one side, and Ron hesitantly peeked through it only to be delighted to find that they had an attached bathroom with both a full shower and a luxurious bathing tub all to themselves, all of which was carved from spectacular black marble. 

Thoroughly satisfied with his new arrangements, he made his way over to sit next to his cousin on the bed the other boy had claimed “After seeing this, you’ll never believe me when I tell you how rough they’re living up in the lions’ tower,” he said with a smug grin. This immediately caught Draco’s interest “What, do they have to sleep three to a room?” He asked as if that would be a fate worse than death. Ron just laughed “It’s split into boys and girls, but everyone in the same year shares the same dorm, and they all have to share a communal bathroom. Fred and George have four other room mates!”

His cousin’s face fell dramatically “Shut up, that can’t be true. Tell me you’re joking right now, Weasley.”

Ron laughed and shook his head “I’m not - it’s true. Remember all that business about Hermione being the richest witch in the British isles now that she’s the head of the Black family? Well if my recollection of the sorting is correct they’ve got her up there in that tower sharing a room with at least three other girls. It’s a bit ironic don’t you think?” 

“Merlin’s saggy left bollock… Do you know what, but I think I’d actually rather be a puff. Why on earth would they make them live like that? No wonder they think we’re all snobs, they’re sleeping stacked on top of each other like cords of firewood! That crazy giant is living better out there than they are - at least he has his own hut to himself!” The seriousness with which Draco said it only drove him onto the floor in a fit of uproarious laughter, until he realized something important and shot straight back up. 

“How are they going to sneak out every month for the night of the full moon if they’re sleeping in a room with three other kids each!?” He asked, instantly sobered. Draco looked shell shocked, as if the circumstances leading to such an event happening were so far fetched they would never possibly have occurred to him to even consider.

“Everyone in Slytherin heard what Rowle said in the common room tonight,” he said contemplatively “if what father and mother have told me about the Hogwarts rumor mill is true, we should expect everyone in the entire bloody school to have heard some version of it by the end of the week at the latest, whether they actually believe it or not. The rumor is out there, and there’s no stopping it now - the best we can hope for is that everyone also hears what a fool Uncle Sev made of him,” he added. 

Ron nodded along thoughtfully “If everyone’s already heard the rumor, then the only thing we can realistically do to mitigate its effect is find a way to thoroughly discredit the source,” he reasoned “let everyone know he only found out in the first place because he called a sweet little girl a hateful slur.” 

Draco stared at him so long he began to think he’d misspoken, before breaking out into a sly smirk “If anyone ever asks me if you’re really a snake like the rest of us I’m going to tell them you started a smear campaign against an older student before we even went to bed on the first night after arriving,” he said, sounding proud beyond measure.

Chapter Text

Hermione felt like she was walking on air as she trotted down the stairs of the girls side of Gryffindor tower. She felt like a million shiny golden galleons as her uniform skirt flounced around her knees and showed off the tops of her grey knit knee socks. It was her first time wearing a skirt, and though it was quite different and a bit cold around the ankles and shins, she found that she rather liked it. She would never have considered herself a tomboy before now, but that was only because she’d never heard the word until the night before when her new girlfriends had whispered it about her as she unpacked her clothes into her new wardrobe. 

After the fifth pair of sturdy denims she folded away they had started giggling and gossiping, and unbeknownst to them she’d heard every word of their entire conversation. Someone with thinner skin might have had hurt feelings, but she knew exactly where her strengths and weaknesses lay, and gathering intel was one of her greatest gifts. As a leader she was also well aware that the value of external observations from unconsidered perspectives was often priceless. And what she had learned! That single conversation had been a veritable treasure trove, and she had secretly vowed to never worry about about something so trivial as ‘respecting their privacy’ for as long as they were roomed together. 

There was no denying they’d had a bit of a kerfuffle on first meeting. She’d snuck up to their shared dorm and they’d started throwing around some pretty baseless accusations. They were eleven for Merlin’s sake! There was no call for being suggestive, and she’d put a quick end to it politely but firmly. She’d had to let a bit of alpha out, but she felt she’d gotten her point across to the girls quite well. As soon as she’d flashed her eyes and growled Lavender had immediately apologized for calling her a slag, and after explaining that she had just been helping her twin brother get settled in she felt they were well on their way to understanding each other. 

As she reached the bottom of the stairs she stopped short, surprised to see her brother sitting on the floor with a truculent expression on his face and his arms angrily crossed “Your bloody stairs put me on my arse!” He grumbled. She tilted her head, trying to make some sense of his statement “I thought I heard something happening down here, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to walk me through that one” she quipped, not letting him pull her out of her great mood. 

He stood and made for the stairwell “Observe” he said flatly. With most of his weight still balanced on his back foot on the floor, he lifted his front foot up and touched it down gingerly onto the surface of the first stair. The instant it touched the tread, the entire staircase up the girls’ side of the tower flattened into a steep continuous slide. He reared back and the boards separated and folded themselves back up into stairs. This time, taking a bit of a running jump, he launched himself up past the first four steps and landed on the fifth. Again, as soon as he touched the tread it turned into a slide. This time he absolutely ate shit, falling to his arse and skidding all the way down onto the ground. 

“That’s hilarious, how many times have you done it since you found out what it does?” She asked, playfully poking him with the toe of her shoe, to which he gave her a two fingered salute from where he lay flat on his back on the ground. He frowned “It’s not funny, it’s a serious security inconsistency! How come you can come up to my dorm but I can’t come up to yours? What if you needed my help!” He insisted, which gave her pause for a moment. 

“I appreciate your concern Óffy, but I’m pretty sure whoever built this tower rightfully assumed that boys in general couldn’t be trusted not to be grubby little perverts at the best of times” she snarked dryly, stepping over him and beginning to make her way towards the fireplace before stopping and coming back around. She reached down to help him to his feet and pulled him after her over to the sofa, glad there was no one else around yet. “Listen” she said quietly “There’s something I need to tell you, and I need you to promise to at least try not to freak out and lose your mind over it” she urged, and he nodded earnestly. 

She tried to keep the dumb dreamy smile off of her face but was fairly certain she had failed “I know it’s only been just the one day we’ve spent together so far, and I know we’re just kids, but I’m pretty sure Neville is my mate” she whispered, barely louder than an exhalation, trying to keep the excitement and joy out of her voice and again failing spectacularly. “Before you tell me I’m wrong, I’ve thought boys were fit before and I’ve had crushes! And Miriam gave me the bitches and the dogs talk. This doesn’t feel like it’s just some fleeting thing - I feel like the way dad sounds when he talks about my mum. Like I’ve met my other half!” She said in a rush of emotion. 

To her enormous relief, her brother had a soft soppy smile on his face “I sort of figured as much after you spent the entire train ride sitting on the floor with him” he said puckishly, and her heart warmed in her chest at just how terribly fond she was of him. She pressed her forehead to his and just breathed, feeling their wolves commune in a way she knew he didn’t pick up on quite as well as she did. 

Her wolf and his were intrinsically twin spirits in a much more significant way than their human bodies and minds were, and she always felt closest to him as her brother when they both had their fur on. She wished more than anything that he could transform freely outside of the full moon the way she could. For all that she had given him her gift, she felt like she hadn’t given him enough of herself. Surely if she had he’d be able to shift like she could? 

She tried to put that thought out of her mind “Listen, I know it’s a lot. I’m not asking you to keep secrets, just let me tell dad myself when we go home for the full moon on the 23rd. I’ll tell him then and ask him for advice, okay? I promise” she begged.

“Yes alpha” he responded quietly but confidently, shocking her to her core. 

“Harry, no! What are you saying?” She hissed, looking around frantically as if their father would pop up from behind the couch cushions and admonish her for gunning for his position. To her surprise her brother looked very serious, as if they were forging a solemn pact between them right then and there “I love dad, and when we’re home in his territory he’s the alpha - 100% no question. But we’re here on our own now, and we’re the only two wolves around. That makes you the leader and me the beta, and I’m always going to follow where you say we’re going to go - 100% no question” he repeated, bringing tears to her eyes and making her nose sting. 

She threw her arms around his neck and nearly hugged the life out of him “Thank you, beta!” she whispered reverently, and he nodded into her shoulder “You got it, sis”

Wiping her tears away, she couldn’t help but laugh “Look at the two of us, revelation after revelation and we’ve barely started our first day of school!” 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She couldn’t believe how long it took the rest of their year mates to come down to the common room, she’d almost certainly have left already if they hadn’t all agreed the night before to wait for the prefect to lead them back down to the great hall in the morning for breakfast. She was regretting agreeing to it now. Her and Harry were the first down, and Percy was a close second. Gradually over the next half hour older students filtered down the stairs and out the portrait hole, not waiting on any wayward firsties. It seemed like the first years were the absolute last ones down, and she was practically chomping at the bit to get out of this room and out into the castle - she was hungry and Percy was rambling again, a hellish combination.

She had curbed her appetite for the first time ever the night before, only taking a small second plateful when she normally could’ve eaten three or more. She hadn’t exactly wanted to stop eating when she did, everything had been delicious and her stomach had still felt empty when she’d put her silverware down. The girls around her had boggled when she’d reached for additional servings, making comments about wanting to keep their figures that left her confused and feeling a bit like a pig. 

She knew she had impeccable table manners, Miriam had seen to that personally and what she hadn’t covered Narcissa and Andromeda had more than made up for. She could eat with the Queen if she had to. What she didn’t know was what exactly etiquette said was correct when one literally had double the caloric requirement of everyone else at the table. She felt practically half starved this morning, and she was determined to eat her fill at breakfast no matter how embarrassing it might be. 

She didn’t want to relay this relatively minor inconvenience to Harry, it seemed like just another thing that would worry him. But he had given her an incredible display of trust this morning, and she wanted to repay that by showing it the respect it deserved. So while they waited, she mumbled through a haphazard summary of why she was so hungry. He looked properly outraged, and for a moment she almost regretted saying anything. She hoped he didn’t say anything to her dorm mates!

She was surprised when he called for the kitchen elf that they’d met the night before. The little creature popped onto the coffee table in front of them, bowing low and looking happy as a clam to see them again “Hello young sir and miss! How can Goosie be serving?” 

Percy frowned on the sofa across from them “Harry, you’re not supposed to bother the school elves while they’re working” he said crossly, to which her brother summarily dismissed him “This is a private matter with kitchen staff about my sister’s dietary needs” and Percy blinked in surprise but nodded and otherwise fucked off to the other side of the common room. She looked at her brother with fresh and worshipful eyes “That was incredible” she breathed, and he grinned slyly. 

Turning back to the elf, Harry’s face turned serious again “Hello Goosie, I’m sorry to bother you during the morning breakfast rush but we have a very important question about food” he said, and the little elf’s eyebrows shot up and he snapped his fingers. 

A moment later another much older elf appeared next to him, wrinkled and greying, but with bright and intelligent huge blue eyes. It bowed low, the hair growing out of it’s ears brushing the ground, more flexible than either of them would have expected from such an ancient little thing “This be Nilliams, the head Kitchen elf. He is being in charge of every meal and snack and drink served in the castle. Nilliams, this young sir and miss is having food questions!” Goosie said gleefully, his voice squeaking out like a little clarinet. 

Nilliams’ eyebrows rose slowly “Food questions? Goosie be coming to the right elf indeed! How can Nilly be helping the little sir and miss?” His voice was lower and raspier than any other elf they’d ever heard, and slow as a turtle through molasses. They exchanged a brief glance, and Harry kindly encouraged her to talk with a sharp elbow to the gut. 

She sighed “Nilliams…Nilly? My brother and I are a bit worried about being rude eating in the great hall with the other students. You see, we’re werewolves and we burn a lot of energy so we get very hungry and have to eat a lot more than human children our age would need. We haven’t exactly been around a lot of humans before, and we noticed last night at dinner that most everyone only ate one plate or maybe two. We’d usually eat at least two or three for every meal. We just wanted to make sure we wouldn’t get in trouble for eating too much or make too much work for you sweet elves who work hard to feed everybody” she said, feeling as if she was rambling nonsensically and probably offending him down to his little toes. 

She rubbed her temple “I’m sorry Nilly..iams. I’m just really hungry, I didn’t eat enough at dinner last night because I got embarrassed. You can tell me off if we’re getting ourselves worked up over nothing” Harry put a hand comfortingly on her leg, and she looked up to see the tiny old elf frowning angrily “Nilly is going to be having words with deputy headmistress. Her students should be knowings better than to be makings fun of how much others needs to be eatings! Little miss is always welcome to be eating exactly how much she is needings, whether that is being one plates or three. It is not making extra work for the kitchen elvesies, they is being happy to feed the students!” 

He looked at her very seriously then “The kitchen elvesies is being very sad if they is finding out that any of their students be going hungry” he emphasized sternly. She nodded, thoroughly chastised, but also incredibly touched. She held out her hand, and he looked at it with awe and reached out his own to shake “Thank you very much for taking such good care of us Nilly, my brother and I will both make sure to always eat our fill of your delicious food” she promised. To her dismay her magic invoked itself around her in that instant, drawing attention from passing students that she had hoped to avoid. 

She missed the wonder on the old elf’s face and the brilliant smile on Goosie’s, too busy was she trying desperately to disperse the spiraling ribbons of her magic by wafting them away like a fart cloud. She was embarrassed to see Neville standing a few feet away, watching her with stars in his eyes “What in Helga’s green garden are you doing, Hermione?” He said in a thick morning voice, as if he’d been asleep until only moments ago. She looked around at the shimmery ropes of her magic that still hung in the air around her and sighed “Accidentally invoked my magic making a promise to Nilliams here” she said, pointing over her shoulder behind her to where the elves had been standing a moment ago. 

She did a double take - they were gone! Those little scoundrels. She had to give it to them though, that was a laugh. She wasn’t sure how yet, but she resolved to get Fred and George involved somehow. Not least of all because she was certain she’d overheard them once talking about finding the way to the kitchens.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They’d finally all made it to the great hall together as a proper little herd of firsties with plenty of time to spare for breakfast, despite Percy’s determination to turn the simple walk from their tower down some stairs into a castle historical tour. He’d bucked hard under her firm encouragement to stick to strictly the path they needed, but overall she’d managed to reign in most of his worst impulses. She didn’t know how professor McGonagall had chosen him as their prefect - even without having met any of the other fifth year Gryffindor boys she couldn’t imagine a worse candidate for the job. 

She noticed with some amusement as they made their way through the castle that there was someone following their little cluster of first year Gryffindors. Whoever it was had tried very hard to conceal their presence, and they were being extremely discrete - if she was a human she definitely wouldn’t have been able to catch on to them. They had done something to smother their scent and heartbeat, but like at the train station she immediately clocked from the feather light footfalls that it must be a house elf. Initially she assumed it was a Hogwarts elf keeping an eye on her due to her conversation with Nilliams that morning. Taking in a deeper whiff she realized it carried the faintest traces of a familiar smell that tickled her nose deliciously. 

Glancing at Neville and remembering that he had mentioned having a house elf, she sniffed again and confirmed that it was one that had been in close contact with him for a very long time. She was warmed by the sweet realization that his nanny elf must be watching over him and making sure he was alright being away from home for the first time, and she felt a rush of fondness for the little creature hidden nearby. Knowing it wouldn’t be able to hear her, she made a silent promise not to interfere or point it out to him. She was charmed by its presence, and promptly ignored it. 

Passing through the enormous doors of the great hall, Harry and Hermione saw that Draco and Ron were already at the Slytherin table and looked to be nearly done eating. Ron made direct eye contact with her and subtly tapped his ear lobe. She grinned and nodded, and then concentrated her hearing onto the section of table the two of them were at, and wasn’t at all surprised when he started whispering under his breath a moment later. Her face fell when she heard what he had to say though

“Rowle jr made a huge fuss in the Slytherin common room last night and told the entire house that you’re a werewolf. We couldn’t respond there for fear of retaliation but we figured out a way to help control the narrative a bit. It should be coming any moment” he exhaled so softly that even their other cousin next to him didn’t catch that he’d been talking to her. She nodded grimly, and relayed his message to her brother as soon as they were seated. They weren’t sure what they were supposed to be waiting for, and in the meantime they were both a bit stumped over how to get messages back to their cousins if they couldn’t hear across distances the same way the two of them could.

 All in all they weren’t kept waiting long. Only a few minutes later a fierce and mean looking bird that appeared more raptor than owl sailed in through the upper windows of the hall and made its way for the Slytherin table. Clutched in its talons was a steaming red envelope, hissing like it was about to explode. The very moment it dropped its missive in front of Rowle the letter unfolded itself and rose into the air before him, taking the shape of a furiously frowning mouth. It then proceeded to scream at the boy at a volume hitherto unheard by either of the two of them in their entire young lives so far.  

“THORFINN ASMUNDSØNN ROWLE, HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT A TERRIBLE POSITION YOU’VE PUT ME IN YOU HATEFUL DISOBEDIENT LITTLE FOOL? I GAVE YOU ONE JOB, AND A SIMPLE ONE AT THAT. INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO THE MOST IMPORTANT CLIENT I’VE HAD IN YEARS AND BE NICE TO HER, HELP HER IF SHE NEEDS IT, SHOW HER AROUND THE CASTLE IF SHE GETS LOST. NOW I HEAR YOU NOT ONLY CALLED HER NAMES ON THE TRAIN BUT ARE SPREADING RUMORS AT SCHOOL AS WELL? YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, SHE’S AN ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL! WHAT IN SALAZAR’S NAME WERE YOU THINKING? DID IT EVEN OCCUR TO YOU THAT IT MIGHT MAKE THINGS DIFFICULT FOR ME AS HER OFFICIAL LEGAL COUNSEL TO HAVE MY OWN BLOODY SON PROPAGATING LIBEL AND POTENTIALLY BREAKING OUR CLIENT CONFIDENTIALITY? MY LAW FIRM WAS FOUNDED TO SERVE HER FAMILY! YOU WILL FORMALLY APOLOGIZE, YOU WILL RECANT YOUR STATEMENTS TO WHOEVER HEARD THEM, AND YOU WILL NOT REPEAT WHAT FOOLISH THINGS YOU HAVE ALREADY SAID. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?

Hermione dear I’m terribly sorry that my IDIOT SON has made such a mess of things. The meeting with your father yesterday went splendidly, and I hope you and your brother have a nice first day of school. If his apology isn’t to your satisfaction please let me know and I will send a stronger incentive…

FIX THIS THORFINN OR SO HELP ME I WILL COME DOWN TO THE SCHOOL AND DO IT FOR YOU, AND YOU WILL NOT LIKE IT!”

The sheer volume of the letter in and of itself was like an explosion, and it rocketed through the hall from one end to the other, reverberating and echoing sharply. The force of it had actually blown the hair back from the boy’s forehead, and when he stood up in the still silent hall he looked like he’d been standing in a wind tunnel. He glanced around before zeroing his gaze in on her and clearing his throat. 

When he finally spoke his voice was a bit weak and meandering, as if he’d lost his sense of focus or perhaps some important inner ear bones from the impact of the blast “Miss- uhh Lady Hermione Black… I would like to- to formally apologize for the unkind names I called you yesterday on the train. They were- ahem, well they were quite uncalled for. I also shouldn’t have let the whole house know that you’re a- that you’re- ahh-…know your secrets, I suppose. That was wrong I guess? I dunno what else he wants me to say, I still don’t want you anywhere bloody near me, but that’s erm… well I guess that’s personal isn’t it?”

McGonagall stood with a scowl on her face at his utterly unimpressive display “Mr Rowle five points from Slytherin for language” she said sternly. He stared at her in confused disbelief “Are you taking the piss?” He asked stupidly, and gasps and laughter rang out through the hall. This time Snape rose, looking positively fuming “Another five points from Slytherin for language and ten for disrespect. Detention with me in my office tonight, now sit down and be silent!” He barked, and the boy cowed under his head of house’s burning glare.

The professor remained standing, a sneer sharp and ugly on his face. He looked pained as he turned to Hermione “As much as I hate to involve myself in student affairs, as his head of house he is unfortunately my responsibility. Lady Black, are you satisfied?” He asked wearily, to her utter confusion. She glanced around, looking at Draco first as he was most likely to know dumb pureblood traditions. He tilted his head side to side and shrugged uselessly, so whatever it was about was up to her. She mustered up her courage, she was a Gryffindor now after all “I’m sorry professor, I’m afraid I don’t understand. Could you please clarify what you mean?”

A few startled murmurs broke out, and the man sighed heavily and rolled his eyes “He was commanded by the head of his family to give a formal apology and he has done so, no matter how poorly. You are in the unenviable position of now either accepting it and moving on from this public waste of time, or refusing and possibly igniting a blood feud between your families for untold generations yet to come. Ask either of your cousins whether it’s been particularly fun for them” he said quite tartly, and like they were watching a tennis match, the attention of the hundreds of students watching shifted back to her. 

“I accept!” She cried out instantly, but she couldn’t bring herself not to let him know just what she thought “It was a terrible apology though, and I don’t want anything to do with you either for the record, but for your father’s sake I formally accept your apology” she added primly, to more gasps and laughter around the hall. “Very well then, that’s all I want to hear about that” The professor said, nodding once and sitting back down with a swirl of his dark robes. 

The hall took on a life of its own after that, a solid buzzing wall of noise as students whispered and murmured among themselves over their breakfast. So distracted was the student body that when the house heads came by to deliver class schedules they barely earned a sideways glance. Ravenclaws closest to the Slytherin table strained to hear the snakes discussing what had transpired in their common room the night before, and then eagerly passed on what little they had gleaned from their eavesdropping to the Hufflepuffs on the other side of them. 

By the time the story had made its way to the Gryffindor table, it had transmogrified into the dramatic tale of Thorfinn Rowle having actively tried to kill her with a silver knife on the train ride, and her fighting him off and saving her own life. 

She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or mortified. 

As she sat and picked at the last bites of her first plate, her stomach rumbled hungrily for more. Harry was already halfway through his second plate across from her, he always went a bit head-down in the feeding trough in the mornings. She eyed the girls nearest her, and ignoring them and pushing away the thoughts of the things they’d said the night before, and remembering the promise she’d made to Nilliams, she served herself another full plate. Potatoes and eggs and sausages and bacon, she piled it on higher than she had for her first plate, as she didn’t want to have to take a third. 

She ate neatly and politely, with knife and fork and napkin on lap, blotting the corners of her mouth daintily as needed. Not a single belch or groan crossed her lips, and she didn’t say a word while there was food in her mouth. As genteel as her manners were however, her volume of food intake still caught the attention of curious eyes and caused some brows to raise in her vicinity. Lavender did a double take “Gods be good Hermione, first at dinner and then again this morning! Where are you putting it all, you tiny thing? If I ate half that much I’d be as big as a house!” She said with a chuckle, patting her own tummy. 

She hesitated, she could literally hear the rumors that were still spreading throughout the hall, and word of her eating her own weight at meal times would only fuel their fire. But she had made a promise to Nilly…Nilliams. She resolved to be as honest as she could, only holding back when it felt genuinely unsafe to do so “I know it probably makes me look like a glutton, but I have to eat a lot because I have a particularly high metabolism. I get really hungry and grumpy if I don’t” she said as mildly and conversationally as possible, going so far as to raise her voice a little so the general vicinity around her could hear her response. She didn’t want this to be something she had to go over again and again. Hopefully if she addressed it once it would die out and people would lose interest. 

To her surprise the girl considered that and nodded with a smile “Lucky you! I bet you could eat all the deserts you want and not get fat,” she said, gesturing conspiratorially over to a very big Slytherin girl “unlike some of us!” she added with a bit of a mean giggle. Hermione didn’t really want to make fun of anyone else for their eating either, but she resolved that it was a problem for another day. As she finished her second plate she pushed it away, satisfied and happily stuffed. Her brother finally came up for air, smiling at her in approval and giving her a discrete thumbs up. 

Next to him however Neville had only cleared half his plate, and had looked distinctly uncomfortable as he closely followed her conversation with Lavender. His fork abandoned on the table, he pressed his palm flat to his own tummy, which she could hear was still grumbling hungrily. Hesitantly he raised his eyes to meet hers and a blush rose to his cheeks “What’s a metabolism… is it something that makes you fat or skinny?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

She raised her eyebrows and brought her hand to her chin, considering how to explain it to someone magical who might not know any science “It’s a process that happens in our bodies where the foods we eat are broken down and the parts are redistributed, all the different foods have their own little jobs really. The meats have proteins that make your muscles stronger over time, starchy and sweet foods have carbohydrates that are used for immediate energy throughout the day, and fats like oil and butter have lipids that can be stored to be used as energy later if you’re cold or starving. Everyone’s body has a different metabolic rate, for example some people burn through their energy really fast, so you would say they have a high metabolism. Some people use their energy more… resourcefully! You might say they have a slower metabolism, but maybe they just use what they have more efficiently” She said, trying to gently hint that there was nothing to be ashamed of for being a bit pudgy. 

She was glad to see that he wasn’t looking quite so embarrassed anymore, and in fact seemed rather intrigued “Where did you learn all that? I’ve heard some of those words before but not ever described that way” he said, and she shrugged “It’s muggle food science, they call it chemistry but we would probably call it potions or maybe alchemy I suppose, I’m not exactly sure. We had a muggleborn tutor who did her best to teach us from both perspectives at the same time. She taught us muggle maths because she said it’s the basis for what we’re going to need to know later in arithmancy, stuff like that”

He and a few of the other students in their vicinity all looked quite impressed, and as professor McGonagall came around handing out their class schedules she nodded at her in approval “Well said, Miss Greyback. Metabolism is in fact something we’ll cover briefly in second year transfiguration when we start working on animals. Five points for teaching your house mates something new and a bit advanced” She said in her rich brogue, with a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 

The professor eyed Neville and then Lavender thoughtfully, and addressed the entire group of first years clustered nearby “How much and how often we eat is the greater part of what makes us skinny or fat, but our body’s natural metabolism also contributes in ways that can take us time to learn and understand about ourselves. You’re all at a period in your lives where you’ll start going through growth spurts sooner or later, and having a little extra meat on your bones can often help it come along more smoothly. That being said, it isn’t necessarily something we can control! Some of you will get taller first and be skinny as can be for a good while afterwards, and some of you might gain a bit of weight first and be chubby for a while before your height catches up to you. No matter what your bodies look like, there’s a person with feelings inside! Remember to be kind to each other” she said firmly, and marched off leaving them to contemplate that for themselves. 

Harry looked over at Hermione and winked, and then said conversationally to Neville “I’ve heard that girls who are too skinny before they get their first teenage growth spurt will end up never having any curves at all as adults” 

Hermione had to clamp her mouth shut to avoid laughing as Lavender scrambled to refill her plate.

Having a friend did a lot to mitigate the overwhelming difficulty Neville found himself having with nearly every aspect of learning to become a wizard. He couldn’t help but get terribly turned around in the long twisting corridors and on the spiraling moving staircases, but Hermione and her brother had a sense of direction to rival a bloodhound. Thankfully whenever he was with one or both of them he was able to follow and not get so awfully lost as he otherwise would have if he had been on his own. 

That was to say nothing of the fact that the very tower they lived in was password protected and it seemed to change entirely randomly every few days on the whim of a bloody portrait. He had managed to stay in groups with his housemates so far but was dreading ever having to come back to the tower by himself. His poor memory was already an embarrassment that his classmates were catching on to, he didn’t need to flaunt it by being caught locked out. 

His classes and his magic were an entirely different kettle of fish. 

Transfiguration would most likely be incredibly difficult when they started actually working next week. Thankfully their first class had been easy because they hadn’t actually had to do anything other than listen and nod while their head of house sternly lectured for over an hour on all of the absolute worst-case nightmare scenarios one could create via foolish or thoughtless transfiguration. Even if he hadn’t scrambled to write down nearly every word she’d said, he was fairly certain it would have burned itself into his brain regardless. She’d explained in exhaustive and horrifying detail why one didn’t ever eat anything that had been transfigured, even if it still looked like food. It had been enough to turn him off lunch entirely that day. 

Charms had been the first and so far only class where they’d started doing practical wand work, and for the life of him he could barely even get his wand to make sparks. All of the anxiety and fear he might be a squib that had temporarily evaporated when the hat had reassured him during his sorting began rising up in his chest again like an awful acid burp. He had spent the entire class time trying to get the end of his wand to light with a lumos spell. Nearly everyone else had gotten it - all the first years in their entire cohort except for those big slow Slytherin boys Crabbe and Goyle. 

Hermione had been the very first to do it, effortlessly making a brilliant luminous glow that cast the whole classroom in light that their professor had awarded fifteen whole points for. He had wanted to dissolve where he was sitting when she turned to him and spent the rest of the class period trying in vain to help him get it. She had been terribly confused, insisting that his pronunciation and wand movements were correct. What else did that leave that could possibly be the problem other than himself and his own innate lack of magic, he wondered privately. 

Herbology had been like a breath of fresh air. He might not have been able to get wrist deep in dirt like he was craving, but just being outdoors and among plants he’d soon be able to care for had helped tremendously. The fear and anxiety had started to feel like a tangible thing he was physically holding and carrying with him, and being able to set it down and relax even slightly, even if only briefly, was enough for now. There had been plants he’d never even seen before in the greenhouse professor Sprout had taken them out to, and he was excited to learn more about them next week. 

History was taught by a ghost who droned on so endlessly and boringly he’d fallen asleep almost immediately and had only woken up at the end of class when Hermione had shaken his shoulder and chided him gently. He had been thoroughly mortified until he realized the entire rest of their class was in the exact same position, snorting themselves awake only as the bell rang. He resigned himself to a dull year in that class not learning much unless he read about it himself from their textbook. 

Defense against the dark arts had been oddly disappointing, professor Quirrell seemed like an even bigger coward than himself as he stuttered his way through lecturing about vampires and werewolves. Why would they have such a fearful little wretch of a man in arguably one of the most important positions in the school? Not to mention Hermione and Harry had both looked nauseous the entire class. He assumed it was because the part about werewolves must have been particularly upsetting, but it could feasibly have been that the smell of the ‘vampire-repellent garlic’ the professor had hung everywhere effected them more strongly than everyone else with their sensitive noses. After class however, they had told him that something in the room had actually smelled so powerfully and disturbingly of death and decay that they’d hardly noticed his offensive and incorrect lecture on werewolves. That alone had frightened him down to his bones, as his new friends were nothing if not alert and observant. 

He could acknowledge with his rational mind that it generally needed to be night time to see the stars, but somehow it hadn’t actually occurred to him that they’d be having their astronomy classes at night. The actual middle of the night. They had to report to the astronomy tower for their class that began at ten at night and went until one in the morning. Something about that felt very wrong to Neville, despite it making logical sense as necessary. He didn’t want to outright say that it was because he was a good boy who went to bed early and needed all his sleep, because that sounded pathetic and like he was approximately five years old, but the nature of his objection was definitely somewhere along those lines. He adamantly ignored the way Harry and Hermione’s eyes glowed under the stars, and the fact that they were fresh as cheery daisies the next morning. She had winked at him on the way to breakfast and whispered “Wolves are naturally nocturnal.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Potions changed things fundamentally, he couldn’t have predicted how it would go if you’d given him a thousand years to guess. He had already been dreadfully nervous going in; open flames, boiling liquids, sharp objects, and his clumsy forgetful nature seemed like a terribly dangerous combination. He was not only worried about performing poorly, but also about the very serious risk of harming himself and his classmates. He’d heard enough in the common room from older students about the professor’s terrible personality and about his attitude towards exploding cauldrons to be more than a little wary. 

After waiting what felt like half an hour in the cold and damp dungeon classroom, the professor had dramatically swirled into the room and done little more than take roll and call them all idiots before putting the recipe for the potion they were supposed to make up on the board and leaving them to fully fend for themselves. The instructions weren’t even complete, and they referenced multiple different sections from both of the class textbooks. He was royally fucked. 

He’d panicked at the thought that he might have to do it all by himself if Hermione paired with her brother, but she’d glanced at Harry and gestured at one of her dorm mates and he’d nodded and gone to work with Sally Anne instead without complaint. Their relationship still seemed a bit strange to him at times, he didn’t really understand it but whatever she said Harry usually obeyed. Maybe it was an older sibling thing? Whatever it was he could certainly understand the urge to do as she asked - she was smart and almost always knew what she was talking about, and he often got the funniest feeling that he wanted to please her and make her happy with him. It seemed like a reasonable instinct. 

She’d quickly gotten them organized, having them both look up the extra text references which immediately came in handy because it was all tips and tricks and dos and don’ts for what they’d be making. They were making a cure for boils, and most of the advice was about how to prepare ingredients for the best efficacy. However, one of the biggest most important don’ts on the list was a warning for the second to last step not to add the porcupine quills until it had been taken off the heat or it would explode into horrible sludge that actually caused boils. He drew a star next to that point for emphasis, and they made eye contact and both nodded emphatically that they’d avoid it. 

She started filling the cauldron with water and heating it to make the base, and sent him off with a neat list of what they needed to collect from the supply room. She claimed she could smell the overwhelming tangle of scents coming from in there the moment she had walked into the room and that she might actually pass out if she went inside. He thought that was certainly a fair trade off, and made his way over to get their ingredients. He noticed on his way across the room that Harry was doubled over leaning on the wall outside the supply room, breathing heavily through his mouth with a hand held up pinching his nose. He patted his shoulder in passing and carried on into the breach. 

He carefully took some subtle breaths in through his nose once he was inside the little room and…it smelled a little more herby and medicinal, but he had to wonder just how powerful their noses must be if this amount of smells could leave them practically incapacitated. He shook his head and grabbed one of the little baskets on the table by the door and consulted his list. He went over to the jars and basins and measured out only a tiny bit more than what they needed of everything, just in case. He knew he was likely to drop or lose or destroy something and he didn’t want to take any chances. 

As he made his way out of the supply room he felt a claw-like hand grip his wrist tightly and he yelped. He frantically looked up and up and up to see the angry glare of their professor’s gaze burning down at him “Would you care to tell me why exactly you have more than you need of every single ingredient, Mr Longbottom?” The man practically hissed at him, and he had never been so frightened in his life, not even when uncle Algie had him dangling by his ankles out of a high window. Not even when he dropped him and he thought he’d die before he bounced. As the professor pulled his arm up and back, he began to feel like a bug on a pinboard, and a sharp pain flared to life in his shoulder. 

Suddenly Hermione was there with her small warm comforting hand on his other arm. Her eyes were glowing silver and she was audibly growling low in her chest “Excuse me professor Snape, but I asked Neville to collect some extra for me so I can familiarize myself with the ingredients since I can’t go into the supply room to get them. My brother tried to go in there and as you can see is still suffering for his efforts. I had every intention of putting back what we didn’t use, sir” she said as coldly as a blizzard in the arctic, and with a frankly terrifyingly intense stare directly into the man’s eyes. It was challenging, and brash, and from everything he’d heard about the professor from other students was sure to go over horribly. 

The man leaned down so that his eye level was at the same height as theirs, his beak-like nose impossibly large on closer inspection, his black eyed gaze never leaving hers “And risk contamination upon putting them back into their containers? I think not, Miss Greyback... Set aside what’s left over when you’re finished, and I’ll make sure they’re used the next time I have to brew a batch of boil cure” he snapped rather hawkishly, and he let go of Neville’s wrist and stalked away without sparing them a second glance. His robes billowed darkly behind him. 

As soon as the professor’s back was turned and he was walking away from them, she reached for his wrist and clutched it to her chest, her eyes piercing his and her other hand reaching up to cup his cheek “Did he hurt you Nev? I’m sure I heard one of your bones do something funny” She whispered angrily through gritted teeth that were a bit too large for her mouth. He was taken aback at her vehement defense of him, and that she had just lied to their teacher for him. And that she was touching him. That was really the one that made his head spin. He felt like he needed to sit down, and he must have said as much because she was suddenly tenderly drawing him back to their work station and making sure he was balanced on his lab stool. 

In his absence she had filled their cauldron and the plain water in the bottom was steadily simmering away. Though she seemed loath to move away from comforting him and making sure he would stay conscious where he was sitting, she eventually moved away to pull out the pages of their books that gave the best tricks and tips for cutting and preparing their ingredients, and got to work. Slowly coming back to himself, he picked up a knife and made to start chopping but she quickly grabbed it from him and handed him another different one. He realized the blade he was holding now was a much better shape and size for what he had been planning to cut. 

When they finally started adding things to the water, he had a running mantra going through his head ‘heat off THEN quills in, heat off THEN quills in’ he kept reminding himself. Hermione put in the snake fangs she had crushed and then they let it cook for a while. He added the slugs they had stewed, and then they both double checked that the heat was turned off before putting their porcupine quills in together at the same time. After some stirring and a bit of wand waving, their potion was the exact cherry color the book had described and was a fine thin fluid viscosity. 

Looking around, Neville couldn’t believe how well they’d done in comparison to their classmates. Snape was openly praising Ron and Draco’s work, and some of the other Slytherins looked like they’d done alright, but most of their house mates were struggling. Harry and Sally Anne were doing the best after themselves, but Dean and Seamus had concocted what looked like a thick grayish slime. He had no idea what they could have possibly done wrong for it to come out so terribly. Meanwhile, those two huge Slytherin boys that seemed to be bad at everything were also doing quite poorly. Their potion had seized in their cauldron like a ruined batch of chocolate, it was a dry pasty mess and was rapidly hardening like cement. 

Realizing that Hermione had started to clean up, he rushed to help her. Everyone else on their side of the room was still working to try and salvage their own potions well enough to have something to turn in by the end of class. The two of them had already washed their tools, wiped their work bench down, bottled up their potion, and scoured out their cauldron. The professor had come around to observe them as they tidied, and he lifted their flagon up to his eye to get a closer look “The color and consistency are correct, and you’ve finished well ahead of the rest of the class. You’ve also clearly read the book because you’re cleaning in the stages recommended for best hygienic brewing practices… Two points to Gryffindor” he grumbled reluctantly “…Each” he added after a heavy pause, with a facial expression that suggested it had cost him tremendously. 

To his surprise after how mad she’d been at the man earlier, Hermione seemed absolutely thrilled by his faint praise “Thank you very much, professor!” She chirped cheerfully “Is there anything else we should be doing before class ends?” She asked to Neville’s abject dismay. The professor was equally baffled if the slight furrow of his brow was any indication “Were you… able to glean anything of interest from your self-study of the ingredients?” He asked after an awkward pause, clearly grasping at straws and not having expected either of him to engage him further. 

She bounced slightly in her seat next to him “Oh yes, sir! I had been expecting the snake fangs to be consistently from the same species and was very surprised that they were all different. And that some slugs were fresher and the others were almost ready to be thrown away, I wouldn’t have thought you could work with ones that were that close to going foul. Even the quills had quite the range, some were much stiffer and others were more flexible. I think it might have had to do with how old the porcupine they were taken from was but I’m not a hundred percent sure” she said, beginning to ramble and not at all aware of the genuine surprise growing on their potions master’s face. 

He cleared his throat and held up a hand, telling her to “Hold on a moment” before stalking away back to the supply room. When he came back he had the large jars that the fangs slugs and quills had been stored in. He pulled a stool over to their bench to sit on across from them, and placed them in front of her with a shallow bowl in front of each. 

He spooned out some of each ingredient into the bowls and regarded her with a single raised brow “Miss Greyback, these ingredients are supposed to be identical. The same species of snake, the same freshness of slug, the same suppleness of quill - which in actuality has to do with the amount of oil absorbed from the skin of the animal, but age was a fair guess. Can you please examine these and tell me what you observe with your… heightened senses” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper on the last words. 

Her and Neville both boggled at the man, but she gamely nodded and pulled the bowl of snake fangs towards herself, her nostrils flaring as she took deep unsubtle whiffs. She reached out to the bowl, then glanced the professors way and raised her brows. He nodded his permission and she started picking them up, bringing them closer to her nose, and then arranging them into separate piles in the bowl “I don’t know if I could say exactly what species they were, but I can easily tell you that there are some that came from snakes that had poison and some that didn’t” she said definitively, and the professor’s face became stormy “snake fangs as a potions reagent are supposed to be from simple nonvenomous garter snakes. None of them should have had venom” he said furiously. 

She shrugged “I’m sorry, someone either lied about what they sold you or they didn’t know any better themselves. Of the ones that don’t have any poison… sorry, venom, there’s still at least two different kinds of snakes, so even some of those must not be from garter snakes either. The venomous fangs are more interesting, nearly every one of them is different. I dunno what this one is but it smells… really potent. Like extra burn your mouth spicy. I’d bet a galleon it’s still deadly to the touch” she said with a little shudder handing that one gingerly to the professor with it pinched carefully between forefinger and thumb. 

He took it and cast what must have been an identifying spell. An orangey red light shone around the fang and displayed what looked like a relatively simple runic array, and the professor’s brows both shot up sharply at the results “This fang is from a boomslang! They’re some of the most deadly magical snakes in the world. Miss Greyback this could have killed a student, maybe even a classroom full of students depending on what potion they tried to use it for. I’ll have to speak with not only the headmaster about changing our supplier, but with the auror department about dangerously mislabeled goods sold by that apothecary. I sincerely hope this was just one bad shipment and that it hasn’t happened before, but people’s incompetent and negligent natures never fail to astound me” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. 

Hesitantly she nodded “I’m just glad that helped, sir. I’d have never guessed there was something wrong, we read the recipe and all the different sections of the book and it never specified anywhere what type of snake the fangs were supposed to come from” she shrugged. Reaching for the bowl of slugs she sniffed deep again, her nose scrunching. Her eyes fluttered a bit almost as if she might pass out from the stench, he could smell them and they weren’t pleasant, he could only imagine what they smelled like to her. She shuddered “Honestly sir a lot of these smell quite bad, just how fresh are they supposed to be?” She asked.

Again the professor frowned “The horned slugs are among some of the ingredients we get the most frequent shipments of. Ideally they should be less than a fortnight old, and certainly none of them should be anywhere near rotten or decomposing” he said with a disgusted sneer. She shook her head vehemently “I’m sorry sir, but you’re really getting bent over a barrel by whoever you’re buying from. These have all been dead at least three weeks to a month. That one’s about to start dissolving by the end of the day. They’re all well on their way to rancid. If they’re supposed to be as fresh as you say, I wouldn’t want to use any of them” she said covering her nose and mouth and pushing the bowl back towards him. 

“This is appalling, I owe you my gratitude for discovering and helping me correct this serious matter Miss Greyback. To my eye they appear physically no different on the outside than the fresh slugs I’ve worked with in the past, but if what you say about their state of internal decomposition is true they could very well poison anyone who brews with them” she hemmed and hawed for a moment “I appreciate that professor, but a second opinion never hurts. Harry, come here a minute” she said, not raising her voice above the low conversational hush they’d been speaking in. 

Her brother appeared at their table a moment later, eyebrows raised and glancing between the three of them and at the ingredients laid on on the table “What’s up, chief?” He said with a cheeky little salute. She held out one of the slugs with a pair of tongs “Gimme a time of death, officer” she commanded, and without hesitation he leaned his nose in close as can be to the slug and whiffed deep. He immediately reared back, his face scrunching in disgust and looking like he was about to retch “Goddesses be good but that is rank! I dunno, if I had to guess maybe a month or more, why?” He asked, rubbing under his nose and groaning. 

She eyed their professor and then the ingredients “Someone either wanted to poison a bunch of school kids, or is criminally slapdash with their packing and handling protocols. Either way, we got bad slugs and mixed up fangs” she glanced at the last ingredient she hadn’t inspected yet “And if our coincidence is a pattern than probably old dried up quills as well”

Neville finally worked up his courage while she was talking and being a brilliant sniffer to take the tongs from her hand and check on a hunch he’d been sitting on since the slugs came out. Turning them over delicately onto their backs, his eyes widened and he smiled as he realized he was right. 

He looked up to see all their eyes on him, and flushed but proudly announced “I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference by smell either sir, but I’ve seen these in my garden before. They all look the same from the top down, dead or alive or practically mummified, but if you roll them over and look at their bellies, the older and deader they are the more wrinkled they get there - see that’s the one she said smelled the worst and it’s got the wrinkliest belly by far! I think it’s because that part is supposed to stay smooth while they’re alive since it’s a mucous membrane. They produce the slime they need to get around from their bellies and when they aren’t alive anymore it dries up” he said, grinning. His friends were slack jawed and even the professor seemed impressed. 

Hermione clutched his hand and squeezed it tightly “Neville you’re a genius!” She proclaimed excitedly “of course a gardener would notice a detail like that, wait until professor Sprout hears what a natural herbologist you are!” She added, grinning from ear to ear. She glanced at her brother “Harry what are you still doing here, go finish helping Sally Anne clean up” she ordered exasperatedly, flicking him on the ear. He rolled his eyes at her and rubbed it, but nodded and trotted off tossing her the bird over his shoulder once he was outside of Snape’s line of sight. Neville snorted hard to avoid giggling. 

When they turned back to the professor, he was looking between the two of them assessingly with his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners “That was quite the insightful discovery, Mr Longbottom, one I may not have even made myself. A firm foundation in herbology is one of the greatest strengths a potions master can have under their belt. The two of you make quite the successful pair, you may remain brewing partners for all future projects. And Miss Greyback… please continue to carefully inspect your ingredients as you have done today and inform me again in if something seems unusual. Many students have passed through my classroom thinking me needlessly harsh, but safety in a potions lab must always be the utmost priority. For both of your contributions to the safety of the classroom and your fellow students, I hereby award you each… ten points for Gryffindor,” he said quietly but sincerely, standing and beginning to gather his supplies. 

They both grinned with pride and thanked him enthusiastically, and he nodded as he headed to his desk at the front of the classroom “Did any of that actually just happen or am I still asleep in the tower having the most vivid daydream of my life?” Neville asked a little breathlessly and Hermione barked out a laugh and pinched his arm. She got him in an extremely tender fat part of his upper arm and he nearly yowled like an alley cat “Well?” She asked with a mischievous grin, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her despite the radiating sting of the pinch. What a scamp!

Gods but it was good to have a friend.

Chapter Text

Augusta Longbottom was no fool, she was very aware of the many mistakes she’d made trying to raise Neville in his father’s image. It had taken her years and caused her unimaginable pain, but she was nearly ready to at least privately admit to herself that the boy was not and never would be a replacement for her Frank. He was his own little person, and she’d just have to do her best to accept him as he was. 

Although she had wanted to love him right from the very beginning, she often struggled to over the years. The boy was just so different from her Frank in so many awkward and difficult ways. He was clumsy and chubby. He had great big wonky front teeth and a stutter. He wasn’t exactly dim witted but the boy would forget his head if it wasn’t firmly attached. Worst of all in her opinion, he was as quiet as a mouse and terrified of his own shadow - she simply hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to nurture such a meek and frightened little thing. 

But the moments where he shone like a little gem were almost worse. He could be so sweet, polite, and thoughtful at times that she was reminded of her Frank in the most heart wrenching way. She didn’t mean to push the child away but her old soul was more fragile than she let on, and seeing her boy’s doppelgänger come to life took her breath away at times like a nightmare. 

Then there was the issue of his magic. She knew he’d had it as an infant and toddler - Frank and Alice had always raved about the rainbow bubbles he’d make float in the tub and the sweets he’d summon down from high shelves. As far as she knew though, the last magic he’d done was his explosion of accidental defensive magic during his parents’ torture. His initial amplified scream had deafened the Lestranges, but only served to make them angrier and their spells turn even crueler. 

When they had gone to turn their wands on him he’d turned himself invisible and they hadn’t been able to find him the entire rest of the night. They had ransacked the house looking for him after they’d left poor Frank and Alice catatonic on the floor, but he had somehow evaded them until the aurors arrived. No one would have ever known the ordeal the poor baby had gone through that whole night if the Crouch boy, the most stable of the lot of them, hadn’t mentioned it offhandedly in his testimony before the wizengamot. 

Child specialist healers from across the country and even one from the continent had all assured her that his experience, though traumatic, shouldn’t necessarily have any lasting negative impact on his magic later in life. But still he gave not a single sign of having any magic for years and years. She’d had his core examined by masters who confirmed that it was neither fractured nor in any way diminished, “Just shy” they’d said “and cautious after what he’s been through. It’ll come out again when he needs it, if he’s ever hurt or in danger. Give him time” 

How Augusta regretted telling her foolish fop of a brother that! She’d come home from the wizengamot one afternoon to find him dangling her grandson out of an attic window by his ankles, the poor boy crying in terror. At that moment she had completely frozen - unable to run forward to help him, unable to pull out her wand, unable even to scream. It was like a scene out of one of her worst nightmares, and her stupid brother was laughing! 

The world felt like it had slowed down then, as he noticed her where she was standing by the front gate and let go of one ankle to wave cheerfully. The little leg, finally free, had kicked wildly and come into contact with her idiot brother’s stupidly large chin. Served him right, but the other ankle was summarily dropped and her precious boy dropped from the- gods be good, the fourth story! A scream ripped itself from her chest and without even realizing her wand was in her hand she sent the most potent non-lethal hex she knew at her brother like a lightning bolt from Zeus’ own quiver. 

Tearing her eyes away, not even caring to see her missile strike true, she made to cast a cushioning charm or perhaps an arresto momentum, or gods maybe both? But to her absolute shock Neville had bounced off of the gabled roof over the second floor window with an audible boi-oi-oing noise. He shot back up into the sky and came down on the grass in front of her with another boinging bounce, the earth beneath him jiggling like jello. His screams of horror had turned into giggles and squeals of delight as he bounced again and again on the lawn, doing somersaults in the air. She poked the grass with her toe and it felt rock solid, but each time he landed it turned as springy as a trampoline for him and him alone.

It was like she had just taken a ride on one of the mine carts at Gringotts, her guts churned and she felt as though she had emotional whiplash. She had been so terrified and then so angry and now she was so relieved. She wanted to scoop her grandson up into her arms and hold him for the rest of the day. Or for forever. But she didn’t know how to say that to him, they’d never had a particularly warm relationship. Going for nurturing, she found herself instead barking harshly for him to stop bouncing about like a loon. She winced - bugger!

The boy’s jumps trailed off in height until he was standing still on the lawn, wringing his hands and wearing a somber look on his little face. He shuffled over to her and apologized for getting too excited, and she hated it. Hated herself. Hated her brother. Hated the coldness and the distance between him. She reached out both of her hands and clutched desperately at her grandson’s shoulders, holding him at arms length and inspecting him for signs of harm. Meaning to say something comforting about how terrible that had been of her idiot brother and how glad she was that Neville was alive and well, she instead croaked out “Algie certainly has no cause to say you’re not magical anymore, does he?”

Gods be good but she could be worse than her bloody grandson at times when it came to expressing herself! His poor little face had fallen and she instantly knew she’d said the wrong thing. She wanted to apologize, to tell him how much he meant to her, to say his magic didn’t matter as long as he was alive and well, but that wasn’t the woman she was or the one she’d been raised to be. One didn’t backpedal, one moved ever forward. 

With no other available course of action, she pulled the boy into an awkward and somewhat cold hug. But it was a hug all the same. As she clutched his head to her breast a little more forcefully than was probably comfortable for him, she hoped he would understand at least in part what she meant by it. He finally hugged her as well, patting her back lightly. 

Over the next few years his confidence may not have exactly grown in leaps and bounds, but she saw noticeable signs of him beginning to come into himself. If allowed to he would gladly spend practically the entire day outside in the gardens and greenhouses and then come in blissfully unaware or uncaring that he was covered head to toe in dirt and grass and plant matter and smelling absolutely wretched (she was quite certain that there was an impervious layer of dirt beneath his fingernails that had taken up permanent residence there). Though she despised the outdoor smells and detritus that he often tracked into her home, she hadn’t the heart to stop him from something he clearly enjoyed more than anything else. 

Unfortunately she was afraid she’d managed to bring to a screeching halt whatever stride he’d been building, and possibly even destroyed much of the good progress he’d made. Neville had been so excited to go to Diagon Alley and get his school things and his own wand. Why hadn’t she just let him get his own wand like every other child? His eyes were lit up like stars as they passed the wand shop, and his voice had been practically reverent when he’d asked her what type of wood she thought might suit him best. Before she’d even realized she was speaking she’d told him in no uncertain terms that he’d be using his father’s wand, that it was still perfectly serviceable and would do him just fine. He had looked absolutely devastated, and although she instantly regretted her words she wouldn’t go back on them. 

All she knew was that she had desperately wanted to avoid that tactless old goat Garrick Ollivander and his altogether too insightful remarks. She was just sure he’d say something about Frank and Alice or that would send her spiraling. She knew rationally that Neville should really have his own wand, but she’d honestly rather neither of them have to hear whatever he might have had to say about their family in general. He was just too unpredictable, and liable to say something entirely out of pocket. 

It seemed like such a small thing at the time, he may have been disappointed but everything else he’d gotten had been new firsthand. His own robes and books and supplies. She’d even let him pick out a pet and not made a peep when he chose a toad, which she rather didn’t care for but respected as a familiar. She should have realized sooner what a truly disastrous mistake her decision about the wand was, and when she did catch on she should have done something about it instead of ignoring her instincts. The confidence he’d been gaining seemed to dissolve, and he backslid into all of his worst habits over the last few weeks before school started. Stuttering and stammering, tripping over things constantly, and forgetting everything and anything you told him. 

She’d gotten him a rememberall as a gift in the hopes of helping him stay better focused, and though he hadn’t made a single peep of a complaint the look on his face had made it plain that he had clearly taken it terribly. She had tried to put herself in his awkward young shoes and found that she couldn’t really blame him for being embarrassed that he was having such trouble he needed the gift of a memory aid. She supposed she could see how it may have been embarrassing, but it was too late to take it back and she could only hope that it would at least prove useful to him. 

Everything in her told her she’d failed her boy as she dropped him off at the train for school. Her grandson was woefully unprepared and would of course inevitably underperform, and it was all her fault for being stubborn and stuck in her ways. As they waited on the platform he practically radiated misery, one could be forgiven for interpreting his expression and body language as a testament that he was headed straight for the gallows. She hated to let him leave her sight in a mood this dark, headed off into a completely new environment without even the benefit of friends or family at his side. 

Leave he eventually did though as the train pulled into the station, and she’d never felt a stronger or more urgent instinct to go and collect him and bring him home to the safety of her supervision. She remembered how cruel children could be and she hoped he wouldn’t be bullied too terribly, that his classmates and housemates would be able to see and appreciate his strengths even if he couldn’t yet. 

After watching the train pull away from the station, she headed home and spent the afternoon drinking herself silly for the first time in nearly a decade. When she woke up later in the night with a pounding headache she found herself surrounded by crumpled drafts of a letter to Minerva pathetically begging the woman to let her homeschool her boy. Frantic, she called for Thistle to make sure she hadn’t actually sent one, and to her immense relief her elf assured her no owls had left the estate. 

She couldn’t help but laugh at her own dramatic drunken antics, and tucked herself comfortably into her own bed for the rest of the night. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Augusta was quite surprised to have a letter waiting for her on her breakfast table the next morning. She was a notoriously early riser even after a night of foolish drinking, and that someone had gotten up far enough before her to surprise her with correspondence over her morning meal was nothing short of suspicious. Her head still swimming a bit, she narrowed her eyes and pulled it towards her. It bore a familiar crest - pressed into the wax was the official Longbottom seal, and her eyes widened upon seeing it. Her Neville was writing to her already? She immediately feared the worst, what could have possibly happened in the last 24 hours for him to have to write her a formal letter about? 

She knew she must have taught him how to draft one at some point during his many childhood etiquette lessons, but she’d certainly never expected to actually receive one from him. She lifted the seal up with the flat side of her knife rather than cutting it, she hadn’t realized he’d even taken his stamp with him. She was quite proud he’d done the impression so well, it was even and round and the edges were perfectly tidy. As she opened the letter and began to read it she grinned at the heading - her boy was a lion after all!

Dated the first of September, in the year 1991
From the 1st year boys dorm
Gryffindor Tower, Hogwarts School

Dear Gran,

You’ll surely have already realized from the heading, but I’m proud to report that I was sorted into Gryffindor house like my parents before me, and like you and grandfather both were as well. I hope you are pleased to hear this. The tower is as cozy and comfortable as you’ve always described, and as I haven’t figured out where the owlery is yet I write this from my dorm room to be delivered via Thistle for you to read in the morning. 

I think you will be even more pleased to learn that I have managed to make a very good friend already on the train ride here. I am excited to report that she is also the witch I intend to marry. Please do not tell her I said that when you meet her, I haven’t told her yet and would like to do so myself when the time is right!

Her name is Lady Hermione Elena Greyback, and she is a werewolf and the new Head of the house of Black. This may be shocking, but please bear in mind that she is also the friendliest, kindest, loveliest, and smartest person I have ever had the privilege of meeting. We are young, but I am very certain of my heart. 

(We are the same age, if that was a concern. I do not yet know how she was elevated to head of her house. She also happens to be the adopted twin sibling of Harry Potter, who I was able to make friends with as well. I’m not clear on exactly how that works yet either. If her family name is of concern, she assures me that rumors about her father’s reputation are false.) 

I left you at the train station a boy but now with love and friendship in my heart I feel like a young man. Thank you for the rememberall, and I’m sorry for not appreciating more the spirit in which it was given. On reflection, I’m sure it will be very helpful in my studies. 

I’ll write you again soon,
Neville

Augusta wondered what the noise she was hearing was, and realized quite belatedly that it was her own snorts of braying unladylike laughter. Reading it through again, her heartstrings were tugged by the memory of a very similar letter she had received from Frank only a few days into his first year at school. He too had met the love of his life on the train and had been equally determined to marry her the moment they came of age. Cheeky fuckers, bold as brass the both of her boys. 

She sighed in utter contentment, delighted that he’d clearly gotten back whatever confidence he’d lost in the last month or so. She hadn’t set him back irreversibly as she had feared she might have. Thank all the gods. 

It did seem like she still had some things to worry about however. As much as he’d warned her not to be concerned, and she counted two separate instances where he had done so explicitly, there were some rather important matters to address. Her last name was Greyback, which Neville all but confirmed meant she was his daughter. He was well known as one of the most brutal and vicious killers still alive after the war, still doing his departed lord’s work and attacking muggles in their homes. 

She considered the rumors that circulated wizarding Britain and the lack of evidence she’d seen to back them up, and wondered at the discrepancy. People tended to be idiots, but gossip usually came from some place of at least partial fact. Augusta could see how Greyback’s reputation may have been exaggerated, but couldn’t imagine that it was entirely fabricated. There had to be a nugget of truth somewhere in the rumors, and that was enough to make her hands tremble with fear on the edges of the letter she held. 

“Thistle!” She gasped, calling for her elf and feeling a minuscule tug at her chest as the summon reached out to draw her near. She popped into place on the arm rest of her chair “Yes, Mistress?” The elf inquired curiously. She was a young thing with wide enormous eyes, and was only a single human generation old. Neville had been the very first Longbottom baby she had helped raise. Her skin was closer to a purplish grey than the greenish grey of most British elves, as she had been a gift from a friend on the continent. 

“Thistle, you brought this letter from Hogwarts last night?” She asked and the elf nodded her little head “Did Neville say anything to you when you saw him, or was there anyone else there with him?” She demanded a little more harshly than she meant to, and she winced when her elf covered her eyes and shook her head “No Mistress! Thistle be going straight to the young Master and bringing it back, she only be telling him yes sir and goodnight. The only other people Thistle is seeing is being the three young sirs asleep in their beds in the dormitory” she said, and Augusta relaxed marginally and put her hand on the elf’s small shoulder.

“I’m sorry for being harsh with you Thistle. You see, I have a difficult task for you, my dear, but it’s essential to keeping our Neville safe at school” she said firmly, and the elf perked up and looked eager. Nodding enthusiastically, she fiddled with the collar of the funny little dress she’d fashioned from a scavenged swath of jacquard upholstery fabric that had been in the attic for years “What shall Thistle be doing, Mistress?” She asked tremulously. 

Augusta sighed, unsure of where to begin and how much to tell the elf “Our boy has… a new friend that we need to make sure won’t be a bad influence. He says she’s perfectly friendly and kind and I’m want to believe him, but Thistle the girl is a werewolf-” she was interrupted by the little elf yelping and tugging on her ears fearfully, pulling them across her face to cover her eyes. 

She reached out and patted her shoulder “I know, dear, I was scared to hear it myself. That’s why this is so urgent. I need to know more to be sure that he’s safe, and so I need you to go and watch and find out about her for me. I’ll give you a potion you can take that should hide your scent - as long as you’ve disillusioned yourself and don’t make any noises, the girl shouldn’t be able to tell you’re there watching. I want you to watch for at least a full day, maybe even longer. This is your top priority until I call you back to report, understand? You don’t have to worry about taking care of your duties here around the house, Rosie can take care of everything else here while you’re gone” she said firmly. 

Her elf seemed much less afraid knowing she’d be able to hide “Thistle shall be watching the young Master or just his wolfy friend?” She asked, and Augusta considered this “Watch how they interact, and see if she’s really as nice to him as he thinks. He hasn’t had friends before so maybe she’s teasing him and he doesn’t realize it. Pay attention for things like that, but when they aren’t together stick to her and see what else she does and who else she talks to. Her name is Hermione Greyback, and I want to know everything you can find out about her” she told her elf. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Thistle was gone for nearly two and a half days before she finally came back to the estate, and Augusta was practically chomping at the bit to hear what the elf had to report. She clapped her hands together with excitement in a way she hadn’t since she was a girl, and summoned Rosie to bring the other elf something to eat or drink if she needed it. 

In rare form, Thistle sat herself right upon the table and lay down flat on her back for a few minutes with her eyes closed. She breathed heavily and her skin glowed a bit, clearly reintegrating herself into the ward stones after being away for awhile. She chuckled a bit “Much calmer here, isn’t it my dear?” She said softly, and the elf wheezed a little laugh “The castle’s magic is being so loud Mistress, it is making the estate feel like the quietest place in the whole entire world” she croaked.

After a good five minutes the elf sat back up fresh as a daisy, visibly revitalized and alert. “Thistle is having much to report! What is Mistress wanting to hear first?” She asked, and without even needing to think twice Augusta asked the first thing on her mind “Please Thistle, is my Neville safe around that girl? Is there even the slightest chance of her hurting him?” She beseeched the elf desperately, reaching out and clasping her little hands in her own. 

For a young elf, the soft smile Thistle gave her was very knowing “There is being no one the young Master is safer with, Mistress. It is being very good timing that Thistle is arriving so early at the school on the first day after the train, as she is hearing an important conversation between the young Missy and her brother. Missy Hermie is telling her brother that our young Master Neville is being her true mate!” The elf said quite dreamily, her hands over her heart and a faraway romantic look in her eyes “It is being such a blessing Mistress, so few magical beings is granted their mates in their lifetime! Our young Master is being so lucky he is meeting his Missy at such a young age”

Augusta had heard many outlandish things in her life, but rarely had they been said to her with such overwhelmingly earnest sincerity. That alone gave her pause and made her give her first impression of the statement a second thinking over. She nodded absentmindedly for Thistle to go on. 

“Young Missy is being just as kind and good and friendly as young Master is saying! She be very smart and is helping him in all their classes and never letting him get lost in the castle. She be introducing him to her cousins the Weasleys and the Malfoy boy and helping him make friends with them. She be talking about him to anyone who will listen when he is not being around about how sweet and funny he is being and how much she is liking him. She is being a very active child, Mistress! She is running and jumping around everywhere she is going and having lots of fun, and helping young Master have lots of fun too. Young Missy’s hearing and smelling is being very good, Mistress - she is able to be talking with her brother across the entire hall during meal time at a whisper, and is able to be telling what someone had for lunch yesterday!”

The elf kept happily rambling on and on about the girl and all the many positive attributes that made the sun shine out of her arse, and Augusta just took it all in with a growing sense of awe and admiration for the child. Whatever it meant that she thought her grandson was her mate, the girl was clearly very good for him and to him. That was the important thing. Everything else could shake itself out. 

“And she’s not the slightest bit violent or out of control?” She asked, needing to make sure. To her surprise the elf dithered a bit “Out of control - absolutely not, Mistress. Young Missy is having complete control over her wolf and her shift, she is being more like an animagus than a normal werewolfy… And Missy Hermie is never being violent to young Master, but she is being very comfortable ah… growling or showing her clawsies to other students if they is being rude or naughty? Like a real wolf. Young Missy is acting like she is being raised not knowing people is scared of werewolvesies” Thistle said, shaking her head in confusion, brows furrowed. 

“So she’s willing to openly defend herself and protect what she sees as hers… And she sees our Neville as hers. Have you seen her be possessive of him, or keep him from making other friends?” She asked thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. Thistle blushed bright purple on her high cheekbones “Ahh, no Mistress. In fact, knowing our young Master… he is probably making more friends with Missy Hermie by his side than he would be without her. She and her brother is both being very popular and most of the other first years is wanting to be friends with them except for some of the slithery snakies, and she is making them all include the young master if they is wanting to be getting to know her” the elf admitted quite candidly. 

Augusta couldn’t help but be impressed with the girl, despite not yet having met her. Realizing the last detail she’d forgotten, she turned her gaze back to Thistle “She does sound like a lovely young lady. Now tell me my dear, what does she look like so I can have an image in my mind the next time he writes” here her elf finally hesitated, pointedly looking down at her little feet. 

“Thistle? What does she look like?” She asked again, a bit firmer. The elf gulped, and still wouldn’t meet her eyes “Missy Hermie is having the classical bearing of her house, Mistress” she said softly “She is being very short, she is being pale of skin, she is having lots of long curly dark brown hair, and she is-… she is having light grey eyes, Mistress. The grey eyes of the house of Black” she finished, her voice barely above a whispering sigh. 

It felt as if her blood turned to ice in her veins. For all she had feared a child with Greyback for a father, she suddenly needed to know more than anything who the girl’s mother was. It couldn’t be… no it couldn’t be. Bellatrix had been crazy, she had never been capable of bringing a child into the world without killing it. It wasn’t possible. 

She tried to tell herself to calm herself down and realized she was hyperventilating wildly. Thistle was panicking over her, calling for Rosie and Thorn to come and help settle her. She felt like she was standing outside of her body watching herself have a heart attack. There was a terrible wrenching pain in her chest. She slammed back into her body and gasped out for one of them to summon a healer, before her vision blacked out and she was dead to the world. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She came to with none other than Healer Tonks seated at her bedside. Andromeda had helped care for Gerald before he’d passed, and she trusted no one more to see that she survived whatever that terrible spell had been. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, and was pleased to find it didn’t hurt anymore and that her breath came easily. 

“Hello Auggie,” The younger woman said with a wry smile, and Augusta scowled at the impertinent nickname. She tried to sit up and Andromeda helped her with a strong hand, fluffing a pillow for between her back and the hard wooden headboard. Feeling as though at least some small part of her dignity had returned to her by virtue of being upright, she steeled her spine “You can be honest - how bad is it, Andy?” She asked, her voice more fearless than she felt. 

The Healer rolled her eyes and laughed at her, the rude cow “Your heart is absolutely fine, Augusta. You’re as healthy as a horse you utter hypochondriac. You did have a right bludger of a panic attack, though. Your poor terrified elves here nearly broke my office door down - care to tell me what upset you so?” She asked not the least bit delicately, handing her a cup of tea. It was just the way she took it, and she glanced around her bedchamber and saw Rosie and Thistle holding themselves in the far corner of the room looking absolutely miserable. 

Tutting and “tsk”-ing, she held her hand out in their direction and beckoned them over, and they popped onto her bed on either side of her and laid their little heads in her lap cooing and crying. She sat her cup down on the small table next to her bedside and settled each of her hands on their backs gently. They were such devoted creatures, and she was incredibly grateful for their care and companionship “I’m terribly sorry for frightening you, my dears. Healer Tonks has just told me I’m quite fine so there’s really nothing to worry about at all. I just had a moment of silliness, but I’m still very glad you went to get her for me” she said with feeling, meaning every word down to her old bones. 

Rosie looked up with her huge red-rimmed eyes and nodded silently, but Thistle, still so young and sensitive, continued sobbing into her little dress and refused to uncover her face from beneath her floppy ears. She sighed softly “My dear, you did nothing wrong. You only told me what I asked you to find out. I’m sorry for reacting the way I did, and I’m glad you told me” she insisted. The tiny creature let out a wretched whimper and shook her head vehemently, and next to her Rosie spoke up “When Mistress be collapsings, poor silly Thistle is thinking she is killing her and breaking their bond. Rosie is having to be restraining Thistle so she is not hurting herself, Mistress” the elf said somberly, not raising her eyes. 

Both women in the room inhaled sharply at that, and tears welled in Augusta’s eyes. She cleared her throat and addressed the creature firmly “Thistle, look at me please!” She commanded, and the elf did so slowly and rather unwillingly. 

She cupped the elf’s little chin, rubbing her thumb over her cheek “Thistle as your Mistress I hereby command you that you are never to hurt yourself while you are in the service of the Longbottom family. Even if you think you have misbehaved or displeased us somehow. Even if you think you deserve it. Even if you have made a horrible mistake. You are never to intentionally lay a hand a tool or a weapon upon yourself with intent to do harm, you are never to intentionally ingest anything that may cause you pain or death, you are never to intentionally allow yourself to be injured by an untamed animal or dangerous person. If you ever desire to cause yourself harm you are to come to me and tell me about these feelings. Do you understand these orders? Do you swear to obey them?” She demanded.

The elf closed her eyes and nodded, and her body went boneless as she relaxed fully into Augusta’s lap. She glanced at Rosie, “Those orders apply to you as well, my dear. Though I know you’d never need them” she said softly. Leaning back and closing her own eyes, she felt winded. She raised her voice slightly when she next spoke, addressing the other woman still in the room “I’m sorry you made the trip here for nothing other than a bit of foolish worry, but I’m actually quite glad to see you Andy. You’re just the woman who might have some answers to my questions, you see” she said with a little smile. 

Summoning Neville’s letter from the other day, she passed it to her long time friend and healer “What exactly do you make of that, hmm? I’ve had Thistle here trailing the girl for the last few days, and I’ll admit I was quite pleased with what I heard about her until she described her appearance. I may have-… well I can admit that I may have over reacted a tad” she mumbled, stalwartly refusing to be embarrassed. She opened her eyes and glanced at Andromeda with a raised brow and narrowed eyes “I’m guessing you can fill in the details my grandson is unclear on? Seeing as the girl is your head of house. Congratulations on your reinstatement, by the way” she said genuinely. 

Augusta listened as the other woman told her the most outrageous tale of a child accidentally challenging the wrong house ring and being accepted anyways. Of a kind and compassionate young heart who immediately sought to help and get to know her family, and to right wrongs that had been done wherever she saw them. Of a man whose life had been twisted and lied about for reasons none of them understood. And most importantly, a girl whose mother was not Bellatrix. 

“Alphard’s Hydra? Why, I scarcely remember her at all. She always stayed on the sidelines, never choosing sides or making waves, practically blended into the wallpaper” she thought aloud, and was surprised to see Andromeda shake her head in disagreement, brow furrowed. “She may have kept a publicly neutral facade, but she did some very big things in the background. She’s the only Black who ever refused their own inheritance, she insisted her father leave it to me and Sirius after we were disowned, and the rest of it she anonymously donated to the light side’s war effort. Nearly every move Dumbledore’s order made in those last few years was underwritten directly out of her personal pocketbook. I still don’t know exactly why she was killed but that had to have been part of it. Someone in you-know-who’s ranks must have found a paper trail and followed it back to her” she said sadly. 

This gave her pause, and made her reconsider the Black family in an entirely new light. She had known Alphard quite well, they had been contemporaries and school friends. Privately she had always considered him and the woman before her to be some of the only Blacks worth knowing. Lucretia and Cedrella had been alright, but they’d both been quite a bit older than her and she’d never gotten along particularly well with either of them. Walburga wasn’t even worth mentioning, and quite frankly she was glad the detestable woman was in the grave. 

She suddenly wished she’d paid more attention to Hydra Black while she’d still been around, it seemed like she’d missed out on a rare gem. 

“She’s so much like her mother it blows me away sometimes, bold and fearless and always following her heart” Andromeda continued “it’s funny, you know Hermione actually sent me a letter just the other day asking how one goes about asking permission from a head of house to court a young man under their care. Her etiquette lessons with Narcissa hadn’t covered it yet” she said with a devious smirk. 

Augusta felt like she herself had been blown away as well, it seemed the girl meant business just as much as her grandson. She was strangely relieved by that. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The very next day found Augusta heading to the school for a meeting of the board of governors. It was quite early in the year for them to be convening, and she wondered nervously if it had anything to do with the Greyback children. She knew there had to be a great deal of parents that would be profoundly outraged at the idea of the two of them being educated alongside their own little darlings. 

As she crossed through the ancient cast iron gates, she felt the castle’s magic rush to meet her own, and it felt somehow more robust than in years past. If she had feathers they’d be rustled, and she hurried up the path and into the school. Minerva met her at the doors, and greeted her politely enough. For them, anyways. She’d deck anyone else who dared to call her a “Cantankerous old heifer,” and she certainly would never address anyone else in the world as a “fussy wee pussycat”

As they made their way up to the space the board traditionally met in, she asked her friend under her breath if it was about what she suspected. Minerva looked at her askance and she rolled her eyes “My Neville sent me a letter and then Andy filled me in the rest of the way” she huffed impatiently “I know all about those two” 

The other woman hissed at her lightly, and then “tsk”ed and looked away. She shook her head “Yes, alright! Their father and family lawyer are here already, they plan to have some sort of educational contract reviewed. I can’t tell you any more because that’s all I know, so don’t ask me” she said rather peevishly. Augusta raised a single brow at her “Fine, don’t tell me” she muttered. 

Immeasurably thankful she didn’t have to cart her sorry old arse up all seven sets of stairways, she entered the second floor classroom they turned into a makeshift conference hall whenever they needed to convene. To her great displeasure, the first thing she heard as she crossed the threshold was Malfoy’s pompous slimy voice buttering up some of the old guard who should have known better than to be so easily flattered by his sweet nothings. 

She fought not to roll her eyes at he yet again mentioned his close and intimate friendship with the minister. Intimate was right, his hand was more often than not so far up the other man’s arse he could be confused for a muppet. Not even bothering to hide her sneer of distaste, she made her way to the head of the table and took her rightful seat as chairperson of the board. She did not miss his scowl, and relished it a bit hedonistically - he was deeply and openly resentful that she was both resistant to his charms and able to see so clearly through them. 

Settling in and glancing around the room, she saw that everyone was present and cleared her throat pointedly to usher them to their places. Looking like children caught red-handed sneaking sweets after bedtime, they all slunk to their seats around the table. She noticed there were two visitors she hadn’t accounted for, and she suspected she knew exactly who they were and what they were there for. For propriety’s sake she activated the dicta-quill that took the official minutes and opened the meeting.

“On this morning of Thursday, September the fifth, 1991, I, Augusta Fredericka Longbottom, chairperson of this board, do hereby call into order this meeting of the Hogwarts School’s Board of Governors” She said with all appropriate officiousness. She looked down over the top of her spectacles at the extra persons in the room “Board members, please sound off for the record” she instructed her colleagues. 

“Professor Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress and faculty liaison, present”

“Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, board treasurer, present” (one son at school, Draco)

“Jesterly Fawley, board secretary, present” (two sons at school, Jacob and Johnathan)

“Hyperion Greengrass, present” (one daughter at school, Daphne)

“Esme Zabini, present” (one son at school, Blaise)

“Nasir Shafiq, present” (one daughter at school, Amira)

“Preston Parkinson, present” (one daughter at school, Pansy)

“Hester Abbott, present” (two daughters at school, Harmony and Hannah)

“Deuteronomy Smith, present” (one grandson at school, Zacharias)

“Ezra Goldstein, present” (one nephew at school, Anthony)

“Molly Weasley, present” (four sons at school, Percival, Fred, George, and Ronald)

The rest of the room was surprised to see Molly, as she was a new face at the table. Augusta was quick to dismiss any curiosity “Madam Weasley has been chosen anonymously and randomly from among the parents of the current student body to replace the late Mister Avery, who passed away over the summer and has no other relatives who wished to take over his seat” she said brusquely.

“Thank you all for coming in on such short notice, now would you gentlemen please introduce yourselves and state your business?” She prompted authoritatively. The two of them came over to the table from where they had been standing next to the window and both bowed. One man did so perfunctorily and completely correctly, as if he did so many times every day without a second thought. The other did so haltingly and awkwardly, watching the other man’s movements and copying them as if he’d never done it before in his life. 

“Thank you for seeing us this morning. I am Asmund Rowle esquire, solicitor in the service of the house of Black, here as legal representation for my client Mister Fenrir Greyback. We are here to present an educational contract on behalf of his children, Harry Potter Greyback and Hermione Elena Greyback, for review and enactment by you fine members of the board” the blonde man announced clearly and politely. She nodded at him once, settling back and getting comfortable “So noted Mr Rowle, and what is the nature of the contract?” She inquired.

With a wave of his wand, he duplicated the document he held and a copy appeared in front of each board member. To her surprise the contents of the pages were blurred “What is the meaning of this, sir?” She demanded sharply, to which he demurred “Forgive me, madam chairperson, only a simple precaution to protect my clients’ privacy. The details of this meeting will reveal highly sensitive and personal information about a member of the British wizarding peerage. Her rights are protected under wizengamot precedent. Once this board has unanimously sworn a standard non-disclosure oath, the documents in question will become fully legible and open for discussion. I’m afraid this is non-negotiable” he said coolly, knowing he had them in a corner. 

She bit the inside of her own cheek sharply - as much as she appreciated the integrity that his firm adherence to good protocols showed, she didn’t like being told what to do. Especially not in her own house. She narrowed her eyes at him “Very well, according to the school’s charter and ministry bylaws you are correct that you have the right to demand such an oath on your clients behalf. Governors you have the option to either swear an oath of non-disclosure and stay for the rest of this board meeting, or refuse and leave immediately. Your ability to attend future board meetings that concern this same matter or address any information learned during it may be compromised if you choose not to make the oath, but otherwise the choice is yours” she instructed. 

Standing, she took her own wand in hand and placed it over her chest “I, Augusta Fredericka Longbottom, do swear on my magic that I will not share any details about this contract, the meeting reviewing it, the decision rendered by this board, or the private information about the students contained within it, with anyone other than those who were present for this meeting and the students it concerns. So mote it be” she swore, feeling her magic invoke and swirl around the room, building as the other board members stood and did the same. 

As the rush of magic grew and mingled and then slowly died down, she felt briefly connected to everyone else in the room as if by spidersilk thin strands. Rowle clapped his hands and bowed again “Thank you very much, your cooperation is sincerely appreciated. Now that you have all been sworn in, I can reveal that the nature of this educational contract is in regards to the rights of my clients as werewolves, and how they will be treated by this institution over the next seven years as they receive their schooling” he said with a smug grin, visibly relishing the scandalous and provocative subject. 

Gasps and outraged cries filled the room, and Augusta frustratedly made a loud bang out of the end of her wand like a judge’s gavel “Enough! Silence! Now Mr Rowle I am not in any way condoning this particular policy, but Hogwarts does not and has never produced offers of admission for non-human children. How is it that your clients are already students at this school if they are, by your own admission, werewolves?” She demanded curiously, trying to not reveal the slightest hint of her own personal investment into the matter. Why did her boy have to set his sights on one of the difficult ones?

Rowle’s answer was surprisingly candid “I do not know madam chairperson, and frankly it is not my responsibility to answer that question. Clearly it has at least twice as I have seen the letters that invited them to matriculate here with my own eyes. As far as I understand it this institution is still using the same semi-sentient book of admissions that the founders created, but that’s not relevant. However it happened, your school has offered a place to these children, and they are here in attendance. As registered and enrolled students, they are due the same rights, privileges, and protections as any other child here. One of those is the right to medical accommodation for permanent disease or disability, which I will argue reasonably includes the condition of lycanthropy. Therefore, consideration must be taken to support their needs to the best of this school’s ability. I will allow their father, Mr Greyback, to answer further questions about the specifics of their needs. Sir?” 

He prompted the other man to stand and face the board. Fenrir Greyback was much larger than Rowle, and though he was clean and tidy he was also a bit less well dressed. He looked profoundly uncomfortable, but she could tell he was making a genuine effort. He cleared his throat and it sounded a bit phlegmy “The rights that I am requesting be signed into contract and honored by this school are very simple, and I am willing to compromise with this institution to see them met. If my children are allowed to floo home in the afternoon or evening of the full moon every month, their transformations will never have to happen on or anywhere near school grounds or be a potential liability here for the staff and students that live and work here” he said gruffly. She glanced around at the other board members and they seemed confused by his request.

She took the initiative to give him a bit of a nudge in the right direction “Mr Greyback, am I correct in the understanding that by signing this contract you take full personal parental responsibility for your children’s actions during the full moon, even while they continue to receive their educations here?” She said, pointedly raising her voice a hair’s breadth, and sharply raising one brow. 

The man in question blanched, and spun back around to consult his solicitor, who vehemently shook his head and looked at her assessingly, “Allow me to rephrase my client’s statement,” he said “there are several very strict stipulations about how this school must treat the Greyback children so as not to infringe upon their basic rights. As a parent Mr Greyback is more than happy to continue to take on the responsibility of supervising his children’s full moon transformations, and his willingness to do so is not in any way meant to be construed as a bribe or reward for the school agreeing to do the bare minimum in seeing that his children’s rights are not trampled.”

She scowled, that wasn’t what she had meant! She had been trying to help him come across as more sympathetic to the other board members. Bugger! “Of course,” she said a bit tartly “Now can you please clarify exactly what rights Mr Greyback is concerned about his children being denied?”

Rowle placed a hand on his client’s shoulder, who she noticed with a touch of anxiety seemed to be getting a bit agitated “Mr Greyback would like to ensure that his children are granted the right to a least-restrictive environment. What this means is relatively straightforward. Outside of the full moon Harry and Hermione are harmless children, and he insists that they be treated as such. They are to be given no potions or be cast upon in any way that would restrain or sedate them unless there is an active emergency situation. Their admission to the school is not to be called into question, threatened, or revoked because of parent outrage or press if word gets out about their condition, or by government intervention if their rights are legislatively revoked - in other words, their continued right to finish their education is to be stringently protected. Their safety and wellbeing must be given the same protection and priority as the other children. And most importantly, in any instance of discipline beyond a simple point loss or single detention they must be allowed the right to have their family solicitor, myself, present to represent them”

The room erupted again into objections and arguments “Our own human children don’t even have those rights!” Preston Parkinson argued furiously, his face reddening. Minerva glanced at him sharply “That is categorically false and you well know it, you bloated old toad. The right to have and finish an education uninterrupted, to have their safety guarded by staff, and to have legal representation if so needed are all written into this school’s original charter by the founders themselves” she informed him. 

“And what about the very first demand, hmm, that these beasts cannot be potioned sedated or even restrained for any reason? What are your staff to do if they transform and start attacking the other children - politely ask them to please not do so? It’s outrageous! I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life!” He continued, only getting madder and redder. 

At that the rest of the angry governors cooled a bit and looked at each other and then at him askance “Do you hear how foolish you sound, Parkinson? Werewolves may be dangerous when they’re transformed but everyone knows they can only do so on the night of the full moon, or did you not pass third year defense?” Jesterly Fawley chided him, unamused by his show of ignorance. 

“As Mr Rowle attested, as long as they’re out of the castle and off of school grounds from sundown on the full moon to daybreak the morning after, they should be no more dangerous than regular school children. I don’t see why they shouldn’t have the right to not be administered potions or have spells cast upon them against their will. A professor that did the same to any of our children would be brought before this very board for review of their actions! It goes against disciplinary policy to do any of those things to a student except in emergency situations, which again the contract does grant exemption for if you had been listening, Parkinson” Nasir Shafiq reasoned calmly and thoughtfully. Heads nodded around the room. 

The man in question sputtered and stuttered “Well what about not being removed? No other student in the school is granted impunity from expulsion!” He countered weakly, and several other governors scoffed. 

“You daft twit, he didn’t say a single word about impunity from expulsion. He said parent outrage or sensationalized media response. Again, this school has never removed any student due to public outcry alone if they did nothing to warrant removal. This is more than reasonable, as they are likely to face widespread censure if word gets out about their condition. As long as they are in good academic and disciplinary standing, it is perfectly acceptable to expect not to be removed from school for no reason! We would grant any other student the same basic courtesy of not tossing them out unprovoked” bellowed Deuteronomy Smith, the oldest of them all and more than halfway deaf, cowing Parkinson quite effectively. The man actually looked shamefaced, and was doing a moderately good impression of a turtle withdrawing into its shell as he slouched lower and lower in his chair. 

“Hmm, well said Smith!” Hester Abbot chimed in “As far as I can tell from what I’ve seen skimming through it, there’s nothing in this contract that couldn’t be argued applies to any other child in attendance at the school. I’m of the opinion that they’re really not asking for special treatment at all, and I don’t see why we can’t have this approved today and be done with it” she suggested diplomatically. Several other governors nodded. 

“Parkinson may have been wrong, but are we really all buying into the fantasy that these two children are completely harmless? None of us have ever even met them, how do we know they’re not aggressive or violent? Even an actual human child can do terrible damage if they are motivated enough, add in claws and animal instincts and I don’t want my Blaise anywhere near them. I’d say ask their father how different they are from regular children but I’d be shocked if he himself knew. For all we know they don’t even need to be transformed to have the sheer strength to break another child’s neck” Esme Zabini purred venomously, shocking the rest of them with her poisonous rhetoric. Augusta noticed that it looked like Hyperion Greengrass, who had been on the fence before, might have been swayed by her words. Parkinson looked like he’d been triumphantly vindicated.

Molly Weasley looked even more furious than Greyback at the insinuation, and rose swiftly to her feet “Pardon me, madam, but I do in fact know these children! They are cousins of my own children, and I have watched them play together without ever having any problems whatsoever. They are sweet and well behaved, and I’ve never seen either of them hurt a fly. I’ll grant you that they may be stronger and faster than the average child their age, but they are acutely aware of it, and adjust accordingly. I’ve actually seen them voluntarily go out of their way to give themselves handicaps while playing with my children to make games and contests more fair. None of my brood would do that, and I’d argue none of yours would either” she defended them passionately, clearly she loved these two dearly. 

“And if you don’t believe me,” she added tartly “why don’t you just ask Lord Malfoy his opinion on the matter?” she said with a smirk, drawing looks of startled confusion from the rest of the governors, including Augusta herself. She glanced over at him to see a pained grimace flash over his face for a fraction of a second before it smoothed back out into his typical bland countenance. What on earth could he have to contribute to this discussion?

Malfoy stood “Madam Weasley is correct. The Greyback twins happen to be cousins with my son as well, and I have observed the same good manners and sound judgment she testifies to when they are at play. They are keenly aware that their human cousins are weaker and… more fragile than them, and they neither take advantage nor intentionally do harm. In fact, I have seen them playing extremely roughly with each other only to immediately adjust accordingly the instant human children joined them. I am willing to attest here before this board that I have never seen or heard tell of them scratching biting or in any way injuring another child, even untransformed” he eloquently argued, and Augusta felt thunderstruck. 

She remembered a moment later that his wife was a Black, and therefore the girl must be her head of house. It took everything she had to hold in the bark of laughter when she realized. That certainly explained his begrudging support. Oh that’s just delicious she thought to herself, imagining him obediently playing the hapless jester jingling miserably for his supper in eleven year old Hermione’s little court. The mental picture so entertained her that she was sure it would be strong enough to power a patronus. 

Zabini seemed satisfied enough by Malfoy vouching for the children, and gave a carelessly casual shrug as if she had never been truly bothered in the first place. Greengrass was pulled off the fence entirely and fully onto the other side. Even Parkinson looked like he was finally at the very least considering the matter neutrally. Everyone else was sold. Augusta cleared her throat again. 

“Unless there is any other evidence or testimony to present I believe we are finished deliberating, yes? …Then in the matter of the educational contract presented by Mr Asmund Rowle on behalf of the students Harry Potter Greyback and Hermione Elena Greyback, how does this board vote?” She asked, and each governor raised their wand, and all eleven of them including herself shot green ribbons out of the ends of them that formed check marks in the air. She nodded, pleased as punch “Very well, then by unanimous vote the contract is approved and will be signed and enacted by the school this very day” she said. 

She turned to Rowle and requested the master copy, and when he provided it she pressed her wand to the top line of the signature box on the bottom of the parchment. Her family crest appeared in shining gold, and she signed her name next to it. She passed it around the table and the rest of the governors did the same. Passing it back to Rowle she saw him sign as a witness, and instruct his client on signing as well. To her absolute shock, a stout figure she hadn’t noticed waddled out of the shadows and stepped forward. 

It was a goblin - on school grounds! 

“Excuse me,” she barked without a moment’s hesitation “Who is this, and have they been here in the room for this entire meeting?” She demanded, drawing everyone else’s attention to the figure. Rowle held up his hands to calm her “Pardon me madam chairperson, this is the house of Black’s accounts manager Gornuk. He is here in his capacity as a senior Gringotts employee to notarize this contract, and was already aware of the information you all swore to protect” he said calmly. 

The creature bared his wickedly sharp teeth in an expression that could not possibly be confused for a smile, and it sent a shudder down Augusta’s spine. It turned keen knowing eyes on her, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable. With a shallow bow that was really little more than an exaggerated nod it addressed the room “I am Gornuk son of Nograk, and I am here on my Lady patroness’ behalf to notarize this contract between the Hogwarts School board of governors and her father Fenrir Greyback” it rasped, and murmurs followed. 

“I had heard the house of Black had a new head after Acturus finally died last year. Tell me goblin, just who exactly is your patron?” Hyperion Greengrass inquired with all the grace and wit of a quaffle. The goblin only turned up its long pointed nose, and with all the dignity the question deserved replied “The Lady Black” 

Rolling his eyes the wizard huffed “Well yes, obviously. Don’t take that tone with me you beastly little thing. Who is the new Lady Black? You and the solicitor both claim that you are here in her service and on her behalf, why has she not shown herself at this meeting if it is a matter of such importance?” He demanded rudely, his temper rising. Stupid man, she thought to herself idly, you never insult the ones that guard your wealth.

Rather than have to debase itself by responding to such a remark, Minerva crossed her arms and addressed the man herself. She glanced at the clock on the wall “Seeing as it’s 10:37 Wednesday morning, Miss Greyback should be outside in greenhouse three with the rest of the first years for her herbology lesson. As we are reviewing a contract that states her education shall not be needlessly interrupted, I think it would be rather ironic to summon her here during her class time, wouldn’t you think, Hyperion?” She asked matter-of-factly, leaving the man gaping like a fish. Gods but Augusta loved that woman. 

Ancient old Deuteronomy Smith shook his head as if clearing his ears to hear better “Now Minnie, do you mean to tell us that the Lady Black is actually the child this contract is regarding? Have I heard you correctly, m’dear?” He asked, once again rather too loudly but at least not shouting this time. Augusta rolled her eyes and spoke loudly and enunciated clearly in his direction “YES, Smith! It would appear that Miss Hermione Greyback is both the student and the Lady Black - one and the same” she clarified. She nodded a bit desperately at the goblin to continue with whatever it had planned. 

Pulling a very small knife from its waistcoat, it stabbed the tip of its own finger. As a bead of dark purplish blood rose to the cut it had made, it dragged it across the signatures they’d all made on the parchment. With a telltale tingle of magic in the air, the blood that had smeared over the names lifted up off of the parchment and arranged itself into the shape of the bank’s official seal. As soon as it was the correct shape it slammed back down and seeped into the page, staining a mark of the seal and drying instantly with a shimmer of magic. 

Returning his small knife to his waistcoat, he nodded at her more respectfully than he had a moment ago “I, Gornuk son of Nograk, senior accounts manager for the house of Black, do hereby notarize that I did witness this contract having been fairly negotiated and then signed in good faith by willing parties, on the fourth day of Haligmōnadth in the year of 1991” he intoned blandly. She felt the creature invoke its magic as the seal activated on the parchment and glowed golden before dulling back to red. There was the odd sensation of a slightly metallic reverberation in the air, as if a tuning fork had been ever so delicately struck and allowed to ring, and it was gone nearly as soon as it began. 

Ignoring the stunned silence of the governors of the board entirely, the goblin bowed to the professor and addressed Rowle, instructing him on how to have official copies made at the bank and which upcoming deadlines he would need to adhere to in order to ensure proper filing. It struck Augusta that though she’d known it was possible to have important documents authenticated and notarized by the bank, she hadn’t ever actually seen or heard of it happening before. She recalled having overheard someone once say that it was a premium service the goblins offered only to their most preferred clientele. 

…Huh…

Out of the corner of her eye she thought saw the goblin actually reach up and… did he just shake Greyback’s hand? That couldn’t be right. She was no commoner or peasant hedge-witch, she came from a family with a seat on the wizengamot. But the goblins didn’t treat any humans like that - not even the Malfoys and Blacks of their world. Then again, by his own admission Mr Greyback was very clearly not a human. 

…Hmmm…

She jolted back to herself and cleared her throat “Unless there is any other pertinent school business to discuss?” She asked the room, and when no one said a word she continued “then I do hereby adjourn this meeting of the Hogwarts School board of governors. Professor McGonagall, by end of week I’d like the rest of the professors to be brought into confidence and given access to our copy of the contract to read through. If they ever need to discuss it amongst themselves it’s to be referred to as the children’s medical accommodations. I don’t want a single member of faculty in this school not knowing their responsibility to these children” she said with a note of finality, leaning back in her chair. 

Jesterly Fawley summoned the parchment and dicta-quill that had been recording the conversation and brought them over to Rowle and the goblin “We don’t exactly have a protocol for what to do with the minutes of a meeting that contain confidential information. These would normally be filed in the deputy headmistress’ office for posterity and official record. Are there any spells that should be cast upon them to seal them somehow?” He asked the two of them smartly, and she was glad he’d been appointed secretary as he often did things competently. 

Rowle nodded at him approvingly “Yes, there are an entire subset of privacy charms we regularly cast upon our documents in the legal profession, and I’d be quite pleased to do that for you now. The spell I will use allows only those who have sworn to keep the information secret to read it” he said, taking out his wand and casting on the parchment. It shimmered and straightened out, then rolled itself back up neatly. He handed it back to Fawley “I’ll be taking this master copy of the contract to the bank with Gornuk here to have two official copies made, at which time I’ll return and give it to you one to keep for your records, and have the other filed with the ministry. Asmund and Associates will hold onto the master if you ever have need of it” he told Fawley succinctly. 

Turning back to Augusta he bowed rather more gallantly than was typical, with one hand over his chest and one behind his back “Madam chairperson, governors, professor, thank you for your precious time and your bold open mindedness. You’ve done something truly groundbreaking today by granting these two werewolf children the same legal protections as their peers. I do sincerely believe that history will look back on it kindly” he said quite earnestly. She was a bit taken aback, but realized that he had a point. As far as she knew this could be the first time in the school and possibly even the country that a non-human person’s educational rights had been in any way codified. 

Suddenly she had an inkling of an idea why the goblin was so chummy with the two gentlemen. Ensuring the legal rights of two children from noble houses to attend school may not seem like a particularly hot button issue, but it was a very easy and very slippery first step to one day seeing those two children on the wizengamot where they could speak for those who had helped them along the way. Such as their goblin friend. And their werewolf father. And who knows who else. 

Augusta suddenly got the distinct impression that they’d all just been taken for a ride. She kept her face calm but inside she was cackling like a swamp hag. On her way out of the school she stopped Greyback and told him how pleased she was for their children to be friends, and his blank glazed look of confusion told him he didn’t know a thing yet. Interesting… If he didn’t know then she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him - he’d find out eventually. She rather enjoyed being unhelpful like that at times, it was one of her greatest pleasures in life. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If Augusta had been surprised to receive word from her grandson that he had met his future wife at the ripe age of eleven years old, she was positively stunned speechless to receive word from his head of house that he and his little friend had made heroes of themselves and potentially saved their classmates lives in their very first potions class. 

Dated the 7th of September, 1991
From the desk of professor Minerva McGonagall
The office of the deputy headmistress
Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry

Augusta,

Although I cannot make regular reports home for all of my lions, I will make an exception as I know you have feared Neville might struggle at school. I tell you now that although he is a bit of a nervous lad, I’ve seen no sign that he’s had any real difficulties so far. You should be proud to know that your Neville has had a fine first week at school, and is comporting himself well as one of my lions. He’s attended his classes on time, he’s made good friends, and seems to be getting along with the rest of his year mates. 

I’ve been approached by both Severus and Pomona with compliments to his performance in their classes. You undersold the lad’s green thumb, apparently that keen intuition about plants has given him a leg up in potions as well. Severus Snape has never before openly praised a Gryffindor student in my earshot in all the years he has been a professor at this school. Imagine my surprise when he told me all about your boy teaching him a new and effective trick for identifying expired ingredients! I’ve known that dour young man for over twenty years and I’ve never heard him sound quite so impressed. He earned more points in one two-hour potions class than the man usually awards all of Gryffindor house in an entire year. 

Needless to say I think we can expect good things going forward. I had feared he might have inherited Frank’s terrible knack for ruining any and all potions he came into contact with - luckily it must have skipped a generation. 

Minerva

As pleased as she was to hear that he’d done so well in potions, she couldn’t help but wonder a touch guiltily just how the boy had managed it. In all of the lessons she’d given him at home he’d had the most trouble in the lab. Pre-school aged children didn’t need to know how to brew actual potions, but in her day it had been bad form to send your child to school as a first year knowing nothing of the basics. The potions professor simply didn’t have time to teach dozens of eleven year olds the difference between boiling and simmering, dicing and chopping, squeezing and crushing, and so on and so forth. It was expected they’d have learned those skills from their parents at home, which was why so many muggleborns typically struggled in their first few years. 

Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to get Neville prepared with much in the way of practical potions knowledge or ability. Like her Frank before him he’d cut himself on knives, burned himself on his cauldron’s fire, and even nearly dissolved one of his toes off with armadillo bile. She still wasn’t sure how that last one had happened, but they’d mutually agreed not to ever discuss it again. Suffice it to say he was a walking disaster and she’d kept him clear of both her lab and kitchen since realizing his natural… proclivity for disaster. Anticlivity? 

Maybe all this time he’d just been a late bloomer waiting for the right moment to blossom. Or perhaps she’d been too stern and he’d needed space away from her to perform well. He had always been such an anxious boy, and she had never been as warm as she’d wanted to be. She always taken delight in intimidating social rivals, maybe she’d let herself become too cold and closed off. She knew she had made mistakes raising him but they were hard to admit and harder still to change. As easy as it was to assume that his problems started and stopped with him, it was becoming impossible to ignore the effect she had on the way he had turned out. Especially when she got reminders like this, that he was out of her house and away from her influence for less than a week and was suddenly thriving. 

She stewed on those thoughts for a few days until another letter from Minerva arrived with a decidedly different tone. The owl that had delivered it was unusually hostile, and she’d never seen a letter that wasn’t a howler steam before. She cast a diagnostic charm before gingerly opening it.  

Dated the 12th of September, 1991
From the desk of professor Minerva McGonagall
The office of the deputy headmistress
Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry

Augusta, you are not a foolish woman. I cannot for the life of me imagine what could possibly have made you decide to send your grandson to my school with his father’s wand instead of one that chose him. I’ve heard now from multiple sources that Neville was unable to channel even a simple lumos charm through it. Filius informed me today that he is the only first year who hasn’t managed to cast it yet - even the two Slytherins who might as well be part troll have gotten their wands to light! Miss Greyback came to me confused as she was quite certain he had perfect intonation and wand movements but still couldn’t get it to work for some reason - color me surprised. A private conversation with Neville himself has revealed to me that the boy sincerely believes himself to be a squib that has miraculously managed to fool the book and hat somehow.

I know it’s Frank’s wand, Augusta. I taught that boy for seven years in this very castle, don’t think for an instant that I don’t recognize it well. I don’t understand why you’ve done this, and although I’m sure you must have had some reason, I’m afraid I cannot allow it to continue. It is clearly a very poor match, one he cannot be successful with in the long term, and I insist that you collect him before the coming weekend is over and take him to get one that will actually work. 

Think of how much more painful it might be if he needed his wand to save his life and it refused to work for him. Keep Frank’s wand as an heirloom for him if you must, but for all the gods sakes don’t make the boy use it. I know how much you’ve lost my dear friend, don’t set yourself up to lose him too. He might as well be defenseless with such a poor tool in his arsenal. 

Minerva

Augusta’s chest felt hollow and she yearned to throw the parchment into the fire and curse her friend for over reaching. Meddlesome cow, how dare she! But… she was right wasn’t she, that could be the only explanation for her boy being unable to even light his wand. It wasn’t his wand after all, it was his father’s and it must still be loyal to him even in his deteriorated state. She’d taken her Frank to get it after he graduated from Hogwarts so that he’d have a proper auror’s wand when he started as a cadet at the academy. Ollivander had said her son’s sweet nature wasn’t exactly suited to such violent work, but he’d found the perfect match for him to do what he needed to apprehend death eaters and survive duels and skirmishes alike. 

What had she been thinking sending Neville off to school to learn his first year charms and transfigurations with such a deadly implement? She might as well have been trying to teach him table manners with a sword instead of a knife. It was a sheer dumb luck that it didn’t warm to his touch, he might have accidentally killed someone with it if it had actually taken a liking to him. 

She called for Thistle and asked her to go to the school and let Minerva know she’d come that very afternoon and take Neville to get a new wand. She couldn’t let another day pass without correcting this mistake. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Marching through the gates and up to the castle she felt a keen sense of humiliation that she was coming here not for official board business or to see her boy receive an award for great achievements, but to fix such a thoughtlessly foolish thing she’d done. She’d always taken umbrage with the way silly little airheads often saw fit to run around not considering the consequences of their actions - what a prize idiot she felt like now being one of them. 

Minerva was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front entrance, her boy fidgeting anxiously next to her. He looked so small still with those enormous doors behind him, and Minerva looming sternly. She steeled herself for whatever the woman might say, she’d maintain her dignity for as long as possible but she had very much earned the lecture that was sure to come.  

“Glad to see I was able to knock some sense into you, you daft old cow. Now go get him a proper wand. Mr Longbottom, have Thistle let me know when you’re on your way back and I will allow you to floo in through my office. Have a nice afternoon, you two” she said with a sharp nod, and promptly took off back into the castle. Augusta’s and Neville’s eyes both followed her, longing for the buffer of a third party so they wouldn’t have to be alone together with the awkwardness that always lived between them. 

Looking down at her grandson, she swallowed audibly, dreading letting him realize just how much of her stern no-nonsense persona was to keep up appearances. She’d heard the way people talked about her, they called her tough as a boiled owl and she was happy to let them think it was the truth. Having lost her parents, her life partner, her brother, her beloved son and daughter-in-law, cousins and friends and associates and even most of the enemies that she’d been cordial with, she was in reality a woman who lived on the very edge of total collapse at nearly all times. 

Bereft was a sensation that she had crawled inside of and made a home for herself out of. 

There were four reasons she was still alive and breathing and three of them were house elves and one of them stood before her, eyes full of questions and a bitterness she had never seen in them before. She couldn’t say nothing, she owed him an explanation. Hand on his shoulder, she led him back down the lawn and through the gates. It was a bit chilly, and her old bones didn’t have it in them to make the hike down to the village, so she held onto his upper arm tightly and apparated them both to just outside the three broomsticks. He followed her silently like a little lamb into the tavern where they sat at a table and had a pair of butterbeers. 

He drank timidly, still not saying a peep, but his eyes were aflame with something she didn’t recognize in them. A bit of early onset teenage resentment? She couldn’t exactly blame him if it was. Clearing her throat she cast a privacy charm around them and though it was frightening for once she let herself be soft and weak and vulnerable, even if only for this single conversation. He deserved it from her not to be barked at, not to be handled at arm’s length and with the traditional British stiff upper lip she’d been raised to emulate. 

“You let me think I was a fraud,” he accused mildly before she could even open her mouth to say a word “I was just biding my time waiting for the day they’d tell me they found out I didn’t have any magic. Expecting to eventually be expelled and obliviated.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, squibs aren’t obliviated unless their parents send them into the muggle world” she retorted, and then winced. That was not the correct point to address in his statement. Gods what was wrong with her?

“That is to say - you are not and have never been a squib, Neville. Your parents saw your magic when you were a baby, and the healers assured me your core wasn’t damaged from the trauma of their attack. I saw it with my own eyes when my idiot brother dropped you from that window and you protected yourself from the fall. It nearly scared the life right out of me, but it was absolutely undeniable,” she said conversationally, trying to imagine that he was Minerva in front of her and not the grandchild she didn’t know how to talk to. His eyes were wide and his little mouth hung open, and she realized these were things that she should have told him before now.

“Losing your parents has made life difficult for you, my dear boy, and that’s my fault and I’m sorry for it. Because you have relied on me to raise you, and losing my son and daughter has made my life a shadow of what it was. Of who I was. It’s the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. I’d have laid down on the floor and held Bellatrix’s wand to my own head and taken those curses for them if I could have, if it would have spared them what they had to endure.” 

“What you have to understand is that your parents were wonderful and they were popular and they were war heroes. Wizarding Britain mourned the two of them almost the same way they did your friend Harry’s parents. And because people are gossiping fishwives, mention of them follows me everywhere I go. You’d think people would be better behaved than to ask a grieving mother the juicy details about the night her son and daughter-in-law were tortured to insanity by a terrorist, but that’s expecting too much from polite society apparently. So to protect my poor old heart, that’s admittedly more tender than I like to let on, I wear a very stern mask in public Neville - because people are bold and cruel, but they’re also cowards. No one asks me about your mother and father when I look at them like I might eviscerate them wandlessly by sheer willpower alone.” 

“I’ve been wearing that mask of strength and stoicism and sternness for so long that’s it’s become a part of who I am. I don’t know how to take it off and relax, because I fear without it I’ll fall into my grief and never come back out of it. I never should have put it on in the first place, I should have let the world see exactly how beside myself I was. I should have let myself mourn like a mother ought to. I should have let you know me better. I’m sorry Neville, I’m so sorry for being this way, you deserved to grow up with so much better than the pathetic remains of my stilted and crippled emotions to nurture you.” Her voice broke, and she had to wipe tears from her cheeks. 

“It’s the reason why we didn’t get you a wand when we were shopping. Garrick Ollivander is the shrewdest, most intuitive old goat I’ve ever met in my entire life. He loves to say things that cut to the core of you to make himself appear insightful and clever. He gets such a terribly smug look in his eye as if he knows everything about you and will bring it all up just to get you off your rhythm. I can’t stand the sight of him, and I’ve avoided him for years, and I even put off getting you your own wand because of it. I don’t know why in Merlin’s name I did such a cowardly thing, can you ever forgive me?” She begged him, feeling as if she’d cut herself open and revealed her very viscera. She couldn’t believe she’d been so candid, but it had been a long time coming. She didn’t want these walls up between the two of them anymore. 

When she finally found the courage to look up into his eyes they were wet and crinkled at the corners, “You can be just as soft and as soppy as you like gran, Godric’s hat but you’ve certainly earned it. And if that Mr Ollivander even tries to act like a busybody, well then I’ll simply tell him to bugger right off for you, alright?” He teased sweetly, and she nearly snorted her butter beer out through her nose. 

“That would be much appreciated my dear boy” she said a bit weakly, a wry grin curling her lips at the corners.

For the rest of the day she tried them on for size, being soft and warm and vulnerable and all of the things she hadn’t let herself be for too long for her to recall, and found them more comfortable than she ever remembered them being. Walking around in the world without her mask and her guard up was frightening, but when she saw the wonder on her boy’s face as his wand glowed and shot sparks and chose him, when his eyes were as bright as starlight all the rest of the evening with how thrilled and proud he was, when he hugged her goodbye and his embrace was tight and warm and loving, it felt like it was more than worth it. 

Chapter Text

At his fine mahogany desk, Gornuk son of Nograk worked diligently through the morning. He sent for teams of nifflers to run vault balances, he approved transfers and large withdrawals, and he arranged payments to Rowle for his ongoing services. A faint distant whistle rapidly approached, and he caught a pneumatic capsule midair as it rocketed out of the tube on the wall behind him. It must be a high priority one, standard inter-office memos and messages remained floating in the tubes until they were retrieved. 

Cracking the seal, he popped it open and pulled the letter out, smiling with amusement as he saw it was from his young patroness. As he read it however, his jaw tightened and he found himself grinding his teeth. He had to close his eyes and remind himself that she was a compassionate child who meant well, not a ministry wizard trying to get them to reveal their secrets. As much as he liked her, and would have personally chosen to answer some of her more benign questions to the best their taboos would allow him, he swore as he realized this was unfortunately above his pay-grade. 

Tucking the letter securely into his waistcoat, he left his office in the lower hall where all the most senior accounts managers had the privilege of maintaining a space. He waddled the hall towards the lifts, and took it down to the lowest basement floor where the horde’s internal administrative offices were. He didn’t have an appointment, and he knew there was a good chance he could lose face showing up unannounced, but this was too important to ignore. 

As he approached the doors of the chieftain’s personal office, he bowed low and addressed the guards standing vigil “I have with me a piece of correspondence from the Lady Black that it is vitally important his greatness oversee” he grumbled lowly, eyes facing the floor and not rising. Their armor was perfectly silent as it was of course goblin forged, but he heard the shifting scrape of their heavy axe handles moving as they stood aside to make room for him to pass through, and finally stood back up to his full height. 

Nodding and thanking them, he made his way to the heavy ornate doors and knocked. He tried not to wince as the noise rang out loudly through the hall. He heard a voice from within tell him to enter, and he stepped back to allow the guards to open the doors. As he went in he tried to steel himself against whatever personal fondness he might have for his patroness. She had committed no crime, but her curiosity could very well make her an enemy. He would do his best to advocate for her and vouch for her kind heart, but he had no idea just what the chieftain might make of this development. 

The finery he passed as he entered the chieftain’s personal office was above and beyond any that a goblin even such as himself would ever see outside of one of the vaults of the men they served. Richly embroidered cloth-of-gold tapestries hung from the walls, and goblin silver weapons and armor of all types were mounted decoratively on the walls. He idly wondered which of them their great leader had made himself, as his craftsmanship was highly regarded throughout the clans and he produced pieces that were generally considered to be master works. 

As he came up to the grand desk, which was rumored to have been carved entirely from the same piece of wood from an ancient and sacred tree, he fell to one knee without hesitation, and waited to be acknowledged. He heard a startled laugh and then felt hands on his shoulders attempt to pull him up “Whatever are you doing on the floor, uncle? Surely there is no need for such formality between us?” Looking up he shook his head and stayed resolutely where he was on the floor. 

“I’m afraid there is cause for it when I approach you not as my sister’s son, but as my chieftain, your greatness” Gornuk replied solemnly, and was sad to see his nephew’s boyishly handsome face suddenly become serious. The lad nodded respectfully and his bearing transformed to something somehow visibly more regal. He leaned on the edge of his desk with his hands folded in his lap “Very well, what brings you before me, Senior Manager Gornuk?”

Reaching into his waistcoat pocket he pulled out the letter, running his fingers along the edges of the parchment, carefully considering what context if any he needed to provide or whether he should let her innocent words speak for themself. He looked up at his favorite nephew, the leader of their people, and trusted that the young man would understand “This letter came to me from… a preferred client, one whom I believe to be both trustworthy and sincere. I can neither answer her nor ignore her questions without your input, my chieftain”

He handed the letter to his nephew, and couldn’t help himself from adding “She’s eleven years old… if it makes any difference” he said, grimacing at his own weakness of spirit. Dread filled his belly as his nephew unfolded the letter and read it. 

Dated September 7th, 1991
From my desk in the first year girl’s dormitory
Gryffindor Tower of Hogwarts School
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland

To Gornuk son of Nograk,

Greeting again, sir. I write you not because of any banking matters, but out of cultural curiosity. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first week of school, and in attending my classes I have met a professor by the name of Filius Flitwick. He teaches charms and is a renowned international dueling champion. I understand that this may be an off putting or uncomfortable topic of discussion (and if it is please let me know and I will desist my inquiry immediately), but as a werewolf his status as a half goblin intrigues me greatly. 

I have spent a few afternoons since my class with the professor searching for reference material in the library that I might use to answer my questions, but upon finding nothing that was printed in the last three centuries that wasn’t written exclusively by humans, I cannot help but feel as if those sources may be biased. As a fellow magical being whose existence has been demonized by wizarding society, I am hesitant to trust information that doesn’t come straight from the wolves’ mouth so to speak. All that is to say that I feel I must simply be direct and ask you instead, my friend. 

I cannot help but notice that I have seen no goblin children since I arrived here, or even any children that I suspect of being half goblins like the professor. It occurs to me that I have never seen or even heard reference to the existence of any goblin children. I know you and your brethren are inherently magical beings like us, and I have seen you wield magic as easy as anything. Is there a reason you do not send your children to school with the humans?

Do you perhaps find the school’s educational standards less rigorous than you would like? I know Harry and I were disappointed to find our tutor had already gone through most of this year’s material with us, but I firmly believe that learning in the presence of others our own age will be worth the frustration in the long run. I know you and your brethren are long lived compared to humans, do you perhaps not currently have any children of school age in your society who could attend with us? If this is the case please forgive my unintended insensitivity.

I understand from my own father’s fear of revealing information about the children of our pack that it may be atypical to trust outsiders regarding such secrets, so as a show of good faith I shall share with you that there are at least four school-age magical children who happen to be werewolves living on our compound who have not received admission letters to attend Hogwarts, and at least five more who most likely will not either. The only logical conclusion we have been able to come to is that my brother and I were admitted due to being the scions of important families. I readily admit to being deeply troubled by the politicization of our education. Even now as I write this, rumors of the two of us being werewolves sweep across the school and I wonder if we will be allowed to remain in attendance after all, despite our important names. 

If you do have children and their education is currently being satisfactorily sorted within your lands by your horde, then please let me know that I have no cause for concern. Otherwise, I would like to know what I can do to help address the issue of lack of goblin representation at this institution. It is my greatest desire to see not only myself and my brother, but also the other magical children in our pack all receive the same education. 

I confess that I do not know how I will be able to convince the school board to let the other werewolf children attend or if it is even possible, but I would like for us to work together if this is an issue of educational rights violation that our non-human races both face as magical beings. 

I hope that this letter finds you well, and that it does not reopen or poke at old wounds. You have helped me tremendously over the past year as my accounts manager, and I am sincerely grateful for both your advice and your long stewardship of my family’s accounts. 

May your blade be ever sharp and your coffers overrun 

(Is that an appropriate sign off? It was described as a ‘respectful greeting’ in one of the least offensive library books, but that text did also refer to your collective language as ‘gobbledegook’ so I wasn’t sure either way)

Kindest regards :)
Hermione Elena Greyback

His nephew looked at him with wide eyes and raised brows “You really thought I would be upset about this? Uncle, your years of dealing with invasive and cruel human bureaucracy must weigh heavy on you, for you worry over nothing. This girl is practically offering to go into open rebellion with us, at the very least she is certainly no enemy or danger to our horde. In fact I have heard rumors of her magic and what she has done already, and I am nothing short of impressed. Claiming her seat solely to restore family branches, invoking her magic powerfully enough for every goblin in the bank to feel it,” he shook his head in awe, and turned a knowing eye towards him.

“A lesser banker may not have been able to get anything of the sort out of her, and she could have left our institution that day changing nothing. Don’t think for a moment that I’m not well aware I have you to thank for that, with your sharp eye and silver tongue. Where others would have seen a diamond and thoughtlessly plucked it loose, you saw the mithril ring it was set into and polished the whole thing altogether” he praised, beaming boyishly. 

“If we work this to our advantage, we could have two or even more sitting members of the wizengamot on our side for the next rebellion, and we could be seeing it sooner than we had ever planned on top of having a greater impact than ever before. Are you not reminded of the first and only time the werewolves joined our side, and our movement seized more in less time than ever our rioting and rebelling had ever accomplished before then or since in its long storied tradition?” His nephew had stars in his eyes as he spoke of events from before his own birth. Though young, he’d always undertaken a keen and thorough study of their history, taking a particular interest in their many wars and uprisings. He was a passionate lad, and sharp as a tack. 

“History repeats itself, and we could make it happen again. We have you to thank for this opportunity Uncle, and this fey werewolf child you’ve made such a strong alliance with. Write back to her and forget about the taboos… Say whatever you must to cultivate her into the ally we need. If she is as good hearted as you say, then she needs to be informed about just how dire our situation really is. Therefore you have my full permission to tell her anything she wishes to know. Speak with Griphook as well, I want him working on her brother. The boy will need to challenge for his seat soon anyways, not that there’s anyone else who could claim it”

Gornuk nodded, and after briefly embracing and bonking foreheads with his nephew, he eagerly hurried out. It was still sometimes hard to believe his own sister’s son was their leader now, but he was proving himself to be a good one. One who thought first and listened to wise counsel, and who ultimately acted in the horde’s collective best interest. He was proud of the boy, and proud to be in his service. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Stopping at the office a few doors down from his own, he knocked and then entered when invited in. It wasn’t quite as large or comfortable as his own, and in his opinion the varnish of his desk was of a finer quality, but it was perfectly respectable for a senior manager. One who was slightly less senior than himself. He sat across from his long time colleague, and wordlessly pushed the letter over to him. Griphook picked it up, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. By the time he was through reading, he was holding it at a distance with only the very tips of his long fingers, looking at it as though it were a lit stick of dynamite in his hands. 

He set it back down extremely carefully, shoving it towards Gornuk with only a single claw touching the pages “Why would you bring this to me, you scuttling son of a cave rat? Do you think I’m not particularly fond of my head just because you don’t have to worry about yours!?” He demanded harshly “Tell me you haven’t actually answered questions like this from her before?” He said much more seriously, his voice dropping to a horrified whisper. 

He grinned with every one of his sharp teeth, and threw in a jazzy waggle of his arched brows “Luckily for both of our heads I’ve just shown this to the chieftain, who thinks we should work together to get both Lady Black and her brother onboard for the next rebellion. Might even rush the timeline if we can manage to get actual wizengamot seats behind us. I got the impression he wants to reenact the old werewolf treatise from the 1750s, it’s sure to be quite the coup” he said coyly, running his tongue over his teeth. 

“I got clearance to tell her anything she wants to know, and you’ve the same for the boy. He really wants this to work, thinks throwing our weight behind the two of them is our best bet in the long run and I don’t disagree” he said casually, looking down and pretending to inspect his long elegant claws. The games the two of them played were delicious, and he could feel the other goblin chugging along to catch up and find a clever response to being essentially told he had free reign to share government secrets with a literal child. 

“Alright. I’ll just make pen friends with Harry Potter and start telling him about how we’re classed as animals and not allowed to even touch wands then, shall I?” Griphook snarked miserably, and the blood ran hot beneath his skin with a zing of electricity as he realized this was a competition he already had a leg up in “You mean to say you haven’t already been working on the boy? That’s a shame, my kind and generous Patroness corresponds with me quite regularly, both for bank matters…” he said archly as he waved the letter under the other goblin’s nose “and social calls” he finished with his nastiest grin. 

The other goblin positively seethed, his alabaster skin turning nearly puce “I’ll have that boy eating out of the palm of my hand before the month is over, you vicious scum sucking little toad” he shrieked furiously, his claws carelessly digging thick gouges into the surface of his own desk. That certainly explained the inferior varnish. 

The next morning at breakfast, Harry and Hermione were surprised to both have letters come to them from Gringotts. She’d become more and more anxious ever since she’d reached out to Gornuk that she’d be receiving word back to cease and desist all further inappropriate inquiries. Her certainty that the friendship and rapport they’d built would be enough to at least forgive her questions if they were unwelcome had faded rapidly, and she was quite frightened of what she might find if they’d written both herself and her brother. Surely the goblins wouldn’t apply a collective punishment to the both of them just for her impropriety?

The two officious little owls that had swooped in in perfect unison sat politely at the table, holding out their feet and waiting to be fed and praised for their hard work. Their downy chests were puffed with the bank sigils they wore. Her brother turned a weary early morning look her way “And who exactly have you been writing to now that they saw fit to involve me in whatever you’re currently scheming about as well?” He huffed grumpily. And she tried to ignore the very real guilty feeling that she may have ruined both of their banking prospects. 

She made a great show of shrugging carelessly, patting the owl’s soft little head and putting a piece of bacon in its beak “That’s the thing about letters, you open them up and they generally say who they’re from on the inside” she snarked coolly, taking her own with a trembling hand. 

8th of Hāligmōnath, 1991
Office of Black Accounts
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley
London, England

Lady Black,

Hello to you, my patroness. There is a great compassion and kind-heartedness to the questions you have asked me, and for that reason the chieftain of our horde has given me leave to answer them with a degree of factuality and transparency that we would normally not allow humans to be privy to. You are after all, like us, not exactly human. 

You are so young, and your questions are clearly very innocent, but they are painful all the same. I hate to burden you with the answers, for they are terrible, but it is better to know a terrible truth than to not know and suffer for it. 

You see my lady, the truth of the matter is that for all our people run the bank and are a necessary part of the functioning of the wizarding world as a whole, we are classed by the British ministry of magic as little more than animals. Our official designation is creature. We are strictly forbidden from purchasing, owning, inheriting, or even touching wands. We face life in Azkaban for breaking this law - and as you know our lives are quite long-lived. 

There has never been a full-blooded goblin that attended Hogwarts, and your professor Flitwick is well known to us as the only part-goblin in living memory who has been accepted and educated at that school. The sad truth of the matter is that we do have children, they are uncommon to us and precious. We teach them what magic we have, but we are hindered enormously by the inability to give them magical foci to use or a more standardized magical education. Many of the human staff we have at the bank secretly double as tutors for our children, teaching them what little wandless magic they are able to master. 

There innumerable other difficulties we face. Outside of the safety of our own humble conclaves, it is hard to find any human witch or wizard who will sell to us at all, let alone at fair prices. There is a well known phenomenon of the “goblin tax” that is essentially a 30-60% markup vendors add to their wares when dealing with our kind. There are no laws preventing this, punishing vendors for it, or protecting us from it. It is simply another of the daily inconveniences and indignities we must face. 

Crimes against our people are so frequently ignored by the aurors and the department of magical law enforcement that we have learned to stop reporting them at all unless they are truly egregious beyond our own ability to mitigate. When we bring our troubles and hurts to them we are most often asked what we did to provoke such actions against us, or why we did not try harder to protect ourselves. It is an unbearable insult to add to our injury.  

We have rebelled as one many times before throughout the ages, as you will learn in your history class. Your professor may paint horrifying images of us mounted and armed and armored, going around beheading any wizard who doesn’t wish to give us their gold, but this could not be further from the truth. By shutting our doors for even a day we can bring the economy of the wizarding world to its feet, and yet even in their desperation to placate us each time we do so, the rights we gain are always just as quickly stripped away from us again. 

The laws against your kind are very nearly worse. While there is nothing that currently legally forbids you from wand use or ownership, there are those in the ministry who fiercely advocate for harsher sanctions against your kind. Some have even suggested a mandatory registry, which would be catastrophically inhumane. Additionally, while some werewolves may pass as humans if they are discrete enough, those who succeed at this deception and receive better treatment are dramatically more likely to experience total community exile and have overall worse life outcomes if they are discovered and outed.

Yet despite the enormous odds stacked against both our people, I have never felt more hope for the future. Quite frankly the reason is you, my lady. As the head of the Black house, you have a tremendous amount of social potential at your fingertips. And you are kind. The people in power are so rarely good, let alone kind. You have the ability now, not years from now when you come of age but right this moment as a legitimate member of the wizarding aristocracy, to either sit the Black wizengamot seat yourself or appoint a trusted proxy. Your brother could do the very same thing if he challenged for his Potter lordship. There is no one else living who has a claim, therefore there is no reason why he would not be able to assume his lordship as easily as you did.

I hope that this not only answers your questions, but provokes thought and inspires even more questions. Any and all of which I will be more than happy to answer. A sharp and inquisitive mind is the greatest tool one can possess. And we goblins are always glad for our allies to be well equipped. 

(The book you found at your library was both right and wrong, and it was wise of you to assume it was not entirely correct. “Gobbeldegook” is in fact a slur, we allow outsiders to use it because we want them to know as little about our culture as possible. As I said we have many rules about what humans can be told, but the chieftain has declared that since you are not a human they do not apply to you. The true name of the language we speak is “Goē-blanskk” and the greeting you found is surprisingly mostly correct. The only difference we would apply when using it is that it is not a single statement but rather a two part greeting - upon meeting, one person says “may your blade be ever sharp” to which the other responds “may your coffers runneth over”)

In your service,
Gornuk son of Nograk :)

The tension in her frame eased astronomically as she read through his letter and realized he wasn’t cross with her, but her rage built as he described the injustices and indignities both their peoples faced. She had to assume that the werewolves he described as being discriminated against after being outed were all loners who didn’t have packs to fall back on, and she briefly wondered just how many there could really be. None of her pack mates ever bit or even scratched humans on the full moon, they ran through the woods chasing deer and rabbits, or curled up in groves and caves. 

It had to be the loners that were creating more loners, and she burned with curiosity at what the incident rate was. If every werewolf with no pack turned and lost control every full moon, how often was it that they actually bit and turned another person? It was almost unthinkable to her, but could it be possible that more and more werewolves were being created against their will every full moon? 

Surely if the loners knew the danger of totally losing control they would make arrangements for themselves to be locked up somewhere safe like professor McGonagall had initially suggested her and her brother do? She knew that was what Remus used to do for most of his life, her heart had ached for him when she’d heard how he’d chained up his poor wolf. 

It occurred to her as she thought about Remus and the other loners out there that if he hadn’t known about the possibility of having peace with his wolf after a lifetime of being one, it was very likely that none of the rest of them did either. Could it really be that none of the loner wolves knew there was the possibility of a better life for themselves? Wizards in general certainly didn’t seem to know. 

She looked over her brother’s shoulder, not surprised that the letter he was reading was from Griphook or that it was significantly shorter and less friendly, but remarkably more candid. 

8th of Hāligmōnath, 1991
Office of Potter Accounts
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley
London, England

Mr Potter Greyback,

Greetings young sir, I write to remind you of your sole claim over the Potter House’s heir and lordship seats, and your eligibility to challenge for them unopposed. While witnessing your sister’s unusual challenge may have been off putting for any number of reasons, I can assure you that there need be no such dramatics, and that supervising the challenging of a claim is a standard service offered by Gringotts that happens on a fairly regular basis. We see these sorts of things all the time. 

The Potter family magic is far less fickle and fey than the Blacks’ and altogether less likely to throw you into the deep end unexpectedly. I have worked with it for years to oversee your house’s account holdings, and it is a steady and reliable partner to the Head it approves. 

I also write because your sister, in her childlike innocence and curiosity, has asked her accounts manager questions which we usually do not answer. When I read the letter she sent Gornuk I nearly fainted dead away, a less favored client would find themselves no longer banking with us, nor would any of their extended family. The Lady Black is a special case however, and therefore the chieftain of our horde has decided that the two of you are to be treated as not just preferred clients, but potential allies. 

Werewolves and goblins have allied together once before, during the rebellion of 1752 in which we both found ourselves fighting for similar civil liberties. We are eager to see such a union occur again, as our alliance then was powerfully effective. The fact of the matter is that wizards hate us both, werewolf and goblin alike. They at least tolerate our kind because of the banking services we provide, and your kind are at least able to sometimes hide yourselves among them if you are discrete enough. As rumors spread of your true nature however, you and your sister may find life become increasingly difficult in any number of ways. 

Never forget that they can kill you in the streets and cry self defense about it later. Since the very incipience of the ministry itself there have been an uncountable number of werewolves killed in cold blood, and yet no wizard has ever been charged with murder for it or faced time in Azkaban. At least they’ll get a slap on the wrist if they try and do the same to us. They might not be sent to jail for killing a goblin, but they’ll definitely be fined by their ministry for “damaging bank property”. 

Think about the changes you could help both our people enact if you and your sister both took up your hereditary seats on the wizengamot! Neither of our races have ever had even a single seat that we could claim, think about what we could do with two who were sympathetic to the simple belief that we are not creatures but people? For the same cannot be promised of any of the others who sit in that hall and make the laws and decisions that affect all of us. 

I hope to see you at the bank soon, and to be able to correctly address you as ‘Lord Potter’ when you leave

In the service of the House of Potter,
Griphook son of Axecleave

“…Just what the fuck did you ask Gornuk, Nene?” Harry whispered as he finished reading, horrified but fascinated. He held it out to her and they swapped and read each other’s letters. He closed his eyes as he finished and rubbed his forehead “We’re gonna be a part of their rebellion then?” He asked weakly, and she placed her hand on his back and rubbed large soothing circles “Yeah buddy. I mean, this isn’t what I was expecting at all and I can’t force you to take your seat if you aren’t ready for it, but I’m pretty sure we are” she said, catching his eye knowingly as he cracked them the slightest bit back open. 

“Can you believe that?” he asked, picking up her letter and looking for the part that had so enraged him “Not allowed to purchase own inherit or use a wand for any reason” he read back aloud, struggling to keep his voice low. Two pink spots rose on his cheeks and she nodded, “Gornuk was nicer, but Griphook was a lot more open with you about the violence and danger. I can’t believe a wizard is charged with damaging bank property if they kill a goblin, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard aside from werewolf killers just not facing any consequences whatsoever” she replied, anger building in her as well. 

“Who in the bloody hell do they think they are treating people like this just because they think we’re beneath them? Why are the wizards like this?” She asked a bit too loudly, and realized their conversation was altogether too public as a few heads turned and looked at her askance. She flushed and grimaced, and lowered her volume until it was a nearly sub-vocal whisper that no one but a dog or her brother next to her would be able to hear. To protect the privacy of their conversation further, she switched to Danish. 

“Can we even tell Ron and Draco about this? They’re family, but this is really big. Like they broke their own laws to tell us about this, big. I know I like to faff about and do independent things that give dad heart attacks, but I’m making the executive call that this is actually too big for just the two of us to decide. I think we need to take it to dad when we see him on the full moon. He’s still our father and our alpha, even if we’re living away from him for a while” she exhaled through her barely open lips. 

Hermione glanced to her side to look at her brother with her peripheral vision, but for the first time in a long time she wasn’t exactly sure what the look on his face meant “Harry d-do you disagree?” She breathed, suddenly anxious again. She’d only been the alpha of their small pack of two for barely a week, had she already lost her beta’s trust by not seeking his input before writing her letter to Gornuk? She felt a low whine build in the back of her throat and was nearly helpless to resist letting it free. He placed his hand on her arm and squeezed tightly, shaking his head and responding in Danish as well as at the same volume she’d used. 

“I don’t disagree that this is big and we should consult dad, but I still think that here at school you’re the one in charge of the two of us, that’s just how it’s got to be. You’re still the alpha until we see him again, and if you want to pursue this with the goblins then it’s what we’re going to do. I don’t want to question dad but… he’s been the alpha for decades, how can he have known about this and done nothing to help the loners if they’re really in as much danger as Griphook says? Your very first instinct is to try and find a way to help them, and his has always been to distance ourselves from them. It puts me in a position where I think your voice is the moral authority here. I can predict with 100% certainty what your plan is going to be because I know you’ll always do the right thing even if it’s hard and messy. I know that whatever dad does will be in our best interest to protect us, but I can’t say for certain it’ll also protect the loners, and I don’t know what to think about that” he said, pain etched over his face. He looked down at his hand on her arm and realized he had been squeezing too tight, letting go and subtly turning his neck to the side in submissive apology. 

She reached for his hand and held it, and nuzzled her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder, and they rested that way together quietly for a few moments before she responded “Everyone says I have a kind heart, but they forget that I learned it from him. Miriam and Matty and Óffy and everyone else were there to step in and help when he needed it while he was grieving my mum, but he mostly raised me all by himself for a very long time.” 

“I think you’re right about him not helping the loner wolves, but not for the reason you think. I can’t excuse what he did or didn’t do before he met mum and had me, but I think he’s been so focused on keeping us hidden and alive that he just forgot about the outside world for a long time. I don’t think he actually wouldn’t help them, but you’re right that he’s always going to prioritize our safety and wellbeing over theirs. He wouldn’t see the law changed just for them if it risked us, but he might do it for us and the threat it puts us under” she said, genuinely believing it. 

Her father was protective and his children were always going to be his first priority, but he cared about the well being of werewolves. She knew he did, he had to. He wouldn’t be an alpha if he didn’t. Just because he was worried about the very real risk they posed didn’t mean he couldn’t also be concerned for their rights. 

She stopped suddenly, a thought rapidly taking shape in her mound “Harry…” she said tentatively “Do you think we should ask Kipper about all this? If the wizards are willing to treat us and the goblins this way, and we could actually hurt them if we wanted to, who’s to say how they’re treating their house elves?” Their eyes both widened as they made eye contact and both thought of the implications of her statement “Goddesses be good but they’re just sweet little things, what could they even do to protect themselves? And yeah it’s… a little weird how happy they say they are to serve” Harry retorted in low pointed Danish. 

He gave it a moment of thought “We have to be extremely careful if we’re going to talk to her. If she works for the castle we have to make sure she isn’t obligated to tell anyone else who lives here what we ask her - like the headmaster” he said grimacing, and she nodded in staunch agreement “Do you think we should approach just her, or other kitchen elves as well? We might get more answers from a bunch of them, and who knows what thinking you were dead for a decade has done to the poor thing. She seemed really upset and overwhelmed when we talked to her last week”

Harry thought about this “Let’s ask Fred and George to show us to the kitchens after dinner tonight and see where it goes from there” he suggested, and she laughed a bit nervously at his willingness to leave things to chance. For all they had in common they could be so different at times it boggled her mind. Shaking her head fondly, she shrugged “Yeah, alright. Get a lay of the land at the very least, see how they behave as a group. Having extra information couldn’t hurt” 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At lunch, Hermione had managed to discretely convey a message to the twins that they were very interested in receiving a lesson in the cartographical arrangement of the castle on the hush from their older and wiser cousins. The twin she had approached had been beyond delighted to be sought out for guidance and had readily agreed, telling her to wait a few minutes after he and his brother left at dinner that night and then follow them out of the hall. 

In her excitement the day dragged on, but the affect was mitigated by the times in her nervousness that it seemed to rush forward. She wasn’t sure if trying to get information out of the house elves was really the right call, she’d never seen one that seemed even remotely unhappy. Part of her hoped that a good opportunity to ask their questions would simply never organically come up in conversation, but she dismissed that as self defeating. 

Finishing the last few bits of her evening meal, she saw the twins rise out of their seats and swagger out of the hall. One of them loudly proclaimed that they had to send their mum an owl, not the worst excuse overall. According to the family grapevine they were actually somewhat better at writing home than either Ron and Percy. Nudging her brother with a sharp elbow, their eyes followed the boys out of the hall. When the twins crossed the entryway they began to wait and Hermione counted to a hundred under her breath before using the same excuse for the both of them - that they had to go write their dad for the week. No one batted an eye as they left, putting in a significant amount of effort to appear slow and casual. 

As soon as the doors shut behind them, she raised her nose to the air and whiffed in a deep breath like a sniffer dog. Her ears pricked and she heard them giggle at her from around the corner of the nearest corridor. She flushed, she probably should have just looked around first before trying to track them down, they weren’t even really hiding. In fact, they were waving cheerfully from around said corner, mirth clear on their faces. 

She grumbled and crossed her arms as Harry dragged her over to them, and firmly ignored them pretending to sniff her back. One of them clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together a bit deviously. It didn’t remotely intimidate her, but it did make her roll her eyes at how downright melodramatic the two of them could be. 

“Not every day we get two ickle firsties-” 

“-asking the likes of us for a castle tour!” 

“That’s awfully trusting of them-” 

“-they must be terribly curious!” 

“Especially if it’s somewhere they couldn’t find on their own-”

“-with those sensitive wolfy noses of theirs!”

“Wherever can we direct you to first?” 

Playing to their strengths and wanting to give their cousins a laugh, Harry and Hermione attempted to one up them, replying in perfect haunting unison “We need to go to the kitchens.” One of the twins leapt into his brothers arms in a show of fright, and they both shivered and shuddered as if in terror, but had a hard time hiding their smiles. “To the kitchens it is then” they replied also in unison, to which Harry and Hermione didn’t even try to hide their laughter.

They followed after them obediently until they realized they were heading down to the dungeons, and Hermione paused “I bet we could have asked Ron and Draco, isn’t their common room down here?” She asked a bit tartly. Harry nodded, frowning “I can’t believe they don’t even need to eat like we do and they live right next door to the bloody kitchens. I’d be here asking the elves for snacks morning noon and night” he said petulantly. 

“Would you believe it if we told you the Puffs are down here as well?” Asked one twin smugly, “That’s their common room entrance right over there, it’s hidden in one of the lids” the other pointed as they passed a huge stack of barrels. They made brief eye contact with each other before adding “You could probably smell it, but there’s a vinegar self-defense system built in that gives you a good spraying if you try the wrong one or get the password incorrect… Let’s just say we’ve been doused a few times trying to make our way in” 

That earned a very real laugh from Hermione, and she stopped and snuck over to the barrels, sniffing deep and doing some good old fashioned scent work. She conferred with her brother, and when they were in agreement turned to their cousins “I can’t say what the password is, you’ll have to find that our on your own. But it’s definitely this one that people are regularly coming and going out of” she said pointing to one on the bottom row that was suspiciously smooth and splinter-free upon closer inspection. She ran a fingernail lightly around the edge of it, and was unsurprised to see that it was actually made of carved brown stone rather than cut wood like the others. She nodded again at the twins, confident in her assessment. 

They seemed a bit gobsmacked, and came close to press their hands to the surface of it reverently, startling when they felt the texture and temperature of the cool stone surface “Blimey but that should have been obvious-” said one “-it’s not even bloody wood!” finished the other. They grinned at her madly, each hooking an arm through one of hers and carting her off. She was much less amused by this.

“This way to the kitchens-”

“-We’re not far now, not far at all!”

A few twists and turns away from the barrels, they stopped next to a rather large painting of a still life of fruit. It was nearly the height of the entire corridor, and ten feet wide or more. If it was a tapestry it wouldn’t have garnered a second glance, but the detail in the paint was so exquisite she almost felt as if she could lean in and take a bite out of the fruit. The skin of the orange was puckered and lumpy like cellulite, every pore visible and magnified. The pear was impossibly freckled, and looked so ripe she could almost smell it. One of the twins sauntered up to it and tickled it and it started to wiggle! Like a conjuration, a handle appeared on the side of it, and the entire piece of fruit as big as she was tall swung open from its canvas like a door. 

Her jaw dropped, and she audibly gasped, rushing forward to poke her head through. Her brother looked at her like she was certifiable “We live in a tower that’s protected by a secret painting,” he reminded her, and she couldn’t help but shrug “yeah, but this feels different somehow. This is a secret passageway, it’s like… Nancy Drew shit. Like a mystery novel, you know? Just give me a moment and I’ll get over it, but this is really cool” she insisted, and he begrudgingly couldn’t argue that. 

Harry turned to their cousins “Thank you for helping us find our way here, we’ve been really needing to talk to Kipper for a few days. She was my nanny elf and somehow she ended up working here in the kitchens after my parents died,” he said as earnestly as possible, hoping to make them uncomfortable and get them to leave quickly. He bit the inside of his cheek hard, trying to get even a single tear to well up “She came to meet us in my dorm the first night we got here, but she’s been working really hard and hasn’t been able to see us again since” he said, feeling his voice break a little and internally praising himself on an exceptional performance. 

It worked like magic, and he felt a bit guilty when both their faces fell dramatically “Blimey Harry… We’ll introduce you and then just give you some privacy to have a nice chat with her then, yeah?” One of them said with a slight tremor in his voice, and he gave them both a watery smile “Thanks guys, I really appreciate it” he replied, and heard his sister snort faintly from where her head was poked inside the doorway. 

One of them cleared their throat and gently nudged Hermione’s shoulder to get her to move out of the way, and she very gamely allowed herself to be moved. They entered the deceptively enormous kitchen to see that everything was perfectly toddler sized, and Hermione was reminded of her first memory of the public library and how delighted she had been that the table and chairs were the right size for her. There were dozens of stoves and ovens and countertops and work benches and all of it topped out at about the height of their mid-thighs.

As dinner was finishing, the elves had mostly stopped cooking and were in the process of beginning to clean everything up. Dozens if not a hundred or more elves all rushed around clearing serving platters, rinsing out plates and cups and bowls, and scouring out pots and pans. Most of the work was done by hand but they used magic here and there as needed. Hermione carefully observed that when they did so they did it wandlessly with snaps of their fingers, much like the goblins at the bank. She raised her eyebrows at her brother and he nodded, he’d noticed the same thing. 

As soon as the first elf noticed them they were swarmed with happy little bodies all around them. They saw a very old and hunched over little elf making his way slowly towards them, and both crouched down to greet him with a smile “Hello Nilliams!” Hermione said happily, holding out her arm for him to lean on, which he did contentedly “Young sirs and miss be getting all the elvesies excited” he croaked with a wry little grin. 

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to distract everybody!” She replied a bit embarrassed “We didn’t realize you’d still be busy - would you like us to come back later after you’re done with dinner?” She asked politely. Excited happy murmurs spread through the elves around them “Young miss is so thoughtful!” “It is being no trouble miss!” “We elvesies can work and help young miss at the same time!” Several of them all spoke over each other at once, and she couldn’t help but giggle at their sweet eagerness. 

She looked at Harry and rose a brow, letting him take the lead. He blushed but nodded “I’m Harry and this is Hermione, and we’re the Greyback twins. We came to see Kipper if she’s not busy. Does anyone know if she’s feeling any better?” He asked, raising his voice slightly so they could hear him over the buzzing of their little crowd. The noise dropped to almost nothing as the elves all looked at the two of them intensely, and the only noise was pans clattering in the background. 

Kipper pushed forward through the crowd to come to the front and stood staring, a bit removed from them until Harry crouched next to his sister on the floor and held open his arms. The little elf ran into them jubilantly, practically launching herself at her boy and hugging him tightly. Tears ran down both of their faces, and Hermione was smiling hugely next to them. She looked around the kitchen and felt a bit guilty but overall relieved that their cousins had kindly made themselves scarce. 

She turned back to the ancient old elf leaning on her arm who was little and light enough that she hardly felt his weight at all “Thank you for explaining about the food to us Nilliams, I’ve been making sure to eat as much as I need for every meal, and the deputy headmistress even talked to all our house mates about how everyone needs to eat a different amount while they’re growing! No one’s said a single thing about how much I eat since” she said with a grateful smile. 

Nilly patted his wrinkly little hand on her elbow “Good, miss, good. Nothing be making us elvesies sadder than a hungry child that won’t be eating” he said pointedly. She felt a bit turned around, as if she’d gotten played but couldn’t figure out how. Her eyes narrowed and his old body shook like a leaf with laughter. 

She was surprised when Kipper reached over and took her hand, dragging both Harry and herself over to a cozy little table by a fireplace in the far corner of the kitchens. She picked up Nilliams under her arm and carried him so he wouldn’t fall or get stranded in the middle of the room without something to lean on. He made a funny noise a bit like a cat, but seemed otherwise perfectly content. 

They sat at the table and a pair of elves brought over steaming mugs of hot chocolate and plates of biscuits for them. When she realized Kipper was sitting on the surface of the tabletop, she gingerly set Nilliams down there next to her and held out her hands to help steady him as he lowered himself down. He allowed her to help him, and then brushed her hands away once he was settled. 

In the light and warmth of the fireplace, and with a good week to rest since the terrible day she’d had, Kipper looked significantly better than when they’d first met her. Her eyes were clear and bright, her smile was radiant, and she looked easily twenty years younger. Before she had been wearing a plain tidy white tea towel with the Hogwarts shield crest on it, but she was now garbed in a green tartan poncho that had a cauldron and wands rampant embroidered proudly on it.

She saw them eyeing it curiously and held it up so they could see it better “This is being the Potter family sigil, everything Kipper wore in the service of her family used to be having it stitched on” she said only a bit sadly. She smiled at Harry and reached out to hold his hand “Kipper is being ready to talk now if young Master is having questions” she said gently. 

He squeezed her little hand “How long were you a Potter elf, Kipper?” Harry asked, suddenly not sure if he was ready for what answers she might give him. He took a deep glug of his chocolate to hide his sudden insecurity, and nearly moaned at how good it was. He was fairly certain he had whipped cream on the end of his nose, and he tried to wipe at it discretely. 

“Kipper’s parents Nipper and Bippy is both being Potter elvesies, so Kipper is always being a Potter elf her whole life. Kipper is not always being a nanny elf, she is working in the kitchens for a few decades while she is being a baby elf. The very first Potters Kipper is helping raise is being young Master’s great-great-grandfather Ferdinand and his brother Charlus. Then she is helping Master Ferdy raise his son Henry, then Master Henry’s son Fleamont, then Master Monty’s son James, then Master Jamie’s son… Kipper’s baby Harry” she said, voice tremulous but joyful. He was speechless at the little creature who might as well be a treasure trove of information about his family history that he’d been so starved for all of his life. 

“Kipper that’s incredible… You knew my whole family didn’t you? What were they like?” He finally asked when he could make himself say words again. He immediately felt self-conscious, thinking it had been a stupid question. She’d just said she raised five of his direct ancestors and that was the first thing he asked? But she just smiled “Every Potter is being the same - silly, and stubborn, and clever, and kind. Potters is having black hair that is being impossible to tame, and they is usually having brown or grey eyes. They is usually needing glasses to be seeing. Potters is always treating their elvesies uncommonly well, they is treating their elvesies like family. His whole life Master Monty is refusing to call Kipper his nanny elf and is only ever calling her his granny elf! Such a naughty boy” she said shaking her head fondly, lost in a lovely memory.  

His sister caught his eye, raising a brow in lieu of asking permission aloud, and he nodded, throat a bit too tight to respond just yet. She placed her hand feather-light on the elf’s shoulder “Kipper, what did you mean just now when you said the Potters treated you uncommonly well - are not all families nice to their elves? They treat you well here at the school, right?” She asked extremely carefully, tone light and casual as possible, head innocently tilted to maximize effect. Despite her best efforts at coming across easygoing and neutral, every elf in the vicinity gasped and mutters filled the kitchen. 

Many of the little bodies rushing around them cleaning had frozen or gone incredibly tense, but the two older elves that they were sitting at the table with stared her down shrewdly before making eye contact with each other and having a very obvious silent conversation. They turned back to her in unison, faces tight and drawn “Kipper is a Hogwarts elf, and the castle is treating all its elvesies very well. But Kipper is also being a Potter Greyback elf now, and if young Mistress is asking her questions she is answering them, whether she is supposed to or not” the elf said with an even stranger inflection than usual. She would have to tread it carefully, but to Hermione this felt like it was absolutely the right track to lead them down. She was a bit excited now.

“Kipper, are there things you’re not allowed to talk about?” She asked, her thoughts rushing ahead through the logic of how to best phrase her questions to find out what she wanted to know. The elf nodded jerkily, and clenched her fists at her sides. Before she could get in another question, her brother clamped his hand over her mouth “Kipper if we ask about things you’re not supposed to tell us will it hurt you!?” He practically shrieked, drawing everything in the entire room to a grinding halt. They all waited with bated breath as she ground her teeth and croaked out “Not…exactly,” and then rolled onto her back on the table, panting heavily. 

“What’s happening to her?” He demanded of Nilliams, who looked between the boy and the elf as if grief stricken “Three things is being conflicting in her mind at once - Young sir and miss is asking her direct questions about the elf geas and Kipper be trying very hard to work around it to answer them. We elvesies is not ever supposed to be discussing it with humans, but you is not being humans. You is also being her family, her young Master and young Mistress, and a question is being very nearly the same as a command” he said with a nod as if that answered everything. 

“What’s a geas, why can’t you talk about it?” Hermione growled as she shoved Harry’s hand away from her mouth and he seriously considered tackling her to the floor. She was going to kill his bloody elf if she kept this up! Nilliams winced, and rubbed his wrinkly head wearily “Kipper is being the only elf who could possibly tell young sir and miss about it, because they is her young Master and young Mistress and can compel her to answer. Nilly is only even being able to mention it in front of them because young sir and miss is not being human. It is not causing pain, but a powerful confusion in the mind. Kipper is wanting to tell young sir and miss, but she is working hard to overcome the strong magic” he said.

Harry couldn’t control himself, before his mind could catch up his mouth was shouting out “Kipper stop! It’s alright, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, please don’t hurt yourself” he begged tears gathering in his eyes, and she relaxed where she lay on the table. His sister nodded emphatically “I’m really sorry!” She added with a terribly guilty look on her face. 

She hemmed and hawed for a moment before coming out and laying all their cards on the table “We just wanted to make sure you all were working here of your own free will! We don’t really know the first thing about elves, but the goblins are going to be rebelling again soon and we’re thinking about having our pack join them. Harry and I have seats on the wizengamot we could claim, and we know we’d be able to help make changes happen. We just wanted to get the lay of the land with you elves so to speak. We’ve heard elves say they’re happy to serve but we noticed you don’t use wands, and our goblin friend told us that the law says they’re not allowed to use wands at all. Are you really happy serving, or are there laws that make it so you have to work? If you’re really happy we don’t want to bother you, we just need to know what the truth is!” She said, feeling like she was rambling endlessly, and hoping she hadn’t hurt any little feelings or broken any unspoken taboos. She’d never felt so thoughtless and clumsy. 

She covered her face with her hands and buried her head in her brother’s shoulder and groaned “And now I’ve probably accidentally broken all of your trust and ostracized you and now you’ll never want to talk to us again,” she moaned miserably. He chuckled at her, and shrugged his shoulder so her head popped up, and she saw that while all the little elves in the whole kitchen were staring at them, none looked angry or particularly upset. She perked up, and turned back to Nilliams and Kipper, who had sat up and seemed fine despite how hard she had been struggling a moment ago. 

She looked at her brother, who nodded softly and smiled sweetly. He always had her back, and he was letting her know she hadn’t burned this bridge with her curiosity. She inhaled and felt herself calm and center, and let her teeth and claws come out and her eyes shine brightly. She knelt next to the table so her face was on the same level as the two little old elves, with her palms resting face up on her thighs. 

“I’m sorry for letting my curiosity drive me. I came here as the future alpha of my pack to see how you live, to see if your needs are well met, to see how you are treated by those who hold authority over you. My people don’t know who they are, and are killed like beasts without consequence. The goblins are forbidden from using wands, and are treated like servants who only live to move coin from hand to hand. I see your people here in this castle, brimming with magic and power, cooking and cleaning and raising human children. Are you safe and happy? Are you fulfilled? Is there more you yet desire?” She asked as if possessed, feeling almost as if she were in a trance. Her magic began to invoke around her in the now familiar spiraling ribbons of shimmering green. 

Kipper reached her hand out and pressed her palm down onto the top of Hermione’s head, and as she did so spiraling ribbons of sapphire magic came to life around the elf’s little body, and the girl looked up at them in delighted wonder. It was just like hers, their magic was the same! She instinctively followed her gut, which was telling her that now was exactly the right moment to let her body transform. As the green sparkles washed over her, the form of her wolf traded places with her human body even more seamlessly than it ever had before. She laid her brown head on the table between the elves, and her tongue lolled out as they both rubbed their tiny fingers over her silky ears. 

A teeny tiny elf boy pushed his way through the crowd, his voice high and clear like a bell “Whiffy is working in the kitchens, but- but he is always secretly wanting to help take care of the plants outside with Professor Greenie!” He said in an excited rush, tugging on his ears and spinning in a little circle happily. The elves around him cheered. 

A remarkably fat elf, the first they’d seen that wasn’t rail-thin like the rest, waddled up to the front “Turkey is being uncomfortable in his bunk and be wishing he had a bigger drawer to sleep in” He said quietly and rather shyly. He received pats on the back and congratulations just like the first elf who spoke up. 

Another elf came forward, nearly vibrating with excitement “Thimbles is working in the laundry fixing clothes but she be wishing to be helping take care of the mail owlsies in their tower!” She announced proudly, to yet more cheers and even a few wolf whistles. 

Elves all over the kitchen started shouting about jobs they’d rather be doing, professors they’d rather be working for, families they wished they could go back to serving. Hermione’s ears pricked up when she heard a few mention things like wanting a day off every few months, or having spending money to buy their own fabric and sewing materials. Things of little consequence in the grand scheme of things, but that would undeniably make them happy. 

Nilliams held up his hand and they all instantly quieted “It is being kind of young sir and miss to be asking if we is wanting wands, but elvesies is powerful. We is not needing wands like humans and not wanting them like goblinsies. Hogwarts elvesies is being very lucky to be having such simple desires as different jobs around the castle. Not all elvesies be having such simple wishes. Not all elvesies be with the same family their whole life, or even be knowing who their parents were like Kipper” he said, leaving ample room for the heavy implication that such a statement garnered. 

She couldn’t keep in the low growl that rumbled its way out of her throat, and some of the elves nearby yelped, but Nilliams just chuckled and tugged on her ear and poked her nose. When he spoke again he raised his voice so all the elves could hear him “Our new friends is being eager to help us, they is being a kind young sir and miss! They must be talking with Kipper, and when she is telling them what the geas truly be holdings then they may be tellings the other wolvesies and goblinsies that the Hogwarts elvesies will be glad to join their rebellion in the small ways that we can!” He announced to gasps and then uproarious cheers from all throughout the kitchens. 

Harry didn’t want to question their confidentiality right as they were committing to the cause, but he had to ask just in case “Nilly, the Hogwarts elves work for the castle right? Are you obligated to tell the headmaster or other professors that we talked to you if they ask?” He said quietly into the old elf’s ear as the other ones continued cheering. 

The clever old thing looked at him with a sly grin “Nilliams is having no master but the magic of the founders that be left over and seeped into the stones. The castle is being alive, more than the human witches and wizards is ever knowing. Hogwarts elvesies be obeying the headmaster and professors as a courtesy, not because we is being bound to them. If headmaster Dumbly is asking, even if he is commanding, Nilly and all the kitchen elvesies be saying young sir and miss just came for a nice visit with Kipper” he said meaningfully, and Harry grinned as well.

Their little friends weren’t so defenseless after all. 

Chapter Text

As much as Hermione was enjoying school and learning and making friends and planning inter-species rebellions, she was a very physically active child. By the beginning of their third week she was starting to feel a little bit cooped up in the castle. Even though it was admittedly enormous and changed frequently and had many secrets. 

Her brother, always the happy homebody and a bit on the naturally lazier side, thought she was barking mad. This was generally one of his favorite things to say to her, as she would reliably transform and bark at him in response. She had not been able to do so lately, and so it fell tragically flat when he said it and she had to look around at their full common room and bark quietly with her dumb human mouth. 

Neville’s quill was paused midair next to her where he’d been working on his history essay, and he stared at her dumbfounded as a drop of ink splattered to his parchment. Blinking a bit he shook his head “Sorry, did you just say you’re bored in the thousand year old castle we live in? The one with secret passageways and moving staircases and living portraits from every era in wizarding history?” He asked in disbelief. She whined a bit, and shook her head “No, bored isn’t the right word. I guess I’m feeling a bit restless, I really want to go outside and run in the forest but we’re not supposed to,” she said sadly, crossing her arms on the table and laying her head down on top of them. 

He followed her gaze out their tower window and down to the tree line below “Aren’t there tons of things that can kill us in there? Didn’t one of the prefects specifically say something about a nest of giant spiders?” She shrugged forlornly, pouting “Maybe, but they also say there’s werewolves that live in there and I bet that’s a big whopping lie too. There have got to be so many good things to smell and chase,” she said longingly. 

Her brother scoffed and she pouted at him “I know you love having your fur on, but if you get too comfortable in it you’re going to find yourself forgetting how to walk on two legs one of these days” he said not unkindly. Her pout fell away and her face became genuinely crestfallen “I wish I’d been able to give you my gift properly Harry, you know that right?” She said softly, and he reached over and squeezed her hand affectionately and nodded. 

Their friend looked between the two of them and with his voice lowered to a whisper he asked “I’m so confused, are you not both werewolves?” 

Hermione laughed and nodded “Sorry, it feels like we’ve known each other forever. I keep thinking you know all our secrets already,” she said with a grin. He smiled at her and she explained quietly, glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to listen in “I was born a werewolf and I can change any time I like. Harry was born a human and when dad adopted him I bit him to turn him into a werewolf. He can only change on the three days of the full moon”

Neville looked torn between being intensely curious and more than a bit uncomfortable “Hang on, so when you say you want to go run in the forest… what you mean is you want to t-turn into your- your w-we- werewolf form? Isn’t that… dangerous?” He asked, looking a little green around the gills. Hermione tried not to be hurt, he didn’t know and so he was asking, that was better than jumping to conclusions. The least she could do was give him the benefit of the doubt and honor that trust.

“All the myths and rumors you’ve ever heard about werewolves, that we change and uncontrollably bite and attack people, that’s only true for wolves who don’t accept their nature and fear or hate themselves. It’s almost always loners who don’t have packs, and that’s only a very small percentage of us. If you’re at peace with your wolf and trust it not to hurt you or the people you care about, the change is easy and you’re as harmless as a regular animal. Internal balance makes for external balance. I could shift right here in the common room in front of you and not a single person would be at risk. All I’d do is curl up by the fire” she said confidently, hoping against hope that he would believe her. 

His face said that at the very least he wanted to believe, and her heart felt on the cusp of being potentially ripped to pieces if he rejected her nature here in this moment. Without even thinking about it she trusted her gut and slid off of her chair and onto the floor, letting her magic shimmer over her in a wash of green sparkles. She stood on all fours as a small brown wolf and laid her head gently on her friend’s leg, looking up at him with big silvery grey puppy eyes. 

The entire common room had fallen dreadfully silent, and all eyes were on the two of them. Her brother was wide-eyed and glancing around frantically as if he was going to have to personally fight off a werewolf hunter in this room full of children. She felt bad for making his life so difficult, but sometimes you had to rip the bandaid off. 

Neville let out a precious little “Oh” that had a tremendous amount of feeling behind it, and hesitantly reached out with his index finger and poked the very tip of her twitching nose. He giggled “It’s cold and wet like a dog’s” he said a bit dumbly, and she heard a few people laugh, but more importantly his face blossomed into a huge radiant smile. He very lightly brushed the pads of his fingers over the silky fur on the top of her head and her eyes closed contentedly. A moment later she twisted her head around to stare at her brother, beseeching him with her sweet puppy eyes, and he sighed and stood and repeated loudly for the whole of Gryffindor house to hear what she’d just explained to Neville. 

“Can she understand us when she’s like that?” An older student asked, and she spun around to face him and nodded her head up and down to gasps and claps of delight. 

“What if she bites someone while she’s shifted like that and it’s not the full moon, would they turn into a werewolf?” asked one of the twins year mates, which caused the entire room to break out into nervous muttering. She emphatically shook her head no and looked at Harry with a whine, who rushed to help her out “It’s complicated, but mostly it’s about intentionality. The loners who bite and turn people against their will are sad and frustrated because they don’t have a pack and instinctively try to create more werewolves so they’ll have others to run with because we’re social creatures. Pack wolves like us only ever bite with permission, and with the desire to bring someone in who wants to join our family,” he said succinctly, explaining rather well she thought. 

Somewhere in the crowd of her housemates someone whispered very low under their breath, incredibly quietly they said “Hermione if you can hear this, bark three times,” and she immediately barked three times in rapid succession, drawing all the crosstalk and chatter to a confused halt. “What does she want?” She heard someone say, then Parvati rushed to the front of the room “I can’t ruddy believe she heard that, I was just messing about! I whispered from all the way on the other side of the tower so quiet I couldn’t even hear myself!” The girl exclaimed excitedly, drawing intrigued noises from all around the common room. 

Suddenly everyone seemed to want to test her senses of hearing and smell, and Harry was forced to peevishly admit that hers were generally better than his own in their human forms, and significantly more so when she was shifted. She sportingly played sniffer dog for a while, with students presenting her objects and asking her who they belonged to. She had a nearly perfect success rate, and had been tripped up only once when one of Fred and George’s friends gave her an object of theirs that they technically shared between the two of them. 

A third year girl with a very fat cat in her arms asked her brother “Can she understand other animals? Like our pets?” And he had to think about that a bit. He looked to her for clarification and she tilted her head back and forth noncommittally “Not exactly, it honestly depends more on how smart the animal is. They don’t talk, like when we’re transformed we don’t hear them saying words. But it’s definitely easier to understand what the noises they make are trying to convey when we’re shifted. Never hurts to try, if your cat’s clever enough she might be able to get something from it” he said, and the girl rushed forward to give it a shot. 

When she set the cat down across from Hermione, it mostly just seemed a bit nervous until she laid down flat on the floor with her head on her paws. It relaxed after that, and her and the cat spent a good several moments staring each other down. She sneezed, and then looked up at the girl and nodded with a doggy grin. She’d come find her and tell her all about it later. 

“Does she know any tricks?” Someone asked, to mixed laughter and scolding from the crowd. Like a trained circus animal, she leapt up onto the table they’d been studying on and did a little routine. She sat, she held out a paw which one of the Weasley twins gleefully shook, she laid down, she rolled over, she stood on her hind legs and did a little dance, she pretended to be shot and fell down dead, she lifted her back legs in the air and walked in a circle on her front paws. Her house mates applauded all of her silly little tricks uproariously. She looked at the crowd and tilted her head as if asking if they’d had enough of a show, to much laughter and cheering. 

“Has she ever chased a squirrel like that?” Seamus asked playfully when the noise had finally started to die down, and the room burst into laughter again. She laid down and put her paws over her snout in embarrassment as Harry viciously tore into a humiliating story about the time she’d been chased by a black bear. She had thought she’d been playing with a large puppy that had wandered into the woods, but it was actually a bear cub whose mother had been decidedly unimpressed with her. She had been the one who had ended up getting chased halfway across the forest before Ófnir had come to her rescue. 

She supposed she deserved that small revenge from her brother. At least it was helping people be less afraid of them. She was optimistic, until a question she should have been ready for tore through the happy air of the room. “Isn’t your dad a killer? Wasn’t he one of you-know-who’s death eaters?” Someone asked from the anonymity of the middle of the crowd. Whispers filled the room in a buzzing hush, and everyone turned to Harry, who looked panicked and uncertain. 

She shifted back to her human form in an instant, to everyone’s great shock “We don’t know who started the rumors about our father, but they’re not true. He’s never killed anyone, and he definitely didn’t serve the dark lord - he hates the dark lord because that monster killed my mother! Our dad is a good wolf - he’s the alpha of our pack, and he’s always taken care of us. I know it’s hard to believe when someone tells you something that’s common knowledge is a lie, but someone started those lies on purpose to hurt werewolves and to make people hate us as much as possible,” she said, injecting as much earnestness and open transparency as she possibly could into her words. She was desperate for her house mates to believe her - everyone that did was an entire network of people they might go on to share that information with. 

There were some mutters around the room, and another person loudly asked “Why would someone go to all the trouble of making up lies? Why would they even hate werewolves in the first place if those things aren’t really true?” To her relief, the seventh year female prefect came over to where Hermione was standing and put her arm around her shoulder, answering for her “There will always be people that hate those who are different, and anything else that they don’t understand. The blood supremacists hate muggleborns and the people who are willing to be friends with us. They don’t even want us here at Hogwarts because they don’t think we’re as pure or as magical as them,” she said, and Hermione looked up at the older girl and found herself caught on that statement. 

She looked out over her house mates and found her courage again “They don’t want us here either, Harry and I are only here because I’m a Black and he’s a Potter. They couldn’t leave us out if they tried, but they did try and they succeeded with the other magical werewolf children in our pack! Our friends Rainy and Patrick should have come with us to school this year, they’re magical eleven year olds just like us, but they didn’t get Hogwarts letters because they’re not from influential families. And Bobberty should have gotten a letter two years ago but he didn’t, and if Melvynthia had gotten a letter when she should have she’d be a sixth year now! They might have been Gryffindors, but instead they’ve been having to get lessons at home from the older wolves, and most of them weren’t allowed to come to school either so they had to teach themselves,” she said angrily, to a common room that was stunned silent. 

Harry, recognizing a moment for solidarity if ever there was one, came up and looped his arm through hers. She saw him look at her questioningly out of the corner of her eye and nodded, and he turned and spoke to the room “We’re going to try and do something about it with the voices we have, we each have a hereditary seat on the wizengamot - the Black and Potter seats like Hermione said. I know there are others in this very room who have the same privilege who could do so as well,” he challenged, glancing around and startling when he realized their friend had stood up.

“My gran is currently sitting proxy in my seat until I come of age, but as the Longbottom heir I have the right to tell her how I’d like our family to vote… And I will!” Neville announced proudly, and Hermione ran to him and hugged him tightly. 

“Our grandad lost the house seat back during World War Two, but maybe with enough work we could get a Weasley on the wizengamot again - it would be quite the political coup for our family!” Said a scheming Percy, and he was elbowed hard on each side by Fred and George. 

An older boy spoke up “The Fawleys have always been Gryffindors and have always hated blood purists. It’s terrible that letters aren’t going out to magical children just because they’re werewolves! I’ll tell my dad to address it at the next board of governors meeting, and my mum to bring it up in the wizengamot” he said with a firm nod. 

A ridiculously beautiful middle eastern girl with a scarf wrapped loosely around her shoulders and head that left her shining inky black hair visible beneath said “The Shafiq family doesn’t bow down to blood purists either. I’ll tell my aba to bring it to the school board, and my ama and my uncle to bring it to the wizengamot as well!”

Every time someone new spoke and pledged their support the room broke out into cheers and applause. Her chest was warm at the overwhelming outpouring of unity she felt from her house mates, and the grin on her face was enormous as she committed their names and faces to memory to approach and thank later. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

It had been such a wonderful evening and Hermione was so satisfied with the way everything had shaken out in the common room. It could have gone so badly, and she was intensely grateful for the way Harry and Neville had stepped up and covered for her impulsive move. That being said, she still felt the need to stretch her legs and run. 

She lay in her bed tossing and turning like a load of laundry, feeling the moonlight streaming in delicately through her window calling to her. She toyed with the idea of sneaking out, wondering if she really had it in her to be so thoughtlessly reckless twice in one night. One of her calves started to cramp, and her mind was made up. Tossing off her bedsheets, she made her way out of her room and down the stairs of the tower. She was unsurprised but a bit disheartened to see her brother blearily sitting by the fireplace waiting for her. 

She sat next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder and sniffed “You know you can’t come with me, right? I need to run” she whispered softly and sadly. He nodded and patted the top of her head “I know, but I’ll be here until you get back” he said stubbornly. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and shifted, letting him open and shut the painting for her and licking his hand in thanks as she crept through the hole out into the corridor. 

She silently slunk down and down and down through the castle, easily avoiding Mr Filch and a professor she didn’t recognize who was doing rounds. She passed by floating ghosts and chatty portraits, nearly invisible in the shadows. The front doors presented a minor problem as she didn’t currently have hands. She sat down on her hindquarters staring at them for a moment, wondering if she should shift back to open them or if doing so would risk blowing her cover. Just as she was about to try nosing them open, a hand reached past her and opened the door. She startled and looked up and back behind her - it was professor Snape!

He looked down at her curiously, one eyebrow arched high and the faintest hint of amusement around his eyes and mouth. They tilted their heads at each other at the same time and he actually laughed “Don’t be too long, my Lady” he warned and gestured for her to go outside. She yipped softly, spun in a quick tight circle, licked his hand in thanks, and then rushed out. 

She darted across the lawn at full speed like a blur, eating up the ground under her as she made her way for the tree line. When she finally reached the edge of the wood she felt her breath come more easily and something that had been tight under her skin relaxed. She shook herself out a bit, and trotted at a much more sedate pace. This was an exploratory mission, she was introducing herself to the neighbors, there was no need for speed here. 

Picking up skittering scuttling noises on the edge of her range of hearing and the sharply astringent non-mammalian scent of many large insects, and recalling what Neville had said earlier about spiders in the forest, she uneasily changed course away from the direction she had been heading. She did not want to find out just how big giant spiders could actually get when left alone to colonize a wild environment. 

She had been around enough trees to know that these ones were ancient, many of their trunks were nearly as big around or bigger than a car. Their canopies reached unimaginably high above her head into the dark sky above. It was a relatively clear night, and though the foliage above her head was dense she could see and feel the waxing moon’s light shining on her fur. 

Enjoying the feeling of the night breeze ruffling her coat and getting a little side tracked following the trail of a rabbit she had caught on to, she was quite surprised when an arrow twanged past her head and lodged itself deeply into the bark of a nearby tree. She yelped as it had only barely missed her, and spun around with a snarl on her lips to see who had dared to attack her while she was minding her own business and bothering no one. 

Expecting to hear the soft footfalls of a hunter, she was shocked to instead hear the clopping of hoofbeats. A horse in the woods? When an elegantly lithe black-haired black-coated centaur stallion made his way out into the open through the underbrush, she was so thunderstruck that she sat down heavily on her hindquarters, jaw hanging agape. She was suddenly reminded of one of Ófnir’s many aphorisms - when you hear hoofbeats don’t think zebra, think horse. She’d let him know just how unhelpful that had been the next time she saw him. 

Two other stallions followed the first into the clearing, a redheaded roan and a blonde palomino, and they circled around her like a wagon train. As amusing as it was at first, she quickly felt extremely vulnerable surrounded on all sides as she was - despite his beauty and the grace of his movements, this centaur had just shot at her with his bow. Who did he think he was?!

She glanced at the arrow sticking out of the tree next to her and sniffed, noting that it had a sticky sour smell to it. His arrows were tipped with some kind of poison! Suddenly she was angry, they may not realize it but she was a child and they were clearly adults. She rose to all fours and stood defensively on the very pads of her toes, ready to lunge and snap at the slightest unkind look. The palomino male slowly came closer and raised his hands towards her palms out, like she was a spooked… well, horse. She refused to laugh at her own great joke, this was serious! 

He shushed her and hummed softly “It is the wrong phase of the moon for you to be in your wolf skin, wild one. Are you hurt or stuck? Has one of the humans done this to you?” He asked tentatively. If she had eyebrows as a wolf she would have raised them at that, and taking a leap of faith she allowed herself to shift back into her two-legged form so she might talk to them. 

The other two both reared back and the black coated one shouted, but the palomino only smiled with bright and astounded eyes. He came even closer and knelt down awkwardly onto his forelegs right next to her, waving his arm dismissively backwards at his fellows. They came over as well but stayed standing with their arms crossed anxiously and frowns etched deeply into their faces. 

“Our priestess has read the stars and they have long foretold your coming. I am Firenze. How have you done this thing, child, and where do you come from?” He asked gently, fascination clear in his voice. She smiled at him and tilted her head at the other two, waiting until they begrudgingly lowered themselves to the ground to speak “I am Hermione. I was born to an alpha werewolf and his heart’s only mate, and am thus a trueborn wolf. I have shifted every moon of my life, and can do so whenever I please. Our pack lives in Wales, and I’ve just come here to go to school in the castle,” she said as primly and politely as if she were at one of Narcissa’s tea parties, ignoring the fact that she was sitting cross-legged in the dirt in her nightgown. 

“The other wolves in my pack cannot shift freely as I do, but are all docile during the moon due to the peace and acceptance in their hearts that they bear for their nature. They need none of the poison potion the humans would have them drink or silver chains the humans would have them wrapped up in. They run and chase and hunt, but never attack or bite a human or other sentient being. This I swear on my magic,” she intoned seriously to the centaurs amazement as shimmery green sparkles rained down around her. 

The other two who had been eyeing her distrust fully seemed at the very least pacified by this, and leaned in with more open faces “You need not have done that, child” said the roan “for we have heard tell of your pack and the good reputation of your father and his wolves” this startled her. She angled her body towards him “Really - from whom? Among the human wizards someone has been spreading terrible lies and ruining my father’s reputation for at least a decade! They call him a bloodthirsty killer. We have only recently learned of it - everyone we meet is terrified of him, and of my brother and I by extension,” she said earnestly and sadly. 

She would never repeat the thought aloud, but in her opinion the roan and black stallions made remarkably horse-like noises upon hearing that information. “Humans are fickle fools, they will change their minds like the wind blows and yet blindly hold fast to their most ridiculous notions. Pay them no mind, child,” said the roan matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument. The palomino Firenze made a noise much like a whinny, and she bit her tongue hard to hold back a giggle “How does that help her Magorian? She must live with the humans, she cannot simply ignore them all,” he argued.

He had a point, and she said so. They debated it for a while, whether humans could ever really be trusted, and she told them about how supportive her house mates had proven themselves to be just earlier that evening. They considered this, and Bane the black stallion argued that children were a different kind of human than their adult counterparts. More open minded in general, but less likely to stay flexible as they grew up. Apparently many generations of magical human children had found them in their forest, all promising to do their four-legged friends a better turn than their parents, only to eventually either forget or abandon the lofty ideals of their youth once they themselves were adults. 

She wasn’t surprised that other children would have explored the forest, and it even made sense that they would have stumbled upon the centaurs at some point if they had. She was rather thrown for a loop at hearing others had claimed to want to help but hadn’t ever actually done anything. She glanced between her companions “Do you think they won’t really honor the pledges of support they made my brother and I to help get our pack mates admission to the school?” She asked, feeling as if perhaps she’d naively gotten her hopes up only to have them dashed. Firenze placed his hand gently on her shoulder, shaking his head. 

“Though you and I are more alike to each other than either of us are to them, they will always see us centaurs as mere creatures who have risen above our station and you werewolves as humans struggling with an affliction. That is the simple truth of the matter. They will help you instinctively where they would never think twice to help us,” he said, and as encouragingly as he clearly meant his words to be they weighed on her like anchors. She felt the injustice tangibly - to be arbitrarily reduced to either a talking animal or elevated to a human with a condition, solely on the preponderance of legs one possessed. She felt as if she were going to cry, and then realized she already was. 

To her surprise all three of them shushed and comforted her, not just Firenze. The other two were kinder than they had at first had appeared “It’s a heavy burden to bear, knowing the magnitude of their casual disdain,” Magorian said with the regal bearing of a king in exile “when one considers their capacity for kindness towards each other, it feels all the crueler,” and she nodded emphatically, wiping at her nose and eyes. “I had no idea until just this last year, dad kept us so safe and isolated at home. Apparently you can kill a werewolf in broad daylight and if you claim it was self defense you won’t even be charged with a crime. We don’t even have to be transformed!” She told them, and more tears fell and her nose started to feel stuffed up. They looked alarmed by this. 

She panted through her mouth, her nose thoroughly closed up and utterly useless for breathing “My friend Gornuk told me that the goblins have it terrible as well - if one of them is killed by a wizard it’s considered property damage because they’re all bank employees. My brother Harry and I are going to try and help them in their upcoming rebellion, and we spoke to the house elves in the kitchens over the weekend and they agreed to help as well. There’s something funny going on with them though, do you know anything about the geas they’re under? It must be some kind of spell, it kept them from telling us certain things. They were only able to even let us know about it because we’re technically not humans,” she said, not failing to notice the very pointed eye contact Bane and Magorian were making. Or the very noticeable uptick in their heartbeats. 

Firenze however looked like the stars were in his eyes, and he grinned ecstatically “Young Hermione, what you speak of is reminiscent of the great alliances of old, from the times of Merlin and Morgana and the founders of the very castle you reside in. Werewolves, goblins, house elves, centaurs, and even magical humans all working together towards a common goal and a shared purpose. The last time all of our races were united we did great and wonderful things. We created the concord of Avalon-” he was cut off harshly by Bane “Firenze! Even to a friend you reveal too much,” the other centaur scolded, rising to his feet and stomping his front hooves menacingly. 

“Calm yourself,” an angelic voice commanded blisteringly, carrying through the brush “but he is right Firenze, speak not another word of those times and those deeds,” said a centaur woman with a velvety coat of gleaming luminous silver. Bone white hair fell in waves down to her hips, and her tail was the same color. As she entered the clearing the radiant light of midday came with her, nearly blinding Hermione as her eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness of night. She blinked hard and rubbed at her eyes to clear them, and her jaw dropped when she could see again. From the center of the woman’s forehead a spiraling glimmering pearlescent horn protruded, nearly two feet long if it was an inch. 

Hermione felt as if she should be kneeling in the woman’s presence, and then realized she already was. She looked at the other centaurs and they were knelt as well, heads down and bent as close to prostrate as their anatomy would allow. “My lady, your arrival honors us,” said Firenze lightly and cheerfully, but oddly without raising his head or looking at the woman “allow me to introduce young Hermione, our werewolf friend,” he said with a little flourish in her direction. She waved awkwardly, unintentionally making eye contact with the woman and gasping at what she saw there. 

Her ancient and ageless eyes were like galaxies, and stars and nebulas and all celestial things imaginable were contained within. Those eyes were as brilliant and colorful as they were cold and empty and dark. She felt a tug and realized she was walking forward with her hands outstretched, desperate to touch that shining silvery coat if only for a single moment, even if it killed her. Hermione’s vision swam and she shook her head wildly and forced herself to stagger backwards at the last minute. She looked up from the ground where she had fallen on her rump at the woman’s feet… hooves. 

The woman had an enigmatic little smile on her face, and to her astonishment hadn’t moved an inch despite being lunged at by an entranced werewolf child. She cleared her throat nervously “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me!” she croaked, her voice breaking to her utter humiliation. She was sure her face was beet red. She wished a giant spider would crawl out of the underbrush and carry her away from this beautiful person whose presence she didn’t belong in. 

To her thrilled delight the woman reached down and grabbed her hands, pulling her back up to her feet “I have that effect on others sometimes, it’s not your fault” she said carelessly, not letting go of her hands. The woman’s hands were enormous and made her own look like a baby’s in their grip. They were deathly cold to the touch, in direct and jarring contrast to how tactile and warm the woman seemed. This close up her voice was layered like a full church choir, and it nearly bowled Hermione over. “What- no sorry, who… are you?” She heard herself say, to her mortification. The woman only laughed and it rang clear like bells. She was sure it could be heard from miles and miles away. 

The woman pulled her close and touched her forehead, running two icy cold fingers along the center of it over and over, tracing a pattern “We have both been touched by the moon, little sister. Out of all the magical mortals on this earthly plane, she has chosen the two of us to be her champions; I as her voice, and you as her sword. We have a great deal of work ahead of us, but it is work that only we can do. There will be a battle of hearts and minds, and a war of blood and beasts. You’ll be pulled in many different directions, and you’ll have to remember who you serve first. Who is your master?” She asked her enigmatically, and Hermione was so spellbound by her voice and the cadence of her words that it took a moment to realize she had been asked a question. 

She considered it, trying to remember her childhood lessons “Dad and Ófnir say we serve the goddesses of the moon above all else; Lady Selene of the full moon, Lady Artemis of the half moon, and Lady Hekate of the dark moon. They say that other than them we have no earthly master, and that wolves are supposed to run wild and free. Are they my masters? Am I my own master?” She asked tentatively, certain she had said the wrong thing. 

To her great relief the woman seemed quite pleased “A very good answer, one I couldn’t have given for you. Indeed, you can both serve our goddesses and be your own master. In truth I believe they would have it no other way,” the woman said, leaning in close and whispering conspiratorially as if they were sharing a secret, and then pressing their noses together and giggling. Hermione couldn’t help but giggle as well, a bubbly feeling rising in her chest as if she were in close quarters with a star. 

“Please won’t you tell me your name?” she whispered breathlessly back to the ethereal creature before her, desperate to know even a single thing about her. The woman blinked and the corners of her eyes crinkled “I am Amalthea, and we two are as one from now until the day our goddesses call us home to them,” she said with a lovely and kind smile. A flash of light even brighter than what radiated ambiently from her silvery coat erupted from the tip of her horn, and Hermione felt a brush of something on her forehead that was both searingly hot and bitterly cold at the same time. 

“Now you should be able to see the beautiful mark the goddesses bestowed upon you. Come back another night little sister, and the centaurs of the forest will tell you all you wish to know about the tragic curse the house elves are under. They will tell you of a wolf who lives in this forest who has been waiting a very long time to meet you. They will regale you with tales of the times long long before now, of Merlin and Morgana and the founders and your ancestors. They will even tell you of Avalon, but only when you are within the privacy of their village. For now though, it is very late and you are very young, and you are missed back at your castle. Put on your fur and run with me, and I will guide you back safely to your dwelling” she said, cupping Hermione’s face in her huge hands and running the pads of her thumbs over her cheekbones. 

She nodded and the shimmer of green magic that washed over her as she shifted was bolstered by Amalthea’s glowing light. Her shift was as quick and as smooth as breathing, more seamless and effortless than ever before, even more so than the other night in the kitchens with the elves. She felt stronger and somehow larger, and noted that where even the very tops of her ears normally wouldn’t have come up to the centaurs bellies, now she felt nearly as tall at the shoulder as they were at their backs. She looked down at her paws, and when she pulled one up off of the ground the footprint it left behind looked absolutely huge. 

“Stars above, but she was certainly not that size an hour ago!” Firenze crowed delightedly “Your magic has combined most harmoniously, my lady. The goddesses work is visible before us,” he added and the other stallions muttered their agreement. She looked back up at Amalthea and was yet again thunderstruck to see a true unicorn standing before her. The spectacular creature winked, and she realized she was not the only shape-shifter in the forest. The moon really had blessed them both! Without thinking she licked the unicorn’s muzzle, to Bane and Magorian’s loud protests and Firenze’s horse-like laughter. Amalthea only whinnied softly, and then took off. 

Hermione followed her all the way back to the edge of the forest, and it was a much faster and less circuitous journey than it had been on her own. When they reached the tree line she transformed back into her human body to hug the unicorn’s neck tightly “Thank you,” she whispered into her butter soft mane. She laughed to realize Amalthea was nibbling on her hair, and reached up and stroked her enormous cheek “Will I ever see you again? Can I bring my brother to meet you?” She asked desperately, and her heart filled with joy as the unicorn nodded her head up and down exaggeratedly several times. 

She shifted back and darted across the lawn again up to the castle, and when she got there the door was cracked ajar for her. No wonder the professor had told her not to be long! She looked back out and saw Amalthea was still there at the tree line standing watch over her, and her heart soared with affection for the woman. She wagged her tail extra hard so that it could be seen from a good distance, and the unicorn reared up on her hind legs before running off into the dark woods, her light still visible for a few seconds after she was gone. 

A voice from inside the doorway startled her “Just what in Salazar’s name have you been doing out there?” professor Snape snarked mildly, but his voice was breathless and his wide eyes were locked on where Amalthea had been standing. When he could bring himself to tear his gaze away he jolted and his eyes narrowed in her direction “You’re bigger than when you left… Why are you bigger than when you left?” He demanded, and she whined and ducked her head. It was unsuccessful though, as she realized now that she was standing next to him and paying attention that their eye level was roughly the same. 

It should not have been anywhere near the same.

When she left the castle earlier that evening her shifted form had been approximately the size of a golden retriever or maybe a German shepherd. Now standing next to him she was able to very quickly determine that she was currently roughly the size of a horse. She wondered if it was permanent. Letting her magic wash over her, it sparked and shimmered brighter and greener than normal as she shifted back to her human form. She looked down at her hands and then up at her professor angrily towering above her and sighed in relief that she was still human Hermione sized. 

“You were gone for nearly an hour! I thought I was simply letting you out to have a wee on one of Hagrid’s pumpkins, or perhaps to chase a rabbit. Explain!” he demanded, not harshly but very intently. She wrung her hands a bit “In my defense I did chase a rabbit for a good while, but then I met some centaurs and got blessed by a very friendly unicorn,” she said with a helpless shrug. Remembering Amalthea’s words she pushed her fringe off of her forehead, and heard her professor sharply inhale “Does it look any different, sir? She said she was going to make something visible that was already there.” 

“Gods be- well rather goddesses be good. It’s the mark of the goddess Artemis. A circle, half silver and half gold… Now hang on, you said she spoke to you? How did a unicorn speak?” He asked, his eyes wide and his face was open in clear wonder. She was about to answer when he shook his head slightly and seemed to come back to himself “Never mind, I don’t need to know. Playing with unicorns in the forest at night, Merlin’s beard… You won’t be able to sneak back up quite as stealthily as you did before, so you might as well follow me” he said not unkindly, and headed back into the castle without another word. 

He escorted her through the entrance hall, up the grand staircase all the way to the seventh floor, and to the portrait of the fat lady who was snoring and whose cup of wine was just about to spill over onto her ample bosom. He tapped the frame and it swung open, and he gestured for her to climb in. She did, but not before earnestly expressing her gratitude “Thank you for letting me out professor Snape, even though you thought I only needed a bark and a wee” she said with a cheeky grin, and he nodded and smiled a very small amused smile. 

Chapter Text

The next morning Hermione had a long overdue letter to send off to their father. She had written it in the late-night hours after coming back up to the tower, still wide awake after her midnight romp. Like ripping off a band aid, she had confessed to every secret she’d been keeping hidden and then told him about her wild night. She had gotten everything she’d been wanting to say to him for weeks off of her chest; conspiratorial letters she’d written and beings she’d met and things her and Harry had discovered and decided upon without him. Afterwards she had promptly fallen into a deeper and more restful sleep than she’d had since she was last in her bed at home. 

As soon as she woke up in the morning, without waiting for either her brother or best friend, she rushed to the owlery to post it to him. She stroked their family owl’s feathers, and begged him to fly fast and true as he left the castle. Despite fear of facing his disappointment and disapproval, she was desperate to hear from her dad. For the first time since she’d arrived at school she felt the bone-deep ache of just how much she missed him. It had been there all along, but overwhelmed and overexcited by everything else new and interesting, it had been pushed to the background of her emotional landscape. 

She hoped Harry wouldn’t be angry with her, but he had said he would follow her lead and this was what she had decided was ultimately for the best. Coming clean wasn’t easy, and there was always the chance it could go badly. Terribly, really. But there was also the chance that things hadn’t yet gone too far, and that her honesty now could save them from worse consequences than if their dad found out from someone other than her. All she had really done was have a few conversations, sent and received a few letters, explored the castle and grounds a little… made a commitment to an interspecies rebellion against the wizarding government… Fuck.

It was almost funny how utterly out of her depths she was - but that’s what the letter was for. Even if he was angry, her dad would help her if he knew what was going on. He would tell her what to do and have good advice for her. No question about it. 

Letter sent, she made her way to the great hall and sat down to an early breakfast. After the long and thrilling night she’d had, she eagerly anticipated feasting until she was absolutely stuffed and rolling to class. She was pleasantly surprised to see Ron and Draco already at the Slytherin table with only a few others anywhere nearby. Glancing around the hall to make sure no one was paying attention, she slunk over and slipped in between them at the table, taking off her outer robe with the distinctive Gryffindor red piping and folding it to sit on top of. 

Thankfully they hadn’t been in the middle of too lively a conversation, but they still both looked at her questioningly as she settled in apropos of nothing. “You’re up early,” Draco remarked coyly, eying her from head to toe and no doubt keenly noticing all the subtle signs that pointed to her being more frazzled than usual. She had taken a shower, and although she was confident she’d washed away all the dirt and gotten rid of all the leaves in her hair, she suddenly felt a bit self-conscious. He was always so put together and seemed to have an uncanny sixth sense for telling whenever she’d been rolling around in the outdoors recently. 

“Hiya fellas,” she said a little more cheerfully than she felt. In truth she felt a building churning anxiety in her gut that was decidedly unusual for her “Just a heads up, I sent a letter home about ten minutes ago confessing a bunch of stuff I’ve been keeping from my dad, and he might be actually be furious enough to actually come here and tan my hide in front of Dumbledore and everybody when he gets it,” she said casually, reaching for a pitcher of juice and pouring a cup. She took a deep pull off of it, sighing and smacking her lips, and staunchly avoiding eye contact with either of them. 

“You’re barking mad,” Ron said, starting to laugh. When she turned to him and softly woofed with her human mouth, all three of them burst into helplessly uncontrollable laughter. 

Remembering that her brother up in the tower was probably wondering where she was, she quietly called for Kipper. The little elf was disillusioned, but she heard the air displace and felt the warmth of her appear on the table near her arm “How can Kipper be helping young Mistress?” the elf asked softly. The boys both startled at the sound of the voice, and she laid a hand on each of their arms “Kip, these are our cousins Ron and Draco. Fellas, Kipper is the elf we were telling you about,” she reassured both parties gently. “She’s invisible right now cause we haven’t really talked to any of the professors about being bonded with her, but Kip you can feel free to show yourself whenever and wherever you feel like, alright? Unless you’re shy I guess, then that’s fine too. Anyways, can you please let Harry know I came down early so he doesn’t freak out?” She asked decisively, cutting herself off from rambling further. 

“Of course, young Mistress Hermie,” the elf said as she popped away, and she was intensely aware of her cousins both looking at her as if she were a certifiable space alien from the year 3000. She sighed heavily and took another swig of her juice. A sound like air escaping a latex balloon came from Ron’s pursed lips as he tried and failed to hold in his laughter “…Hermie” he wheezed a moment later, and she scowled “Don’t you bloody dare, Weasley!” She retorted venomously.

“So aside from stealing school elves and uncovering an ancient curse on their entire species,” Draco began, and she whipped her head back around to him, frantically making sure no one else at the table had overheard “what else could you have possibly gotten yourself into that you think will make your father so mad?” He finished casually. She ought to strangle him. 

“I ought to strangle you” she said tartly. 

Ron laughed again, a loud guffaw that echoed through the hall and drew curious eyes to their location. She elbowed him sharply in the ribs and he doubled over “Listen, I’m simply going to have to stop telling you things if you’re just going to repeat them like that where Merlin and everybody can hear,” she told Draco in no uncertain terms. 

He grinned like the little snake he was and shrugged carelessly “Unlike us, you’re physically incapable of keeping a secret. Try and keep us in the dark about all of your many ridiculous lupine shenanigans, I dare you. You’ll go mad in three days or I’ll eat my broom,” he said with such smug surety that she almost wanted to take him up on his bet, but he was tragically right. After how cathartic it had been to write her tell-all memoir to her dad, she was absolutely desperate to spill the beans again to anyone who would listen. She whined low enough that they wouldn’t hear, and gritted her teeth. 

Refusing to acknowledge his unfortunately correct statement, she proceeded to tell them absolutely everything. They knew the bare bones of her and her brother having visited the kitchens and learning about the geas, but she hadn’t told them about the goblins recruiting them for the rebellion or about accidentally inciting the elves to join in as well, and they were gobsmacked to hear it. She then told them about her stunt in the common room the night before and her midnight romp, and they were properly thunderstruck. She hesitated over whether or not she should tell them about Amalthea, and ultimately decided they were too exposed in the great hall to talk about something so important. 

This was a bridge too far for Draco. “I’m sorry,” he whispered hotly “there’s something else that’s more secret than you apparently enlisting the entire bloody family into the next goblin rebellion? Are you having a bloody laugh?” He hissed, sounding significantly more put out than she would have expected. She looked to Ron to back her up, but he seemed upset as well “Really Hermione, you transformed into a werewolf in front of your entire house but you won’t tell us what you saw in the woods? Was it a big spider like Neville said? I may not like them but I promise I won’t panic just hearing you talk about one,” he said, sounding as if even he didn’t fully believe the last part. He definitely wouldn’t be able to handle even hearing mention of a giant spider. 

Frowning, she glanced around once more and looped an arm around each of their necks, pulling them both in so close that their ears were scarcely a breath away from her face “Alright, listen! There’s a centaur in the woods who can transform into a unicorn, or maybe the other way around. I’m actually not sure. But she’s very magical and special and the others treated her like she was their queen or something. Well, I met her and she told me we were both blessed by the moon goddesses to fight a war together, and then her magic did something that made my wolf form huge. Is that secret enough for you two gossipy fishwives? You’re not to tell a soul - not even family!” She hissed directly into their ears. 

“Mother of Merlin” “Morgana’s tits” the two of them exclaimed breathlessly at the same time, before side-eyeing each other and judging their choice of swear. Ron had taken great inspiration from her dad’s school of salty language, while Draco frequently insisted that vulgarity was beneath the well bred. 

Shaking his head, Draco apologized for going off on her “Honestly Hermione, how in Salazar’s name do you even find yourself in these situations? I literally don’t understand how so much can happen to one person, no matter how much of a magnet you may be for trouble,” he said as wearily as a tired little old man. She shrugged helplessly “I don’t know, but she said I could bring Harry back to meet her next time. Do you fellas want to come too if my dad hasn’t dragged me back home by the scruff of my neck by the time the weekend rolls around?” she asked earnestly, and they both immediately replied in the positive. 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harry rush into the hall, clearly looking for her. Neville trailed in behind him a moment or two later. She grimaced, not looking forward to having to repeat everything she’d just told the two of them or admit she’d folded and confessed everything to their dad “Alright fellas, that’s my cue. I’ll see you in transfiguration,” she said, making a swift egress from their table and across the room to her own. 

Her twin visibly relaxed when he laid eyes on her, and she felt incredibly guilty. She sat down so close to him their thighs were pressed together, and reached out instinctively for his hand. Neville settled into the space directly across from them, a worried expression on his sweet face. She cleared her throat, and they waited expectantly “Look, I’m sorry for not telling you I was taking off. I had to go to the owlery. After last night I had a lot on my mind, and I ended up writing a letter to dad telling him everything. Like… everything everything” she clarified tentatively, bracing for impact. 

To her surprise and relief her brother sighed contentedly and smiled warmly “Thank all the goddesses, Nene! I realized the instant I suggested it that it was just too soon for us to be acting so independently, and that I was only encouraging your worst impulses. That’s not what a beta’s supposed to do, and I only proved how much more growing up we have to do by saying it,” he said in a rush, and she felt tears well up in her eyes and her nose start to sting. “I’m sorry I didn’t turn you down, Harry. It may have been the wrong idea at the wrong time, but it took two of us to agree to it. My ego let me believe we could handle it on our own, and life at school only took two weeks to prove me a fool for thinking so!” She said, pouring her heart out to her brother and feeling seen and understood. 

He nodded and pulled her in for a tight hug “I’m really glad you decided on your own to fix things, but I honestly don’t think he’s going to be as mad as you’re imagining,” he said comfortingly. Though it was a tender moment she couldn’t help but scoff “Harry, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come down to the school personally and drag us home by our ears,” she insisted, but Harry grinned “Dad always rewards you when you come clean of your own volition. Just you wait, he’s gonna be proud - I didn’t even have to pretend to try and take the blame this time for you to jump on your own sword,” he said cheekily and she gasped and shoved his shoulder. 

She laughed and then blew her nose and wiped at her eyes, feeling profound relief “There’s another thing I have to tell you as well,” she said glancing furtively around herself once more and beckoning Neville to come around to their side of the table. Once he had squeezed into the spot on the other side of her, she had a moment of deja vu as she pulled them both in like she had her cousins a few moments ago. Thankfully Harry had already told the other boy that she’d taken a walkabout into the woods the night before, so lowering her voice to barely a whisper she quickly brought them both up to speed on her incredible meeting with Amalthea, and that she’d like to go back again and bring all four of them with her next time. 

“Helga’s green garden” “Nimue’s starry garters” they exclaimed in wonder at the same time, giving her another jolt of deja vu. As awestruck and transfixed as they both initially were by what she told them, a troubled expression soon took over both of their faces “We don’t exactly have the same freedom or ability to go run around the woods that you do though, Hermione,” her brother said gently, with a pained look on his face. Her heart dropped down to her toes, she wanted to show them what she’d seen, to share with them the incredible experience she had. Feeling on the verge of tears again she leaned her head on his shoulders, clutching his hand again and squeezing. From her other side Neville lay a comforting hand on her back. 

“I know you wouldn’t have had my powers even if dad had been the one who gave you the gift, but I still feel so guilty sometimes that I wasn’t able to pass them on to you. You’re the other half of me and you’re missing out and it’s not fair. We’re the same in every other way, and I can feel that our wolves are twins like we are. So why is yours stuck only shifting with the moon like a normal wolf?” She said mournfully, and he only hummed and stroked her hair. It only took her a moment though to perk up as she realized her own words “With the-… with the moon. Harry, with the moon! Maybe if it has something to do with your relationship to the moon, then Amalthea can help me bring your wolf closer to the surface!” she breathed excitedly, her eyes becoming wide and bright. Her mind started to race. 

Harry’s brows shot up “I mean, that would definitely be incredible, but let’s not get our hopes up,” he said, trying to temper her expectations. She shook her head “I’m sure if it’s at all possible she’ll be the one who knows how to do it. You’ll understand when you meet her,” she insisted happily, a radiant smile transforming her face. Confident in her assessment, she nodded matter-of-factly “That settles it - I’m going back out tonight and you’re coming with me,” she told her brother. “If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. We have to at least try though, please,” she said much more plaintively. 

The facade of the brother who tried to be the mature and responsible one dissolved immediately in the face of his sister’s enormous puppy eyes, and the brother that loved getting into trouble with her more than anything else sprung free with a wicked grin. Neville gulped audibly from where he was sat on the other side of her, a relatively silent supportive audience so far “Hmmmaybe I can be a part of the third wave that visits once the two of you have gone and undertaken your erm… spirit journey,” he suggested a bit weakly. 

She turned a twinkling mischievous eye towards him, “That’s fine, Nev. Although… now that I think about it I’m fairly certain I noticed a lovely thicket of red helleborine growing in a clearing I passed by,” she said temptingly, relishing in his gasp of delight. She shrugged innocently “But I wouldn’t want to push you to come with us if you don’t feel comfortable having a little adventure yet,” she said with a wicked little grin as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They were just finishing up their breakfast and getting ready to head to their first class of the day when their family owl swooped into the hall and dove straight towards them. Hermione lifted her arm into the air and he landed on it elegantly, sticking his leg out with a letter attached. She was thrilled that their dad had gotten back to her so fast, but anxious to find out what he thought, and furthermore disappointed that she wouldn’t have time to read it for several hours. 

With a groan of frustration, she stored it carefully in her bag and gave their owl a slice of bacon before letting him wing away. Harry eyed her curiously and she shook her head with a frown. They had to get outside for herbology, and she’d have to wait until lunch at the absolute earliest to respond. Although she liked being out of the castle, class dragged long and dull. It felt like the letter was burning a hole in the bottom of her bag, and professor Sprout had gently scolded her for having poor focus on the plants they were repotting. Neville was having a great time, but that was a given as he loved playing in the dirt and messing about with green growing things. 

Even Harry was a sport, paying proper attention and earning points for watering his soil the correct amount. She was sure she’d probably drowned hers. By the end of the two and a half hour class block, Hermione couldn’t have recalled what plants they were manhandling or why if her life depended on it. She’d have to apologize to their professor later, but as they made their way back into the castle for lunch she had little else but her dad’s letter on her mind. 

As they passed through the doors of the hall, Ron and Draco shooting her questioning looks from their table and she shrugged helplessly. She heard both of them mutter good luck under their breaths and she shot them thumbs ups and a weak grin. Settling into their own table on the other side of the hall she pulled her letter out and opened it, holding it up slightly so that Harry and Neville who had settled in on either side of her to snoop over her shoulders could see it as well. 

17/9/91
The kitchen table
Alpha house
Greyback compound

Little wolf,

First of all, you sounded very upset in your letter and so I’d like for you to please calm down and be reassured in the knowledge that I love you unconditionally and am glad you chose to be honest with me. I will always be proud of you for making the decision to come to me for help when you need it, and I’m always here for you no matter how big your problems may seem. Even if I were angry, which I am not, there is nothing you could do that I would stop loving you. 

Although I have of course missed you and your brother both dearly, you should well know my girl that you are my very heart beating outside of my chest. To have you so far away has left me a nervous and irritable wreck. I have not been myself to say the least. If you had asked me a week ago right after receiving your last letter, I would have said I was quite cross with the both of you. It was very obvious that you weren’t telling me everything. I let my frustrations get the better of me, and felt out of control with you acting on your own without my input. 

I can see clearly now that you were not trying to buck my authority, but rather help ease the burden of my many responsibilities. You are a sweet child, and though I appreciate your thoughtful heart it is my job as your father and alpha to watch over you and guide you until you are grown. You don’t have to fly away from the nest yet, you’re still my fuzzy little chick and your feathers are only just coming in. 

I don’t have an answer yet for what you’ve told me about the goblins (and house elves and centaurs??), but I am honored that you and your brother both wish for me to serve as your proxy and I am glad that you told me about your correspondence. That is something we will discuss together in person on the full moon. I will say that I am proud of your desire to instinctively help others, but you must know that sometimes offering things you cannot follow through on can cause more harm overall in the long run. Even if we do decide as a family to help them, we cannot guarantee that we will be successful, and false hope can be particularly devastating.

It sounds like you had a crazy night, my girl. You’re certainly braver than I am to have shifted in the middle of a room full of little wizards. However it sounds like you and your brother did a very good job in building goodwill towards werewolves among your house mates. Well done.  

I don’t blame you for needing to let off a little steam, especially if they keep you cooped up in that castle all day every day, but really Hermione - running off playing in the woods with centaurs and unicorns? I’m glad nothing bad happened but I wish I’d been there to join you. Amalthea sounds very special, and I hope I get to meet her. That being said don’t make it a habit to sneak out at night.

Why was your professor there, though? Don’t think I didn’t notice how you rushed past that part without explaining! 

Now I have a very important question to ask you little wolf, and like you were in your letter this morning I need you to think hard and remember as much as you can and be totally honest with me. It will go a long way in helping build trust back up between us again if you do this for me. You mentioned that Ófnir told you about a prophecy - what exactly did he tell you? Please tell me everything. If he told you to keep things a secret from me I need to know that too. Remember that you can tell me anything, and please write back as soon as possible. 

With all my love,
Your father 

She sighed with bone-deep relief and slumped down to rest her head on her brother’s shoulder, feeling warm and buzzy like she’d just gotten out of the bath. It took him and Neville each a few minutes longer to finish reading, but when they did Harry had the most intolerably mug smirk on his face, and she rolled her eyes knowing what he wanted to hear “I can’t believe my brilliant and genius brother foresaw this exact happenstance with his masterful powers of insight. I was a wrong and incorrect fool for doubting him for even a moment” she intoned dryly. 

Ignoring his preening and Neville’s laughter, she pulled out a roll of parchment and a quill and ink pot and set to writing a reply to their father. As she wrote Harry handed her chips and cut up bites of a sandwich, and she shoved them in her mouth with graceless singleminded focus. To her delight, Ron and Draco came over once they finished eating, clearly curious if she would still be enrolled alongside them for the remainder of the year. She nodded and smiled, letting Harry fill them in. 

As she finished her letter back to their dad and rolled it up, she looked at the rafters of the hall but didn’t see their owl. Realizing he must have taken off back to the owlery, she swore mildly. Neville giggled at her and called her a sailor, still unused to hearing such salty language as he called it. She laughed at his reaction, but was biting her lip only a moment later and glancing at her brother nervously “Dad said he wanted to hear back from me as soon as possible, but the owl already left,” she said to him softly “I don’t think I have time to get all the way to the owlery before afternoon classes start,” she said checking her small mechanical watch to confirm. 

“Why don’t you just ask your elf to deliver it?” Draco asked in genuine confusion, to which Hermione glanced to Neville as something of a moral compass, being the only other person they knew who had elves. He shrugged and tilted his head back and forth consideringly “It’s not exactly polite to treat them like owls, but it’s not rude either so long as you make sure they’re not busy doing something else. Crossing powerful ward lines can wear them out so it’s not nice to send them back and forth, but they usually don’t mind if it’s important,” he said thoughtfully. She raised an eyebrow at her brother, who nodded and then proceeded to call Kipper.

Like earlier in the morning when she had come at Hermione’s call, the elf was disillusioned so as not to cause a commotion and arrived nearly silently. She stood on the bench between the twins, and softly asked how she could serve them “Kipper,” Harry started “if you’re not too busy would you be willing to deliver an important letter for us?” She was already nodding before he even finished his question “Yes young Master, of course!” She said excitedly, and they felt her bounce up and down on the bench. 

“Can you find our dad if he’s never called you before? Or do we need to tell you how to get to the compound?” Hermione asked curiously, still for the most part very unsure of how elf magic worked. She felt Kipper pat her hand “Young Master and Mistress is not needing to be worrying, elvesies can always be finding their family. Always! This is being for the Master?” She double checked. 

The two children nodded in unison “You won’t get in trouble for leaving the school will you? Are you supposed to stay here during the day?” Harry asked a bit nervously, and he felt her pat his hand as well “young Master is being very kind to worry about Kipper, but she is being able to come and go as she likes. There is being so much magic and so many elvesies in the castle that one going missing for a bit is not beings a problem,” she reassured him confidently. They thanked her and she left a moment later with the letter. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After that excitement, and knowing that they still had an adventure ahead of them that evening, the rest of the day seem to drag on endlessly. The Gryffindors had a double block period of history with the monotonous ghost professor that had talked himself to death - although it felt more like he was talking them to death. Even Hermione, ever the studious little academic, struggled mightily to stay awake. The two and a half hours in his stuffy classroom felt stretched like taffy out to feel like four or maybe even five days. 

When the bell finally rang to dismiss him, their professor was still droning on endlessly and mindlessly, and Harry and Hermione were both vividly reminded of the times they had seen static on a muggle telly. Buzzing meaningless white noise. The three of them staggered blearily out of the room afterwards, utterly spent and desperate for a gasping breath of fresh air. Done with classes for the day, they headed to the library to meet with Ron and Draco and cement the plan for their midnight excursion… and maybe study a bit.

A thought occurred to her as they came down the grand staircase, and she told them to go on ahead of her. Harry and Neville eyed her curiously but she just shook her head and waved as they got off at the second floor for the library and she continued down the rest of the way to the main floor and then down further towards the dungeons. She checked her little mechanical watch and smiled, it was just the right time. 

Closing her eyes she let her nose guide her as she navigated the dungeons, as she hadn’t exactly been where she wanted to go before. She knew professor Snape had his classrooms, his practice labs for student use, an office, a personal laboratory, and his private quarters all down in the belly of the school. Ron and Draco had implied that they were supposedly in this wing, but only the classrooms and practice labs were clearly marked. 

The professors were all supposed to have open office hours at least once a week, and she realized belatedly why the syllabus for his class had his written in such incredibly fine print. He clearly didn’t want visitors. Too bad. She reached the potions classroom and followed his fresh trail from only a few minutes previous. He wouldn’t be avoiding her! 

She easily tracked his scent down corridors and around corners until it ended suddenly in the middle of an empty hallway with no doors. She looked around at the dark and slightly damp stone walls, and with excitement she realized that there must be a hidden entrance somewhere nearby. Abandoning her scent work she concentrated her hearing close around her and leaned her ear in close to the nearest stone. She hummed a high note and observed that most of them had the same dull acoustic echo of the sound bouncing off. The stones were large so the wall must be thick, so she concentrated further. 

She heard breathing and a heartbeat, a bit of aggrieved muttering. The shuffle of parchment and the scratching of a quill. He was marking papers nearby. Jackpot! She followed her ears until the sounds grew louder, and realized that the stones in front of her were a facade for a much thinner wooden plank door. She raised her fist and knocked, and heard him swear heartily under his breath. The legs of his chair dragged loudly across the floor and made a horrible noise that had her clapping her hands over her ears and wincing. His footfalls towards the door were light and fast, and when he opened the door it whipped past “What?” He demanded angrily, before registering who it was at his door and frowning “My Lady… you might as well come in,” he sighed reluctantly, eyes rolling skyward. 

She thanked him primly and followed him into his office. The kindest words she could think of to describe it as she stood at the threshold were humble. There was a fireplace with an armchair in front of it, a desk with a chair on either side, and taking up an entire wall was a massive bookshelf that was packed to bursting with tomes and scrolls. She itched to inspect what titles he had, but decided he’d probably not have much patience for that. As he returned to his desk, she noticed that the wooden chair on the side across from his was smaller and significantly less comfortable looking than his own. He really didn’t want company, what a grump! She folded her robe to make a cushion for her bum and sat cheerfully, making no mention of the hardness or unwelcomingness of the chair whatsoever.

“Good afternoon, professor Snape,” she intoned politely “I know your office hours are strictly for academic matters only, but if you’re not otherwise busy I had a personal question I was hoping to ask you,” she began boldly, trying to appear cool and casual. He blinked at her in silence for a moment before inhaling deeply “Alright, I suppose you might as well go ahead,” he said, sounding pained and as if he’d really rather prefer that she didn’t. She heard him mutter under his breath about not putting the office hours on his syllabus at all going forward, and she tried hard not to giggle at his constant air of melodrama. 

She hadn’t thought through what exactly she was going to say, so she took a moment to gather her words before addressing him “I suppose first of all I wanted to thank you for letting me out of the castle and then back in last night, sir. I honestly wasn’t expecting to do anything more than stretch my legs and have a bit of a run. I’m used to being able to go have a romp in the woods whenever I like at home, and I’ve been feeling really cooped up in the castle. I know it’s silly! It’s so big and there’s so many hidden rooms and passages and interesting secrets, but it’s just an animal thing I can’t really describe. The wolf inside me needs to feel the dirt under her paws every once in a while,” she explained a bit embarrassedly, giving him a sheepish shrug and grin. 

His smile was so small it was almost nonexistent, more a twitch of the corners of his mouth, but his eyes were soft and warm and so she relished it all the same “I can logically understand the impulse, but the forest is forbidden for a reason. There are creatures roaming about in there that even an adult witch or wizard might struggle to defend themself against,” he cautioned her, and she nodded vehemently “yeah, we heard the rumors about the spiders and I think I actually came close to some of them last night. Not enough to actually see them, but I heard what sounded like things the size of muggle cars scuttling through the woods. I definitely wouldn’t want to come face to face with one. And even the centaurs weren’t friendly at first - one of them nearly shot me with an arrow!” She said, realizing a moment too late that it was a very foolish thing to admit to a professor whose permission she was trying to get to go back into those same woods.

Her professor looked aghast “A centaur drew their bow on you last night?” He demanded incredulously, and she rushed to backpedal “Well, no - he missed on purpose, they were really just trying to help me. You see, they thought I was a regular werewolf that had gotten stuck in my transformation somehow and were rightfully very concerned. Once I shifted back we had a perfectly civil conversation about it. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I didn’t want you to think I was making a habit of it or pushing the envelope, but I need to go back and I’d really hate to get into trouble for going again. And I need to take my brother with me, and my cousins and my friend Neville want to come as well, but really I’ll understand if it’s just me and Harry that can go. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” she said beseechingly, pulling out her biggest wateriest puppy eyes. 

He took in her rambling with all the patience and understanding of a drunk priest. Rubbing his temple, he asked wearily “Why is it exactly that you need to go back right away when you were just there less than 24 hours ago?” And she winced because it sounded bad when he put it that way. 

“Well it sounds bad when you put it that way!” She said defensively “But the thing is that I realized today that the unicorn I met who told me I was blessed by the moon might be able to help me finally fix my brother if I bring him to her. We weren’t born family, but he was adopted by blood and I gave him our gift to make him a wolf like the rest of us. When that happened, my wolf soul enveloped his and left an imprint that made his own wolf soul my perfect identical twin when it was born. We’re two halves of the same spirit, we should be alike in every way - but he can’t shift the way I can. He’s stuck shifting only on the full moon like dad and the rest of the pack and all the loners out there,” she said, feeling tears well up in her eyes and looking up to keep them from falling. 

“I wish more than anything else in the whole world that he could shift freely like I can so that we could run together outside of the night of the full moon, and I’ve always felt so guilty that I didn’t give him my gift properly. For the longest time I thought it was maybe something I did wrong in the ceremonial ritual, but now after meeting Amalthea I think it’s got to have something to do with his relationship to the moon itself. I think what I need to do is bring his wolf to the surface somehow so it can interact freely with the moon and not be tied to it’s phases so rigidly, and I have the strongest instinct that she’ll be able to help me figure out how to do it. She’s the centaur’s sacred moon priestess and if anyone on earth would know it would be her! Please can I take him to go meet her? You could come too if you don’t want us going by ourselves!” She said feeling desperate, only barely holding back from outright begging. 

His eyes were small and so dark they looked black, and when she gazed into them they seemed just as deep and cavernous as Amalthea’s had the night before. They seemed to be whispering for her to tell him everything she was hiding, all of her most hidden secrets. She had the urge to look away before she found herself pulled in uncontrollably, but instead she got the sensation of him following her back into her own mind. Suddenly she was reliving images of the last day at breakneck speed. Then the last week. Then the last month. Then the last year. 

Then practically her entire life rushed before her eyes faster and faster until she was meeting Harry at the library at six years old and feeling instantly like he was her missing other half. Her and her dad were going to pick up his blanket from the Dursley’s house, and then they brought him home. Then they were getting him acclimated to being safe and loved. Then they were undergoing the ritual ceremony. He was becoming part of their family, his very blood mixed in with theirs. He was handing her his wrist so bravely and with so much unquestioning trust and love, and she was biting and her teeth were rending the flesh of his arm as easily as scissors cut paper, and she was tasting his blood that also tasted like hers and her fathers because it was. He was her brother, and he was of her blood, and he would be her future beta, and she was making him part of their sacred covenant of moon shifters. 

With her teeth and her heart she brought him into their fold and connected his soul to the communal pack spirit they all carried with them, taught his lungs how to howl and his legs how to run, elongated his spine until it had a tail that could wag, coaxed his fingers and teeth to grow until they could bite and scratch. Whispered into his ears until they could hear the heartbeat of a rabbit from half a mile away. Breathed into his nose until it could smell the blood of a squirrel from three miles away. It was a radical transformation, and it was built on love and it was done from scratch and in parts and pieces and then all at once. All these things she did with her teeth and her heart. 

A ragged gasp left her and her professor’s chests at the same time as they both exited her beautiful memory. Panting, they sat in relative silence for several minutes taking each other in. Tears were in both of their eyes, though his were blown open wide in stunned shock. She could tell he rode the razor’s edge of fear, though she also knew it would pass. He had witnessed a piece of her heart and felt the radiant joy of the best moment of her life. It was understandable that he might need a few minutes to process, and she was happy to give him that.

“Forgive me, my Lady,” he said miserably once he’d had a moment to catch his breath, “that was a terrible violation, and I never should have even attempted it,” and the sour scents of guilt and shame bloomed forth from him. She held their eye contact and refused to look away, pushing forward to the very front of her mind the thought that she wanted him to know she held no grudge “I’m glad you saw what you did if it helped you understand us better, sir. How did you do it, though? I’ve heard there’s magic you can do with the mind and the memory, but that was incredible!” She said enthusiastically. 

He recoiled away and shook his head vehemently, his dark hair hung like a curtain over his face and swayed back and forth “You’re just a child, you don’t understand - to invade another’s mind as I have done to yours is a crime. I have always been a natural practitioner of the mental arts, and although I intended only to skim the surface like I do the rest of my students to ferret out misbehavior and tomfoolery and lies, I erred grievously. You have no shielding whatsoever, my lady, your mind is an open book that I did not expect to be drawn into. Quite frankly, if someone had done the same to me I would be furious. I might even press charges. I am… so sorry” he said urgently and earnestly, and she was rather taken aback.

“If it’s really as bad as you say then maybe you shouldn’t do it to students, sir,” she suggested lightly “but then again, if I were a liar I wouldn’t exactly admit it just because you asked me nicely. That’s why you did it right, because you thought I was lying? I can hardly blame you, I don’t know if I’d believe it either if I hadn’t seen it myself-” she cut herself off a touch awkwardly, realizing she was rambling again. His brows were furrowed and he shook his head “I don’t know why I did it, I saw the unicorn last night and I knew at the very least you couldn’t have been lying about that. Something told me to look and so I did,” he said wistfully. 

Seeming as if he were coming out of a trance, he gave a full body shudder and lit a fire in the hearth with his wand. He slowly rubbed warmth back into his hands, and when he finally looked back up at her again she felt like he was really seeing her this time “It’s less than ideal to go out into the forest a second night in a row on a school night, especially since you all already have astronomy tonight. If you’re willing to wait until Friday evening, I will escort the five of you on your foray. You won’t have to worry about being up early the next morning that way,” he offered, and she beamed at him “That’d be fantastic professor, thank you so much!” 

Chapter Text

Severus Snape was not an easy man, and he had not had an easy life. He had found he was often equally likely to be the victim of an unfair twist of fate as he was to suffer for his own poor decisions. There was always something for him to endure, never to savor or cherish. He was tired, and he felt decades older than his thirty two years. 

That being said, in the last eight months his life had taken a dramatic turn for the better. His brief correspondence with the young Lady Black had been a balm on a wound that had festered and threatened to kill him. He could see now just how close to the surface his constant rage and pain had been, how it had turned him into a weapon against the people around him, and he tried to do better and be better in small ways. 

Though her words had helped him start to heal, it was her money that had helped him really start to live. And what a lot of money it was. Having such a sizable nest egg in the bank, he’d finally sold the wretched childhood home he’d been living in. It had been full of little more than a messy tangle of horrid reminders of poverty and abuse, but stepping away from it had been harder than he could have ever expected. All of his worst memories of his father were a relief to be free of, but the realization that the place also held his only good memories of his mother had been like a knife in his gut. As much as he resented her for the choices she’d made, the violent man she’d saddled them with and the way she’d abandoned her magic, she had loved him in her own way and he had loved her in spite of her choices. 

So it was with a heavy and conflicted heart that Severus sold the place and bought a modest cottage in Hogsmeade. If he were the type to casually joke with others he’d say that the commute to work was great. But he wasn’t, so he just thought it and almost chuckled. 

The only possessions of any real substance he’d brought with him were his books and brewing equipment, and oh how the extra money had supplemented those. He hadn’t exactly switched to golden cauldrons, but needless to say the quality of his materials had risen astronomically. He no longer had to scrimp and save to buy microscopic amounts of the expensive reagents he needed to make some of his more exotic concoctions. The first time he’d bought an entire scoop full of boom berries rather than just a few individual ones he had felt lightheaded from the price the cashier at the apothecary had quoted him, and it had felt like he might as well be paying his own blood to hand over nearly a week’s wages. 

So Severus’ life improved in many ways. 

His new home was a clean slate, and his new financial status was a fresh start. He had heard tell of muggles winning their lottery and making utter fools of themselves, buying everything they’d ever wanted and then ending up on the streets only a short while later. He would not put himself in the poor house by living beyond his means. He was determined to live simply and not ever meet that humiliating fate. 

He had lived an incredibly austere life, one wouldn’t have been strictly incorrect in calling it miserly, and so it was not hard to feel a significant difference from just a few small changes. His robes and clothing were finer and better made than anything else he’d worn before, but they were still plain black and simple in style. There was ample food in his pantry and an abundance of potions ingredients in his cabinet, but not more than he needed. Rare books he’d been desperate to read for years now filled the empty spaces on his shelves, but no more than he could actually reasonably read in the near future. 

He had been more than a bit disappointed that his patroness had not ended up being one of his new crop of little snakes, but he supposed it took a certain undeniable boldness of character to reach out to him the way she had. It was noble of her to do what she had, in a way that Gryffindors often purported to be but rarely actually showed. The reveal at the sorting ceremony that the brother she had told him about was none other than Harry Potter had tasted like piss in his pumpkin juice. What was it about Potter men that they always seemed to manage to inextricably tie themselves to females who showed Severus the slightest hint of human kindness?

He had been prepared to hate the boy, despite how good his sister had been to him. He had not been expecting the boy to show up to his class deferring to her every verbal and nonverbal command, looking at her like she was his major general and taking her orders like a good little soldier, and doing a quietly adequate job all being told. That had given him quite a lot to ponder, in addition to the revelation that a great deal of his store of student ingredients were either tampered with, contaminated, or not what they had been labeled as. He’d been apoplectic as he reported to the headmaster what the two little werewolves and their uncanny noses had discovered. 

He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her in his classroom that it could have killed any number of her peers if any of them had caused an explosion with such wildly inconsistent materials. It hadn’t escaped his notice how reliant on her organization and preparedness Longbottom had been. The boy had shaken like a leaf when he’d confronted him outside the storage room, and Severus had actually been on the verge of trying to find a way to backpedal when he realized how terrified the lad was, but she had beaten him to the punch with her vociferous defense. 

It had been like a blast from the past, and he’d needed to sit down and have a stiff drink later that evening in his quarters. In the moment with her eyes burning so intensely and her hand on Longbottom’s arm, he could practically see Lilly standing in front of him like an avenging angel telling Black and Potter to bugger off and leave him alone. His nose had stung, and he’d had to cast a discrete eye-drying charm. 

In the weeks since he’d seen her again only in his classroom and in passing, but the entire rest of the staff had all been made aware of an educational contract their father’s lawyer had somehow strong-armed the board of governors into signing that the children couldn’t be discriminated against for being werewolves, and now none of them would shut up about it. Every other conversation he’d had with Minerva Filius or Pomona had been about how well behaved they were or about how talented they were or about how if other werewolf children were like the two of them then they should all be allowed to attend the school. That last talking point had given him pause, but he didn’t really want to think more deeply about it or he’d have to truly confront the personal biases he’d held for decades. 

It was one thing to be able to see past a terrifying condition that a child who had been very generous to him happened to have. The story she’d shared with him in correspondence had been compelling, and had melted away some of his worst fears. That didn’t mean they were all washed away, though. It was another thing entirely to consider that there were possibly a great deal of other children with that same terrifying condition who it seemed very much wanted to come to the school he worked at, and that really wasn’t such an unreasonable request but it made his skin crawl in a way that simultaneously made him feel guilty and ashamed. They were just children. But then again didn’t all monsters start off as little ones? Hagrid had certainly made it his life’s mission to prove that very fact.  

The real test of his mettle had come the night before when he was doing rounds and he saw what he at first thought was a dog in the castle. After a moment of surprised confusion, he had followed it for a while, and began to become suspicious when it had a very clear path it was following and didn’t get distracted at all like a normal animal would have. He’d frozen to the spot when it turned to face in in the entrance hall and he caught sight of glowing silver eyes and a short snout, and suddenly realized he was mere feet away from a transformed werewolf. 

It looked nothing like he remembered of Lupin’s appearance on that terrible night. It was the size of a German shepherd dog or perhaps a golden retriever, and though it was a bit difficult to tell in the dark he thought it must have had brown fur. It looked nearly identical to a true wolf. The creature he had seen in the shrieking shack had foamed at the mouth ravenously to get at him, scratching and tearing at everything in its path. It had stood hunched over on its hind legs with an upright spine, as if caught mid-transformation somewhere horrifically between man and beast. There had been nothing behind its eyes but rage and hunger. 

The animal-… the child before him now couldn’t be more different if she tried. She looked up with intelligent eyes and placidly wagged her tail in greeting. For all the fear he had felt a moment ago, he suddenly felt a fond tug at his heartstrings. He had always liked dogs more than cats. She had been pacing and turning around in circles in front of the front doors, and he realized with a breathless laugh that she probably wanted outside but didn’t currently have the hands to get them open. He looked down at her and her mouth opened in a doggy smile with her tongue lolling out. 

Scarcely believing what he was doing, he pushed the front doors open a crack and let her out, warning her not to be too long. He stood stock still as she came closer and licked him before running off almost too fast for his eyes to follow. He saw her barrel straight for the tree line, and sighed heavily. He should have known she would go straight to the one place where she wasn’t supposed to be, she was a Gryffindor after all. Fucking hell.

He waited there by the doors for five minutes, then fifteen, then half an hour. As the time pushed closer to an hour he started to feel increasingly more foolish. He had let a first year wander off at night into the forbidden forest alone, what in the blazes was wrong with him? He considered summoning his broom and taking off to look for her when a glowing light at the tree line caught his attention. He had to rub his eyes, and even after he did he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. 

The wolf was in the company of a silver unicorn, and before his eyes she changed back into a human girl in nothing more than her night gown. She was clearly having a conversation with the creature, and then hugged its neck and transformed back as quick as a flash. At roughly the same time he registered that she was moving he also realized she was coming back much faster than she left, and she had left very fast. He had thought it was a trick of his night vision that she had looked so large from far away, but as she approached he nearly stumbled backwards. She really had been the same size as the unicorn. How was she the same size as the unicorn????

Double checking her features he recognized the same brown fur and silvery eyes, and confirmed it wasn’t a different wolf. He commanded her to explain herself, and as she shifted back into her human form she spouted some nonsense about moon blessings and centaurs. Briefly he wondered how much of what she’d said was true and how much was childish imagination, but he definitely wasn’t awake enough to give it any real deeper thought. 

He escorted her back to her common room and in the silence and dark of the night he contemplated the wild night she had just had. Was it a Gryffindor thing or a Black thing, or perhaps even a Potter thing by association, he wondered. To just go off and have midnight adventures in the forest without a care in the world. He’d certainly caught the Weasley twins trying to sneak out enough times to have a suspicion. His snakes often snuck around, but they at least had enough self-preservation to not run towards places that promised danger and certain death. 

At her portrait hole he looked down and saw that her feet were dirty and bare, and that she had leaves and moss and a wriggling worm stuck to her. Although he sincerely hoped she would be taking a bath before going to bed and not getting in her covers like that, that wasn’t any concern of his. She thanked him and crawled inside, and properly satisfied that he’d done his duty as a professor he promptly marched back down the stairs to the dungeons and into his own bed. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning Severus woke up in a terribly foul mood, not having gotten enough sleep in the slightest. He drained three cups of black coffee with his breakfast, and Poppy had the unmitigated gall to comment that he looked paler than usual and ask if he needed a vial of pepperup potion. She had simply laughed at the venomous scowl he had sent her way, and had the nerve to say his bite and bark were starting to diminish.  

He noticed his little patroness come into the hall earlier than had been her habit the last few weeks, conspicuously alone. She settled at the Slytherin table with two of his youngest and most intriguing snakes, her cousins apparently. Of course the first Weasley to ever be sorted into Slytherin would come to school while he had the dubious honor of being the glorified nursemaid of said house. The school just loved to throw fun surprises and challenges his way. 

He had of course heard an abridged version of events from Lucius, but it was still a surprise all the same to see his previously puffed up and self-important little godson relaxed and friendly with a Weasley and a werewolf. This was a boy whom he had once heard claim that friendships and alliances were the tools of the weak, and that the truly powerful knew better to cultivate followers and minions. Now here he he was laughing and whispering conspiratorially with his friends. After only a little over nine months of being around other children who weren’t also raised by death eaters - what a stark difference the influence of the people you surrounded yourself with made. He found himself feeling reluctantly proud of the boy. 

Maybe people really could change. 

Severus noticed with bored disinterest that there was some sort of drama when her brother and the Longbottom boy entered the hall, and was glad he was far enough away not to be able to hear it. Those irrepressible paranoid spy instincts told him he ought to try and lipread their conversation in case it might prove important, but he firmly pushed the urge aside. He didn’t need or want to know whatever was going on with them. He finished his meal quickly, and hurried back down to the dungeons. He had fourth years on Wednesdays and he needed to put up extra warding around their work stations before they got there. For some unknowable reason they always generated the greatest overall destruction to his classroom out of the entire student body. 

The morning passed relatively peacefully, with only minor scorching to one of his tables that came up easily enough after the little reprobates had left and he had a free moment to fix it. Luckily the student hadn’t actually harmed themself in the small blast, only his bench. Lunch brought yet more intrigue on the Potter Greyback front, yet he remained determined not to give two figs about whatever ridiculous childish drama they were dealing with. He regrettably did notice that she was writing something throughout nearly the entire meal, and that her brother was quite attentively feeding her while she worked. It was a bit sweet, and someone who wasn’t chronically exhausted by devious children all day every day might even say it was adorable. He certainly wouldn’t, but someone might. 

Trudging back to his dungeon, he cast his wards again and noticed to his dismay that he had missed a spill of something acidic earlier. Whatever it was had over the course of his short repast managed to dissolve all the way through an entire tabletop, leaving a hole you could see through to the floor below. Perfect. Wonderful. If he’d gotten it up sooner before it had started to eat through the table he could have transfigured the surface in such a way that it might at least be salvageable later, but there was no fixing the enormous gaping hole without something more potent. He sent his patronus off to Minerva asking her if she could come advise, as the reigning master of the subject her abilities on her worst day outpaced his on his best. 

Her silvery cat streaked into his classroom and informed him she’d be there momentarily, rubbing up against his legs before fading away into glimmering mist. True to her word she arrived within ten minutes and confirmed his belief that there was little that could be done for it except replace it. She could of course have fixed it and made it look exactly as perfect as the day it had been made, but it would have been vulnerable to switching back and might have unusual properties that could interact poorly with potent magical ingredients. She apologized for his trouble, and told him she’d talk to Filch about bringing a replacement out of storage. 

For the time being, as he had a class about to start within mere moments, she transfigured one of the stools into a solid workbench, citing some advanced transcendental transfigurational theory about how something made entirely new from another object was more stable than something that was a fixed or repaired version of the same object. It went sailing well over his head and he promptly tuned her out, nodding and humming when appropriate. Giving the occasional “Ah yes, I see.”

He had just enough time before the next round of little hellions swarmed in to push the broken work table to the side of the room where no one would trip over it. They entered as he was making his way back to his desk at the front of the room, buzzing excitedly about a fight that had broken out between two seventh years who were apparently after the same witch. The ones who had actually been in the courtyard where it took place were recounting the story to the awe of the rest of them who were unlucky enough to only hear about it second hand. Bloodthirsty little locusts. 

Deciding he’d had more than enough of their nonsense, he made a loud bang with his wand. He’d only intended to get their attention and quiet them all down, but they were already so worked up from hearing about a fight that one of them screamed at the noise and another passed out cold. Stunned that he had a medical emergency in his classroom before any of them had even gotten their materials out to start brewing, he unthinkingly swore loudly. Realizing he had cursed in front of students he swore again, then closed his eyes in mortification. The foul words he would have taken a dozen or more points from any of them for saying within his earshot rang out in the silence of the room, bouncing off the echoey stone walls and causing the fourth years to erupt into uncontrollable laughter. 

Already he could hear one of them crowing “Professor Snape just said shite… and then he said fuck!” This was an absolute catastrophe. He caught himself before he made the mistake of trying yet again to use a loud noise to make them settle down and instead just barked out “Silence! All of you, I want silence!” 

The room hushed, and he strode over to the child on the ground. He snapped his fingers in front of their face, and when that did nothing he cast a mild rennervate on them. They jolted awake with a gasp, which frightened some of the closest children huddled nearby. He glared up at them and they immediately backed away to a more appropriate distance. Casting a diagnostic charm on the child, he noticed that something was off. It was probably only a minor concussion from falling over, but to be on the safe side he sent them to the hospital wing to be checked over just in case.  

Feeling exhausted and not a little embarrassed, he looked at his students and saw their eyes were alert and curious. Though he hated lecturing almost as much as he hated the droning sound of his own voice, there was ultimately a lesson to be learned in all of this. He sighed, and heaved himself back up to his feet and to the front of the room. With a wave of his wand, the word DISTRACTIONS wrote itself in chalk on the blackboard. 

“Funny as it may seem to see someone fall down or to hear a professor swear, imagine how much worse it all may have been if we’d had ten fires burning in this room when it had happened. If there had been piles of loose ingredients being prepared all over the room, and cauldrons filled with boiling liquids. A student is injured, but if we had been brewing already they might be dead if they had fallen while holding a knife or into someone’s unfinished or incorrectly brewed potion. Come look at what happened just an hour ago in this very room,” he said, walking over to the corner where he had shoved the destroyed table out of the way. 

Following him curiously, his fourth years gathered around the table and some of them gasped at the holes in it “What happened to it, sir?” One of them asked. 

He drew his wand along the edges of the hole and siphoned away few drops of the acid that still clung to the wood fibers “This is armadillo bile, it’s used in the potion you are supposed to be brewing today. The other fourth years who had their class in the morning also had a distraction in class today. Someone’s cauldron exploded and their table was burnt. That table I was able to fix relatively easily. You won’t be able to tell which one it was by looking at them. But this table wasn’t properly cleaned, and because I was fixing the other table I didn’t notice in time.”

“By the time I came back from lunch the armadillo bile residue that the students had left behind had done the damage you see before you. In barely forty minutes those drops of bile dissolved an industrial grade potions worktable. These things are built and charmed to be nearly indestructible. I could cast a bombarda on one and put it back together ten times over before ever having to worry about its structural integrity. But three drops of acid and it’s destroyed beyond fixing.”

“Think about that when you’re using armadillo bile today in your potions, and when you’re drawing it out of the flask that contains nearly a gallon of the stuff. Though there is a cost, a table is replaceable - we have more in storage somewhere, and mister Filch will I’m sure be able to find an identical one to match the one we’ve lost. There is no replacing you or your friends or classmates if this acid or any of our other more dangerous ingredients spill on one of you. Our ability to magically heal our injuries sometimes lets us forget how much destruction and pain can be caused by a terrible injury. Madame Pomfrey has a salve that will remove acid burns in a single afternoon, but if we were forced to heal like muggles it would take weeks or even longer for the skin to begin to naturally repair itself. Think about that” he said, feeling as if he’d gone on endlessly, but seeing thoughtful consideration on many of their faces. Maybe he had gotten through to some of them. He could only hope. 

The rest of the class passed by with an almost zen Buddhist sense of focus in the very air of the room. His students it seemed had been appropriately scared straight by his little speech and demonstration of the table, and were almost overly cautious as they brewed, moving about like little turtles. There wasn’t a single incident for the entire afternoon, and when they handed in their potions he could tell just by color and texture alone that they were all at the very least passing. Cleaning up took three times longer than normal, but when they were done the lab was spotless. Surfaces shone that hadn’t been cleaned in years. One of them had scrubbed the utility sink until it gleamed. He was genuinely impressed. 

Overall it was the best bad situation he’d ever had in the lab. He couldn’t believe it had come around after such a terrible start to the afternoon. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He didn’t stick around long once afternoon classes were over. A better educator might have stayed and answered whatever questions his students had for a while in an attempt to debrief the children from what they’d seen of a very real medical emergency or the evidence of the damage their ingredients could cause. He felt quite certain however that he’d said as much as there was to meaningfully say, and he didn’t have anything else left to give for the time being. 

Hurrying to his office, Severus had a stack of essays half his height he was eager to avoid marking. Settling in at his desk, a Hogwarts elf quietly popped in and brought him a stiff cup of tea, and he thanked it gratefully. The fourth years had turned in their essays at the beginning of class in preparation for brewing, and as he started reading through them he realized why there had been so many accidents throughout the day. None of them really understood the subtle interaction between ingredients, and enough of them had misclassified the acidity of the armadillo bile that he realized there must have been a print error in their textbooks somewhere. 

They still should have known better and cleaned their mess up properly, but they couldn’t necessarily be blamed for underestimating how dangerous it was if their books had the wrong information. He’d need to speak with Albus about getting a misprint grievance filed with the publisher and having the master copy changed. What a monumental fucking pain in his arse. 

As he wrote out a correction disclaimer that he planned to simply duplicate on each essay that had the wrong information, he heard a knock at his door. His disguised and warded door. Only his snakes knew where his office was, and they were all well aware that the office hours he was required to post to his syllabus were a bad joke. He narrowed his eyes and stormed over, throwing the door open and getting ready to have a proper snit at whoever was bothering him. Of course it was her, her nose was twitching and she looked incredibly proud of herself for having found him. Little bloodhound. 

He reluctantly allowed her in and she broke into a long and rambling story about how she simply needed to go back into the forbidden forest yet again and take more students with her this time like a little pied piper. He felt a headache mounting. The girl continued on and on about her brother and his werewolf spirit needing fixing somehow, and the unicorn from the forest being a moon priestess. What in the buggering hells? 

Entirely without giving it a second thought, in the next moment that they made eye contact Severus reached out mentally and brushed against her mind. Students often complained that he seemed to know when they were lying or planning pranks or not paying attention, and it was because he regularly skimmed their surface thoughts to get an overview of what was going on within. It was a self defense mechanism as much as it was the greatest tool he had in his disciplinary arsenal. Students that believed he had a strange sixth-sense for naughtiness tended to be on their best behavior in his presence, and more importantly his classroom. 

Unexpectedly, he found himself sinking deeper and deeper into a thoughtscape that had absolutely no defenses whatsoever. What he had meant only to be a typical glance into the general makeup of what she was thinking in the moment turned into a deep dive through years of her memories. He felt nauseous and overwhelmed as he saw nearly everything she had done and experienced for the last five years of her life. 

He realized belatedly that she had not been exaggerating in the slightest about the unicorn centaur woman, and had in fact been telling the truth nearly verbatim. He sensed her start to panic as he saw her memories of discovering and then discussing joining a burgeoning goblin rebellion, and he pushed that to the very back of his mind to be dealt with at a much later date if ever. 

He saw her meeting and making friends with her cousins, after having reinstated them into their family as the head of their house. He’d thought the way she had treated him had been the height of kindness and compassion - she had claimed lordship over her house just to help people she’d never even met before. No wonder the Weasley/Malfoy blood feud seemed to finally have been put to rest, she had smashed it like a hammer. 

He saw years of her running and playing in the woods around what must be the rural compound in the wilderness she had grown up on. She really was a very active child, no wonder she’d been feeling cooped up. Her father was an enormous presence in her world, larger than life and she was clearly the center of his universe. She must be missing him terribly. 

He saw her meeting Harry Potter, not the spoiled and pampered brat he’d always envisioned but a terribly abused child who was quiet and polite and scared of his own shadow. He saw her latch onto him almost immediately, somehow knowing he was a person who would be important to her for the rest of her natural life. He saw her and her father essentially kidnap and adopt the child into their little family. He saw her bite the boy and turn him into a werewolf. 

He couldn’t fully comprehend exactly what he was feeling from these memories, but he understood that she was sensationally happy to the point of reminding him of the time he’d accidentally imbibed an elixir to induce euphoria. It seemed incongruous and unreal, the idea of becoming a werewolf being something that she had celebrated. The edges around this particular memory had the characteristic of being strangely worn smooth as if from constant revisiting. He tried to understand but couldn’t wrap his head around it. Conceptually it should have been a horrifying and gruesome scene seeing a child turned into a monster out of his nightmares, but everything in the memory radiated joy and peace. 

Pulling back out of her mind felt like getting ice water splashed over him, as he realized the severity of his breach of ethics. The legilimency he had performed on this child, his first year student, had been more thorough than ministry interrogators usually reserved for the most hardened violent criminals. Gods be good, he may have done irreparable harm to her mind - he glanced back up and to his utter confusion and growing horror she was smiling. What in Salazar’s name could such a response indicate?

He apologized profusely, practically groveling in a manner befitting just how heinous his actions were. To his shame she tried to tell him it was fine, and he had to explain how reprehensible it was to invade another’s mind the way he had just done to her. Still she insisted that she was actually glad he had seen her memories and knew she was telling the truth. Those words nearly made him choke they were so innocent and unassuming. 

Like an idiot the only thing he could bring himself to say in response was an offer to escort her and her whole posse of friends into the woods to meet with this unicorn priestess. He nearly slammed his head on his desk as the words left his mouth. What was he bloody thinking!? Certainly not about how he had just committed an Azkaban worthy crime. All he could think about was giving this sweet and precious child who was too good and too kind whatever she wanted. Was this what actually enjoying a child’s presence felt like? It was a startling new feeling and he wasn’t sure he liked it. It made him act rather like a fool. 

She left his office happily shortly after, and his thoughts continued to spiral as he revisited everything he had seen and learned. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The following two days rushed by entirely too fast for his liking. His Thursday classes were sixth years followed by seventh years, as his NEWTs level classes were small enough that there was only a single year block for each. They were almost competent enough to be allowed to brew unsupervised, if any student could ever truly be described thusly. Word had spread about the disasters the fourth years had caused the day before, and the student body was on tenterhooks around him. The day passed without incident. 

Friday were his first years, first the Gryffindor and Slytherin block in the morning and then the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff block in the afternoon. He briefly considered how badly the lion-snake rivalry could have been if the Malfoy/Weasley feud hadn’t been settled and the redheaded boy had been sorted differently, and shuddered at the thought of the sheer destruction that could have been wrought on his classroom. Thankfully the two worked together like old chums, putting out decent work that surpassed his general expectations. 

Though he couldn’t praise them quite so openly, it was his little Greyback patroness and the Longbottom boy that really impressed him. They worked diligently and shared tasks equally, read the materials together before even starting, kept their workspace tidy and organized, followed all the instructions to the letter, produced quality finished potions, and cleaned up like a drill sergeant was coming to inspect their work and make them eat off the table when they were finished. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that made them perform so well as a team, but he got the impression that they were quite good friends. Sometimes that helped in the classroom, and sometimes it made students perform significantly worse. It was always a gamble. 

Whatever it was he was glad it kept her from working with her brother, as he wouldn’t have been able to be nearly as polite to her in his classroom if she was paired with the Potter boy. There were politics involved, and the optics would have been bad. One could never be certain which students reported everything they saw back to their parents, and there were still plenty of former death eaters out there who would be distinctly unhappy to hear that he was being publicly friendly with the boy who had defeated their lord. As it was he figured he was on thin ice for not being harsher on the boy’s sister, but he at least had the excuses that she was the head of the Black family and performed so well in his class. 

The morning class passed without incident, they all brewed a simple wiggenweld solution to various degrees of success. Even Crabbe and Goyle hadn’t done too poorly, their potion was at least a liquid this time. Then again with only horklump juice and a single dittany leaf he was hard pressed to think of how they could have possibly gotten a solid result. 

Once again she and Longbottom had produced the clear overall best potion, with Weasley and Malfoy not far behind. She had also discretely pointed out to him that his dittany leaves smelled less pungent to her nose than the ones the apothecary her dad shopped at usually had, and she wasn’t sure if that meant they were a bit stale or had been harvested at the wrong time. He was appreciative of the information, but not the extra work it made for him or the troubling picture it painted about the general state of his storage room. 

He wondered just how many of his ingredients were off in ways he never would have had the slightest inkling about. Though the beak-like shape and size of his nose had been the butt of many sophomoric jokes over the years, he had always been proud of his own discerning sense of smell.  It was quite disappointing how drastically it paled in comparison to a werewolf child’s. Giving his jar of dittany a deep whiff, he frustratedly noted that the difference in freshness was virtually indistinguishable to his nose. 

As the class packed up their things and broke into groups to head out, she and her little posse of friends and relatives hung back. He fought not to roll his eyes at their overall lack of subtlety “Did you need something, Miss Greyback?” He asked her, and after a moment of hesitation she replied “I was just wondering what time we should meet you, sir, and where. For our… field trip,” she might as well have been holding a giant sign that said they were up to something. He rubbed his temples, desperately trying to stave off a headache he felt building. 

“You will wait until half an hour after dinner has ended, and then you will meet me in the entrance hall by the front doors. You will tell any friends or house mates who ask that you are serving detention. You will all dress warmly, you will each bring your wand and nothing else. You will tell no one of the true purpose of this excursion. Am I understood?” They all nodded at him, the boys fearfully and the girl eagerly. 

“Professor, when I met with the centaurs the other night they said they hate the spiders because they eat all the deer that they used to hunt for food. Bane said even their strongest toxins barely do a thing to slow the spiders down! Do you have any poison we could bring them to use on their arrows that would work better? I think they might really appreciate that,” she asked innocently, and he was sent reeling. Of course she would want him to bring biological weaponry to a population the ministry declared ‘hostile creatures’. Her little friends all looked appropriately horrified, but he just nodded and said he’d think of something. 

A terrible thought occurred to him at the very last second before he was about to dismiss them “I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I will deny it if ever asked, but do recall that there are no toilets in the forest. For Salazar’s sake, use the loo before we leave. We’re not coming back just because someone has to go. If you don’t do it here you’re going to have to do it on the ground where Merlin’s ghost and everybody can see,” he urged them, and the little beasts had the audacity to giggle at him. He scowled harshly and waved them away dismissively. 

As the little group of them wandered off he casually wondered just how much he would end up regretting this. Obviously it was a huge mistake and he had clearly fallen victim to a powerful bout of insanity, but all things being equal he’d certainly see something interesting no matter how the night shook out. There was always the possibility that he might be killed on the spot for entering the centaurs territory, but Albus had successfully treated and negotiated with the herd in the past. If that barmy old codger could do it why couldn’t he?

Feeling much more confident and having a good idea of how to at least endear himself to them, he took off for his private labs, set to brewing, and didn’t come up again for air until dinner was nearly over. Calling an elf he asked it to bring a plate of food to his office, and he ate there in front of his toasty fireplace rather than going all the way up to the hall. Finishing up and and stretching, he threw a handful of floo powder into the flames and called out for the headmaster’s office. He was invited to come through, and he did so. 

Severus stepped out into a busy office that buzzed with a million little animated tchotchkes and knickknacks, and his teeth instantly set on edge with the sheer noise and clutter and ambient motion of it. Ignoring his discomfort he sat in the chair across from his employer “Good evening, my boy. I was sorry not to see you at dinner” the old man said with a small smile and that ever-present twinkle in his clear blue eyes. 

He hummed dismissively, crossing his arms in front of himself and avoiding eye contact “I was working on something in the lab. I need to go into the forest to pick some rare ingredients and I don’t want to cause trouble with the centaurs. I’ve made something to give them as a gift in exchange for passage, and I was hoping you might be able to help me… beef it up a bit. Tell me, Albus, have you still got an ever pouring flask I could have by any chance?” He asked casually, picking nonexistent lint off of his robes. 

He heard a chuckle and couldn’t help but let his eyes roam over the old man, swearing when he was caught in his gaze “Oh Severus, you are a tender heart. I’m glad you’re trying new things. Keeping yourself open to new experiences. Do tell me how it goes,” Dumbledore said mirthfully, reaching into his desk and pulling out and handing him an unassuming little brown jug that looked like it may well have held moonshine hooch at one point. 

Feeling altogether too transparent and seen through, Severus snatched it from him with a curt and ungracious thanks, and rushed back through the fireplace to his own office. It took him a few minutes to remember the correct spells to prime and load the flask, and he was tremendously glad he didn’t have to submit to the humiliation that would be going back through and asking Albus how to do so after having flounced off. He briefly considered if a better gift might be something restorative or nourishing, but she had said this was something they needed. Gathering himself his warmest summer weight cloak, he made for the entrance hall. 

They were already waiting there when he arrived, bundled up like he’d instructed. He noticed she and the Longbottom boy both had large baskets, and he rolled his eyes but ignored it “Alright, are all of you ready? And you’ve all… used the facilities?” He asked brusquely, and when they nodded eagerly and chorused quiet “yes”es he lead them out the doors and across the lawn to the tree line. 

Turning to them all he raised his wand and cast a powerful lumos, then walked them all through how to do the same and modulate the amount of light their wands put out. He drew their attention and gave them his most serious lecture yet “This is an official school diplomatic trip to visit a neighboring population. I’m assuming that’s food from the kitchens in your baskets, and I made the poison Miss Greyback suggested, so we have gifts to offer. You will stick together and no one will wander away for any reason. I will be placing temporary tracking charms on you before we enter the forest, and doing regular checks that you are all still with the group of us,” he said, doing so on each of them in turn. He gritted his teeth to get through the next part, and he could feel heat rising to his cheeks. 

“When and if we interact with the centaurs, you will speak to them only when spoken to, and you will be on your absolute best behavior. No jokes about horses or hay or apples. And I shouldn’t even have to say this but you’re eleven year old boys, so don’t mention or stare at their genitalia. I don’t care what it looks like, laugh about it when we get back to the castle if you must, but if I hear a single one of you whispering or giggling about them I’ll cast the mother of all stinging hexes on you before you can even blink twice. Do I make myself clear?” He demanded, and although the girl looked embarrassed the boys were fighting to hold in laughter “get it out now if you must, but I don’t want you saying a bloody word about their willies in front of them!” he hissed. 

“Do they really have horse todgers, uncle Sev?” Draco asked impishly and the girl nodded miserably, her face beet red “I wasn’t going to say anything, but they definitely do. They dangle right at eye level, practically as big as your forearm. Don’t walk right behind them if you can help it,” she said with a grimace, cringing at her own words and covering her face with her hands. He had to close his eyes not to bark out a laugh at that. He was not an eleven year old boy and it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t. 

“Does anyone else have any questions before we depart?” He asked, forcing his voice steady. They shook their heads, and he turned to the girl “Please transform yourself now, and we will follow where you lead, my Lady. We’ll try not to slow you down too much, but please don’t go too far ahead of us either,” he said softly in her direction, and she beamed at him and nodded. 

Handing her basket off to her brother, she grinned at him “You thought it was cool before? Just wait until you see this,” she crowed smugly, taunting like a pro wrestler. With a shimmering wave of green sparkles her body shifted seamlessly into that of a wolf. An absolutely enormous wolf, just as big as it had been when she came back from the forest the other night. It seemed her change in size had been permanent after all. Her fur was still the same soft brown as her hair and her eyes glowed silver rather than their normal grey, but her size was now by far the most impressive thing about her transformation. 

All of her little circle of lads gasped and oohed and ahhed “When-what-how!? You’re as big as a horse!” The Potter boy said eloquently, and he heard the Longbottom boy mumble something about how majestic she looked. When he glanced over at him the lad was blushing to the very tips of his ears and had a dreamy look on his chubby face. He should probably eventually learn that child’s name.

She rushed over to her brother and nuzzled her snout onto the top of his head, leaning her neck down to lick his forehead. The boy made to hug her tightly around the top of her chest and seemed distressed when his arms wouldn’t go around her all the way. She looked at Severus pleadingly and he sighed “She left the castle the other night the size you are familiar with, similar to a large dog. When she came back there was a unicorn with her and they were the same size. I have no idea what happened to cause this change,” he informed them.

To the boys great amusement, she took that as her cue to kneel like a dressage horse and look up at the Potter boy expectantly. He seemed flabbergasted, and had a rather serious expression on his little face “Right now? You’re not just having a laugh?” He asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowing. She shook her head and yipped “You really mean it?” He asked quietly but with excitement building in his voice. She nodded her head up and down exaggeratedly, and yowled loudly. 

He had an enormous grin on his face “Alright, I’m taking that as good as if it were in writing. You heard it too right, Ron?” He asked his cousin for confirmation and the boy just shook his head in utter bewilderment “Mate, you might as well be having a conversation with a Labrador retriever for all I understood of that,” Weasley retorted smartly “all I can reasonably testify is that I heard her make some very canine sounds at your person,” he added, and Potter waved him off dismissively. Rolling his eyes Severus took that as his cue to cut in “It’s very clear what she wants Mr Greyback. You might as well give it a go, and then let’s get a move on shall we?” He urged a bit desperately, his patience wearing thin. 

If he were still an eleven year old boy he supposed he might have been able to see the absolute wonder in it that the rest of them clearly did from the start as he watched the lad climb up onto his sister’s enormous back and settle himself between her shoulder blades. He looked like a small child on a pony until she rose back up to her feet, and suddenly it was less funny and more a spectacular and legitimately jaw dropping sight. The two of them looked like something out of mythology or folk legend. A young boy sat boldly and fearlessly astride a tremendously large wolf. In the back of his mind a long forgotten prey instinct told him to kneel before these fey creatures as they passed and to never look them in the eye. 

Completely oblivious to his spiraling thoughts, the children laughed and cheered. As she took off at a trot into the trees they followed behind her, the little lights from the wands they held aloft danced and trailed behind her like a formal procession of fireflies. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

By the time her brother fell off for the second time and blamed her for banking too unexpectedly, she was less willing to let him climb back up for a third attempt. Instead she kneeled in front of Longbottom, offering him her back as regally as a knight’s steed. The boy stammered and blushed but hauled himself up onto her back nonetheless, and yelped when she rose up to her feet “W-whoooah… Mother of Merlin, this is high up,” he said, nervous and excited at the same time. She pranced in slow circles around the rest of them as they kept walking, letting him get used to the motion. Soon he was grinning and riding as competently as a jockey, and he sat as if he’d been in the saddle from birth like a child of the steppes. 

The other boys hadn’t made a single peep of complaint, but his two little snakes were clearly seething with jealousy as Longbottom enjoyed himself. Their eyes followed the two as she picked up speed, galloping around and jumping over fallen logs. That neither of them had resorted to openly begging for a ride yet was an impressive feat of restraint that he was sure had more to do with their pride than anything else. 

After about twenty minutes of walking placidly through the woods following in the direction she was leading them, the girl started rushing ahead and then back to them and whining. It only took a few minutes of this for Severus to snap and tell her she could run if she needed to but that she’d better not get them turned around in circles. Her tongue lolled happily out of her head when he said that, and she barked once quite loudly before letting Longbottom clamber down and taking off away from them into the dark of the night like a flash. 

“Is that really… wise, sir?” His godson asked him quietly, his voice shaking. He patted the boy’s shoulder lightly “Not to worry, she’ll be a rug in front of my fireplace if she abandons us out here,” he said raising his voice for her to hear him from a distance. “A cruel thing for an adult to say about a child, but not unexpected from a human,” a deep voice rang out from the direction they were headed in, and Severus swore under his breath at the poor timing of his thoughtless comment. 

He heard the girl immediately jump to his defense “Oh come on, you know he was joking. Like I’d ever sit still long enough to be skinned in one piece!” Her little voice rang out cheerfully. It was an extremely grisly thing for her to make light of but the centaur laughed with good humor, and it was a distinctly horse-like noise. He gritted his teeth in his effort not to chuckle. It wasn’t funny. 

As they came within range of his wand light he saw that the child had brought three centaurs out to meet them, and that she was sitting on the back of the largest and meanest looking one. It had a black coat and long black hair much like his own that hung to its shoulders. Over its back a bow and quiver full of arrows were slung. He held up a hand behind him for the boys to stop, and he drew himself up straight to his full height before bowing low at the waist. 

He felt a jolt of discomfort as he put his wand away in its holster up his sleeve, but swallowed and pushed past it as best as he could. With his prize cradled in upward facing palms he held it out for them to inspect “I am Severus Snape, the school’s Master of Potions,” he enunciated crisply and with emphasis on his title “and I have studied for years to learn the secrets of my craft. I was told by your young friend that you have a spider problem. This ever pouring flask is filled with a potent toxin that is deadly to acromantulae, I offer it as a gift to you and your herd to coat your arrows, and I give it with no conditions or requests. I am here only to safely escort my student through the woods to visit you,” he said, remaining bent and refusing to look up even as he heard hoof beats get nearer.

“Well met Severus Snape, Master of Potions,” said a much friendlier voice, and he glanced up to see a blonde palomino stallion nearly nose to nose with him “I am Firenze, and the stars shine brightly on this night that we meet,” he said with a lilting voice and a wide grin. One of the other centaurs let a noise out much like a whinny, and he steadfastly ignored it “You bring us gifts of poison? The irony could not be richer than if you asked us to drink it and toast your own good health,” it said furiously, stomping one of its front hooves. He and the four boys all froze at those dangerous words, but the girl scoffed and *tsk*ed loudly. 

To his horror she yanked on a hank of the stallion’s long hair “Really now Bane, you told me yourself that you needed a better poison! If you’re going to be cross with anybody it might as well be me. I was the one who told him that it would be a helpful gift. I also brought them here without consulting you, which I am sorry for seeing as I know how you feel about humans. Amalthea said I could bring my brother and the rest of them just sort of tagged along. The boys brought a gift as well, if you’re interested,” she said sheepishly, and the redheaded roan centaur did look intrigued. The black stallion shook his head and huffed “That may be true, but you strain our hospitality bringing so many humans here, young one, even for a friend of the herd,” he said a bit… mulishly. It wasn’t funny. 

The blonde stallion that had introduced himself rolled his eyes “We could no sooner turn away one invited here by Our Lady herself than we could ask young Hermione not to howl at the moon or our own foals not to run through the trees,” he chided with a laugh “now let’s see what you’ve brought us, hmm?” He prompted with raised brows. 

Taking that as their cue, Potter and Weasley hefted their baskets forward and set them in front of the centaur “I am Harry Potter Greyback, twin brother of Hermione. These are our cousins by the blood of her mother’s clan, Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy, and this is our good friend Neville Longbottom. We bring your herd these gifts of food from our kitchens and warm blankets for the approaching winter,” the boy said reverently, his voice low and respectful. Severus was actually rather impressed. 

The largest stallion, the roan, twitched his long pointed ear “We thank you for the gifts you have brought us, your generosity speaks volumes. You are here for another reason though, young one. The stars told us we would meet, but not why. Please elucidate,” he said, and there was a hint of fondness in his voice. Severus realized this one was their leader, and he cursed internally that he hadn’t thought to ask the girl their names before coming out. 

Meanwhile Potter looked up at the centaur in surprise, then questioningly made eye contact with his sister. She nodded subtly and her face softened into a warm smile at him, and that was all the encouragement the boy needed “I’ve come seeking your Lady’s help connecting to the moon. From the moment my sister gave me her gift, her heart has been broken. I don’t have her ability to shift freely, and though I disagree wholeheartedly I know she feels as if she’s failed me somehow. If there’s something wrong with my wolf’s connection with the moon, we figure your Lady is the best person to help us try and untangle it,” he said with the innocent earnestness only a child was capable of. 

The roan centaur nodded, and even the hostile black stallion seemed appeased by the boy’s answer. Firenze spoke up again “You are wise to seek her out, young one. If it is indeed a question of the moon, then there is none other more qualified to give you counsel,” he said sagely. The roan clopped forward and leaned down to pick up the baskets, holding one and handing the other to the black to carry “You may follow us back to our village, it is not much further from here,” he said brusquely “but know that if you do not respect our home you will never be invited back,” he added with no room for argument, turning and trotting away without a second glance backwards.

From one disciplinarian to another, Severus had to respect his sense of dramatic timing. 

As the other two made to leave the clearing as well, the girl gracefully leapt down from the black stallion’s back. She shifted in a burst of green sparkles and shook out her fur, catching up and keeping pace with them easily. The rest of them lagged behind for a moment, still somewhat shell shocked over the entire interaction. She came back into the radius of their light charms and barked once, getting their attention and quite clearly urging them to hurry it up. The boys all laughed, and jogged behind her. 

It really wasn’t much more of a walk further before the tops of sturdy wooden huts came into view above a tall and solid looking perimeter fence. Two centaur stallions in light leather armor holding spears stood guard outside the open gate, and they visibly tensed as the group of humans approached. He saw the leader speaking with them and they relaxed somewhat, but remained on guard. Passing through the simple wooden gate, Severus was reminded of an image from so long ago in his childhood that it was almost like a dream to him now. It was a muggle film he had watched with his mother one of the few times they had gone to a cinema, and in it the adventurers had encountered a peaceful tribe of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest. They had lived in a village remarkably similar to the one he was now standing in. 

Each hut had its own little garden patch growing vegetables and herbs. Here and there a few of the huts had small enclosures that held pet porlocks or diricawls. It took him a moment to identify some of the tools he saw, but he realized quickly that the long stretched frames were for tanning animal hides. There were small cooking fires and hearths visible through the doorways into the huts, and in the distance he saw the glow and rising smoke of a larger central bonfire. Everything was interesting to look at, it was a veritable feast for the eyes, and his curiosity was more stimulated than it had been in years. 

What drew his attention though, were the villagers. Tensions had been so high between their races for so long, and the centaurs were so very isolationist, that he was somehow certain he was the first wizard to lay eyes on a female centaur or one of their children in generations. It was the size of a little newborn fawn, and as it toddled on wobbly legs to its mother his heart thumped wildly in his chest. His nose burned and he felt his eyes water traitorously as he was reminded of Lilly and her patronus and the child she should have been allowed to raise. Fuck, now was really not the time for that. 

Everything the literature said about them indicated a stoic and grim people, uncivilized barbarians who vehemently hated humans. What he saw could not have been further from that. The centaurs they passed as they made their way through the village did initially balk at seeing him, but for the most part waved and smiled once they realized he had brought children with him. Some even called out polite greetings. A farmer tending to her little vegetable garden asked him if he’d had an evening meal, and proudly offered him a huge carrot she’d just pulled from the dirt, stem and all. He took it gratefully and thanked her, casting a brief aguamenti to rub it clean and snapping off pieces to share with the children. 

Biting into it like a rabbit, his godson remarked that it was the freshest and best tasting carrot he’d ever had. The other children laughed at him, and it drew over a small group of centaur foals that were looked like they might be close to them in age. Two girls and a boy trotted over fearlessly on their tiny hooves and introduced themselves as Berry, Bunny, and Trout. They talked over each other excitedly, wanting to know what it was like living inside the castle they’d only ever seen from a distance. The human children took turns describing the different areas they lived in, the Gryffindors boasting about the incredible view from their high tower and his snakes bragging about being able to see the squid and merfolk in the lake from their dungeon windows. 

It was the most joyous and relaxed he’d ever seen a mixed-house group of students, and he wondered if it would even be possible if they weren’t family. Suddenly the centaur foals all gasped and pointed behind him, kneeling down awkwardly on their front legs and bowing their heads low. He turned to see what they’d reacted to and froze in his tracks, scarcely believing his eyes. Approaching them from one one of the nicer looking huts close to the central fire was a centaur woman almost beyond his comprehension. 

She was clearly the unicorn he had seen the girl running with at the edge of the forest. Her coat was silver and shone like daylight, her skin was much paler than the others of her race, and the hair that hung down to her waist was as white as milk. The horn protruding from her head had a twist in it like an antelope, and it radiated a glimmering shimmering aura of pure magic. He staunchly avoided her eyes, not wanting to know what dwelled within, and not wanting to be tempted to dive in like he had with the girl. He still regretted his actions terribly, even if she had been bafflingly understanding. 

As his gaze widened to take in more around him he realized the adults were kneeling and bowing in the same way as she drew closer, and he dropped to his knees like a rag doll, hissing at his charges to do the same. Draco grumbled about getting dirt on his trousers, but cut off with a grunt as if someone had elbowed him sharply. The girl was the only one who stayed standing, and though he wanted to urge her to show some respect she was really the only reason they were welcome in the first place. He might as well let her take the lead if she had the slightest clue where all of this was going. 

As the woman approached them the girl drifted slowly towards her like an asteroid caught in her orbit, her arms raised and reaching upwards. Some of the centaurs seemed surprised by this, but if they were then none of them said anything about it, keeping their heads down as she passed them. When they were within arms reach of each other the woman’s face finally turned down towards the girl and the voice that came from her mouth was many-layered and resonant  “Hello again little sister,” she whispered sweetly, and it carried clearly enough for him to hear it from far away. She reached down with a long pale arm and brushed a curl behind the child’s ear, and she leaned into her touch like a cat. 

“Hello Amalthea,” the girl responded shyly, reaching up to touch the hand that cupped her cheek “I know you said I’d see you again, but I hope you don’t mind that I came back with friends,” she said a bit sheepishly. The woman’s eyes, which he was still staunchly avoiding, softened and she smiled warmly “Everyone who stands in these woods with us is here because they are supposed to be,” she said comfortingly, and the girl relaxed visibly. She continued “It is you, little moonling, who I did not expect to see again so soon. What brings you back to me?” She asked, running her hands over the girl’s shoulders affectionately and looking more than anything like she wanted to pick her up and hold her. 

The child looked back towards her brother and called his name, beckoning him towards them. He rose uncertainly, and took hesitant steps over to them. When he reached her side the girl took her hand in his, and the centaur woman ran her other hand over his head and through his hair assessingly. The girl was tentative and quiet when she finally spoke up “Can you help us? Can you tell what’s wrong?” She asked with desperation thick in her little voice. 

After a few moments of anxious silence, the woman finally nodded “You were right to bring him to me, my dear one, I can help you finish what you started,” she said definitively, and both children exclaimed joyously and beamed with delight. She scooped them both up one under each arm with an unexpected strength, and trotted back into her hut without a word or glance back at any of the rest of them. 

“Is that- should we go with them?” Weasley asked him a moment later, and the large and particularly mean black stallion turned angry eyes on the boy “Were you invited to join them? As we speak they wield potent magic, and distractions could render their efforts fruitless. Play with the other children if you must amuse yourself while they work their spells,” he huffed rudely, before flicking his tail and trotting away. The boy blushed and looked down at the ground, and Severus itched to defend his student. Not wanting to risk them being expelled from the village while two of his young charges were still occupied there, he could only grimace and pat Weasley’s shoulder as comfortingly as he could. Which wasn’t much, and felt rather awkward. 

As the rest of the centaurs went back to their evening business, he encouraged the boys to help out in what ways they could. The centaur children had simple tasks, cleaning out the carved wooden dishes they had used for their dinner and sweeping up around the cooking fires. Weasley helped out happily enough, and the Longbottom boy looked like he wanted to help but wasn’t sure exactly how to. His godson however, though he knew better than to act like a brat out here and risk their welcome, clearly had no desire to dirty his perfectly manicured princely little hands. He grumbled under his breath for the boy to get over himself or he’d become intimately familiar with scouring cauldrons by hand for the next month straight when they returned to the castle. That certainly got him moving. 

Time passed and the evening grew late. A half hour, then an hour, then finally an hour and a half, and Severus began to become worried that they might be in for a significantly longer excursion than he had planned for. There were altogether too many things to discuss and learn about from their new friends for him to possibly become bored, but the school’s curfew was approaching and he had five first year students out of bed. It wouldn’t be a good look for him if he didn’t have them back soon. 

Just as he was really starting to become concerned the girl exited the hut in her wolf form, fur brown, eyes silver, and enormous. Tipping her head back she let out a howl that rumbled through his very bones. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew for certain that it conveyed a sense of celebration. Whatever they had spent all that time doing had been successful apparently, because following her out of the hut was the centaur woman and behind her came another huge wolf with black fur and green eyes.

Chapter Text

They opened their eyes and found themselves standing on top of gently rolling waves under a magnificently bright starlit night sky. Colorful galaxies and nebulas swirled dizzyingly close above them, amorphous and profoundly lovely. It was a breathtaking view of the cosmos the likes of which made mortals tremble and feel small and powerless, and that was astronomically impossible to view from anywhere on their own home planet. Wherever they were had a different smell in the air and water, clean but sharp and unfamiliar.

They were Elsewhere. 

Despite the seemingly infinite field of stars stretched out before them, the most impressive sight were the enormous female figures standing before them. No, not standing… hovering? Levitating, really. Beauties all three, and adorned in identical flowing diaphanous white gowns, they couldn’t have been more different in physical appearance.

One had a soft pale face like moonbeams with sleepy dreamy eyes, and between the pieces of long blonde hair that framed her face they could see that her forehead bore a shining silver mark of a perfect circle.

Another had a fey puckish face that promised trouble, and her brown hair was tied back in a practical braid that left her mark clearly visible - it was a circle that was half silver and half gold. 

The last one hurt to look at for too long, as her face seemed to shift before their very eyes, growing younger and older back and forth over and over again and never settling. Her hair changed as well from red pigtails to auburn ringlets and then to a severe grey bun. Her youthful face was smiling and joyful, and her elderly face was stern and utterly unamused. She was a picture of contrasts, and her forehead bore a smudgy black circle that looked like it had been drawn with an ash covered thumb. 

The three beings floated in midair above the surface of the waves the two of them were standing on. And speaking of which, just how in Helga’s green garden were they doing that?? The children clasped each other’s hands as they realized they were standing on top of very dark and deep ocean waters, and Harry let out a yelp when he saw a pitch black silhouette of something monstrously huge swimming not that far below them. Their heart rates spiked and panic rose like bile in their throats. 

“You are safe here” a calm voice whispered in their ears like the way a gentle evening breeze rustles through your hair. 

“This is not your first time here” a mischievous voice called past them like a hooting owl swooping in flight to catch a vole. 

“You believe that you came here as three, but truly you are four who should be two. So too your eyes see before you three, but truly we are five who should be one,” echoed a voice that filled the space around them with the overlaying ambients sounds of tall grasses swishing and branches shaking and leaves rustling and a storm beginning to pick up.

What?

All three voices spoke at once then in perfect frightening unison “We shall help you to transform, and then you shall help us to transform. Then we nine shall be three,” they commanded in a voice that crashed upon them like a great rolling wave leaving the water and moving over land. The sound of whipping wind and droning coastal warning sirens came with it, and it carried the smell of torrential rain and pungent sea salt. It had a weight to it that nearly bowled them over, and they struggled to remain standing. The two children trembled where they stood, and clutched at each other in fear. 

Amalthea’s many layered voice echoed out like a church choir “Mother goddesses please, you overwhelm them! They do not yet know that they know you, they must be reminded gently. They are but babes still,” she cried in their defense. Hermione’s hand clenched her brother’s tightly, squeezing like a vice grip as she realized exactly who they were receiving an audience with. Without a second thought she pulled him with her to their knees, and bent her head low until it touched the waters. She felt him do the same next to her and breathed a sigh of relief. 

A robustly talkative child at the best of times, she stayed resolutely silent, refusing to dishonor her people’s literal deities with her tendency to ramble nonsense. The two of them stayed silent for many minutes, patiently waiting to be given further instructions by someone who actually knew what was going on. She was immensely grateful that Amalthea had cut in when she had, because she’d had a thousand questions about the way the goddesses greeted them that she’d have surely thoughtlessly asked if she hadn’t been more alert. 

In retrospect it should have been obvious who they were from the first moment she laid eyes on them. The golden haired dreamer was the Lady Selene of the full moon, the fey child was Lady Artemis of the half moon, and the shifting triple aspect woman could only have been Lady Hekate of the dark moon, oldest and wisest of them all and the patron deity of magic itself. Hermione had spent her entire childhood learning to pray and give thanks to these beings, beings Ófnir had taught her that guarded and guided her in all elements of her life as a werewolf. Now that she was before them they were radiant in their towering splendor, but she could not for the life of her remember a single word of the highly ceremonial language one was supposed to use if ever addressing them. 

Though there were no footsteps or splashes of water to hear she sensed something massive coming closer to her, but she didn’t dare lift her head. What was she supposed to say to these immortal and infallible beings? An exhale that almost might have been a chuckle left the nose of whoever stood in front of her, and unable to bear the curiosity she glanced up for the briefest second. To her absolute shock Lady Artemis’ face was upside down barely two inches away from her own, and she was fully bent over at the waist with her braid hanging down and the end of it dipping into the water. 

“Don’t you hide those lovely silver eyes from me, my dearest child. I helped make them!” She said fondly, her voice like a swiftly hopping rabbit running towards it’s burrow. She was not just a goddess of the moon after all, but ruled over the hunt as well as all the many wild creatures that ran in the woods - and that included herself she supposed. “Did you really?” she was unable to stop herself from asking fascinatedly, and felt a hot wash of instant mortification shudder down her spine all the way to her toes. 

The woman before her only laughed loud and free “Yes indeed I did! Your sire’s sire is a scoundrel and a schemer, and he thinks he’s arranged all these many disparate pieces of his little puzzle together all on his own. He gives himself credit for the wonder that you are, but little does he know that I am the one who molded your form as it took shape in your mother’s womb. ‘Twas I who lovingly crafted your muzzle and paws and tail, your eyes and your ears and your nose. I again still who taught your tiny spirit to howl so it would be ready to run when you first transformed by my sister’s light. A wolf of the woods you are, and thus of my domain and dominion you forever have been and shall be. He may call you his when he needs you, but you were mine first and will be mine always, darling daughter,” she said tenderly, her voice sounding beautifully like a pack howl. Not just any pack - hers. She could hear her father’s voice in it and her brother’s and even her own. 

“Thank you, My Lady. The gift you’ve given me is precious. Is that why I was unable to give it to my brother? Surely no mortal teeth alone can recreate what your divine hands have so masterfully crafted,” she said as humbly as she knew how, her head raised like the goddess had requested and her eyes searching desperately for answers. She was easily able to see the fierce and furious expression that overcame her goddess’s face, and for a moment she was terrified she had displeased her. 

But then the woman twisted her frown into grimacing smile and laid a large cool hand on the top of her head “Your brother is part of why you are here before us. You should have been able to give him the gift I gave you. You should be able to give everyone you wish the same gift that I have given you, it was my foremost intention of your very design. You are to be a great bringer of change for your kind, it is why we have touched and blessed you so. Amalthea spoke truly when she called you our little champion. Yet despite all our considerable efforts, another has interfered to thwart your grandsire’s scheming and has threatened our plans in their doing so.” 

“This interloper has done something unspeakable that has broken your brother’s wolf soul, the divine form I crafted for him myself as I did for you. You are not yet ready for us to speak of it further, but know that he only barely survived the brutal assault in his infancy, and your wolf soul claiming his human soul is the only thing that has kept him alive for these ten years since. Your two human bodies with your inextricable human souls share your single wolf soul. It is very strong, but it is only able to fully run free as it was made to do so in your body. It merely shows itself as a pale echo of you in his body during the nights when our light is at it’s most powerful.”

The two children, still holding hands tightly, looked into each other’s eyes then and could see it finally for the heartbreaking truth that it was. Their inseparable closeness was a handicap, a crutch to ease a devastating wound. He had been terribly crippled, and she had propped him up as best she could. Together they had limped along unknowingly all this time, thinking they were fine and well. Hermione felt a boiling rage like she had never felt before rise in her chest and flush her cheeks pink “Who, My Lady? Who would dare do this to him? By what right did they infringe upon your grand design?” She cried, her voice a hair’s breadth from demanding. Her animal instinct still choked back her mindless fury to remain respectful to her goddess, even though she was on the verge of losing control. Tears lined her eyes and threatened to fall, and she fiercely wiped them away on the back of her wrist. 

Selene spoke this time, her voice like the sighing groan of someone bedding down after a long day “Calm yourself, daughter. My sister said she would not speak of it and so she shall not. None of us shall. You are too young and too vulnerable in this moment to hear it. You will be told what you need to know when you are ready to know it. We must now focus instead on your healing in the time we have before this night is through. While it is not intact, the shattered pieces of your brother’s wolf soul are still alive within him. It was on the brink of death after his attack, but your wolf soul’s presence has kept it stable all these years. Focus now children, find your wolf souls within. Bring them to the surface without transforming. Manifest them before you. My son, you must search deep for yours. The wolf soul you know as your own is in fact your sister’s. Set hers aside and look beneath it, ever deeper. Deep below. Breathe, focus, surface, manifest,” she instructed helpfully. 

Hermione was able to do it almost instantaneously, and like a layer of dust pulling away from her skin into a visible cloud it left her body and took shape before her. She knew this creature well - it was herself. She had ran and barked and played as it her entire life. Without a second of hesitation she threw her arms up around its neck and hugged it soundly. She pulled back and they looked into each other’s eyes, one set grey the other silver, knowing the same thoughts and sharing the same memories. She swore she could feel the water underneath the paw pads of the giant wolf before her, and the tail happily swishing back and forth. She closed her eyes and pressed her face deep into the ruff of her own soft warm fur. 

Next to her, Harry was having a significantly less easy time. His core understanding of himself was shaken, and he had never felt worse. His hands were clammy and his vision blurred as he forced himself deeper and deeper down into his own mind and heart trying to find his wolf. Was it even there still? What if the goddess was wrong? That thought stopped his spiraling negativity in its tracks. He might be wrong at times, and Hermione might be wrong at times, and even their father might be wrong at times, but their goddesses could not be. They were the very moon itself, they saw all. They knew and understood all. If they said his wolf was there, hurting but still within him, then it was there!

With his heart beating wildly in his chest, he finally touched on something painful and sickly feeling deep within. Something wrong that shouldn’t be the way it was. He reached for it and felt that it was in pieces like Selene had said. As best as he was able, he gathered them all and tried to lift himself back out the way he came. They were heavy and grew heavier still as he tried to lift them, but he felt his sister’s hand on his back, and heard her voice telling him he could do it. He powered through the ache and the weight and felt himself cross a barrier, like breaching the surface of the ocean. When he opened his eyes he was gasping for breath and there was a small and very sick looking black wolf on the water in front of him, panting as shallowly as he was. With every struggling breath it took the air leaving its lungs whistled and wheezed. 

Their eyes connected and he realized they were the exact same shade of green as his. It really was his wolf, it was him! He crawled over to it, feeling suddenly too exhausted to even stand and walk, and laid his hand on its head. He slowly stroked its fur, and was reminded of all the times he’d seen his sister shift so effortlessly and desperately wished he could do the same. He should have been able to, this wolf had been inside him all along and it was capable of it. Tears welled up in his eyes and freely rolled down his cheeks as he thought of how hurt it had been for so long. It was a miracle it was even still alive. 

All three of their female deities came over to his wolf, and the one that had frightened him most finally spoke again with a voice like a lifetime’s worth of backbreakingly hard work “The worst part is behind you now, dear boy. Let us heal him now,” she said, patting his shoulder and pushing up the flowing sleeves of her gauzy white gown. She smiled grimly, but he was comforted by it. He moved out of the way and crawled back over to rest his head on his sister’s lap “You did so well,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair. 

It was a shocking sight, and he almost wanted to look away or throw up or both. He had once heard one of the older wolves who had been a muggle in their previous life describe the practice of orthopedic surgery. They had said that it was sometimes referred to as a less elegant form of carpentry - that the muggle surgeons used saws and drills in their operating rooms and fixed bones back together with metal screws and nails if they had to. Something similar could be said for how the goddesses melded back together the pieces of his wolf soul. It was viscerally disturbing to watch, and the noises made him feel nauseous. He knew that magical and divine elements he couldn’t possibly understand must be at play. 

As terrible as it was to see and hear happen in front of him, once their work was finished the creature that rose afterwards looked healthy and whole. Its fur was glossy and its eyes were bright and alert. It trotted experimentally on legs and paws that were steady and solid. It stood as tall and magnificent as his sister’s wolf, and the two great beasts nuzzled each other’s noses and chomped on the ends of each other’s tails and zoomed in circles around each other wildly. 

The goddesses remained sitting where they had been working, and all three smiled warmly at the children and their wolves. Grabbing his sister’s hand Harry strode over to them and fell to his knees once more “Thank you My Ladies, thank you!” He gushed earnestly, unable to hold back his tears. Harry wasn’t normally the talker between the two of them but he felt compelled to show his gratitude. He couldn’t stop smiling, and he felt the dimple in his cheek popping that his sister always poked at. He didn’t even duck his head to hide it like he normally would, he was just too happy. 

The Lady Artemis spoke again, her voice tired but still carrying the noise of a bugling elk on a misty morning “The hardest work is behind us now, and the rest must be done by the two of you. There are four souls among you and they must condense. The wolf and the human must merge, and then the two of you must merge. The human body can only carry so many souls. Human and wolf is too many, and human alone or wolf alone is not what I made you for. Fuse together with the wolf and become one, let the same soul be shared between your two bodies. Then do the same with each other. You are twins separated by birth and circumstance, made to be identical in all the ways that matter most by my own hand. We’ve taken you 95% of the way there, now finish my work,” she commanded with a wry smile, as if knowing she had just given them quite the intimidating assignment. 

A bit baffled but willing to try, the two of them stepped towards their giant wolves. They both took a few moments to admire his, and Hermione commented quietly that it was a lovely thing and she looked forward to running with it through the forest. He felt a surge of love and closeness to her rush through him, and held her hand tightly before they separated again. She stood before her wolf and he stood before his, and they looked at each other and shrugged before deciding to do this part on their own. 

She knew her wolf already, intimately, and as she threw her arms up around its huge neck the lines between the two of them almost immediately blurred. As it had come out of her in a cloud, so too it seemed to dissolve and rush back inside of her.

Harry shook himself and turned towards the great black wolf that might as well be a stranger. Those eyes though… he had seen those eyes every day of his life in the mirror. There was something there that he knew, and that knew him in return. Those eyes had seen through his, he hadn’t known it was there but it had been with him all this time. He lifted his hand to the side of its enormous cheek and it pressed its heavy head down into the touch. It snuffled and licked at the inside of his wrist, and he felt as if his very cells were starting to wiggle and wobble.

He saw himself through the eyes of the wolf, standing on shaky legs and looking a bit green around the gills. His human body looked comically small from up this high, goddesses be good but he felt enormous in this form. Form, that didn’t feel like the right word anymore. This whole endeavor was supposed to be about learning that his wolf and his human were the same. He didn’t have two forms, he was a single being with a single transmutable body. The wolf and the human were like the full and the dark moon, two faces of the same creature. As soon as he had that thought his wolf disappeared and he felt the space it had occupied inside his chest grow warm and feel full. 

Rubbing at this sternum, he looked over and saw his sister doing the same with a soft and sappy sweet smile on her face. This part might be harder, or it might not be - he was less sure of what to expect. She wasn’t just a wolf that had the same eye color as him, she was the person who had seen him and saved him, who had given him not only this tremendous gift but the gift of a family, his sister who he loved with all his heart. She let out a giggle at the serious expression on his face “Yeah, I’m not sure exactly how we’re gonna do this either,” she whispered a bit frantically “doesn’t it take eastern monks entire lifetimes meditating on mountaintops to figure out how to do stuff like this?” 

Turning back around to peek over her shoulder at the goddesses she lowered her eyes meekly “My Ladies, could you perhaps give us any sort of… guidance for this part?” She asked softly. 

Like the huge yawn of an exhausted little child who had gone too long without an afternoon nap Selene spoke to her “You’re most of the way there already, dearest. The two of you are very close, let the walls that remain fall down between you and exist as one. Try starting with the breath first, then the movement,” she encouraged gently. Her eyes fluttered closed and her head tipped forward, and she leaned on Artemis’ shoulder and let out a loud snore. The two children both pursed their lips together tightly to avoid laughing at their goddess. 

Turning back to each other they knelt as close as they could and tried breathing as one. Quite a while passed and nothing happened. They then tried alternating their breathing, him breathing out while she breathed in and vice versa, and it felt more like they were getting somewhere with that method. While carefully alternating their breathing they mirrored each other, lifting and flexing their hands and making shapes and gestures. Because they were facing each other they tried mirroring perfectly - his right hand came up and waved around, her left hand did the same. After a short while they were in nearly perfect synchronicity, and they realized they had accidentally let their breathing sync back up against as well. 

They started over their alternating breathing, and tried reverse mirroring each other this time. Still facing each other, he raised and waved his left hand and she raised and waved her left hand. It felt like they were beginning to vibrate in the same way they had when they were condensing their human and wolf souls. That seemed like a positive sign, so they stood and turned so their backs were to each other and began to make bigger gestures and movements in perfect opposition. He moved to his left, she moved to her left, they moved in the exact same way at the exact same time but in perfectly different directions.

Like a jolt of electricity they were suddenly seeing though each others eyes and predicting and replicating each others movement perfectly. Still facing away from each other, they performed complex movements and gestures in exact synchronicity. With Harry’s mind for pattern recognition and Hermione’s photographic memory, they mentally zipped through the pages of a recent physics article Remus had assigned them to read for homework a few months ago. They pulled up the verbatim definition they were looking for and it was confirmed their suspicions: the phenomenon that occurs when a duet of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in such a way that the energetic state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance.

They realized in an instant that what they had done was successfully quantum entangle with each other - they had rendered themselves a permanently inseparable whole. It felt a bit like they had just broken the universe, and they realized they were having that thought together at the same time in their mind and fell down laughing together. The part of their mind that was used to being Harry wondered if it was always going to be like this, muddled together and mixed up and wondered how they’d ever talk to anyone else again without looking and sounding like a complete nutter. The part that was used to being Hermione thought they’d probably be able to turn it off and on again if they really wanted to, but she liked the feel of it for now. The part that was Harry like it too, but very much didn’t want to get dragged away to some sort of wizarding insane asylum. The part that was Hermione thought that was quite funny. 

Do you think we can

Yeah

Do you wanna

…Yeah, duh

This is gonna be

Hilarious if we don’t get stuck that way

Their minds still fully amalgamated into one thought engine, they mentally walked through a reversal of the process they’d used to blend themselves together. It was agony separating even slightly even for only a second after being together, but after that split second it took to stretch their component parts far enough apart to inhabit their own bodies again the sensation passed. Even continuing to maintain a partial connection with each other mentally, being in separate bodies again left them both simultaneously feeling hollow and profoundly lonely and with blistering headaches. They had done it though, they realized with ridiculous grins when they opened their eyes. She looked at herself through his eyes and he looked at himself through her eyes. They had swapped bodies. The trouble they could get up to like this would be the stuff of legends. 

She looked down at his hands, flexing them and popping his claws out expertly. With her voice he called foul “Extremely lame that the first time my body did that was with you behind the wheel, I can’t believe you stole my wolf’s thunder like that,” he whined petulantly. “Sorry but it’s my goddess-given right to pop a claw whenever a claw needs to be popped,” she reasoned. He scrunched up her face in disgust “Gross, don’t call it that you’re making me sound like a masher!” He hissed. She laughed mercilessly “Pop a claw, pop a claw, pop a claw,” she chanted with all the relish of an older child taking delight in horrifying a younger sibling. 

“I’m begging you to listen to the words you’re saying with my mouth,” he pleaded desperately. She considered it, and realizing that it did in fact sound like a disgustingly filthy euphemism she schinked his claws back in “And it’s your goddess-given right as the younger brother to ruin my fun I guess,” she grumbled. It occurred to them both at approximately the same time that as fun as this was they hadn’t thought it through very well. The moment they made eye contact again they were back in that space where they were the same. Condensed. Amalgamated. Merged and combined. It had been funny though, they shared the thought together fondly. 

Their goddesses addressed them again then.

“All things grow and all things change, even those that stay the same. Even when it is not apparent, and even when it is counterintuitive. The growth of a seed is to expand and bloom into life. The growth of a stone is to be worn down smooth and flat by water or wind or human hand. Even entities such as us must come to a point in our lives where we can no longer remain as we have forever before been. Though they may appear to be to your short lived eyes, the sun and earth and sky are not truly eternal. Someday the seas will rise and the mountains will be ground down into valleys and the stars will burn out.” 

“Just as the two of you are now joined together as one like you were always intended to have been, the three of us cannot remain separate forever. As we are now, a powerful geas has been placed upon us and we cannot speak the name of the one who has thwarted us. For too long have we individually existed as mere phases, when together we have the potential to be the moon itself. The brightest and most radiant celestial object in earth’s night sky, the hope in the dark for human kind since you took your first stumbling upright steps.”

“Unlike the two of you we know what we must do and how to do it, but lack the power. Like all divines, our strength comes from the devotion of our followers. As long as our names exist on the breath from a single mortal’s lungs, we can walk the world and do our work upon it. We created you for a special purpose, and therefore you will always carry our favor. You have been devout and obedient and we are pleased with your worship, and for that we have healed you and helped you to transform into your true selves. Yet now you must do more for us still.”

“We command you now, our children - go back to your lives and grow to adulthood, run and hunt and become stronger and swifter than any wolf before you has dared to dream of being, let no day pass without wearing your fur. Give tribute to us, say your prayers and thanks to us before and after every kill, spread your gifts and let your numbers swell. Find mates and bear their children and raise them to do the same as you were taught. Never let an opportunity pass to praise us where all may hear, and let our names be always upon your lips. Never again hide or deny what you are, let all know the truth of your existence and that you are blessed by our own hands.”

“When we draw you here again many years from now, if you have done all these many things that we have commanded, then when you transform together and howl before us it will finally empower and awaken our own metamorphosis. We three, Selene and Artemis and Hekate, the mother the maiden and the crone, the full half and dark phases of the moon, shall amalgamate into Mani, the living embodiment of the moon himself. By that time you may already know him well, but when we transform the geas shall be broken and we may at last tell you the name of the one who plots and schemes against you. There is little we can say, but know that he is cunning and cruel, and closer than you realize. Your grand sire can help you, but alas the geas has stolen his name from our lips as well. You will know him by the color of his magic. Seek the wolf in the woods, and the snake in the school, they can tell you what you need to know, but be kind for the years have been hard on them.”

And without hesitation the two fell to their knees and swore to do exactly as they were commanded. 

The sea of stars above them began to swirl out of focus, and after blinking to clear their eyes, they found themselves back in Amalthea’s hut in the forbidden forest. It felt like it had been years since they had been here, like they’d already lived the entire lifetime the goddesses had described in between coming and going. They imagined this was how the Pevensie children must have felt upon returning from Narnia. Harry and Hermione were different and yet the same - they were no longer quite so tightly bound as they had been in the strange celestial plane, and they both briefly wondered if it had really happened at all or if it had just been a particularly vivid hallucination.

They realized that their hands were making the same grasping motion, opening and closing mindlessly. They both had their claws out. That seemed fairly definitive, as Harry hadn’t been able to do that before their… spirit journey. 

Breathlessly she passed the thought to him that he should try and see if he could shift. With barely a second thought, her curiosity in his body triggered a whip-quick intuitive transformation to reflexively rush over him. One second he was a boy and the next he was a wolf as large as a horse with soft warm fur as black as pitch and wide glowing green eyes. He looked startled by his own shift, and she laughed and hugged him around his neck before thanking Amalthea and shifting and chasing him out of the hut and through the village. Circling once then twice around their friends and professor, licking their faces and yipping happily, the two made their way out into the forest and ran and played and howled and hunted the entire rest of the night. 

And as they had been instructed, every howl was a grateful dedication to their goddesses. They celebrated under the light of the waxing gibbous moon, three quarters of the way to full. It was an utter triumph, the work of a lifetime accomplished. Finally they were fixed and whole, and they were one as they were always meant to be. They didn’t know exactly what grand design the goddesses had in mind for them, but they were together and they were happy and for one perfect night they played to their hearts’ joyous content.

The rabbits of the forbidden forest had a new set of predators to steer clear of.

Chapter Text

-Three weeks earlier (September 1st)-

Fenrir was having a significantly better week than he had been in any way shape or form anticipating. He’d been steadfastly dreading his children leaving for school for nearly a full calendar year, and the aching biting weight of it had begun to eat at his gut like an ulcer. In their last few August days at home he’d become borderline hysterical with fear and anxiety about them being away from home without him, defenseless and vulnerable, surrounded by potential enemies. It had regrettably gotten to the point that his obnoxiously observant and deviously meddlesome daughter had easily discovered his worries and taken it upon herself to see that they were wrapped up neatly. 

She had managed to fix everything with a single letter to the right person at the right time, and he’d been kicking himself for not reaching out to the solicitor sooner. Andromeda had given him the man’s information after all, he really only had himself to blame for getting so worked up instead of doing something proactive. More and more he was finding himself either paralyzed into inaction or rushing into over-reaction where his children were involved. His instincts weren’t serving him well, and he felt nearly constantly wrong-footed. 

Especially after the big meeting in Gwynedd. 

Once the headmaster and the lawyer had finally both left, he’d had to deal with a lustful and worked up Lupin. He still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that had the man suddenly panting after him so desperately, and poor Remus had seemed absolutely mortified by his own behavior afterwards. They’d been avoiding each other since, and it felt as awkward as it did lonely. He’d come to like the man, and he hadn’t wanted to take advantage of him when he’d been so clearly out of his mind, but it had taken more strength of will than he’d be willing to admit to turn him away. He was certain he wouldn’t have been able to resist if the man hadn’t seemed quite so affected, it had come on so quick and unprovoked that his behavior resembled someone under a compulsion or lust potion and had felt distinctly wrong to act on in the moment. 

He’d received word from Rowle only a day later that Dumbledore had come through for them, and that the paperwork had all been processed and filed blisteringly fast as far as British bureaucracy was concerned. The adoption of his son was fully legal and above board. His custody rights were iron clad, and couldn’t be challenged by anyone. Even the boy’s godfather Sirius Black would have to formally request visitation should he ever be freed, and he and Harry both had the right to reject it if they chose to. The solicitor had even put in a special motion for the muggle family who had so harmed his boy to be obliviated and relocated, which was pending approval. 

It had taken an enormous weight off of his chest and he’d felt confident going into his second meeting with the headmaster, he knew he was feeling in a much more advantageous position. Rowle had negotiated and advocated for his children’s full moon rights like a heavyweight champion. The man had ended up drafting a viciously nasty contract defending them from ever being given wolfsbane, dictating the highly specific conditions that had to occur for them to ever be in any way restrained, and granting them the right to leave campus for the day and night of the full moon in perpetuity of their education. 

The only roadblock had been the board of governors needing to be called in to review and approve it as they had ultimate oversight on any individualized educational contracts, but he had found an unexpected ally in Lucius Malfoy. Even though the man had only done it to please his wife, he had really come through for them in bringing the other conservative governors to heel. He had made sure that the contract protecting the children was not only signed but that a confidentiality clause had been added that functioned like an NDA. 

He was surprised to have been stopped by Madam Longbottom after the board meeting and told that she was pleased their children had made friends. It had been a few days since school started and he hadn’t received any post from either of his children yet, and he’d told her as such. She’d cackled at him and winked on her way out, insisting that she didn’t want to spoil any surprises he was sure to soon get. That had puzzled him a bit, but he was glad to know his kids were at least being social. 

Finally on Thursday evening of that first week an owl had arrived.

Dated September 5th, 1991
From the study table in our common room
Gryffindor tower, Hogwarts 
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland 

Dear Dad,

Sorry for taking a few days to write! We were both sorted into Gryffindor and are still getting used to sharing a room with other kids. My roommates are Lavender, Parvati (who has a twin sister in Ravenclaw), and Sally Anne. Harry’s roommates are Seamus, Dean, and Neville (who I met on the train and is my new best friend!). Ron and Draco were sorted into Slytherin together, and we were a bit worried about Ron at first but he seems happy enough. We’ve had almost all our classes so far for the week except for potions, which is tomorrow. I’m glad we got to learn so much from Remus and Geetha, but I’m worried we might be fairly far ahead of our classmates for quite a while. Our first charms lesson was just lighting a lumos and everyone but us struggled! 

You should know that Mr Rowle’s son Thorfinn might make trouble. He met us on the train at his dad’s instruction and absolutely lost his mind when he realized we’re wolves. He wasn’t very kind, and seemed genuinely terrified of us. He got a howler from his dad and he apologized to me in front of the whole school, it was pretty embarrassing. We met Kipper, apparently she’s bonded with you and me through our adoption bond with Harry. Don’t be surprised if she comes to see you, she said you were her new master. We’re gonna try and see if we can visit her on the weekend maybe once she’s had a chance to have a bit of a rest. Apparently it was really hard on her to have to tell everyone about what happened to her and the Potters. 

We’ll write more in a few days, Love you dad!
Hermione <3

Hey Dad, 

Nene and I are fine, we’ve settled into our rooms and they’re comfortable. Our range of hearing easily covers the entire tower, but there’s a security flaw I don’t like where girls can get into the boy’s side but boys can’t get into the girl’s side. She says it’s just to keep out randy little mashers, but I don’t like the idea of not being able to get up to her room if she needs me. Makes me a bit anxious if I’m being honest. 

She scared the shite out of me running off and disappearing on the train, but it turns out she just made a new friend. Her and Neville are practically joined at the hip, he’s a nice bloke and seems harmless enough. They both get a bit starry eyed when they’re around each other, and I suppose it’s sort of cute. There was a bit of an issue the first night with some of our house mates making her feel like she shouldn’t eat as much as she needed, but I got it sorted by summoning a kitchen elf and having him tell her it wasn’t actually extra work or an inconvenience to feed us more. 

I like Kipper and I’m excited to go see her again soon, but I’m worried about her mental state. My birth parents dying clearly messed with her head something tragic, and I hope she can move on and make a new life with us or she might be very unhappy in the long run. She did seem really happy when she realized she was bonded to you and Nene through me, so that was encouraging. Fingers crossed I guess. 

Also not to contradict her majesty, but Rowle’s son wasn’t just “unkind” he called us filthy half-breeds and dark creatures and said we shouldn’t be allowed in school, and we have it on direct eye witness account from Ron and Draco that he told the entire bloody Slytherin house that first night that we’re werewolves. A quarter of the student body because one idiot blabbed. His apology was pathetic, and I certainly wouldn’t have accepted it but his head of house told Hermione that she could start a blood feud if she rejected it. She’s way too forgiving. His dad’s howler was next level though, he called his own son a “hateful disobedient little fool” in front of the whole bleeding school and it was the single loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

Heads up by the way - Something’s seriously wrong with either the defense classroom or the professor. It smells so strongly of death and decomp I’d be genuinely half convinced he killed someone and hid the body under the bleeding floorboards if it wasn’t all solid stone. Like it’s actually no laughing matter, I think there’s a corpse in the walls or something. 

Love you dad, see you in a few weeks
Harry

He sighed with relief at seeing his children’s handwriting, laughed at his girl’s antics, tensed when he read there might be trouble, and raged the entire time he read Harry’s much more honest letter. Who the fuck did that little prick think he was terrorizing his kids and spreading rumors? Was he trying to get them killed? At least it sounded like Rowle had brought his little bastard to heel, but he hated the public nature of it all. 

He was conflicted between scathing distaste and intense fatherly pride that his son had so blatantly turned informant on his sister unprompted. On the one hand he would be having words with her for leaving out important details, but on the other hand he hadn’t thought he’d raised a snitch. Maybe his boy was maturing and had finally realized that the best betas held their alphas accountable rather than always trying to cover for them. It was no secret in their little family that Harry more often than not tried to take the blame for whatever mischievous schemes his naughty daughter had roped her brother into helping her with. 

His Hermione had shown some character growth herself lately as well though. He’d been proud to observe that the last few times they’d been caught out she’d admitted to guilt before her brother could try and pin the wrongdoing on himself alone. As much hope as her newfound sense of responsibility gave him for her future behavior, her growing independence was causing him no end of headaches. It had started the very moment she had taken the Black Lordship seat, and he could admit he was at least partially to blame for setting that into motion. 

Since hearing that there was a whole extended house and family she was in charge of and whose care she was responsible for, she’d taken to squirreling herself away and intentionally conducting business outside of his parental purview. He didn’t think it was a matter of distrust, more likely her wanting to act like a little adult and feel as if she’d gotten important things done. He probably should have gotten her a pet to take care of in the last year for her to safely work that impulse out on. 

It had been one thing to write letters to family he hadn’t been particularly keen on her meeting, it was entirely another that she was arranging meetings for him with lawyers without letting him know beforehand. He should have seen this type of behavior coming when she’d essentially come home with a brother at age six. He’d need to have a stern word with her when he saw her next. The last thing he wanted was for her to think she couldn’t tell him things and escalate her withdrawing away from him and acting independently, but she needed to know there were boundaries he wasn’t comfortable with her crossing. Parenthood was all about boundaries, theirs had never been great but that was something they could work on together as a family. 

It rankled at him that accepting her title had rendered her legally an adult. He didn’t like that she could act entirely without his knowing if she wanted to. There was every possibility and likelihood that she had conducted other banking and family business without his input or say so. It made his skin crawl, not because he wanted to control every aspect of her life, but because she was very much still a child. As bright and clever as she was, there were things she still didn’t understand about the way the world worked. 

How could he protect her when she was off doing gods knows what? He wanted to respect her growing up but it was becoming unbearable. To his face she was still his sweet deferential and obedient baby, but as soon as he left her on her own for a minute she became headstrong and rushed into things. And now his son was caught in the middle between them. It was untenable. 

He told himself that he at least had a few weeks to stew on these thoughts and feelings before finally seeing his children again on the night of the full moon. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Before he realized it the weekend had passed and he received another letter from his children on Sunday evening, a week to the day after he’d sent them off to school. 

Dated September 8th, 1991
From the study table in the nonfiction section
The Library, Hogwarts 
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland

Dear Dad,

You won’t believe the last few days we’ve had! We had potions class and it went really well, Neville and I worked together and he and I earned 12 points each for Gryffindor for making the best potion and for pointing out expired ingredients to the professor. He was impressed by our observational skills, and he doesn’t seem like an easy man to impress!

We met Kipper again, and she was happy to see us. Fred and George showed us how to get to the kitchens and they’re nearly as big as the entire compound! You should call on her some time soon, she’s recovered and I’m sure she’d be happy to see you and help out with anything around the house you need a hand with. Let her cook you a meal every once in a while and I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to bits. 

There’s some more things that we need to tell you when we see you in person, things we found out from the goblins and house elves we’ve become friends with, but it’s complicated and confidential and I’m not sure how much I should say. The things I want to tell you need to be said face to face. I will always defer to your wisdom and guidance, alpha, but there is a clear direction my heart is guiding me and I am not sure if we will agree on the best path forward. 

Lots of love, 
Hermione

Dad,

For once in her life Nene’s being alarmingly modest, the Slytherin professor actually said she saved student lives by telling him about his ingredients that had gone bad or were the wrong thing entirely. And this is coming from a bloke who just sort of generally acts like he wouldn’t piss on a Gryffindor if they were on fire. Apparently he’s Draco’s godfather and he says it’s certifiably unusual behavior for him. 

We went to visit Kip like she told you, and discovered some very interesting information about the nature of our small friends that will need to be investigated further. There’s something going on with them that they’re prevented from telling anyone, and it’s a bit creepy. They called it a geas, but couldn’t say more. 

We got some letters from our friends at the bank telling us that they’re planning to go on strike soon and asking us not to cross their picket line. Nene wants our family to support their efforts, and the kitchen staff we spoke with were interested in becoming involved as well. You should make an appointment with our friend and ask him to discuss our family’s contribution to their cause. We don’t want to overstep your authority as our patriarch, but the two of us are on the same mind on this matter, and have decided that we’re onboard to support our friends whether the rest of the family decides to join or not. 

Please advise

Love you,
Harry

Fenrir had to read the last paragraph three times before it clicked for him that his son was discussing siding with the goblins in their next rebellion. With the help of the school’s house elves somehow. This was fucking exactly the sort of thing he’d been afraid of his daughter’s independence building up to. Not- not this exactly, he hadn’t anticipated an interspecies nonhuman uprising, but rather her becoming insolent and bucking his authority sooner than any of them were ultimately ready for. 

He didn’t want to have to come down on her. He didn’t want to punish his child for being good and for wanting to do good. He always told her how much he adored her kind and compassionate heart, how could he justify repudiating her when she was only following it? But could he allow this - could he allow his child to so blatantly ignore his authority as her alpha in this way? Then again - could he in any way actually stop her without risking losing the girl he loved with all his heart?

He read the last paragraph one more time, his eyes catching on that damning final sentence - whether the rest of the family decides to join us or not. They weren’t asking for his permission, or even his blessing. They would act with or without his approval or his participation in their scheme. He was utterly dumbfounded that the respectful children he had raised were even capable of so directly challenging him. 

He couldn’t trust himself to respond right away, he would say something that he wouldn’t be able to take back. Lay down unfair ultimatums that would only drive them further away. He had to be in the right frame of mind to handle this delicately, and at the moment he absolutely wasn’t. Setting down their letter, he strode into the kitchen and reached up into the highest cupboard behind the refrigerator, pulling out a dusty old half full bottle of Macallan that he hadn’t touched in years. Not even pretending to consider getting a glass, he flicked the cap off and immediately guzzled several mouthfuls down. His throat was hot and he rasped out a heavy exhale and panted for a moment. 

As much as he’d been endlessly worried about his kids the last week that they’d been gone, he’d also spent a good portion of his time steadfastly trying to ignore the confusing mix and muddle of feelings that had shown up during the initial meeting with Rowle. While he’d been frustrated with Lupin for the man’s sudden and distracting lust in the middle of things, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since that day. And now, with his anger at its pinnacle and his blood up, he felt like a tiger pacing in its cage. 

He left his house and stalked across the compound to the young men’s dorm Remus was staying in. He stopped at the door, and ran his hands over his face. Fuck, was he really going to go try and get a leg over in the same building where over two dozen of his own bastards lived? He suddenly felt keenly vulnerable and embarrassed by his own impulses, and turned to leave. A hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he spun back around with a snarl on his lips. 

It fell from his face when he saw exactly the man he’d been looking for, and he sighed and tried to smile but it was tight and miserable. Remus had clearly been about to ask him what he needed or wanted, but laughed at his awkward expression “What’s got your tail in a twist?” The man asked him playfully, and without a second though he answered “You, to be honest,” Remus reared back fractionally, eyes wide “Me? What on earth did I do?” He asked, startled. 

Fenrir closed his eyes briefly in mortification and groaned quietly. He wanted to dig a hole in the ground here and bury himself in it. Avoiding the other man’s eyes he scratched the side of his neck “You might as well have mounted and rode me in that cafe, and I haven’t been able to get the thought of it out of my mind,” he muttered, suddenly terrified that he was about to ruin the progress he’d made with the other man over the last year. 

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Or do anything about it,” he backpedaled instantly, trying to do damage control “I came over here frustrated and hoping you still felt the same way, but if you don’t it’s alright. It’s fine,” he said feeling more than a bit pathetic. As the moment stretched longer the silence between them felt deafening and heavy. 

“I’m pretty sure Sirius is my mate- was my mate,” the other man said quietly, breaking the silence with a hammer. Fenrir’s heart dropped and he reached out to touch without thinking. He was deliriously glad when Remus clutched his arm and pressed his cheek into his hand rather than flinching away. Gods be good but they were the same, exactly the bloody same “It’s an unimaginable pain,” he said softly “one I’m intimately familiar with,” he added. The other man nodded and closed his eyes. When he spoke it was hushed. 

“For so many years I’ve been furious with him. Not for betraying James and Lilly, because I don’t think he did. Not for killing Peter and all those muggles, because I think he must have gone mad by that point. Not even for getting himself taken away from me, for leaving me all by myself without him. For abandoning our boy when he needed us. For letting someone else take Harry away instead of delivering him safely to my arms like he should have! When I saw you prioritize the child that I should have raised, the boy who feels like my son in all but name and blood - seeing you take care of him and love him and put him first, I was filled with an overwhelming desire I haven’t felt in ages. I thought Sirius destroyed the part of me that could feel like that. Seeing you be such a good dad so effortlessly brought it all rushing back to the surface,” he said a bit sheepishly, shrugging.

A very attractive rosy flush colored his scarred cheeks, and Fenrir felt lightheaded. 

His chest filled with warmth at the other man’s words, and he ducked his head low and chuckled “I’m not exactly feeling like a good dad right now… My girl is driving me absolutely bloody insane, I thought they weren’t supposed to start rebelling until they were teenagers,” he said shaking his head and puffing out his cheeks. A masculine hand lifted his chin gently, and wasn’t that something new and pleasant? Remus had a beguiling grin on his face and a mischievous twinkle in his eye “She’s got the Black gene for troublemaking then?” He asked cheekily, and Fenrir barked out a laugh “That’s putting it fucking mildly.” 

He pressed their foreheads together, and it was wildly intimate to feel their breath intermingling and their noses touch. The other man was warm and smelled good, his hair was slightly damp as if he’d just had a bath. He gulped, desperately taking in a lungful of his clean foresty scent “Come back to my house for the night?” He finally worked up the courage to ask. Even though his eyes were shut tight, with their faces pressed together so closely he could feel the muscles in Remus face shift into a smile “Thought you’d never ask,” and as the other man’s hand gripped his own and twined their fingers together, his heart thumped interestingly in his chest. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The last week had been an absolute revelation. After a night full of many varied and adventurous rounds of incredible sex, Fenrir had nervously asked Remus if the man would like their tryst to remain just that - a single fling - or be something more regular. To his sincere relief and pleasure the desire for something more meaningful was mutual, and the man had come over and stayed the night several times again since. They were gradually becoming closer, and he felt himself often craving Remus’ company during the day, wanting to know his thoughts and opinions on things. 

He had been hesitant to let the other man see the extent of his anxieties and fears regarding his children and their distance from him, but when he had broached the shallows of the matter he was surprised to find that it only endeared him in Remus’ eyes. Fenrir was able to unload his worries and lay his burdens down at the other man’s feet, and accept the relief that his mind and body offered. They could plunge the depths together as well, and comfortably so. 

It was the perfect inverse of the cloying and ever-present romantic loneliness he had felt since his mate had died. His pack and his daughter and then his son had helped to fill the aching void platonically, but he never thought he’d feel this way again. He had found someone who could potentially be a partner to him, if he allowed the tentative connection between the two of them to grow. It felt like a lovely little flickering flame in his chest that he wanted to cup in his palm and protect from the wind. 

Stretching his legs out in his bed, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a decadent mid-morning lie in. Every inch of Remus’ back was pressed to his front, and he felt a spark of desire come to life. He pressed his nose into the other man’s neck and licked a lazy stripe over his pulse point. Their scents were deliciously intertwined, and the fact that they were starting to smell so much like each other pleased something possessive in him. 

Just as he was about to curl his arm around Remus’ waist and reach a hand down into his underpants, an owl started tapping urgently at the window. He growled and the other man laughed, pushing his hand away and telling him not to ignore the poor bird. He rolled over Remus, making the man laugh even harder, and slid to the floor on the other side of the bed. By the time he reached the the window the owl had begun auditioning for the role of woodpecker, and he was surprised it hadn’t concussed itself with how hard it had been clacking it’s little beak against the glass. 

He took the letter from its leg and it winged up to the top of his dresser, clearly expecting a return letter. His eyes narrowed and his hackles rose. He told Remus to budge over and he sat down on his edge of the bed as he opened and read it. He clutched it tighter and tighter as he read, until the edges of the parchment crinkled and threatened to tear.

Dated September 17th, 1991
From my dorm room
Gryffindor Tower, Hogwarts
Near Hogsmeade Scotland 

DAD!

I know Harry’s been telling you more than I have in our letters home and I’m sorry, I just hate worrying you unnecessarily over things it feels like I have handled well enough on my own… This is pretty big though and I don’t want you to hear it from anyone other than me.

Sooo I was feeling really restless all day today, and after everyone else went to bed for the night I snuck down to the forest for a run. I would like to emphasize that Harry knew where I was going and stayed up waiting for me in the common room the whole time I was gone! I didn’t just run off Willy Nilly. Also professor Snape opened the front doors for me, so technically a teacher knew too. 

Okay so - gosh it was so crazy, I don’t even know where to start. So I met these centaurs while I was in the forest and we talked about the humans and they get treated badly too! Just like us and the goblins and the house elves. 

Alright so I probably should have told you about the goblins in the last letter, I just didn’t want to jinx it. They’re very unhappy dad, really. I just want to help them and I didn’t mean to sound so dramatic, I’m sorry. Harry and I are just worried you’ll prioritize our personal safety over their general well being as an entire species, which is fair because you’re our DAD. I don’t know, I have a lot of feelings about it. I think we should use our wizengamot seats to try and make some changes, and what I wanted to talk with you about in person was asking you to be our proxy because we trust you more than anyone else to do the right thing and help them if they can’t defend themselves. Would you even be willing to do that? It would mean putting yourself out there in the eyes of the wizarding public. It could be dangerous…

Anyways, the centaurs - they said the ministry keeps sending people out telling them to stick to smaller and smaller areas of the woods, even though their herd used to have the run of the whole forest and the lake and all the lands where the castle was built. And apparently the groundskeeper Hagrid let a giant spider loose in the forest fifty years ago and now it’s got an entire colony of its baby giant spiders in there and the centaurs are very cross with him about it because the spiders eat the deer they used to hunt. 

But dad, I met the most incredible person in the entire world. Her name is Amalthea and she’s a unicorn centaur, and she says her and I are both blessed by the moon goddesses and have an incredible shared destiny! I should have told you before we left for school but Ófnir told me about a werewolf prophecy he thinks is about me and I didn’t want you to worry and keep me from going to school if you thought it was dangerous, but it was wrong of me not to tell you. I think she’s supposed to help me with it, or we’re supposed to help each other? I don’t know yet but it feels important. 

What I’m trying to say is that I’m really sorry dad, I’ve been trying so hard to prove to you that I can be responsible and take care of things on my own, but all I’ve really done is write letters and hide them from you and not tell you when important things happen and I hate it and it makes me feel awful. My wolf is going nuts telling me that I’m undermining you as our alpha, and that’s not what I ever meant to do at all. I feel so guilty. 

Harry told me that while we’re at school here just the two of us he wants me to be in charge and make the decisions for us, and I agreed at the time because he was being very vulnerable and I didn’t want to make him feel bad, but it’s just too much dad! I’m not ready to be the alpha, not even just for the two of us - we’re still kids! It’s been eating away at me since he said it, and please don’t be mad at him because he did say you’ll still always be our dad and alpha, I just don’t know if I can handle it. We haven’t even been here for two weeks and we’re already halfway committed to an inter-species rebellion against the wizarding order! 

I feel like I’m royally bungling things, and I have no idea what I’m doing. I changed into my wolf form in the common room tonight in front of our entire bloody house, I don’t know what I was thinking. It turned out alright, everyone was really curious and Harry answered all their questions. But it was reckless and stupid and I don’t know what’s wrong with me! It could have gone so badly, and it was just pure dumb luck that it didn’t.

It’s so embarrassing dad, I wanted to tell you this in person face to face, but I think I must have met my mate. His name is Neville and he makes my heart sing, and I get stupid around him. He’s so sweet and I like him so much. The reason I shifted in the common room was because he was curious and asking questions and he looked at me in a way that made my tummy feel fluttery, and I just did it without thinking in front of the gods and everybody!

I’m rambling, I wish you were here. Or I was there. School is fun but I really miss you. I don’t know why I didn’t say it in either of the other letters we sent but I really really miss you, dad. Meeting Amalthea was the most incredible experience of my life and all I could think of when I got back to my bed was that I wish you’d been there to meet her too. I don’t think there’s another person in the whole world like her, I could hardly believe it when she said her and I were the same. 

Bane is nicer than he looks, I think he just has general grumpy face, but he shot an arrow at me and it was scary even though I know now that he missed on purpose. My very first thought was what would dad do, and I snarled at him before they made nice. He and Magorian and Firenze saw me transformed trotting about and they thought I was a normal werewolf that had been trapped since the last full moon because I was hurt or something. Can that even actually happen - what kind of injury would make you stay stuck in your shift?

Anyways, I’m writing this in bed before going to sleep - I’m still in my pajamas with leaves in my hair and dirt on my feet! I’ll send it to you first thing in the morning. I hope me apologizing and telling you what’s been going on is enough to fix the mistakes I’ve made. I love you, and I hope you can understand and forgive me. 

Love you love you love you love you
Miss you miss you miss you miss you
Hermione

“Gods but I love that girl so much,” Fenrir said, crying and laughing at the same time. He dragged the back of his hand across his cheeks he sniffed and wheezed out another laugh. Remus had sat up behind him and leaned over his shoulder to follow along as well, and huffed out a chuckle “Poor thing is really putting herself through the wringer over this” he said thoughtfully. 

“Certainly puts all your worst worries to rest though, doesn’t it daddy?” The man purred lasciviously a moment later, and began pressing hot kisses to his bare back. He barked out a laugh at that “Best not let your mouth write a check your arse can’t pay, you cheeky cunt” he snarked back, deliriously happy and joyously giving in to the sensation. 

“The only mouth that should be anywhere near my arse is yours, you great bloody pillock” Remus replied rather petulantly, and his eyebrows shot up “I think I could arrange something like that, if you’d like” he replied, his voice lowering to a rumbling grumble in his chest. He twisted at the waist, and pressed the other man flat to the bed “You’d like that eh, you dirty thing?” He teased, licking his way down Remus’ chest to the band of his underpants, reveling in the moans that brought forth. Pressing his nose against the bulge forming there, he sniffed in deep and took in heady lungfuls of the other man’s musky scent. 

They had quite the morning after that.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As he reread Hermione’s letter again over breakfast later, his eyes caught on a significant detail he’d overlooked upon first skim through. He passed it to Remus who sat across the table from him “Tell me if you notice it too,” he huffed angrily, and waited for the other man to read it. 

“She really is raking herself over the coals isn’t she? Dear thing,” his lover muttered sympathetically as he read, and then as he came to the first page he paused and his brows shot up “”Longbottom? Her little mate is Neville Longbottom?” He asked incredulously, his eyes wide and startled.

Fenrir was taken aback as that was not the part he had been worrying about and he failed to see how it was a problem. “Yes? I met his grandmother during the school board meeting, she’s the chairperson apparently. A tough old bird, but seemed a decent sort. She said our kids were friends but I didn’t think more of it until now. He must’ve told her something and fast, because she looked like the cat that got the cream when I said I hadn’t heard from them yet. That would’ve been… their third or fourth day at school? Why do you ask?” He said a bit lamely, feeling awkwardly like his daughter when she was on a roll rambling incessantly. 

Remus frowned, and shook his head “Fenrir, Neville’s mother Alice and Harry’s mother Lilly were very close friends - they even named each other their children’s godmothers. There was- …you know there was a prophecy near the end of the war. It’s why James and Lilly were targeted by you-know-who, but for a long time we weren’t sure who exactly it was about. Until he acted that night and chose one of them, it was up in the air. It could equally have been about either the Potters, or the Longbottoms. Both families went into hiding around the same time and they ended up having Harry and Neville within a few days of each other. I don’t know what it means that Hermione is finding herself gravitating towards Neville, but it’s a strange coincidence. All three of them are potentially children of prophecy, and Harry and Neville are technically godbrothers. Maybe it’s just my mind seeing patterns that aren’t there, but something feels a little too perfect about it,” he said, his voice and hands both shaking. 

Fenrir was quiet for a long stretch as he thought about that, and he reached out across the table and took his lover’s trembling hands and held them. “I have no idea what to make of that. I hadn’t the foggiest about any of it, and it’s frankly not what I was expecting you to take note of. It does seem like a strange coincidence though. Thank you for telling me. Whatever it means, it can only help to have more information,” he reached for the letter, and handed it to the man, “Here on the third page, this is what I was talking about. She says that my beta has been telling her secrets and asking her to keep them,” he said quietly. 

“Huh,” Remus said, frown growing deeper as he read the paragraph in question “yes, that’s definitely a much more immediate problem… What are you going to do about him? It is somewhat unsettling if I’m being honest,” He said, setting it down flat on the table, his hand resting almost protectively over the pages the girl they both so cherished had poured her heart out onto. Fenrir felt an enormous relief and sense of reassurance that the man had so immediately understood exactly what he meant and picked up on the danger of it as well. He wasn’t crazy, or reading into things that weren’t there. 

He shook his head “I’m not sure, every time I try to get answers from Ófnir it’s like pulling teeth or trying to wring blood from a stone. He always tells me I’m not ready - but yet my eleven year old child is ready to be told she’s the subject of a prophecy? I don’t like it one fucking bit,” he growled, emotions building in him swiftly. He took their plates over to the sink and mindlessly scrubbed at them, thoughts a thousand miles away. 

Remus came up and leaned against the counter next to him, grabbing a dish towel and starting to rinse and dry what he’d washed “You need to consider the very real possibility then that he could be part of the reason she’s been trying so hard be a little adult and keep you in the dark. If whatever he thinks she’s supposed to do is the same thing that he thinks you’re not ready to hear, could he have gone so far as commanding her not to tell you about it?” He asked, brows furrowed.

Fen’s hands curled over the edges of the sink, and it took all of his concentration for his hands not to become claws and dent the metal. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily through gritted teeth.

“In the alpha’s absence the beta outranks everyone else - even the alpha’s heir. Everyone in this pack knows they are expected to obey Ófnir’s orders as if they were mine. But he wouldn’t have had to give her a command to keep a secret if he was able to convince her I’d not let her go to school if I learned what he didn’t want me to know. Fuck - I should never have let her overhear me bitching about my worries and fears, I should have locked them away where they couldn’t have been used against me to manipulate my child!” He snarled, picking up a spoon and throwing it against the wall on the other side of the kitchen. 

Remus drew him back over to the table where he collapsed into his chair, his head in his hands. His lover knelt at his feet and tugged on his hands where they were tangled in his hair “If someone uses your feelings against you, it’s not your fault for having the feelings in the first place. It’s their fault for taking advantage. You’d have always felt some way about your kids leaving home, and a clever bastard would have found a way to use whatever that feeling was. If you’d been happy for them or even apathetic, he could have just told her you didn’t care to know and that might have been convincing enough,” the man reasoned, and while it did ease some of his own guilt it made his anger at his beta rise to even greater heights. 

“I need to confront him, but I don’t even know what he’s told her. Should I wait until I can see her in person and ask what this prophecy business is about first? I’d still be completely in the dark here if she’d waited to tell me everything in person. Maybe I should move right now, storm over there to his house and demand he tell me,” he mused aloud, thoughts racing and feeling unsteady and uncertain.

“Fen, listen to yourself,” Remus chided gently “you’re forgetting the entirely rational third option where you owl your daughter today and ask her to tell you as a show of good faith what your beta said to her. She wants to be honest and obedient to you, she said as much on every page of that letter. The dear heart practically begged for some punishment or task she could do to make things right between the two of you - so let her fix this herself. She’ll be happy and feel absolved of her guilt, and you’ll get the information you need without having to either wait a week or hear a version from him today that may be a lie,” he said firmly, leaving no room for argument. 

“Whatever you do, you can’t let him know you’re on to him before you’ve heard from her or he could reach out and undo everything by convincing her to lie again,” Remus added seriously, and his heart dropped as he considered the possibility that he was being actively undermined by the person who was supposed to be his right hand. That he had to act carefully so as not to allow his beta to cause further discord and chaos. 

“Goddesses be good, but you’re right. If he’s somehow convinced her she can’t talk to me, he could do so again and make things even worse. I feel like I can’t breathe, like there’s a knife between my ribs, Remus,” he said, pressing his palm flatly against his sternum “This pack is supposed to be a family, what does it even mean that my beta is acting against me? How could such a thing happen in the home I’ve built to protect us all?” He whispered, feeling the beginning of a pathetic whimpering whine build in his throat and harshly cutting it off before it could grow. 

“I don’t know what it means, this is all so new to me. Living in a pack, being around other werewolves, I never understood the appeal until I came here for the first time. It took everything in me to leave that night, even knowing I would be coming back. You’ve built something good here, Fen. Just because there might be a bad apple doesn’t mean the whole thing’s got to be thrown out. You’ve helped so many wolves find a place to call their own. That can’t be anything but a good thing,” he said confidently and kindly, and with kisses pressed to his knuckles and palms. 

The man stood then and summoned parchment and quill with a wave of his wand, and checked the clock on the wall “It’s still early enough for her to be at breakfast, if you write to her now you might get a response by lunch or dinner,” he said insistently, and Fenrir wrote his daughter a quick note reminding her that he loved her and letting her know that he forgave her but needed her to explain exactly what his beta had told her about a prophecy and why she ought to keep it from him. He added a post script about how much he missed her as well and how he wished he’d gotten to meet her unicorn friend (!!??). He signed it and sent it off with their fastest bird, souping up it’s on-my-way protective mail delivery charms so it wouldn’t be hassled or meddled with mid-flight. As a last minute thought he added a notice-me-not charm. Just in case. 

Now he just had to wait.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ultimately he was glad she hadn’t made him wait long, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to go about his day and act like nothing was wrong. It was just after lunch when her response came and he was relieved beyond belief that he’d only had to awkwardly putter about the house for a few hours rather than actually show his face around the compound and pretend everything was normal. It wasn’t normal, everything felt shattered and broken beyond repair. There was a rage dancing under his skin that was so potent and so close to the surface that it was utterly unfamiliar to him. Even on his darkest and wildest days he’d never felt this way, this angry. 

That being said he’d expected his own owl to return to him, not the little creature he’d met in town a few weeks ago. She had popped into his living room and was standing on his coffee table bowing low in his direction with an envelope clutched in her hands. Her ears reminded him of a sheep, and they waggled as she bent and then straightened. 

“Hello?” He greeted her hesitantly, turning wild eyes towards Remus who shrugged unhelpfully, and looked equally startled but greeted her politely by name. The creature smiled widely, her enormous eyes were a watery hazel and her skin was a greyish green, and she had just enough mousy brown hair on the top of her head to be pulled into a tufty little upright ponytail. With a pang of tender emotion he was reminded of the way his mate had done their daughter’s hair the same way when she was a very little baby, with a few wispy sprigs standing straight up. When she spoke her voice was what he imagined a kitten might sound like if it gained the ability to speak, high and squeaky and childlike. 

“Greetings Master Wolfy and Master Remus! Kipper is honored to be an elf in the service of the house of Greyback, and is especially honored to be meeting the kind sir who rescued her Baby Harry. Kipper is being very happy to be called to service for the young mistress, she is delivering a letter for the Master’s hands only!” She said with another bow, reverently handing him the letter. 

He reached out to take it, “Thank you, Kipper. I appreciate you bringing this to me,” He said. She nodded and smiled, letting him know she’d be in the kitchen if she needed him and popping away again just as suddenly as she’d arrived. He heard the sounds of pots and pans banging from the kitchen, and blithely wondered what he’d find when he next went in there. Unmoving, he sat on the sofa in the living room and opened the letter. 

Dated September 17th, 1991
From the Gryffindor table
The Great Hall, Hogwarts
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland 

Dad, 

I’m so glad you’re not mad at me. As anxious as I was that you might be furious, it felt like such a relief to tell you everything I’ve been keeping to myself. As soon as I put pen to paper I knew I was doing the right thing. 

Óffy talked to me on the night we had our bonfire, the day before Harry and I left for school. He told me that there was an ancient Icelandic prophecy that his ancestors had brought over when they came here, and that it foresaw a werewolf who would save us all from a disaster, but he doesn’t know what it is or when it’ll happen. He said that there are people who don’t want a werewolf to save them, and they’ve been fighting to make the prophecy not come to pass. He doesn’t know who they are but they hate us and have been trying to make the rest of the magical world hate us and that’s why they spread those terrible rumors about you. 

When I asked him why we couldn’t tell you he said it was because he thinks the prophecy is about me, and that you would be afraid that I had some kind of crazy destiny and not want me to leave your sight if you knew about it. I’m still not sure he’s right, I don’t know how I’m supposed to stop a disaster, I’m just a kid! It felt wrong when he said to keep it a secret, and he told me it hurt him not to tell you but that he didn’t think you were ready to know. 

I was going to keep pressing to try and find out more but then he did that blessing, the one that was so bright. It started with a prayer I’ve never heard him do before. He begged the triple moon goddesses to protect and guide me, and that’s when the glowing started. I could feel the moonlight on my skin like a blanket! It’s what Amalthea must have been talking about when she said I was touched by the moon. Ever since the night he did the blessing I’ve felt more powerful, and my senses have been stronger even when I’m not shifted. Also last night she did something and she said it would make the mark visible, and when I came inside professor Snape was waiting there by the doors and when I shifted back to talk to him he said that there was a golden crescent moon on my forehead like a tattoo - but by the time I remembered to look in the morning it was gone!

You remember that I wrote professor Snape to give him a formal apology from the house of Black for Sirius nearly killing him, well… I don’t think I ever told you but I also gave him quite a bit of money. Like, kind of a lot. Gornuk told me a fair wergild for the situation was 30,000 galleons and I wanted to really let him know I meant business and that his life had meaning so I gave him four times that. I know it’s a lot but we can afford it! It didn’t even make a dent in the vaults, and it felt like the responsible thing to do seeing as he’s had werewolf related trauma his whole life since that happened. I know it’s technically my money, but that’s another thing I should have told you about and I’m sorry I didn’t. 

Anyways, he wrote back saying how much it meant to him that someone finally apologized and took the risk to his life seriously, and he’s been very kind to me since I got to school. Comparatively. He really is quite intimidating, and a bit of a bastard to the rest of the student body in general if I’m being honest. He really seemed to appreciate me helping him with his ingredients though. And when I got back to the castle last night and he saw Amalthea running alongside me he was so funny, he demanded an explanation - said he’d just let me out for a bark and a wee and what was I doing playing with a unicorn! When I finally got back to my dorm last night I nearly laughed myself silly thinking about him saying it looking so serious and grim. 

Anyways - I’m pretty sure that’s all Óffy said, but Amalthea said something about destiny too. She said the two of us are champions of the moon goddesses and that we have to fight a war together. If I hadn’t been so entranced by her I probably would have been really scared! She said the goddesses chose her as their voice and me as their sword, and that we have to do the moon’s work. It was honestly pretty confusing, and I didn’t think to ask the questions I probably should have, she just had such a powerful wonderful aura. 

Part of me was certain I’d never see her again the moment I walked out of the forest, but she promised I would. I don’t know if it’ll stay that way or if her magic made it permanent, but when I transformed in front of her my wolf form was enormous! I was as tall at my shoulder as she was at her back - like the horse part of her back. It made the run back three times as fast as it was to get out there into the deep woods. I hate to say this but I was definitely bigger than you. No question about it, and I’m still a growing girl! 

I told you about meeting the elves in the kitchens and how they wanted to join the goblins rebellion, right? Well when we were talking to them the weirdest thing happened - Kipper started trying to answer a question she apparently wasn’t supposed to be able to talk about and it was like she was having a seizure! The head elf Nilly (or Nilliams? Still not sure which one is his actual name) said it was because we’re not actually human so he could mention it in front of us but not actually say anything about it, but that because we’re her masters Kipper might actually be able to tell us about it if she tries hard enough, but we didn’t want her to hurt herself so Harry told her to stop. It seems like there must be some kind of spell on house elves that prevents them from talking about certain things. All we did was ask her if elves in general were happy serving wizards, and that was enough to trigger it! She called it a geas, and the centaurs seemed to know about it when I asked them last night. 

I really want to know more but I don’t want to risk Kip. I felt so bad for pushing and triggering the spell. I’m gonna send this letter back with her so it gets to you faster. Plus, you can send her back again as quick as a whistle if you need to know anything else I might have forgotten. She’s missed having a family to take care of, you should let her help you out around the house a bit while she’s there!

That’s all I can remember right now that seems relevant? If there’s more it’s stuff I genuinely forgot, not anything else that I kept secret on purpose. So much has been going on and it’s been a lot to keep straight in my head. Amalthea told me there was a bunch of other stuff the centaurs needed to tell me, and that I could come back to find out another time. Maybe we could do that together? I’d love for you to meet my new friends, and maybe even her if she’s there too. It almost feels like she was just a beautiful dream, I’d like it if someone else could meet her and say she’s real. 

Love you dad
Hermione :)

Fenrir’s mind raced as he read his daughter’s second letter of the day. A prophecy? A chosen champion? Just what was going on with his child? He had always said she was special, but for the first time ever the thought made his stomach turn to lead rather than his chest to glow with pride. Special drew attention. Special got called to action. Special was considered the property of the masses, belonging to the public. Special was expected to put others first and themselves on the line. 

He made eye contact with Remus who was patiently waiting in the comfortable armchair across the coffee table from him, and remembered what this had all been about finding out. He nodded grimly, looking back down at the pages and hating what he saw written there “Ófnir explicitly told her I wouldn’t let her go to school if she told me, and he did it at the party the night before she was due to leave. He manipulated my child into lying to me, and he did it twenty fucking feet away from me. Then when she tried to question him he put on that light show to distract her and everyone else away from his misdeeds,” he growled, shaking his head and curling his lip in disgust.

“I don’t even know how to perceive a treachery like this, or what to do about it. It isn’t just a simple betrayal of trust.  He’s told me over and over again that there’s something he knows that I’m not ready to hear, practically since he joined my pack and became my beta - and that was decades before my daughter was born… Even if there really is a prophecy and he does actually think it’s about her, then there still must be something else he knows but isn’t telling me as well,” he reasoned, feeling overwhelmed and monumentally out of his depth. Remus hadn’t said a word yet, but his silent support and the strong grip he held his hands in was somehow exactly what he needed in that moment to stay sane. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next few days swam by like his head was underwater. He wasn’t sure what to do, and so for the time being he did nothing. Kipper visited regularly, popping into his kitchen to make him meals and clean in a flurry before he could get there to do it himself. Her food was rich and filling and delicious, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so well. He vaguely remembered going to restaurants with his mother on a few very special occasions when he was a child, and it reminded him of that. Something he hadn’t ever really indulged in, food was for fuel and it didn’t have to be fancy. When he ate in his wolf form or when his fur was particularly close to the skin, it didn’t even necessarily have to be cooked for him to enjoy it. It was a change of pace, but it was appreciated. The little creature made him feel well taken care of. 

Having shared secret knowledge will always bring two people closer together, but he felt especially drawn to Remus in the days since they had uncovered Ófnir’s treachery. He had already felt burgeoning romantic feelings for the man, and they only grew fonder and more tender in response to the way he stood by him and supported him through such a tumultuous time. He hadn’t gone back to the men’s dorm since, and Fenrir was nervously considering asking him to stay with him permanently in his home. It would be a big step, but he had spent enough time analyzing and second guessing his feelings - he knew they were real and he knew what he wanted. 

On Saturday morning, just when he was finally psyching himself up to ask the other man to move in, Fenrir received yet another letter from his daughter. After reading it he was so beside himself that he was sincerely tempted to go down to the school himself and drag his children home with him by their ears. How did they keep getting themselves into these situations?

Written in Amalthea’s hut
Centaur village
Forbidden forest
Hogwarts grounds
Near Hogsmeade, Scotland 

Dad,

I’m not really sure how to even begin to describe what’s happened, but it’s a true miracle. Like from the actual goddesses. After realizing that Amalthea’s connection with the moon might help me fix whatever was keeping Harry from being able to shift freely, I brought him to the woods to meet her. We asked permission and everything, and professor Snape escorted us last night after dinner. 

She took the two of us into her hut and guided us into a meditative state. I don’t know what I was expecting, but somehow through prayer and being a certifiable divine priestess of the moon she was able to bring us before the triple goddesses themselves. It must have been an astral projection of some sort or a spirit walk, but it was so real. We were really there dad, in their celestial plane standing before them on the surface of an ocean. The goddesses Selene and Artemis and Hekate spoke to us and it was wonderful. 

We met them and they told us so much and healed Harry’s wolf spirit. It wasn’t anything I did wrong at all dad, my bite was true! Harry’s wolf was sick and hurt from when you-know-who attacked him as a baby, and the two of us have been sharing mine ever since apparently. The goddesses worked incredible unbelievable magic to fix him and it was like nothing I’ve ever seen or even dared to imagine before. 

I don’t know how or why but we were twin spirits even before we met. They made us that way and planned it before we were ever even born. They have so much planned for us, I have no idea what but I’m shaking with the thrill of doing their work through my hands. Our lives are to be lived in devotion to them until they call for us again, that’s the task they’ve given us - to worship them enough that their powers are sufficiently built up do some great work. I don’t understand it but I don’t need to. It’s the purpose that they made us for. 

I’ll answer any other questions you have but it’s been such a long night and the centaurs let us sleep here since the two of us ran for hours after Harry’s first free transformation. I still can’t believe it, I was so sure for so long it was something I did wrong, and it’s such an enormous weight off my chest to see him shift at will. I’ve never felt happier or more satisfied in my entire life. His wolf looks just like him dad, black fur and bright green eyes. It’s a miracle. 

He would send his love but he has refused to shift back to two legs for even a moment since last night. He’s a very happy brat. 

Love you and wish you could have been with us,
Praise and thanks to the goddesses of the moon,
In the name of the Ladies Selene and Artemis and Hekate,
Hermione

Tears streamed down Fenrir’s cheeks, and he covered his mouth to hide how quickly his breath was coming. He wanted to howl with joy that his baby boy was healthy and his children had been so honored and favored by the goddesses, and scream with rage that this had happened without him there and that his babies had such an unimaginably weighty burden placed upon their little shoulders. It was miraculous like she’d said, but it wasn’t fair. Why did his children have to be the ones to change the world? Why couldn’t it be him, or any other adult who at the very least could meaningfully consent to such an undertaking?

He felt his lover’s hands on his face wiping away his tears, and he leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and allowing himself to whimper and wubble and be soft and vulnerable. The man had earned the right to see this side of him that meekly peered out of him on occasion, leaving him irritable and sensitive in its wake. Even the alpha couldn’t always bear the entire weight of everyone’s problems alone. It had been a long ten years that he had been by himself, and the support of having someone here beside him while he was so in his own head was such a relief he could scarcely believe it. 

“Shush my love, you’re alright. It’s going to be fine, just fine,” Remus whispered softly, caressing his face and stroking his hair. And upon reflection he found that he believed him, with this man by his side everything would turn out okay. He sniffled and snuffled the gunk in his nose away and straightened himself up, pressing a kiss to the man’s forehead as he did. “Thank you, I really needed that,” he rasped, feeling hoarse and run ragged but clear-headed. “I need to write to professor McGonagall and get those two home. It’s well past time I spoke to my children face to face.”

Chapter Text

On Saturday morning after finally returning to the castle from the woods happy but exhausted, Hermione had sent their father a thorough and very honest letter about the weird and wonderful hijinks they had gotten up to the night before. By that afternoon she had received a note via school elf from their head of house instructing her and her brother to both pack overnight bags and report to her office as quickly as possible. 

It was the 21st, and the full moon wouldn’t be at its height until Monday. As far as she knew they hadn’t made any plans to go home for more than just the afternoon and night of the full itself. She tried to hold back her fear of repudiation - after all, she had taken the initiative to be forthcoming like he said he would always appreciate. He was probably just concerned and wanted to lay eyes on them. Normal overprotective dad stuff. 

After saying goodbye to their dorm mates and asking Neville to tell their cousins they’d gone home early the pair of them made their way nervously up to professor McGonagall’s office above the main transfiguration classroom. Hermione clutched her brother’s hand tightly outside the door, excited and terrified all at the same time. She’d never been afraid to see her father before, and just the thought of it sent a jarring and profoundly wrong sensation through her like her fur being rubbed the wrong direction. 

Harry squeezed her hand back and sighed contentedly like he had been all morning so far “He’s not going to be mad at you Neens, he’s going to see me shift into a great bloody wolf and be absolutely thrilled out of his bloody gourd. He might shit a brick, but I promise you he’s going to be beside himself with joy… and if he isn’t then I’ll just have to bite him myself, won’t I?” He said with a smirk and a laugh. 

She rubbed her shoulder against his silently, pushing appreciation tinged with the doubt she still felt through the link that existed between them still. They were currently separated into their own two individual bodies but the bridge between them was open and primed, and they would be keeping it that way for the time being. Should they wish to do so again, they knew it would be as easy as breathing to merge themselves together like they had the night before. Though their spiritual shenanigans hadn’t come with instructions, it had been very plain to the two of them that they would always remain connected for the rest of their lives. They had been divinely endowed and imbued with the abilities they had explored in the celestial plane, and they were a part of them now forever. 

“If he’s mad at you then he’s mad at us both,” Harry added more seriously, sensing her nerves and wishing he could soothe them. He lifted his fist and knocked on the door in front of them, pulling her along through it with him when it opened. It should have been obvious that a proud Scot like professor McGonagall would decorate with tartan, but a startled laugh still escaped him unintentionally when he saw she had an entire wall painted in the vibrant pattern. With all the rich reds and golds it was just as cozy and inviting as the Gryffindor common room.

As they entered her office the professor stood up behind her desk and beckoned them over to the hearth. She lit a fire and took a box of floo powder down from the mantelpiece, and eyed them knowingly “Your father has written me requesting that the two of you come home for all three days of the full moon so that you’ll have time to adjust to having been away from home for the first time. As it is currently the weekend and this is still your very first month of school, I will allow it this once. You’re excused through Tuesday and I expect to see you back here in my office on Wednesday morning. In the future you will be allowed to leave in the morning on the day of the full moon and will be excused for the entire day, but will be expected back the day after. I will not make exceptions again unless there are legitimate extenuating circumstances.” She smiled tightly, but her brow was furrowed and she was clearly conflicted.  

“Your father and Mr Rowle fought for you before the school board to have the same rights as the other students and not be treated unfairly. Even though they were successful and the contract was signed, I’m sure there are still many who would like to see you removed from here permanently. This should come as no surprise, but as much as I like all of my lions I’m quite fond of the two of you in particular. Therefore I will be doing my best to avoid giving you preferential treatment so as not to call attention or give those fools any reason to complain. They won’t be able to point a single finger at any impropriety if I have my way, real or imagined,” she said, and they both rushed forward to hug her. She chuckled and patted their backs. 

“Not to beat a dead horse but this is exactly what I was talking about, my dears” she remarked dryly, and they both laughed. Hermione took a conservative pinch of the powder between her fingers and tossed it into the fireplace, calling out their home address “We’ll behave professor, we promise. And we love you too!” She said cheekily, leaping into the flames before the woman could respond, and Harry was delighted to see twin spots of color on her cheeks and a true grin on her face. He waved at the professor and jumped into the fireplace after his sister. 

When they finally stopped spinning they crawled out of the hearth in the cottage, desperately glad to see it for the first time in weeks. The scents of home washed over them and their father rushed into the living room from the kitchen, striding towards them like a man possessed. Within an instant they were scooped up into his arms and he was hugging them both within an inch of their lives. “You’re alright, you’re here with me, you’re safe. Goddesses above, let me look at you,” he exclaimed, holding them at arms length and inspecting them head to toe. 

He poked and prodded and ran his hands over their shoulders and down their arms, but they were truly fine. He shook his head and smiled warmly “You two have got to stop scaring the very life out of me. Let me see you, my boy. I want to meet you properly,” he said softly, his eyes already wet. Remus came in from the kitchen and watched from the doorway with a dish towel over one shoulder, a tender smile on his face. 

“You’re going to need to back up a bit,” Harry said with a cheeky grin, and their father laughed and retreated barely a foot or two, unwilling to be any farther from either of them so soon after they’d come home to him. Shaking out his arms and legs and bouncing on the balls on his feet, the color of their shared green magic washed over him in a wave of shimmering sparkles and he transformed right there in the living room. Their father was bowled over as he grew and grew and grew to the size of a horse, two enormous paws landing on his chest and thoroughly knocking the wind out of him. 

“Goddesses above but you really weren’t exaggerating,” he wheezed disbelievingly, patting Harry’s side heartily with one hand and bringing his other up to brush the fur back from his eyes “What a handsome thing you are, my son. What a miracle this is,” he said breathlessly, tears welling in his eyes. Harry lay down fully on top of their father, nuzzling his snout into the crook of his neck and licking his chin. 

Suddenly his head whipped up, and he stared at Remus where he was still standing leaning against the doorway. He looked back down at their father and lowered his head again to sniff deep. Like a shot he was across the room with his nose in Remus’ armpit. Seconds later he had pulled back and had a paw lifted, pointing back and forth between the two men. 

“Holy shit, he’s right. The two of you smell exactly like the boys dorm,” Hermione said from where she was knelt by the hearth, looking a little green around the gills but otherwise happy and clearly having immediately picked up on what her brother had just discovered “alright dad! Oi-oi-oi, who would have guessed you’ve still got game, old man?” she said with incredulous delight, which had the two men sputtering and Harry yowling with wolfy laughter. “So are you boyfriends or is it casual?” She asked with all the graceful tact of a bludger. Their father’s face flamed beet red and Remus had covered his with his hands, his shoulders trembling with quiet laughter. 

“Young lady you had an audience with the moon goddesses themselves, don’t you try and turn this around on me,” their father retorted weakly, to which she snorted with laughter and scoffed “Yes I absolutely did, and they were glorious and magnificent. All earthly praises be to my ladies Selene and Artemis and Hekate. And thanks to their divine blessing one of us could probably officiate if we’re going to be holding important pack ceremonies anytime soon,” she said with a smirk, waggling her eyebrows up and down suggestively. 

Their father’s mouth opened and shut several times, little more than a wheezy hiss of air coming out. He tipped his head back to look at Remus, who was standing so still and silently he looked like a deer frozen in place. The man inhaled sharply and seemed to come back to himself “That’s very kind of you to offer, dear heart, but I think you might be getting a bit ahead of yourself. Your father and I like each other very much but this is also very new. Give us some time to find our footing, aye?” He said, crossing his arms and looking at the three of them very fondly. She pouted “Only because you asked so nicely” she said with a huff. 

Realizing Harry had the right idea and that she could put off difficult conversations if she was incapable of human speech, she briefly thanked the goddesses and shifted into her own wolf form to lay down on the floor next to her father and brother. The living room really was becoming cramped with two enormous wolves taking up so much of the space. Remus came over and sat down next to her, petting the scruff of her neck and inspecting her carefully “Merciful Merlin, you were so little when we saw you last. Barely bigger than a dog! It’s hard to believe this happened in a single night. Did you have any growing pains?” He asked curiously, and she shook her head in the negative before laying it down heavily across his lap. 

He carefully lifted the side of her lip and pulled it up so he could see her teeth, pressing his palm to his forehead when he caught sight of them. “Your teeth are as big as my hand! You really could do some terrible damage with those things, young lady,” he exhaled incredulously. She lolled her tongue out and licked the hand that held her cheek, looking up at him with huge innocent puppy eyes “Well I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to but you’ve got to be careful with them nonetheless, darling. I’m a werewolf as well and my old heart still nearly skipped a beat just seeing those teeth,” he said a bit tremulously. 

She whined and rolled over onto her back, her huge head laying in his lap like a baby with her paws folded up by her chest. “You’re the size of a horse, you have teeth like daggers, and you must be something like five hundred pounds now - how are you still so bloody adorable?” He moaned helplessly, rubbing the fur under her chin and laughing as her tail started to thump the floor. “Unbearably cute. It’s so unfair, I’ve never once in my life had puppy eyes like that,” he complained, to Harry and Fenrir’s laughter and yowls. His words gave her pause though, and she looked up at him askance. 

“What is it sweetheart? I can see you’ve got something rattling around in that big lovely brain of yours,” he quipped with a grin, ruffling the fur on her muzzle. She sneezed at him, and then so so so gently she clamped her teeth shut over his forearm. Making eye contact with him, and then looking pointedly at Harry, she looked back at him. Questioningly. Waiting for him to connect the pieces. It didn’t take him long. He looked at her, and then at her brother, and then down at his own arm, and then back at her. 

He nodded hesitantly, and rolled up his sleeve, giving her precious willing access to his bare wrist. Goosebumps rose on the skin there and his arm hair stood on end.  

She lay flat on the floor so as not to overwhelm him, and licked his arm sweetly as if asking him if he was positively sure. He nodded again, and only winced for a moment when her teeth sliced past his skin like it was made of butter and embedded themselves deep into his flesh. Across the room her father shouted and made to rise, but Remus held his other hand up to stop him, shaking his head. Around the pair of them her magic was invoking, she’d never done it in her wolf form before, and the white walls of the living room were taking on a sea green glow as they reflected it. 

It wasn’t exactly like biting Harry had been, she didn’t know it at the time but when she’d bitten him as a child his wolf soul had been so weak and hurt that what she’d really done was little more than tie her own up to it like a muggle IV crash cart to keep it stable. He had never shifted before then and she had to teach his body how to be a wolf from scratch. Remus had a healthy wolf soul, but it was wild and it was so angry. He’d started to try and make amends with it for the way he’d let it be bound and imprisoned for so long, but it still carried the memory and the rage and resentment of being treated like a nightmarish inconvenience. It was still giving Remus a hard time for what it considered a lifetime of disrespect and indignity. 

With her teeth she softly scolded it, whispered to it of the world’s cruelties and his fears and her father’s mistake. She took its razor sharp claws and blunted them, and its wicked teeth and dulled them, and its swirling tumultuous anger and gentled it. She took its loneliness and showed it the dozens of young men and old men and women and girls and boys of the huge pack it was now a part of. She took its sadness and she showed it her form and her brothers form and her fathers form and the little family it was now a part of. She took the tips of its ears and the end of its tail and pulled and rearranged them so that they were overlaid with the head and the spine of the man. The wolf soul and the human soul merged, and when her teeth pulled free of his limb it was no longer an arm but a furry foreleg. 

He was nowhere near as large as her or her brother, but he was bigger than she had been before. He was probably about the size of a true wolf, she thought absentmindedly. That’s what he was now after all - the goddesses had been right, her bite was as true as they had intended. She looked over to where her brother and father were sitting and saw the same sight mirrored, Harry had their father’s arm in his mouth and blood dripped. His expression was absolutely thunderstruck, and he still hadn’t taken his eyes off of her and Remus. He barely blinked down at his own fresh bite, when he suddenly transformed in an instant into his wolf form. 

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but she found herself disappointed that he was the same size as he’d been before. Larger than Remus was now, but still smaller than either her or Harry. He was their father, he was the alpha, he should be the biggest and strongest. As delighted as she was and as right as the situation felt, her gut told her something still wasn’t perfect. She would examine that later though. The puppy pile was calling her name. She nosed Remus up from where he was still looking down at his own paws in fascination, and nudged him across to the other two. 

I had some work to do, like the work the goddesses did on you she let slip through her mind to her brother in the space they shared, how did it go with dad? She thought, pushing it towards the part of her that was always Harry.

Easy as tying the ends together, the wolf and human souls just needed a push to connect fully, he told her, he took to it as well as you did in the celestial plane. 

She lay down next to him heavily, watching pleased as punch while Remus and their father curled up around each other sweetly. Did you see that coming? She asked cheekily, and was surprised at his response.

You’re joking right? The very first time he came to visit ended with dad grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and vowing that he had a place here. I’ve been waiting for this for an entire year. I never would have guessed it would take them this long to figure it out between themselves.  

…Huh, okay. I guess that makes sense now that I think about it. Who’d have thought you’d be the love expert between the two of us? Do you think it’s gonna be weird for them that dad had a mate? I wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to move on, honestly. 

Remus had a mate too, your cousin Sirius was his life partner before it all happened. 

Really? How’d you find that out?

He told me as much. Accidentally let slip that they were both jealous of my parents’ wedding and had started planning their own. They never got around to it, its why Remus had such a hard time after Sirius was arrested. They never made it official so he didn’t have access to their joint accounts and he was on the streets here and there for a while. Don’t let him know I told you, he’s very embarrassed by it and I could tell he didn’t really want me to know. He just got caught up one day telling me about them and said more than he meant to. 

That’s terrible, poor Remus! So I guess he and dad have that in common, losing their mate. That’s so sad, but I’m glad they’ve found each other. 

Yeah, I can see it working out for them well long term.  

He nosed her side with his snout, and then covered his eyes with his paws. They both drifted off into a warm and happy sleep in their childhood home, surrounded by the sensation of being cherished. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Murmurations drew her from sleeping, and her eyes blinked open languidly. Her father looked small where he was sat on his bum beside her, his hand was buried to the wrist in the fur on the back of her neck and he and Remus were softly discussing the events that had transpired. She knew for a fact that she had requested Remus’ permission to invigorate his abilities, no matter how obliquely. She wasn’t as sure that her brother had obtained the same explicit approval from their father beforehand. She sincerely hoped he had. She hoped more than anything that it had been something he wanted. 

With her much more supple and flexible spine, she twisted her neck around and nosed at him. Questioning, but also seeking comfort. He always said there was nothing she could ever do for her to lose his love, but she still always feared that she would someday find the thing that would prove the exception to the rule and do it. Would turning him like this without discussing it first be the bridge too far, the straw that broke the camel’s back? Suddenly she was terrified and she whined loudly several times, burying her head in his side and derailing the conversation they were having. 

“What’s wrong little wolf? Well… no, I’m not calling you big wolf, you’ll always be my little wolf, no matter how big you get. But what is it my girl?” He asked, stroking the silky top of her head, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes. She closed them and whined again, and from behind her she heard her brother say “She’s afraid I bit you without asking first and that you’re going to disown the pair of us,” She whined even louder, sounding utterly pathetic to her own ears but unable to stop herself. 

“And how exactly do you know what she’s thinking?” Their father asked Harry mildly, and though she couldn’t see his face she knew he had a single brow raised. That tone and that brow always went together when he was trying to root out misbehavior. “Twin stuff with a boost from the goddesses,” he retorted cheekily, and she huffed and snorted with amusement. 

Their father looked down at her huge head, nearly the size of his torso, and she very conspicuously put her paws over her nose to hide her face. He chuckled, and rubbed her ears fondly “You gonna take that fur off and tell me about meeting the literal deities that we revere who apparently created and blessed you both? Or are you just gonna let me stew on that one a bit longer,” he asked, poking the tip of her nose to get her attention. She whuffed and transformed back and was talking almost before she had a human mouth again. 

“Dad the letter I sent you doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was incredible. I wish I could just take you into my memory of it. Harry, help me out here.”

“It was very magical.”

“Well said, Dickens.”

The pair of them spent the entire rest of the afternoon describing every last detail of their audience with the goddesses that they could remember with the two men, nearly talking themselves hoarse. Their father and Remus were fairly shell shocked, struck speechless by what the children had experienced. There was one bit he was particularly hung up on though.

“I still can’t wrap my head around Severus Snape escorting a mixed house group of first years into the forbidden forest out of the goodness of his heart. Doesn’t he notoriously hate children?” Remus asked, genuinely gobsmacked at the very thought of it. Hermione blushed and was forced to fill him in on having eavesdropped his conversation with Harry and writing the professor and everything that had had come of that. “I’m glad you made things right with Severus, it was wrong what Sirius did to him. But did you really just give him nearly a million pounds because you had it to give away?” He asked in frustrated confusion

“Is that how much you gave him? Jesus Christ, Nene. We ought to call you miss moneybags,” her brother said. She stuck her tongue out at him “Look at the way she constantly torments me. I have emotional damages, I need a weregild too!” He announced dramatically, to Remus and their father’s laughter. 

Despite her usually playful nature, she was deeply unamused “That man had a horrific and deeply traumatizing experience with a werewolf, even if it wasn’t Remus’ fault. At every opportunity for the rest of his life he would have done whatever he could to further the anti-werewolf agenda if I hadn’t actively taken steps to change his mind. He was a walking talking piece of political propaganda for those who think we are little more than beasts who should be killed before we can infect others. The price I paid was twofold - it was the right thing to do, and it was a lobby for him to consider a different perspective. That we can be kind and considerate and human. He’s going to think twice now when he thinks about us. We’re not all just vicious beasts. Some of us are little girls who give away a small fortune to do right by a sad lonely scared man,” she ranted, shoulders drawing up and arms crossing in front of her chest defensively. 

“And also she knew she had my permission so she went a little wild on that one,” their father added. 

“Honestly he’s the least important part of the story, I don’t know how you can hear about the goddesses literally manifesting before us and be interested in why professor Snape was there. He just was! I thought it would be smart to have a staff member know where we were and he was the only one I could think of that I might be able to convince,” she admitted. Then proceeded to tell them all about the first potions class they’d had with him and how he’d let her out of the castle on her first excursion. She hesitated to tell them about how he’d used legilimency on her, but she had promised her father her honesty and she wasn’t about to drop the ball this far along. 

He looked absolutely incandescently furious when he heard, and Remus looked like he was going to be sick “He’s a natural legilimens, he would use the ability to taunt us when we were in school with him. Imagine being in the middle of a fight with someone and they can project an image or idea of something shocking or disgusting or horrible right into your mind. It was the most potent weapon in his arsenal, and he used it like a switchblade between the ribs whenever the odds against him looked bleak,” he told them wearily.

She didn’t want to say it aloud to Remus because she loved and respected him, but she privately thought that if it had been four vs one against her and she had such an effective, ability she could easily see herself using it liberally and viciously. The thought must have slipped through to Harry because she could see him contemplating it and then he nodded at her meaningfully. He would do the same in a heartbeat, any advantage in a fight was a good thing. 

“Professor Snape said he uses his legilimency for discipline, to do surface scans and make sure no one’s lying or cheating or causing trouble. He said it was an accident that he dove so deep into my memories, and he looked like he felt terrible about it,” she argued in his defense. Her father and Remus stared at each other aghast, “Little wolf that doesn’t make it better, that makes it worse. He’s so used to scanning without asking that he fell right into your mind. That’s not the hallmark of a good man. Mental shields are very important, and by regularly diving in he’s risking breaking them or making them vulnerable to attack,” her father argued vehemently. 

“What he’s doing isn’t good teaching, it’s careless and lazy. Not to mention unoriginal. He’s invading his students brains to find out what bad things they’ve done or might do without even giving them a chance to properly confess or change their minds. Where have you heard that before, hmm?” Remus asked pointedly, and she groaned “That’s like the thoughtcrimes in 1984,” she said, feeling stupid for not seeing it that way sooner. It had made sense and seemed normal enough when she was in his office, even though he had been so apologetic. Maybe she really should have taken him at his word about how bad what he did had been. 

“Well I don’t know what we can do about it now, he said he was sorry and he took us into the woods to make up for it. We might have been able to sneak out without his help but if we’d have been caught it could have gone badly. Harry’s wolf is healed because we were able to get out to go see Amalthea, and now yours are too,” she said, not feeling like arguing any longer but wanting to make sure her thoughts were clearly known. She laid back against the legs of the sofa where she sat on the ground next to her father, tired and stretched a little thin. “He said he could go to Azkaban for going in my mind like he did, but I thought he was just being a drama queen,” she said looking up at him with tears forming in her eyes. 

He clutched at her shoulders and pulled her into his arms, rocking her back and forth “Shush now, you didn’t do anything wrong my darling girl. You told me what happened and now you don’t have to worry about it anymore, I’ll figure this one out for us little wolf,” his voice rasped softly into her ear and he pressed his cheek against the top of her head. She started to cry in earnest and he just held her and rocked, petting her hair and humming. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When she woke up again it was early morning and she was in her own bed. She heard her brother and her dad and Remus downstairs in the kitchen, and followed her nose that told her good smells were there with them. The Hogwarts elves were wonderful and the food they made was spectacular, but no one could cook for a werewolf like a werewolf. Well before she crossed the threshold she could smell the meat and her mouth was watering. She’d been utterly nauseated the first time she saw one of her house mates contentedly bite into a well done piece of meat, and the image of its greyish insides had haunted her afterwards for days. 

The steak waiting for her was barely more than seared on the outsides, and the plate it sat on had a puddle of enticing red juice pooled beneath it. Loaded up next to it were fluffy yellow scrambled eggs and crispy fried potatoes. Her absolute favorites. He’d even made her a cup of tea just the way she liked it. She scurried over to her dad and pressed a kiss to the side of his head “Smells so goooood,” she mumbled, thanking him and taking her seat. She only barely remembered her new obligation before digging in. 

Sighing with her fork and knife held over her meal, she put them back down and held her open palms facing up at the level of her shoulder above her plate “All earthly praises be to the goddesses Selene and Artemis and Hekate that shaped me and saw me birthed into this world. Thank you for letting my bite remain true and allowing me to give my father and his… boyfriend? …your divine gift. Thank you for this meal that feeds me, this house that shelters me, my father and brother and Remus who love me, and this pack I run with. The wolves you made your blessed light for hunted the animal that became this meal and I eat it in gratitude and devotion to you, my ladies,” she chanted in a rush. The air around her tingled with magic as if she had invoked it, but there were no visual effects to be seen.

Picking her fork and knife back up, she ate like a creature starved. Nearly weeping with how good the steak tasted. She could tell from the density of the muscle fibers that ran along her tongue that the elk it came from had lived a good life running and jumping and enjoying being a wild thing, and its meat was absolutely delicious. Her father was frozen with his fork halfway to his mouth, staring at her like she’d grown a second head. Remus looked fascinated, as if he had a million questions he wanted to ask her and then go cross-reference in the library. 

Harry on the other hand sat across from her looking decidedly sheepish, and she realized he’d probably forgotten to do his. With a disappointed groan she put her fork and knife back down, hands held up over her plate once more “And please forgive my forgetful brother who is equally devoted but in his defense happens to be a hungry boy, in the name of the moon goddesses, praise and thanks be to them” she said rolling her eyes and picking her utensils back up again. 

“I ought to start calling you little priestess,” her father muttered, “we don’t need to start doing that too, do we?” He asked a bit reluctantly. She tiled her head side to side thoughtfully “I’d really appreciate it if you did. The goddesses said to live our lives in service to praising them and letting others know about them so that they might also worship them. It’d probably be dead helpful if the whole pack started doing little prayers to the goddesses. In fact,” she said glancing at her brother “I was thinking we should get permission from the headmaster and maybe the school board to start a lunar temple somewhere on the grounds. Wizards are so weird in so many ways, I bet there’s tons of them that worship old gods without even having the connection to them that we do, and every extra prayer is power in our ladies’ pockets,” She remarked astutely. 

“You’re really serious aren’t you?” Her father said incredulously. She nodded in agreement, still eating. “They just said you’d have to pray to them like that all the time? For the rest of your lives?” He asked, sounding like she’d had something stolen from her. She shook her head emphatically “No dad, there’s going to come a time in the future when we’ve sort of built up enough of a divine well of power for them to do something that they can’t currently do. When we’ve prayed enough and had other people pray enough that they have the strength for whatever it is they need to do, they’ll call us back to them and we’ll help make it happen,” she said much more confidently than she felt.

In reality she was nervous that they would need to spend a good deal of their lives in devotion before seeing any actual results. 

But wasn’t that the ultimate fate of the faithful, taking leaps of faith? 

“Alright, then we’re behind you 100% of the way,” her father said, his proud approval at her determination rumbling in his chest and ringing in her ears. He set down his own knife and fork and gave a brief but sincere thanks to the goddesses that Remus and then Harry both repeated. They all looked to her with raised brows for approval, and she beamed with delight “Thank you, both of you. I’m sure every little bit helps!” She assured the adults gratefully. 

As they finished their breakfast together, their father kept shooting her and her brother curious looks. She let him stew a bit, and eventually he cleared his throat and brought up what had been on his mind “We have a few days before you have to go back to school, and in that time I’d like to get everything out on the table and all our housekeeping taken care of. I was very proud of you for your letter telling me everything that’s been going on with the two of you at school, but I need to know more about this business with the goblins. How did it even start?” He asked with a furrowed brow “Did they reach out to you about their plans?”

With a little smirk on her face, she pulled the letters her and her brother had gotten back from Griphook and Gornuk out of her trouser pocket and handed them both to him “I had a feeling that’s what you’d want to discuss first,” she said cleverly “we got these the same morning that I sent off a letter to Gornuk casually asking why there weren’t any goblin children at the school. It occurred to me that there might be tons of their kids that didn’t get school letters just like most of ours, and I wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case. Unfortunately it seems like it is,” she said with a frown. 

She waited patiently while he passed one to Remus, and then they swapped. He sighed heavily, scratching his fingers through his scraggly hair a bit roughly “They weren’t messing around trying to recruit the two of you to their rebellion, these are incredibly manipulative. But in their defense you reached out first, and two sympathetic little lords are good allies anyone in their position would want to cultivate,” he reasoned, and she felt a small burst of pride at having such a clever father. She knew everyone always said she was too insightful for her own good, but she hoped to one day be even half as able to so easily see the truth of things as he could. 

“I know I said I wouldn’t after what happened to Nene, but I think I’m ready to claim my heir ring so I can at least assign a proxy to serve in my stead on the wizengamot. I don’t think I should put it off any longer,” her brother said. Their father glanced at him “You want to, or you think your sister wants you to - so you’ll do it to make her happy?” He pressed, and she felt a brief flash of resentment, she would never make him do something he didn’t want to! Well… nothing he really really didn’t want to do. 

“No dad, it may have started as her idea but it’s important to me too. I think the time is right, and that when we go back to school you and Remus should serve as our seat proxies. Neville explained to us how his gran sits the Longbottom seat for him because he’s only the heir and not the lord. The start of the next legislative session is coming up soon, and we shouldn’t let it pass us by. If we get you sworn in then you can join from the very beginning and get a jump on looking for other lords who might be willing to make alliances and help with the type of changes we want to make,” he argued, and both of the adults at the table was surprised by how much thought he’d given it. Hermione was just beaming like a little ray of sunshine, proud of how passionately he had become for their cause. 

“I’ve already thought of an idea for a name you can use” she added excitedly “WLFPAC - Wizards and Lycan Friends Progressive Action Committee,” she announced proudly, brows raised in anticipation. Her father and Remus were both clearly trying not to laugh, and she frowned in disappointment “Do you not like it? I know it’s a bit… on the nose,” she admitted. The two of them exploded into laughter at that, and she crossed her arms in front of herself defensively “You don’t have to be rude, you can just say you don’t like it,” she huffed self-consciously. 

Her father sighed happily and scooped her up into his arms with a chuckle, pulling her into his lap and hugging her tightly “Ahh my little wolf pup, I forget how sensitive you can be sometimes! I don’t dislike it, it’s as clever as you are. The whole wizarding world is going to know exactly what we are if we choose something so bold. Maybe they should, though! Are there any laws stopping a werewolf from serving on the wizengamot if he’s a lord’s father?” He asked with a grin, rubbing his nose into her cheek. She giggled and hugged him back. 

“There aren’t, I checked the wizengamot bylaws in the library at school,” her brother mumbled sheepishly, and a dusky blush rose to his cheekbones as she turned to him in surprise. “When did you have the time?” She asked curiously, and he shrugged “you’ve been spending a lot of time with Neville” he answered a bit evasively “the two of you are very cute, but I can’t stomach it for too long before I need to get away.”

Her jaw dropped “Harry, what are you saying - have you been feeling left out?” She asked hesitantly, her voice soft and low. Her brow furrowed and he grimaced, both children distinctly uncomfortable. He didn’t shake his head no but he didn’t nod it yes either, rather it wobbled from side to side noncommittally “Not… exactly? I try to give you guys some space sometimes. Within reason. We’re eleven, and despite what the rest of the wizarding world seems to think it isn’t exactly Victorian times. The two of you don’t need a full-time chaperone to do potions homework together,” he said smartly, and her father and Remus both sputtered with laughter. 

Chapter Text

Any hope that they might have been able to get in and out of the bank without much fuss was dashed when the little family was given a very obvious royal treatment from even before the moment they crossed through the doors. The goblins in the foyer buzzed with excitement and did practically everything to welcome and greet them except roll out a red carpet. Witches and wizards doing business at the teller counter stared agog as Griphook and Gornuk came out bowing low with bright and sincere smiles on their pointy faces and shook all of their hands warmly. 

“What a delight to see the family Greyback!” Gornuk announced loudly, his little chest puffing with pride “We had hoped you might visit soon. Allow us to personally escort you back through our offices, there’s someone who’s been eager to meet you,” he said, beckoning them to follow down the same grand marbled hallway they’d visited before. When they passed in front of his familiar carved office door and paused there he chuckled impishly “Oh no, my office is not nearly fine enough to hold such an important meeting,” he grinned mischievously with all his very sharp teeth on display, and Hermione couldn’t help but giggle at him. 

Looking around to make sure there weren’t any other humans nearby, she ducked her head low and spoke to her goblin friend in a soft voice as they kept walking. “I’m really glad you weren’t upset with me, Gornuk. It didn’t occur to me how invasive my questions were until I had already sent you my letter, and I hope I didn’t put you in an awkward spot here with the higher ups,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, focusing her hearing on him and his heartbeat. It briefly picked up, but she had learned over the years that wasn’t too terribly unusual for tense conversations. 

He looked up at her and his grin softened “I am grateful for your courage to ask uncomfortable questions, my lady. You have the curiosity of a child, but the heart of a great diplomat,” he said, and she felt warm from his praise. She stopped where they stood in the middle of the hallway to bow to him deeply, and he returned it with equal sincerity. She found herself quite glad she had made friends with this creature who was so alike and so different to her in so many ways. 

“So are we going upstairs? I’ve been wondering what’s up there,” She asked curiously when they began walking again a moment later, gesturing eagerly at the gilded lift they were approaching at the end of the hallway. He barked out a hard laugh as sharp as a blade. Patting his belly, he chuckled and shook his head “Oh my no, my lady. Higher is lesser among our kind. If we went up all we’d find are the junior offices and the human staff quarters. No, we’ll have the great honor today of going down. As far underground as we can go while remaining within the walls of the bank, in fact,” he said proudly. 

She looked at him askance and grinned conspiratorially “Gornuk, are you taking us to meet your boss?” She asked excitedly, and with a matching grin and a wink of one of his gleaming black eyes he nodded subtly. She couldn’t help but exclaim softly, and suddenly felt a bit self-conscious. Glancing at her family and then down at her clothes she whispered to him “We’re not… underdressed, are we? You’d tell me if we were, right? I don’t want to insult him before we’ve even said hello,” she asked nervously, pulling at the hem of her robes to straighten them of imaginary wrinkles. 

As Gornuk opened the golden doors of the lift and ushered them in, he shook his head and his smile softened “When one’s purpose is true, it matters not the clothes they wear nor the treasures they possess. Strange words to hear from a goblin I’m sure, but few things are more valuable than a nobility of spirit and the earnest desire to do rightly, both of which you and your family carry in spades,” he assured her, and she was incredibly touched by his words. It was one thing to blow smoke up her arse if he and his people wanted something from her, but for all they were often accused of tricking witches and wizards with loopholes in contracts and laws, she had a sneaking suspicion that goblins weren’t really capable of outright lying. If that was correct then it meant he had a very high opinion of her indeed, and though she was pleased she also felt as if it were somewhat unearned. 

The doors of the lift opened and they walked out into a much more lavish and opulently decorated hallway than the one above. Rich tapestries in bold color laid out a stunning visual history of the proud race of warriors and craftspeople, and neither she nor Remus could scarcely draw their eyes away. Sconces shaped like gleaming golden fans inlaid with turquoise glass adorned the walls, cupping behind them luminous balls of light. The tinted glow from them made the hallway feel almost as if it were underwater, and Hermione held an image in her mind of a ship wrecked in shallow waters carrying innumerable treasures visible from the shoreline. Golden and blue, bright and reflective and flickering like a flame. 

Two larger goblins stood guarding the door Gornuk and Griphook were leading them towards, wearing full body suits of gleaming silver armor and holding heavy axes that crossed at the blades and barred their way. They parted when they saw them coming, and nodded as the six of them passed, holding the door and allowing them entrance. Hermione’s desperate curiosity was rewarded shortly, as the room they were led into was so beautifully decorated and everything within it was so finely made that it could have belonged to none other than the person holding the highest position the goblins held. This had to be the personal office of the chieftain himself.

The room was bigger than her house, and an entire wall of it was one massive set of bookshelves. The opposite wall held displays of armor and weapons so masterfully crafted she almost didn’t feel worthy to look at them, for she knew the complexity of their construction was surely well outside of her human understanding. A desk that looked like it had been carved entirely from the monstrous innards of a single enormous tree stood regally in a place of pride at the far end of the study, and a relatively small goblin stood in front of it. His face was by far the most youthful of any other goblin she’d seen anywhere in the bank so far, and there was a charmingly boyish grin on his face. His hair was a deep reddish brown, and flopped down over his forehead reminding her fondly of Ron. His teeth were sharp but not quite as long or menacing as she expected. Maybe goblin teeth grew with age, or they just had dozens of them like sharks. 

Like every other goblin in the bank he was dressed impeccably in a three piece suit. Where the rest of his brethren often wore suits that were too big or baggy in places, the closest approximate size that fit out of clothes made for human children rather than adult goblins, his was exquisitely tailored and fit him like a glove. It was a subtle plummy maroon, and it complimented his complexion beautifully. A gleaming silver chain hung from his waistcoat to his jacket pocket, and altogether he looked quite posh. 

Glancing next to her and realizing that Gornuk had fallen to one knee in front of his chieftain, she lowered herself into a similar position, bowing her head and waiting for him to address her first. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father hesitate and then copy her, and Remus and Harry did the same. The chieftain shook his head with a smile, “Please friends, rise! My uncle is far too formal, I would never have such honored guests lower themselves in such a way before me,” He said with good cheer, and Hermione’s brows shot up to her hairline. She looked at Gornuk askance to find him smirking at her, every one of his sharp teeth on display. She grinned and laughed loud, jostling his shoulder with her own. 

“May your blade be ever sharp, your majesty,” Hermione said, rising to her feet and slipping into a perfect courtly curtsy. She was sure Narcissa would have glowed with pride if she’d been there to see it. “And may your coffers runneth over, my lady,” the chieftain responded with a grin “You do know a thing or two about our culture, it seems,” he said delightedly.

With a thoughtfully appraising look he glanced between the members of her little family “Before the day is done I’d like you to know even more. We goblins are a secretive people, and we have steadfastly kept humans at arm’s length for all our collective memory. However, I see no humans before me here and now. I see two proud races of magical beings who have more in common with each other than we do with humans. Who can help one another, and stand stronger together than apart,” he said compellingly, planting his closed fist onto his flat palm. 

With a beckoning gesture, he led them over to a set of two cozy little couches in front of a merrily blazing fireplace. The chieftain sat in the middle of one, with more than enough room for Griphook and Gornuk to sit comfortably on either side of him. Her father on the other hand looked antsy when he realized that not all four of them would fit on one couch together, and so she rested a hand on his shoulder and sat on the arm of the couch closest to him to ease his mind. The chieftain seemed embarrassed by the seating arrangement.

Gornuk glanced pointedly between her and the empty little armchair between the couches. She could have sat there, and it might be less awkward in the long run. She frowned at him, and looked meaningfully at her father’s fists clenched anxiously on his legs and shrugged helplessly. The goblin was her friend but she wouldn’t abandon her dad when he was so keyed up. 

Wanting to break the ice, she barreled ahead fearlessly “I’ll be frank, your majesty, we’ve already decided as a family that Harry’s going to claim his heir ring while we’re here today, and that the two of us will have our father and Remus act as our proxies on the wizengamot when the session opens in October. We only know the bare basics of the political process and how it works and what powers we’ll actually have to make changes. If there’s more you need from us or specific things you need us to do you’ll have to be quite upfront with us.” 

“We already have some allies - we know we can count on the Weasleys and the Malfoys no matter what, and we’ve heard good things from the Longbottoms, the Fawleys, and the Shafiqs. There are a lot of other young scions of the great houses in our year that we’re going to try and reach out to in the next few weeks as well. We’ve also spoken with the centaurs of the forbidden forest and the Hogwarts house elves and they’ve both agreed to stand with us, but we still need help figuring out what’s going on with the elves. There’s some kind of geas on them that they can’t talk about. I wish I had been able to get more done since you wrote to us Gornuk, but that’ll have to be enough for now,” she said, realizing she was beginning to ramble. 

She looked at their faces to see that their brows were arched high over wide eyes and even wider toothy grins. “Enough for now?” The chieftain murmured to his uncle incredulously “Enough for now she tells me! My dear lady, what you’ve done in a matter of weeks would be enough ground work and intelligence to satisfy our cause for years to come! There are members of our high council that call me a radical for hoping we can get it off the ground within the next decade. Our lives are much longer lived than yours, and the humans have always done everything they can to stymie and inconvenience our efforts. We have unfortunately come to expect the grinding of bureaucracy’s wheels to be drudging and slow, one of life’s few constancies that can be safely planned upon. I’m afraid I feel overwhelmed by how much you’ve accomplished. In my wildest dreams for our races working together in alliance, I hadn’t imagined anything to come of it until you children had graduated school at the earliest,” he said earnestly, and she was taken aback at both his sudden pessimism and the depth of emotion she saw in his black eyes. 

He shook his head then, frustration appearing on his face “And yet you bring me this opportunity now, one I am not ready for. One I had not thought myself ready for, perhaps. I am young as well, my lady. Not quite as young as you, but young for my people - a goblin barely grown of only seventy five. I will not see this opportunity you have brought before me wasted. This information and this network of magical beings is the fragile start of something too precious to let slip between my fingers. Please, Lady Greyback, tell me of the others you have met with for we know so little of them. We are aware that like ourselves the elves are seen as servants to the wizards, and that the centaurs are seen as little more than beasts, but we have not considered their plight and how our people might strengthen each other,” he admitted, and she thought him very wise for such a young leader of his people. 

She looked at her father questioningly and he shrugged, still far out of his element and willing to let her take the lead. Turning back to the chieftain, a thought occurred to her “Your majesty, we have a house elf bonded to our family. Would she be able to safely come here if we called her?” She asked him hesitantly, and he lit up and nodded enthusiastically “Yes, of course! What brilliant luck and coincidence. By all means, please do summon her here to my office,” he offered. 

She reached over and tapped Harry’s shoulder, and he called out quietly but clearly for Kipper. She arrived with a gentle displacement of air, and perched happily upon his knee “Young Master Harry is needing Kipper?” She asked, then gasped when she looked around and realized she was not in place of wizards. The goblin chieftain rose to his feet and she slid to the floor and knelt in front of him “Like is recognizing like, and Kipper is being honored to serve the goblinsies great king,” she said with the weight of ceremony, making them all pause. 

“Kipper, are the goblins a part of the geas?” Hermione asked softly, desperate to know but still not wanting to bring harm to the sweet elf who had already suffered enough for one lifetime. She cursed her own dogged curiosity, for the first time in her life wishing she’d been born able to be satisfied with what she did and didn’t know. The elf in question however, looked at her in awe and adoration and slowly shook her head, mouth dropping open and hanging agape “Young Mistress Hermie is finding it, she is finding the loophole!” She cried ecstatically, her voice like a squeaky toy. She leapt up onto the girl’s lap and hugged her as tightly as her little arms were able to, starting to weep with joy. 

“Young Mistress Hermie is wanting to know, and Kipper is wanting to tell her so badly, she is! Kipper is having headaches and getting confused every time she is thinking about telling her Mistress Hermie, and she is thinking about it every day! It is breaking the geas to be telling a human, but Kipper’s family is not being humans, but they is being very close to humans. Almost humans, still too close to be telling. They is only being different enough to be knowing and not be made to forget. But that naughty old Nilliams is being very tricksie by going and telling young Mistress to get the information from Kipper, and so every day Kipper is thinking of how she can be doing this. How she can be letting her young Mistress Hermie know without telling her,” she said, tugging on her little ears. She looked up at her with wide eyes and a grin and leaned into her with a contented sigh. 

“But Goblinsies! Kipper’s little Missy Hermie is being so clever! Goblinsies is not being part of the geas at all - they can be knowing and Kipper can be telling them, so they can be telling her young Mistress! Oh this is being such a relief for Kipper,” she announced joyously, leaning back further into Hermione’s side until she might as well have been a warm content little puddle of elf. 

From their seat across from her, the chieftain and their accounts managers were frozen in place, thoroughly stunned expressions on their pointed faces. Gornuk glanced at her father and Remus “If one of you two fine gentlemen could please cast a secure privacy charm, then we shall go over to his greatness’ desk and hear what Miss Kipper has to tell us there,” he said a bit breathlessly. Kipper gasped and her whole body flushed a dusky green, and she covered her face with her tiny hands “Master goblinsie, Kipper is only being Kipper!” She insisted, shaking her head back and forth. Harry chuckled and patted her back kindly “I dunno, I rather like the sound of it, Kip. You deserve a title after everything you’ve done for us. I wish I could give you mine,” he said a bit forlornly. 

“Speaking of titles, young sir…” came a grumbly voice on the other side of the couch, and the children were both quite embarrassed to realize that they had forgotten all about their actual business at the bank. Griphook stood with his arms crossed, stern frown ever present on his face. He reached into his waistcoat and withdrew a ring box, and Harry gulped nervously but bravely came forward to take it from him all the same. With a dramatically arched brow and a smarmy little smirk, Griphook informed him “This box has only the heir’s ring, sir. We don’t want a repeat of your sister’s alarming feat of magic. Unless of course, you’d like to try your luck and take a shot at the lord’s seat? There are no other living claimants to challenge, after all,” He said, and he might as well have been wearing horns because he was as tempting as a little devil. 

Speaking for the first time since arriving, their father growled lowly in his throat “He’ll do nothing he doesn’t precisely desire to do, banker,” he rasped angrily “it was only by accident and chance that my daughter did what she did, and your colleague admitted he had no idea what consequences could have come from it. So don’t pressure my son, or we’ll leave here today empty handed and not return,” he added with an air of finality. Griphook’s eyes flew over to his chieftain, who was halfway between the couches and the desk and shook his head with a frown. 

“Don’t press your luck, old chap. You are only here in your official position as young Mr Greyback’s accounts manager. He and his family are here as my guests and as friends of the horde,” the young goblin warned sternly, before entering into the bubble of silence Remus had cast around his desk. Hermione could see him and Gornuk and Kipper sat at it seriously, their heads bowed in fraught conversation. She couldn’t hear them and their lips were blurred so she couldn’t even guess as to what they might be saying either, and she was impressed by the magic. While she watched them, curious despite herself, Griphook quietly and calmly walked her brother through invoking his magic and challenging for the heir’s seat of house Potter. 

She turned her head to watch him as she heard him begin to speak the words, the sea green of their shared magic spiraling around him in the air and his eyes glowing an electric green “I, Harry James Potter Greyback, son of James Fleamont Potter, grandson of Fleamont Henry Potter, claim a birthright to one day lead this house and do so challenge the Potter family magic to find me worthy as its heir!” He intoned with an echo in his voice that reminded her of Amalthea and lady Hekate, and reached out for the box. Griphook fumbled with it for a moment and she almost thought he might drop it before he corrected and handed her brother the ring. 

It was a heavy thing, designed to fit an adult man’s hand, but it was lovely. Unlike the Black ring there was no tarnish or patina, it was a warm well-worn gold, and the stone at the center of it was an enormous cabochon ruby. When her brother put it on the air in the room crackled around him, and his hair rose on end like he’d been zapped with static electricity. Spinning in place on his finger, it resized down to fit him without making any more drastic changes to its shape or design. It was still a lovely gold ring with a giant red stone at the end of the day, just a little smaller. On the side opposite the gem, a glint of writing caught her eye “There’s something engraved on the back, Harry! What does it say?” She asked, desperately curious. 

He looked down at his hand and brought it close to his face “I think it’s something in Latin. It says… Animo et As-astutia?” He said wonderingly, looking up at his sister with wide eyes. To both of their surprise the man next to them let out a snort, and they whipped their heads around to see him shaking his head fondly “I haven’t heard that in years… Animo et astutia means spirited and shrewd. Those are the Potter words, Harry. Your father quoted them almost daily when we were at school together. It was his justification for every prank and plot, that his family’s words literally instructed him to be bold and clever. He was such a scamp our James,” he said with a wistful smile. He looked between the two children “I can’t rightly think of any other words that describe either of you better, if I’m being honest,” and Harry dutifully endured him ruffling his messy hair. 

Hermione skillfully dodged his hand reaching out to tousle her curls, as they were already too wild and tangly to survive being mussed without also needing a brush to intervene afterwards. Her father laughed and pulled her into his lap, and pressed his nose into her curls that she knew so reminded him of her mother “You are an awfully crafty pair, much too mischievous for your own good. I’m not surprised to hear it’s hereditary,” he rasped with a grin, and she giggled and elbowed him playfully, and he in turn pretended to be winded by the soft blow. 

The four of them sat comfortably in front of the fire for quite a while after that, a happy little family, enjoying each others’ company and waiting in pleasant quiet for their beloved elf and their goblin friends to finish their conversation. They almost forgot they were there on business and the children started to doze off from the sheer ambient warmth the flickering flames put out into the room, each of them leaning on the closest adult and starting to snore sweetly. Neither man was surprised they were still catching up on the sleep they’d missed the day before. Hands meeting over little shoulders and fingers entwining tenderly, Remus and Fenrir shared several very soft and meaningful looks as they wiled away an easy hour of their afternoon utterly peacefully and contentedly. 

When their magical allies finally exited the bubble of privacy surrounding the chieftain’s desk, they gently shook the kids awake. What they weren’t expecting was for their goblin friends to look quite so shaken themselves. After conferring for so long, their already slightly greyish faces were ashen pale and their pointed features were slack with some emotion that might have resembled shock or fear. It was notoriously hard to be sure with goblins, but that seemed like it had to be an ill omen.

“Were you able to tell them everything we need to know, Kip?” Harry asked tightly, pretending not to notice the odd clamor of the goblins hearts or the sheen of sweat on their palms and foreheads. In stark contrast, the little elf was cool as a cucumber in December, and nodded happily “Oh yes, young Master! It is being such a relief to pass on the story, Kipper is never having had the honor. The Hogwarts elvesies is only doing it once every five years for the littlest ones to be hearing and memorizing, and it is being Nilliams who is always doing the telling. It be building up in the body and wanting to escape, but the elvesies is having to hold it in because none of the humans is being able to be told. Sometimes they is whispering it to each other, but only in secret and only when no little humans is anywhere near,” she explained kindly. 

She looked almost boneless where she had returned to sit perched on Harry’s leg. Glancing at the goblins, they seemed distinctly less pleased “…Chieftain?” He asked tentatively, and the young leader nearly flinched at the sound of his voice. That more than anything else told them that things were dire. 

He pulled a floral patterned silk handkerchief from his suit pocket and cleared his throat anxiously. “Forgive me, I feel it safe to say we weren’t quite prepared for the scope of everything Miss Kipper had to tell us. Things we hadn’t realized we’d forgotten about her ancestors as well as our own. In the spirit of honesty, I’m not even sure what or how much I should tell you all-” “Your majesty!” Hermione interjected hotly, standing and clenching her fists. 

Fenrir pulled her down into his lap and clamped his huge hand over her mouth. He shook his head at her angrily furled brows and swatted her flank lightly with his other hand, “Reign in your temper, my girl. Think before you speak and let him finish first before you start barking,” he commanded powerfully, pouring alpha into his voice, and although her face remained furious she obediently went limp in his arms. 

When she turned her gaze back onto the goblin chieftain he looked every bit as young as he had claimed to be, and the fight left her. He dabbed gingerly at his brow with the handkerchief “You must understand, it was not just the secrets of the house elves that we were expecting to hear that was revealed to us by Miss Kipper. She has laid bare before us the origin of not only our species and her own, but also the human wizards who have indentured all of the other magical races. In doing so she has opened our eyes to the very source and nature of magic in this re- country… In this country. There are things she has told me that I will never be able to repeat to another living soul.” 

“What I can tell you is this; the house elves are indeed bound to serve by a power outside of themselves, but are generally quite happy to do so. They are descended from brownies, and are therefore creatures that must serve others in some capacity to live. It is only their unbalanced relationship with wizards that has at times harmed them. Once they initiate a bond with a wizarding family they can never break it of their own free will, no matter how hard they are worked or how poorly they are treated. Only the hu- wizards… only the wizards can sever the bond, which leaves the elves vulnerable. What has become apparent to us is that what the elves need out of this alliance we are building is not any attempt to free or liberate them, as such action would result in their deaths, but rather advocates to ensure their ethical treatment from the wizards they are bound to. Are you willing to commit to assisting them in this capacity? Others have empathized with their plight and tried to free them in the past, unwittingly putting their lives in peril.”

The two children locked eyes for a moment and in the span of a second had a long mental conversation, then looked at Remus and their father consideringly. “You know we want to help, and we know you’ve agreed to do what you can, but ultimately you’re the ones who’ll have to actually serve on the wizengamot. It’s an actual job - off the compound, working with stubborn witches and wizards, sometimes arguing but only ever using your words. We can make all the plans and write your speeches and advise you. There are hundreds of Hogwarts house elves we can talk to and get their opinion on about all of this. Will you do it? For us and for them?” Harry asked, impassioned and sounding very compelling to his sister’s ears. She hoped their father felt the same way.

Their father’s facade of a stern disciplinarian crumbled, and he sighed heavily “I can’t say no to such an impassioned appeal. You’re asking me for help in taking up a burden you’re not ready for, to prevent it for a little while longer from falling to your young shoulders. Of course I’ll help you, my son. You’re both so good, and so kind and compassionate, I don’t know what I did to end up blessed with such children. Remus, what do you say?” He asked, turning to his lover with a faint smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. 

“How could I not? For all I’ve tried to hide it, my lycanthropy has always been a relatively open secret amongst my friends and contemporaries. That would have been my greatest fear for most of my life - being outed or somehow discovered. I think now that I’d rather like to tell the world on my own terms. I am a werewolf, and I’m… well, it’s a journey but I’m trying to come to be proud of it. Yes, I’ll serve on the wizengamot and champion our rights and goblin and house elf and centaur rights. Someone bloody well has to!” He said, his eyes shining and a devilishly handsome smile building on his face. He looked lighter and younger and healthier than ever, a world away from the scared scarred man aged beyond his years who had come to their doorstep so long ago. 

Their father looked utterly besotted with Remus in that moment, and she subtly nudged him in his direction. Without hesitation, he grabbed the other man around his shoulders and pulled him into a kiss. Her and her brother cheered delightedly and the goblins clapped politely, amused looks on their pointy faces. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That night, while Hermione was in her bed in her room and Harry in his on the other side of the cottage, they silently touched minds and revisited the conversation from earlier in the day. Something had stood out to the both of them, something that didn’t pass their smell test. 

You saw it too, right? How he stumbled and only barely caught himself in time. Not just once but twice. What does it mean? The part that was Harry wondered, keen observer of behavior that he was. If I knew it you would know it also, she reminded him kindly, and focused the part that was her steel-trap memory on recalling exactly what had been said that afternoon. 

The words he wouldn’t say must be closely connected to the things he wouldn’t tell us. He tripped over “country” and “wizard” and there was another word he was going to say instead for both. The first time he did it, he started saying something that started with an R, I’m not sure what it could have been that he chose to say country instead. Region maybe? The second time he corrected himself he started with an H sound and then said wizards instead, and I’m relatively confident he was going to say humans. He was talking about the house elf bonds that make them serve and who they’re bound to, and it’s not exactly like there are goblins or centaurs going around having house elves serve them, right?

That made them both pause. Are there other magical beings that house elves can bond with? They asked together in perfect unison, coming together briefly as a singular mind, thoughts racing. 

That’s a stupid question, we’re magical beings and we’re bound to a house elf, the part that was Harry realized a moment later, and they both felt silly. 

Yeah, but Kip made it pretty clear that we’re on thin ice as far as being non-human is concerned. Only barely not human. Very close to human. Human enough to not be able to be told the house elf secrets, the part that was Hermione added thoughtfully and a bit bitterly. She had sort of relished having a non-human identity, and hearing Kipper describe them thusly had made her start to feel like a fraud. Are we not just humans with extra steps? She pondered with altogether far too much ennui for a twelve year old. Her brother mentally grumbled at her, and she felt a sensation in her psyche somehow akin to her shoulder being jostled. 

Humans or nonhumans or something else entirely, I’m still curious about Ragnok’s motives, Harry thought. He’s well spoken and didn’t stutter anywhere else the whole time we spoke with him. It had to be that something about those two words he tripped over were lies, and most likely ones he isn’t used to telling yet. Magic in this…country. He meant to say something different. Did he mean a different place? A bigger area or just more specific? And why the distinction between humans and wizards? Are there muggles that can bond with house elves? Are wizards somehow not humans? Didn’t he also say something about house elves being descended from brownies - maybe wizards descended from something magical too and aren’t entirely human either? 

It’s just more of the same, she thought frustratedly, everyone we try to get answers from only has a single piece of the puzzle to give us. They know more but they either can’t speak about it or we aren’t ready to hear it or it’s too much for them to process. We need to try and find the others the goddesses said would be able to give us information. The ones who can speak freely. Remember? They said there was a wolf in the woods and a snake in the school that had important things to tell us.  

Yes! The woods and the school are huge though, it could take us ages…

Well you wouldn’t have known it, but the first night I met Amalthea she mentioned the wolf in the woods too. She didn’t say anything about a snake, but maybe she and the centaurs can help us find the wolf, and once we do it’ll be able to give us an idea of where to start looking in the castle?

Heads filled with thoughts of snakes slithering through the corridors and wolves racing through the forest, the two of them slowly drifted off to sleep. 

Chapter Text

Kneazles were particularly intelligent animals, and Waits-the-longest was a particularly intelligent kneazle. 

He had languished in the menagerie for many many years, actively dodging any and all that attempted to bond with him. He had always felt that he would somehow instinctually know when the right two-leg came along and that it was finally time for him to leave this place with them. When the bell above the door rang and the smell of a predator entered his domain, he had the strangest intuition that this would be the last day of his waiting. It would not have been too terribly unusual an occurrence if it had been the smell of a simple canine or raptor predator. Krups and eagle owls and their like came and went constantly, sometimes being plucked out of their cages and taken home the very same day they had arrived, the poor beasts. 

Most of the animals that arrived here didn’t have the right to choose their master, instead they were chosen the way one of the fickle two-legs might put on a pair of the arm or leg coverings they used to protect their hairless bodies. It was the curse of being either cute, sweet, or useful. Waits-the-longest thanked the great mother Bast every day that he possessed none of those unfortunate traits. At the end of the day, they served a kneazle poorly. He knew he was an incredibly handsome specimen, but he had heard enough of the boorish little two-legged younglings call him ugly to know that it was his single greatest protection in this place. 

Even being mean couldn’t protect a kneazle the way being ugly could, and he knew this because he was the meanest one he had ever met. It certainly did help though. His claws were sharp as broken glass and had never once failed to draw blood from hands that foolishly reached for him. His hiss was nearly venomous in its practiced intensity, and was able to stop even the most persistent two-leg child from approaching to try and pet him or, mother Bast forbid, pick him up. 

He got most of his regular battle training in with the keepers of the animals who lived here, as he was in a constant state of war with them. They had gotten only more and more desperate to sell him as he had grown meaner and meaner over the years. It was an insult and an indignity that they kept asking for less of their coins for him! He was still worth just as many shiny yellow coins as any other creature here, if not more for how long and devotedly he had endured waiting to find the one he was meant for. 

Despite the fact that the smell that entered was heady and dangerous and whispered of incredibly long sharp teeth belonging to a large and dominant pair of predators, something about the scent caught and drew his attention in a way that made his fur stand on end. The bell had barely stopped tinkling over the doorway when he felt a set of eyes on him weighing him down with their intensity, and he froze in place where he sat high on a shelf over the keeper’s desk washing himself. Even having the advantage of such an excellent tactical position to observe and remain safe off the ground gave him no measure of comfort. 

Waits-the-longest by no means considered himself domesticated in any way shape or form, but whatever had just entered was so untamed it might as well have come straight from the wild. 

Two energetic little two-legs zoomed around the store like a whirlwind, seeing and admiring but ultimately dismissing the krups and the kittens and the toads and the rats and the owls. They got excited while looking at the snakes, but didn’t choose one of them either. He heard them hissing their two-leg noises to each other quietly, and his ears pricked in interest. He could appreciate a good hiss, even if he had little use for most of their two-leg noises. He knew what a few of them meant, many more than he let on for sure, but day in and day out he ignored most of what he heard. He had never wanted to come across as too intelligent and give the impression that he might be useful. 

Crawling on his belly, he crept to the edge of the shelf he was atop and followed them with his eyes. His head stayed rigidly in place to give no indication that he was watching, but he realized a moment too late that his tail swished excitedly and betrayed him. Curses! 

The girl two-legs had stopped just a few feet away, and was looking up at him admiringly. Her eyes were a lovely clear grey, and they compelled him to leap down from his safe perch and onto the counter in front of her. The wretched keeper spoke its noises to her, eagerly offering a humiliatingly low price in an effort to sell him, and she ignored him with appropriate disdain. Instead she came closer and lowered herself so that they were nose to nose and eye to eye. Up close her aura was so animal and dominant that it nearly made his eyes water, but there was something in her that called to him. If he was a cat then she was a lion, and he wanted to be a part of her pride. 

For the first time in his entire life, Waits-the-longest slowly rolled himself over onto his back and showed her his soft furry belly. The fur markings above her eyes jumped, and her strange mouth curled up around the edges. He didn’t need to know all of her noises exactly to understand that she was generously praising him in that moment, and his submission was rewarded with her hairless paw ever so gently resting over his ribs and rubbing wonderfully. He hadn’t realized it could be… nice. To be touched. A strange and powerful vibration started in his chest under her hand, and it made a similar noise bubble up out of her. He had heard many other kneazles make this vibration before throughout his life, but he had never made it himself. 

The boy two-legs that he realized was her litter-mate came closer, but he held himself deferentially and waited for her instruction. Waits-the-longest heard him make some of their noises and he vaguely understood that they were looking for an animal to give away to another two-legs - no! If they took him from here he would only submit to being hers. He would not be traded away to live with and serve an inferior master. He hissed at the boy, his cruelest and most vicious hiss that promised claws and teeth to follow, and the male appropriately raised his hairless paws and backed away. 

The girl two-legs that he so desired to go home with and serve glanced at him appraisingly, and he listened more carefully than ever as she made her two-leg noises at him. Her voice was soft and sweet like milk “You’re an awfully clever kitty, aren’t you?” she said, and he desperately made the vibrations in his chest again to prove to her that it was true. 

Her fur markings rose again and her mouth curled up in what he realized was either happiness or amusement or both. It was a good response though, he had pleased her and he tried to make himself rumble even harder. “What a lovely boy you are, you don’t want to go be Ginny’s cat do you? Do you want to come home with me and be my cat?” She asked him, and she was the first of the two-legs that had ever taken his opinion of the matter into consideration. That was all he needed to hear, he was hers and he would be until mother Bast called him back home to the eternal desert. He pressed the top of his head into her open hairless paw, and the sensation of her short blunt nails lightly scratching and rubbing there was so soothing he felt like he might melt into a puddle. 

She looked at her litter-mate and sighed noisily “We’ll have to just pick a kitten for her, this little guy has made it pretty clear how he feels about the matter,” she said, and Waits-the-longest yowled for his nephew to come and greet his new master, holding out a faint hope that maybe he would be able to leave here with them as well. She looked at him and hummed in surprise, and a moment later his young protege clumsily leapt on the counter and slowly waddled over next to him. 

When Waits-the-longest had been a kitten himself, years and years ago, he had several female litter-mates he had been close with. Though they had all eventually been sold, he had occasionally recognized their scent on litters of kittens that came in. Jumps-and-falls-down was one such kitten, and he recognized a certain innate stubbornness in him that was particularly promising. It reminded him of himself, and he had a feeling that the lad would be waiting for his own master or mistress long after he was gone if he didn’t intervene. He’d been training him carefully, and though he was still young his claws and hiss were shaping up to be highly effective. Already he was the last of his litter that remained. 

Now though, feeling something unfamiliar but warm and wonderful in his chest, he didn’t know that he wanted his nephew to have the same long lonely life here that he had. If he could convince his two-leg to take Jumps-and-falls-down as well, then maybe they’d both get to have a better life outside of this place. Rolling back over to sit up proudly on his hind quarters, he nosed Jumps-and-falls-down forward towards his master and meowed softly at her. 

She made the face he’d seen many other two-legs make when they saw a cute little animal. It wasn’t that different than the face she had made at him when she’d called him handsome, and he was momentarily stunned. So many two-legs had called him ugly over the years that he had forgotten what it felt like to have his feline beauty acknowledged. “Oh look at him, is this your baby? He looks just like you, you’re so darling together!” She said in the same soft voice, and he relished in the tone. He had always hated when the two-leg females would make their noises at him and the other animals in those strange high breathy voices. 

“Well we can’t get him and just leave his son behind,” his girl told her litter mate, and the boy two-legs nodded obediently and reached out tentatively to pick his nephew up and hold him. Both kneazles tensed, but his hairless paws were stronger and more stable than they looked. He didn’t lift Jumps-and-falls-down by his forelegs or under his ribs like he’d seen other over-excited two-leg younglings foolishly try to do, but scooped him up with one paw under his bum and the other around his torso. If one couldn’t lift a kitten by the scruff that was an excellent alternative option, and the boy two-legs earned some of his respect. 

He looked at his girl and saw her holding her arms out patiently and looking at him softly, and it was strange to see such gentleness in those clear grey eyes that screamed predator. It was unclear to him if she was testing his faith or offering an opportunity to prove her own trustworthiness. Either way, he wanted both of them to know. He already felt like he could trust her implicitly, and his every feline instinct was unhappy about that and told him he should be suspicious and wary. For the first time in his long life so far he felt the urge to hiss and yowl at his own distrustful nature, to ignore entirely what his instincts were screaming at him. 

After only a moment of hesitation he leapt into her outstretched arms, and she effortlessly caught and carried him. 

His tail swished proudly when she insisted on paying full price for him despite the keeper practically trying to give him away for free. She passed the shiny yellow coins into his greedy paws, and he told her the hated name he had been called his whole life. Waits-the-longest’s ears flattened unhappily against his head, and he prayed to the great mother Bast that his girl would know better than to call him such an ill fitting name. Her fur markings scrunched together and the corners of her mouth turned downwards “You’ve been calling him what? Gingersnap? Nah that’s terrible… he looks like more of a Crookshanks to me,” she said like a little queen. 

Waits-the-longest pondered the name his girl had given him. It was very fitting. He decided that he liked it. And after twelve long years of languishing in the menagerie, watching youngling two-leggeds come and go, enduring their noises and their wandering hands, bearing the indignity of a name he did not care for and the tension of keepers he would rather scratch and bite at, he left in her arms a new cat. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

His girl brought him and his nephew to a place that was warm and smelled of good food. The house was full of normal two-leggeds that had orange fur like his and that carried not a whiff of the sharp predator scent that lingered around his girl and her litter mate. An adult female two-legs cooed over his nephew and petted him gently, and his girl allowed the female to hold and inspect the kitten. 

He paid close attention to the noises they made “I wanted Ginny to have a pet so she doesn’t feel alone while we’re all off at school without her. Is it alright? It didn’t occur to me until I got here that I probably should have asked first, I’m sorry Molly,” his girl said, and though he didn’t understand all of her noises he realized she was deferring to the older female. 

She reached out and petted his girl’s face kindly, and he knew from very recent experience just how nice that felt. She must be pleased with them. He made the rumbles in his chest in approval. His girl pulled him up out of the wicker basket she’d carried him here in, and presented him to the female “And and and! Look who I met while I was there, Molly! I wasn’t expecting to get a pet for myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave without him. Every other cat I’ve met my entire life wouldn’t come within ten feet of me, the poor things have always been scared out of their minds. He must be very brave,” she said with pride in her voice, and his tail swished at her praise. 

He looked over the table and saw the female holding his nephew tenderly in her arms, one of her paws rubbing his ear. She seemed to come to some sort of agreement with his girl, and suddenly she made her two-leg noises very loudly “GINNY, COME DOWNSTAIRS PLEASE, DEAR!” She called, and he heard a thundering clatter of footsteps from the ceiling above grow closer and closer. Suddenly a girl two-legs that he realized was the female’s daughter came barreling into the room. 

“Nene, what are you doing here?” She asked his girl happily, “And is that what I think it is?” she added excitedly, pointing at his little nephew in her mother’s arms and bouncing up and down. She rushed up to the table where they sat but stayed back a few feet, waiting for permission to touch, her paws fluttering at the height of her shoulders as if desperate to reach out. He approved of her restraint, and he meowed at her. Her eyes swung around to take him in and she breathed in noisily “Oh she’s absolutely gorgeous! Is it a mother and her baby?” She asked, and he hissed gently at her. He was not a female! She recoiled from him, but only slightly. She was a brave one, and he could easily see himself tolerating her presence in the future if she kept this behavior up. 

“I thought it was his baby too, but the shopkeeper at the menagerie said it’s from one of his siblings’ litters. So I guess that makes it his nephew actually. It came right to him when he called for it in the shop, it was the most curious and precious thing. Anyways, it’s for you Gin - surprise! I know you have your mum and dad, but I thought you might need a buddy now that you’re at home without any of your brothers here to keep you company. Do you like him?” His girl asked the other little two-leg. He scarcely moved or breathed, realizing that this was the one he had almost been a gift for and suddenly eager to hear the girl’s assessment of his young protege. 

Her mouth hung open wide, showing off her many rows of tiny blunt teeth that could harm no one. How embarrassing for her, he’d have kept his mouth closed if he had teeth like that. But the sides of her mouth were making the up-curls that he was coming to realize meant a two-leg was pleased. She breathed heavily “Really? A kitten of my own? I can keep him, mum?” She said, turning to her mother with her fur markings raised high on her face. 

The older female nodded her head “I don’t see why not. You’ve always been such a good girl my Ginny Bean, and your cousin is right that a pet would do you well. You’ll feed and clean after him yourself though, am I understood?” She said, her voice going from soft to almost barking like a krup. There were complex two-leg concepts and pride dynamics at play that were beyond him, but he gathered that the girl would be allowed to keep his nephew and be his master. 

From where he rested comfortably in his girl’s arms he looked over at Jumps-and-falls-down being handed gently from mother to daughter, and wondered if they’d ever see each other again after today. He meowed and kneaded at his girl’s arm with his front paws to let her know he wished to be put down, and she set him on the tabletop. He stepped lightly across its worn surface over to stand near the other girl, and she froze in place before greeting him “Hello kitty, do you want your baby back? You’ll get to see him again, I promise. Hermione and I are family, we wouldn’t keep you apart for anything,” she said, and he was warmed by the meaning behind her noises. 

Just as he and his sister’s son were a part of the same pride, these two-legs were part of the same pride as his girl and her litter mate. He wouldn’t have to say goodbye to his nephew after all! He meowed happily in relief, and pressed his head against her arm that held the kitten. Jumps-and-falls-down was still a bit too young to really understand what was going on other than that he’d been chosen by a two-leg, but at his meow he looked over the side of her arm and chirruped down at him questioningly. He reared back on his hind legs, his front paws pressed against the girl’s belly, and leaned down over her arm to wash his nephew’s face. 

“Awww, Nene wook the kitties wuv each uvva!” The girl cooed in a high voice, and he was desperately thankful she hadn’t become his master. He had already endured a lifetime of those awful obnoxious noises, and he was glad to have been chosen by such a sensible two-legs that he knew was above them. Jumps-and-falls-down was drawn in by the sound and entranced by it, the silly little fool. Nurture could only do so much, and he had done his best with the lad. 

“Have you got any idea what you’d like to call him? He’s so little you’ve probably got a while before you have to decide. They had a name for this guy but it didn’t seem like a good fit, so I’ve been calling him Crookshanks,” his girl said, reaching out to softly stroke her paw down his spine. He arched his back up to meet her touch and relished the warmth of it. “I think he likes it, or I hope he does anyways,” she added, and he turned back to face her and meowed at her meaningfully. He loved his name, and even if he had only thought it was acceptable it was still infinitely better than Gingersnap. 

“He really is quite a clever cat!” The older female said, and his tail swished proudly “He must be at least half kneazle to be able to keep track of what you’re talking about like that. Goodness me, a clever cat for a clever little lady,” she said, praising both himself and his girl. He was starting to really like this one. He sat back down on the table and turned to her and meowed, and she reached out her paw and held it several inches away from his face. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what the point of this was, but he’d seen enough people do it in the place he’d been before to know something was expected of him. He’d never let anyone get close enough to perform this strange ritual. Hoping he didn’t disappoint, he leaned forward and sniffed at her hairless paw with its long wiggly toes. She turned it upside down so he could see the underside, and he sniffed that as well. It was a paw? It smelled of the house she lived in and the girl and several other two-leg males. She had touched meat and vegetables recently. She was clean and warm. 

Deciding to be brave, as his girl clearly trusted this female, he rested his chin lightly on the bottom of her paw that she had left suspended in front of his face. It seemed the only rational course of action available to him. She almost certainly didn’t want him to bite or scratch her, the two-legs generally seemed to quite dislike that. At the last moment he panicked and froze, what if she had wanted him to bite? Perhaps to test the strength and sharpness of his teeth and determine how well he would be able to protect his girl? She was clearly his master’s matriarch, he should have considered the possibility that she might wish for him to prove himself. Curses!

“It’s okay Crooksie, Molly just wants to be friends,” his brilliant girl said softly in her milk sweet voice, calming him instantly, and he relaxed his neck and let his chin rest fully in the female’s paw. She made a noise in her throat much like his chest rumbles, and he felt confident that he’d pleased her with his display of trust. Not wanting to push his luck he quickly retreated back into his girl’s arms, curling up in them and tucking his head in close to his body and making himself small. His young master generously rewarded his incredible bravery and obedience with gentle comforting strokes of her large warm paw down his spine. 

“He’ll make an excellent familiar for you, my dear. That’s a strong bond if ever I’ve seen one. I’d bet anything he came to you in the shop didn’t he? Sometimes the right match just makes itself,” the older female told his girl, and though he had been trying to make himself disappear from her sight and mind, he couldn’t help but rumble with pride and swish his tail at her high praise. He knew it already of course, but it was nice to hear other two-legs acknowledge. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jumps-and-falls-down was still being held by his new little master, basking in her adoration and bonding with her as was appropriate. Crookshanks had long since been let down onto the ground of the strange house to make himself comfortable, and was taking it upon himself to explore the surrounding area. There were scents of many two-legs, all offspring of the older female. She must have borne many litters, and he was glad to have earned such an important matriarch’s favor. 

There was a room where the surfaces were all hard and cold and echoey, and within it there were traces of food everywhere. Old dried edible plants hung in bundles by a window, an entire small room full of good fresh things that had grown outside, a shelf where lots of little jars held things that burned his nose but that he’d recognized from the breath of other two-legs. He didn’t know how they ate those things without killing themselves. There was meat in the room somewhere, and he could smell it but frustratingly he couldn’t seem to find it. 

There was also a much softer room, with pillows and blankets and good plush floors to walk on and large squishy objects where he could tell many of the two-legs often sat. There was a fascinating hard stone cave built into the wall of the soft room, and pieces of wood sat propped up inside of it. He’d been inspecting it closely earlier when it had suddenly come to life, hot and green, and one of the male orange-furred two-legs had come out of it! His tail had been stepped on and he’d hissed and scratched at the two-leg’s ankles viciously before running away and hiding. He’d been so frightened that he’d shamefully yowled desperately for his master, and it had taken her ages to coax him to come down from the high shelf he’d retreated to.

It had been humiliating. 

Now though he was staunchly pretending it had never happened, casually continuing his investigation. Having seen everything interesting that there was to be seen, he made his way towards the set of stairs he’d noticed earlier and slunk up them curiously. Each one was nearly his height and it was a bit of a climb, but he was no slouch. They seemed to go up and up and up forever, flattening out to another level here and there with rooms that smelled like more of the two-legs lived and slept within. He easily found the room the girl two-leg slept in, her scent distinct from all the others. There was nothing of particular interest within, and after having a good sniff and a peek around he moved on. 

There was a room that smelled strongly of the matriarch and her mate that he respectfully avoided. He wanted no trouble from her, he had earned her favor fair and square and wasn’t going to risk losing it. 

Closest to that was a room that smelled of the two-leg who had so cruelly stepped on his tail. He was delighted to find that the door had been left open a crack, and he nosed his way in and gleefully pissed all over the soft place where the male slept. Ha! Revenge! Take that, heavy-pawed demon!

Passing a room that smelled like a much younger male two-leg, he realized that some of the good food smells from the room below were in there as well. This door was shut, though. He sat in front of it for a few moments, considering his options. He had seen two-legs open doors, it didn’t look hard. They just put their paws on the sticky-outie bits, and did something to make them click. If a two-leg could do it he was certain he could as well. The door’s sticky-outie bit was well above his head, but he was an excellent jumper. He leapt up, batting his paw at the silvery thing. It rattled! The entire thing creaked and swung open. He could scarcely believe his luck, it must not have really been closed all the way!

Darting in, he looked around eagerly to find where the food might be. It was a mess, and the smell of unwashed young male was potent. All over the floor were piles of upper and lower leg-coverings. There was a large open space on the floor underneath the soft area where the two-leg slept, and there were lots of things crammed into it. Crinkly things that scrunched when he stepped on them, a few of the yucky nuts that owls foolishly ate were scattered here and there, even some of the heavy hard things he’d seen his girl pick up and look at were under this two-leg’s sleeping space. Finally his nose led him to the part of the room where most of the better-smelling coverings were put away in a collection of holes in a big wooden box. 

He’d seen the hated keeper of the place he’d been before pull holes like these open to put things in and take things out. He realized then that the sticky-outie bit on the outside of the box must work like the bit on the door had, and could likely be used to get into the holes. One of them was already open and the little cave it held within was extended out of it, hanging in the air like a shelf for him to leap up onto and easily make his way to the top of the box. Looking down from up so high, he was able to see out the window and outside, and the sight took his breath away. 

When he had still been Waits-the-longest, he’d heard of trees and grass and thought they must have been the fantasy of a mad cat’s imagination. Soft green things to walk on? In the outdoors? He’d seen the outdoors through the window at the place he’d been before, it was hard and grey and brown and lots of two-legs walked by and sometimes came inside and looked around and left with animals. He’d let himself be convinced that there was nothing soft or inviting or good about the world outside of the place he’d been. 

…But then again, his girl had come from outside hadn’t she? 

Now he could see with his own eyes that the ancient old kneazle who had once whispered to him about green things had been telling the truth. Though he’d never said it to him, it had to have been clear that Waits-the-longest hadn’t believed a thing he’d tried to tell him. The poor old cat had gone back to Mother Bast’s eternal desert knowing that the only other feline around worth talking to considered him nothing more than a liar or a fool. 

Crookshanks looked out the window and dug his claws into the wooden box he stood on, longing to know what the green things felt like under his paws and on his belly. He wanted to run on it and roll in it and scratch at dig at it for the things that lived and burrowed beneath. Beneath? The only surfaces he’d ever walked on had been solid, but somehow he knew that the green outside the window had things living not only on it and in it, but under it. That it was bursting with life. Things that crawled and wriggled and scuttled and hopped. Things for him to smell and chase and eat. A thousand things. A thousand thousand.

He was sure of it. 

The food the boy two-legs had hidden away like a little thief was long forgotten. He didn’t want to risk falling trying to get the hole open, and it smelled like it had long gone bad anyways. Plus, he didn’t want to make himself sick eating something that was rotten or moldy - even if he could still eat it, it might not taste as good anymore. The only good thing that could have been said about the keeper from the place before was that he had occasionally, extremely begrudgingly, given him bites of his rich and delicious two-leg food, which was infinitely better than the dry hard bland pellets the cats and kneazles were given to eat. It was also worse when it went bad. Pellets just became stale over time. He knew from experience scrounging through the keeper’s old forgotten lunch bags that when two-leg food spoiled it did so it frightening and gruesome ways. 

Crookshanks stood at the top of the stairs outside of the messy two-leg boy’s room, just about to launch himself back down them and try to find a way outside so he could get a taste of the green for himself, when he smelled something wrong. 

It was so wrong it set his fur on end, and he felt his back arch up involuntarily. His mouth fell open of its own accord, his lips pulled back and ready to spit and hiss at the first visible sign of trouble. His claws schinked out of the ends of his soft little toes and dug into the wood of the floor he stood on, ready to reach out and tear at whatever was here in the hall with him. 

He had known creatures like this existed, even seen them the twice or maybe three times in his life that they’d come into the place he’d been. They had always sent the animals into complete chaos and disarray when they walked through the door, smelling of animal but walking on two-legs. This thing before him was the perfect inverse - an animal that did not smell like an animal.

A rat whose eyes gleamed with the cruel cunning and complexity of a two-leg. Whose paws held a piece of cracker the way they wielded objects in their dexterous long-toed paws. Who stood and walked towards him upright on its hind legs like a rat had never once before in the history of rat-kind walked or moved. Who looked at him like it would not chitter or squeak, but rather open its mouth and their two-leg noises would come forth from it. 

It was like a thing from a nightmare. 

With fear in him from the tip of his nose to the ends of his tail, but courage flickering into an inferno in his breast, he sprung forward and caught the vile creature by the tail. Knowing nothing more than that it was wrong and should not exist and was a danger - A danger! - to his girl, he sunk his teeth into its legs, lifted it into the air, and shook his head faster than the eye could perceive. Like a whip cracking, he heard it’s spine break midway down its back. It let loose an awful screaming wail, still alive and suffering terribly, but he refused to feel guilt for his botched kill. 

This was exactly what he had been chosen for, to protect his master and her house. To guard her secrets and assist her in her spellcrafting in whatever arcane ways she required. If he had only had the blood of a cat he might have been forced to choose between serving one purpose or the other, but as a kneazle he was more than magically strong enough to fulfill both roles. This den of two-legs were clearly a part of her pride, and therefore his duty extended here to them as well. An interloper had been in their midst, and he had apprehended it. He would deliver it to the matriarch, and she would know what to do with it. 

He didn’t want to pick it up again with his mouth, so he batted it down the stairs with his paws. He took great delight in the way it bounced down each step, rolling and tumbling and wailing all the way. As he finally reached the ground floor again he bristled to hear an awful lot of loud and upset sounding two-leg noises coming from the room where he’d last seen his master. He had only left her alone for a short while, how could she have gotten into trouble already? He hoped she hadn’t displeased the matriarch in his absence. 

Dragging the creature along with him by its tail, he approached his girl and checked that she was in the same condition he’d left her in. He reared back onto his hind legs, holding himself upright with his forelegs pressed against one of her long legs, and meowed softly to get her attention. She turned her head to look at him, and her mouth and fur markings did a funny wiggle on her face when she saw his captive on the floor.

“What a fine hunter you are Crooks! Good job, you clever kitty. Make sure you kill it all the way next time though darling, it’s cruel to let them suffer like that for long,” she said kindly. He basked in her praise, and the way she gave it so freely and generously. She reached down her hairless paw with its long toes and rubbed the top of his head sweetly before grabbing the foul creature and pointing to a spot higher up on its spine “See Crooksie, you’ve got to break it here or it might not die right away,” she instructed patiently, and he nodded along, captivated. 

Then before he could blink she snapped its neck and the life instantly left its body “Now that’s how you kill a rat, my darling!”

”Holy shit Nene did you just break that rat’s neck? Wow, that’s so gross! Where did you even get it? Did your cat catch it? Quick Bill banish it before it gives us all the plague,” the other two-leg girl cried, and he realized he’d forgotten his purpose of presenting it to the matriarch to inspect its potentially dark nature. But then again that probably wasn’t necessary now that it was dead. This was most likely for the best. He meowed again to be picked up, and his girl quickly complied. 

Chapter Text

Other witches had been calling her Mumsy-Molly since long before she’d ever given birth to a single redheaded child of her own. Although she’d grown a fairly thick skin over the years, that was always the insult that seemed to dig into all the worst of her insecurities. From as early as she could remember she’d been maternal by nature, and it had turned out to be a lucky thing she was. 

When her parents had been some of the earliest war casualties she’d ended up having to raise both herself and her two younger brothers all on her own. Auntie Muriel had let them stay with her during their summers away from school, but had more often than not refused to lift a finger to help in any other meaningful way. Fabian and Gideon had been a handful and had driven her nearly crazy at times, but the wild pair had also given her plenty of training in patience for all the many little Weasleys that were to come. 

It really was hardly fair though, that she’d had to go straight from raising the two of them to raising her own babies, all without ever even having a chance to be a hot single young woman on her own for a while. And during the seventies of all times! When the muggles had been at the height of some of their most wild and interesting social experimentation. It was a bit of a tragedy. 

She’d skipped the free love era altogether, and though she dearly loved every single one of her children and her Artie and wouldn’t trade any of them for a thing in the world, she sometimes felt as if she’d missed out. If she’d had even a year on her own back then to be young and out on the prowl, with no brothers or husband or children who needed her constant care - and when bellbottoms were in fashion? No one would have called her Mumsy-Molly then, that’s for sure. 

As the years passed and she became entrenched deeper and deeper in the endless work of motherhood, she felt like the word took on new meanings of its own. As a teenager it had just been a way for the other girls to call her bossy or meddlesome, and hadn’t really done more than sting to hear. As a woman with seven children and a house packed full like sardines and a husband who never seemed to be promoted, it started to sound more and more cutting whenever she heard it. Even just overhearing another woman say the word mumsy in passing would send her mind spiraling to dowdy, dumpy, frumpy, harridan, hag… 

(unfuckable)

So needless to say when she overheard little Hermione, whom she dearly adored and had become especially close with in the last year, casually describe her that way as if it were the highest compliment she could possibly give her, Molly had been rather unsure how to take it. She hadn’t been eavesdropping on purpose, but it had been one of the warmest weeks of summer and the kitchen window had been wide open to let a breeze in while she made the kids their tea. She had been about to call them all in when she realized Ginny and Hermione were playing in the garden right under the open window. 

She had herself a bit of a listen as the two talked about anything and everything under the sun that little girls might find interesting in that rambling way children had that she was so very fond of. Her Percy had been the absolute worst of them, somehow able to turn a trip to the mailbox into his personal rendition of the odyssey, but even still she’d always found it charming. Their Hermione was quite the same way, get her going and she could talk your ear off for an entire afternoon if you let her, that bright little mind racing ahead almost faster than her tongue could follow. It was one of her favorite things about her. 

Despite the tone conveying no cruelty or malice, she could not help but be more than a small bit hurt when she heard that hated phrase leave the girl’s mouth. 

“-I dunno Gin, your mum’s simply the mumsiest mum I’ve ever met in my entire life! I know it’s fun at the compound and the pack are all close, but if you’re not one of their kids werewolf mums might as well be actual wolves. Rainy and Keely always thought I was crazy for being scared of their mums when my dad is the alpha but I didn’t get it until I met yours. I didn’t realize mums could be nice to kids that weren’t their own. Your mum is so soft and sweet and warm and her hugs are like the most wonderful magic,” The girl said wistfully, her voice dreamy like she was far away in the middle of a good memory. Molly’s heart twanged with affection for her, and she wanted nothing more than to go and scoop her two little darlings up into her arms and hold them. But she held back, and was glad she had as the girl’s voice became pained and tight. 

“With the way the other wolf mums acted towards me, I was always sort of glad I didn’t have my own. I mean… I felt bad for dad having lost his mate, but in the grand scheme of things I suppose it seemed like a mum was more trouble than she was worth. Yours made me realize how wrong I was, and just what me and Harry missed out on not having ours. It made me really sad for a while, actually. Like… Miriam and the other older females took turns watching me when I was little and dad was busy, but why didn’t any of the others? It can’t have just been cause they were busy with kids of their own, cause yours has seven of you and she’s the nicest mum I’ve ever met! She’s warm enough for everyone who comes to her door... Why couldn’t they have just been kinder, Ginny?” She said, her voice small and so achingly vulnerable. 

Molly’s eyes were wet and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to avoid sobbing. How could those mothers have been so unfeeling as to have seen a child that needed love and not given it to her? What was wrong with them? Her chest felt like a giant’s fist was constricting it, and she struggled to steady her breathing. She heard her daughter start trying to comfort her cousin, and was proud of her kindness. 

“Nene… your dad seems cool to you because he’s your dad and he’s sweet with you, but he’s a bit scary to everyone else. I bet those lady wolves were just worried uncle Fenrir would think they’re trying to use you to make a move on him. Adults have to worry about stuff like that all the time apparently. I read about something like that in one of mum’s gross romance books once, the one with the bloke in the kilt on the front. In the story he accused the lady of trying to get on his good side by being friendly to his daughter,” Molly felt her cheeks heat, realizing she’d have to keep a closer eye on where she left her novels lying around. She wondered how many of her other children had ever bothered to take a curious peek, and knowing her boys she was sure at least one or two of them had scarred themselves. 

“Oh! And also… Our Charlie told me that there were always girls at Hogwarts trying to do stupid stuff to get his attention, and it always backfired and just made him not like any of them. You’ve got to admit, your dad’s a bit of a grouch even on his best day - imagine how fuming he’d be if one of the lady wolves in his pack really was a love schemer and just being nice to you just to get into his kilt!” Her daughter said dramatically, and she mentally groaned at the ridiculousness of it all. What a thing to say, but it had made Hermione laugh and that sound was like music to her ears after how sad the poor dear had sounded. 

She had shaken her head, smiling in amusement as she went back to making their snacks for tea. She’d never thought being called mumsy could be a compliment, but it suddenly felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever said about her. Yeah she was a mum. And if being a mumsy mum meant that she was good and kind and loved children and treated them like they were worth a damn, then she was happy to be the mumsiest mum in the whole entire world. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the beginning of their relationship, when only owls and letters had been exchanged between them, little Hermione Greyback had been merely a distant relation who had done a kind thing for her family. A friendly benefactor. Someone she was definitely grateful towards, but a stranger all the same. It had scarcely taken more than a single meeting for Molly to come to adore the child, and to see her as practically a second daughter. 

More surprising than the discovery that her husband’s new head of house was a werewolf child, more surprising than the discovery that she had reinstated them into one of the most prestigious families in wizarding Britain, more surprising even still than the discovery that said werewolf child had somehow managed to get the Weasleys in good with the Malfoys after a hundred and fifty years of blood feuding, was the discovery that their little lady’s brother was none other than Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world. 

The moment she’d set eyes on the girl’s brother in Andromeda’s living room she’d recognized him not as the boy-who-lived, but as the child she’d held in her arms and rocked to sleep at order meetings so many years ago. Sometimes in her very own kitchen. She remembered praising his young mother and father for what a sweet baby he was, for how lovely his green eyes were, for how handsome and clever he’d been even as an infant. They’d been exhausted, the poor things, but so incandescently happy. They’d sworn up and down that he was worth every single sleepless night. 

Everything around her in that moment had faded away and blurred at the edges as she’d been thrown back into her memory of the three Potters when they were last alive and together, utterly love struck with their perfect baby. His skin was a little lighter now than it had been then, his hair veering more towards brown than black, and it had a bit more curl to it. But those eyes were the same, and she had found herself nearly lost in their brilliant bottle green depths. The same then as they were now, and the same as his mother’s. Arthur had shaken her shoulder, bringing her back to the present, but she would swear to her last breath that she’d seen Lilly look at her and nod before she’d been drawn out of the brief reverie. 

She’d always had a soft spot for children, and it was no hardship to admit that she was particularly fond of these ones. The poor girl had grown up without a mum - and the boy had grown up without either of his parents until he’d been taken in by the Greybacks. Lots of children had been orphaned or lost parents from the war, of course, and her heart broke every time she heard of another little one who’d grown up alone or with a part of themself missing. They were all deserving of love and care, but something in these two had called out to her, and she had felt her heart respond in kind. Though she had only ever had the courage to say it aloud to her Artie, who she knew understood and felt the same, she was of the firm belief that she had nine children. 

Seven she’d given birth to, and two she’d found and chosen. 

So when her oldest daughter had brought over a pair of cats without even thinking to ask for her say so she’d been a bit miffed until she’d realized what a kind gesture it was intended as, and her temper cooled as she watched her girls giggle and coo over their new cats. 

Despite it being a weekday during the school year, Molly was always delighted to see Hermione whenever she came to visit the burrow, and this time was no exception. The girl was really very compassionate, always thinking of others and their feelings. She was so glad Hermione and Ginny had bonded the way they had. As much as she’d always longed for more girls she knew her Ginny bean had also equally desperately wanted a sister. And now she had one… and apparently a critical part of that bond was going and picking out pets for each other. 

(She could scarcely blame them, Charlie had brought home worse over the years. She still didn’t want to know where he’d found that lethifold and why in the name of Merlin he’d tried to keep it under his bed. They’d had to call in Amos Diggory from the DRCMC to help with that one, and he still glared whenever she saw him in town.)

She’d always been more of a dog person, which was a good thing she supposed now that a good deal of the people in her life were… of a canine nature. It wasn’t that she’d disliked cats but rather that she found them cold and aloof, and couldn’t seem to relate. But she found she rather liked the look of the clever ginger tomcat that had sat on her table and so politely sniffed her hand. It really was quite an ugly thing, with a squashed in face and short bandy legs, but it had a big enough personality to match the girl that had chosen him. 

In her opinion the kitten that had been given to Ginny was a much more handsome fellow, though he didn’t seem quite as bright. He was young though, and he could still surprise them yet. As she was thinking that, the kitten leapt out of her daughter’s arms clumsily. It had clearly been aiming for the table but it thumped hard onto the kitchen floor instead. All three of them froze, and Hermione clamped a hand tightly over her mouth, clearly trying to hold back a laugh she knew was insensitive. Her Ginny bean let out a frantic shriek “You saw that I didn’t drop him, right mum? He just launched himself out of my arms!” She said, verging on hysterical with tears starting to stream down her face. 

Molly crouched down to pick the poor thing up off the floor and inspected it carefully, pressing her fingers gently along the fine small bones of its paws and legs and spine. She heard Hermione comforting Ginny, letting her know that it was still breathing and its heart rate was steady. What a powerful set of ears that child had on her! Thankfully, it seemed perfectly fine to her eyes as well. Nothing broken or out of place. It hadn’t made a peep when it fell either, so it must have been significantly sturdier than it looked. 

Standing back up and dusting her knees, she set it gently on the tabletop. 

Shaking itself off, it staggered diagonally across the surface to sit with the other cat without a care in the world. It moved in the way that very young creatures did, each step wobbly and uncertain even when it had a clear destination in mind. She couldn’t help but notice that the tomcat hadn’t seemed surprised or particularly concerned about its little nephew taking a tumble. It must be a regular occurrence. With a chuckle, she suddenly thought of a good name for it “Ginny darling, the way this one jumps about you should think about calling him Pounce,” she said lightly. 

Her daughter lit up “That’s such a great name mum - and it rhymes with flounce! Pouncey Flouncy, or maybe Flouncy Pouncey! Flouncy Pouncerson! What a cute name for a cute wittle kitty!” She said, picking it up and hugging it to her chest a good deal more securely than she had the first time. Smart girl. She snorted, her littlest’s sense of humor always amusing her to no end “Just don’t confuse it dear, its young enough that you’ve got some time to choose a name for it,” she advised, “but you should still decide on one rather than switching between several. Be sure you like whatever you pick before you start calling it that,” she said, already envisioning a grown cat that had eight different pet names and responded to none of them. 

Hermione looked at her own cat consideringly “Do you think Crooksie would prefer if I keep the name they called him at the shop? He’s not exactly a kitten, and they probably called him that his whole life…” she said a bit sadly. Molly thought about this, but before she could respond the cat looked up at her from where the girl was holding it in her arms, meowed softly to get her attention, and proceeded to very clearly shake his head just like a person saying no. Her and Ginny exchanged shocked glances, unsure if this was normal behavior for how animals interacted with the werewolf child, or if it were strange even for her. 

Hermione seemed utterly delighted, and entered into a full-on conversation with the cat “You like the name I picked for you, then?” She asked it sweetly, and it nodded its head eagerly, its furry jowls wobbling like jelly. “What a clever kitty, did you figure out how to say yes and no all on your own?” It nodded again, its eyes gleamed and its chest puffed and its tail swished behind it. It was proud of itself. 

Molly had seen a lot growing up in a magical home and attending a magical school and living her life in the wizarding world, but she’d never - not ever - seen anything like this. She was reminded of hearing her grandfather describe meeting and briefly working with Newt Scamander once a very long time ago, the way the man had so instinctively understood the creatures he loved and cared for. That the trust and bonds of friendship he’d developed with them seemed to bolster them with a keen intelligence above and beyond what any other domesticated animals were anywhere near capable of possessing. 

She wondered if it was simply the animal in the girl that allowed her to better understand the cat, or if the cat was a particularly remarkably intelligent specimen on its own, or if it was some combination of the both at work. A highly intuitive child and a brilliantly clever cat. Her own twin terrors danced through her head at the thought, and she marveled in awed horror at the sheer unadulterated mischief they could get up to if they ever really put their heads together towards a common goal. 

Shaking her head to clear the heartburn-inducing thought away, she got up to begin making a pie for Hermione to take home to her father and brother for the full moon the next day, and left the girls to giggle and love on their new pets. 

After a while she heard the floo activate and a terrible yowl come from the other room, and her heart dropped practically down to her toes. Had one of the cats somehow-? Wooden spoon in hand, she nearly abandoned her cooking fruit on the stove top to go and investigate, but then heard her eldest son swearing up a storm and relaxed somewhat. It had been someone coming through, whichever cat had been closest to the fireplace had probably just been startled by the flames. Silly creatures!

Hermione had darted out into the other room as soon as she heard the yowl, and nearly barreled straight into Bill on her way out of the kitchen. He ducked to the side to avoid her, and swore again rather colorfully. Despite her amusement she tutted at him “Watch your language in front of the littlest ones, dear” she chided gently, and he scowled “That thing just properly brutalized my damn ankle! When did you and dad get a cat? I thought you hated them,” He whined, reminding her of the many times he’d been bitten or scratched or otherwise aggressed by one of the things Charlie had snuck into the house when they were boys. 

Molly sighed happily and smiled into her pan of simmering fruit “Don’t be ridiculous - I don’t hate them Bill, we’ve just never exactly seen eye to eye, me and cats. These ones are quite nice enough though. Hermione brought them by - the big tomcat is the one she picked out for herself and the kitten is a gift for Ginny. Wasn’t that sweet of her?” She said proudly, having come around to the creatures entirely in the short time they’d been in her home. Never having had a familiar of her own, she decided she rather liked the idea of her girls having found theirs already. A genuine bond with one was supposed to help a great deal with young ones learning to use their magic, after all. 

Her sixth mum sense told her Bill was rolling his eyes at her, and she whipped around to catch him in the act. He looked quite startled and she was glad to see she still had it. “None of that, now!” She warned with a laugh, and he shook his head exasperatedly “I’ll never understand how you do that,” he muttered, taking a seat at the kitchen table next to his sister, pressing a kiss onto the top of her head and giving her kitten a cheeky tickle under the chin. “Introduce us then, Gin” he said gamely, his voice taking on the tone all of her older ones tended to use when they were humoring their baby sister. 

Her youngest presented the kitten to him and held out it’s paw for him to shake “This is Pounce, mum named him cause he tried to jump onto the table and missed,” she said cheerfully, all earlier fear that she’d let it kill itself gone. “Missed by a long shot,” Molly said under her breath, and Bill pretended to sniffle to cover his snort of laughter. “He’s a much more… conventionally handsome lad than that other fellow,” her son said rather diplomatically “at least they both blend in,” he added with a grin, making his sister giggle. “Oh yes, there’s no denying they’re a pair of Weasley cats with that ginger fur,” she agreed sweetly, holding the kitten up so that it was near their heads. 

It really was quite a good match. 

Hermione came back in the room then, rushing over to greet Bill and apologize for her cat savaging his leg “I’m sorry about Crooksie, Bill. The poor darling was absolutely terrified. I’m fairly sure he lived his whole life until now in that pet shop, and he must have never seen anyone come out of a fire before,” the girl said sheepishly, tugging on his sleeve and deploying tactical puppy eyes against him. Privately Molly thought that the instinct to bite so viciously when frightened was probably one of the main reasons he’d gone unsold in the pet shop for so long, but she kept that thought to herself. Those slightly feral predilections just served to make the cat all the better a match for their wild and rambunctious girl. 

Said girl had moved around to the other side of the table and was suddenly pulling stacks upon stacks of parchments out of her pockets. She arranged them neatly on the table and sat primly with her hands folded in front of her “I’m actually very glad to have caught you both here at the same time, I have an important family matter I need to discuss with the pair of you… Official house of Black business,” she clarified, and Molly narrowed her eyes at the girl. Her sixth mum sense flaring to life once again. 

“Hermione Elena Greyback tell me you didn’t get your sist- your cousin a pet cat just to… to butter me up for some business venture!” She demanded, her voice an icy whisper she knew the girl would be able to hear perfectly well. At hearing a sibling get full-named at the normally neutral dinner table of all places, Ginny rather smartly backed away and slunk away silently into the living room with wide-eyes, taking her kitten with her. 

Meanwhile Hermione’s eyes widened and she shook her head emphatically “What? No, of course not - Molly, I would never! On my honor, this is completely unrelated,” the girl insisted, and she relaxed somewhat. She hummed a bit, still not entirely convinced “Awfully convenient timing, all things considered,” she muttered, and was well pleased when she saw her girl gulp and look a bit nervous. Oh she still had it, alright.  

“Come now, mum, play nice,” her eldest said playfully from his seat at the table. “Besides, I’m rather curious and I’d bet this week’s entire paycheck you are as well,” he added with a wry smirk that was terribly and wonderfully reminiscent of her own long-departed father. It ached to see it on his face as much as it lifted her spirits. She tried ever so hard not to play favorites, but it was difficult not to love your firstborn just a little differently than all the rest that followed. Not more, just different. 

She waved her wand and set the pan of fruit to stir itself, and made her way over to sit next to him across from Hermione. She folded her hands in front of herself to match her girl and raised a brow archly “Well?” She asked “Go on then, dear,” she prompted a bit frostily still, curious herself but not yet fully convinced the pet hadn’t been a diplomatic gesture. 

Hermione cleared her throat and tugged on the neck of her shirt a bit childishly, but was ever the consummate little professional when she began in earnest, and Molly was reminded fondly of when her Percy was that age. Always so studious and officious, trying to be so formal all the time and act like a miniature grown up. It was remarkably endearing, and she warmed a bit and had to fight the smile it threatened to bring to her lips. 

“As you may or may not be aware given Bill’s position at the bank, since the crowning of their newest chieftain a few years ago the goblins have begun carefully strategizing for their next rebellion,” she began very seriously, and mother and son made frantic eye contact with each other. This was not at all what they’d been expecting from her. Molly raised her brows and Bill shook his head, he hadn’t heard even a whisper of a rumor of rebellion. The eleven year old at the table obviously had higher bank clearance than he did, an actual employee of the institution. Having grabbed their attention so thoroughly, they listened carefully to the rest of what she had to say. 

“They were originally vaguely aiming for launching it within the decade, but they’ve recently decided to move things up so to speak. Ragnok is a very politically minded young fellow with a lot of great ideas, and he’s making moves at breakneck speed that the rest of them would have gladly let drag on for ages. My involvement in this all started because I was in correspondence with the Black family accounts manager Gornuk, who has become a dear friend. I asked him some questions that it’s since been made very clear to me would have gotten anyone else’s entire house banned from banking. I was lucky to be in the position of a fellow non-human aristocrat, and so my curiosities were understood to come from a place of empathy and solidarity, and were therefore humored,” she said wistfully. 

“This is hard to even think about let alone talk about, but you’re family and you’ve been so good to us. To me. So understanding and kind, and I know that even if you don’t agree you’ll at least understand. Things got better after the war in general, but it’s still very dangerous for werewolves and other non-humans right now in the wizarding world. There are laws that make it laughably easy for people to hurt us and claim self defense and never see any consequences for their crimes. There are places that we’re not allowed to go and things we’re not allowed to do, that Harry and I have been made the exception for because of our last names. A Black and a Potter will be denied nothing by this society, even if we’re half-breeds,” she said so casually that it tore painfully at Molly’s heart. 

“Don’t call yourself that!” She cried, one of her hands pressing against her chest and the other desperately reaching out across the table for her girl’s hands. Gripping it tight in her own and not letting go “Don’t you ever call yourself that, even if the rest of the world does, my love,” she begged “it’s not what you are. You’re whole and perfect and you do nothing by halves!” She said through tears, and she saw tears shining in Hermione’s eyes as well. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just been in my head since school started. An older boy called me that on the train if you must know, and I’ve heard other students whisper it in passing here and there a few times a day since. I was so shocked the first time, and every time after has made less and less of an impact. I’ve come to accept that’s just how a good deal of my school mates see me and my brother, as only half human, and that it’s the way society will see us as well when it gets out about what we are. Still only half human, but important ones that they can’t ignore. Well, if they can’t ignore us then I’m going to make them listen to what I have to say!” She said passionately, and the pair of Weasleys were absolutely gripped. She was a very compelling little speaker. 

“The goblin chieftain has convinced Harry and I to go to the opening session of the wizengamot next week and claim our ancestral seats. He claimed his Potter heir ring at the bank just earlier today, and we’re going to name Remus and our dad as our proxies so they can serve while we’re at school. It’s going to be a tremendous amount of work for them but we’ll help out as much as we can. Trying to do more, to have a bigger say in what’s happening in the world, it’s why I needed to talk to the two of you. I want to ask you to help me,” her girl said, and breathed in and out as if bracing herself. 

“Molly, I know you’ve already taken on the extra work of being a member of the board of governors at the school and I can’t thank you enough for already having helped us in that position. My dad told me about how you spoke on our behalf at the meeting where our educational contract was reviewed, and I sincerely appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. It means the world to me that someone who loves us was there and involved in the process. Please continue doing what you’re doing, it’s incredibly important and your voice is more powerfully heard there than you realize!”

“The chieftain actually gave me some information to pass on to you specifically, he said you should be glad to hear it. In anticipation of making a more serious alliance with our house, he had his accounts managers do some digging into their archival records. I’m sorry you have to hear this from me, but your aunt Muriel has been lying to you. She’s always claimed to be the head of house Prewett but it was actually her brother who had the title last, putting you and your children in direct line to inherit it. You both have a claim to it, all either of you have to do is get to Gringotts first and challenge for the lordship before Muriel does. She’s ancient and weak, and your family magic is much more likely to accept one of you as its rightful successor. Plus she doesn’t know you know, so it’s not like she’ll be racing to fix her slip-up,” though she clearly felt guilty about delivering this, she clearly had no idea just how much hearing it would effect Molly. While her girl continued to barrel on without pause, Molly was left reeling, holding onto the end of the table to stay upright. 

“Ragnok personally suggested that you either claim the lady ship as soon as possible and have Bill serve on the Prewett seat as your proxy, or let him claim the lordship. As a mother of so many students who’ve gone to or are currently attending the school you’re very well positioned on the board of governors to have a significant influence there regarding admissions decisions for years to come. In fact, the chieftain said you could be the single most important piece on the chessboard right where you are - having someone we can implicitly trust on that board could be the key to getting educational rights secured for werewolf and goblin children!” She gushed excitedly, and molly felt the breath in her lungs leave her. 

“Also, Bill… I didn’t exactly mean to go over your head when it comes to your job, but I have letter for you here from Chieftain Ragnok. I told him about how one of our cousins was working in his bank and he’s personally made you an offer to take an official leave from your training to do this work in the wizengamot on behalf of the horde. He called it a sabbatical. If you accept, you’ll be named a friend of the goblin people and will be in an incredibly respected and influential position at the bank when you resume your training. He’s also agreed to pay you very well for taking on the job. If you take it then as soon as you’re sworn in you can call for a vote for house Weasley’s seat to be restored and Arthur or one of his relative could potentially serve as well. That would make two additional seats that are sympathetic to our cause, and every single one counts,”

“So really all of that is why I’m here; it is in my official capacity as the head of the house of Black that I do formally ask you, my cousins by marriage and by blood, to take up what seats that you can and join me in this political endeavor. To see magical non-humans gain the rights that every witch or wizard is guaranteed from birth. To go to school and learn, to carry a wand, to have the same protections under the law. What do you say?” She asked, her voice tremulous but loud. Molly was taken aback at her bravery, at her nerve, at the amount of responsibility heaped upon her tiny shoulders. She sat stunned, listening to the girl she so adored talk and talk and talk and talk. Hearing her saying bigger and more dangerous things, she tried stumblingly to process all of what she’d just been told.

Her thoughts raced and rushed and kept coming back to one point of hateful contention “Do you mean to tell me… that evil old cow swanned about for decades like the queen of bloody Egypt… letting us all know just how beneath her we were, and how lucky we were for her generous and merciful nature… and she was never even actually Lady Prewett in the first place?” She demanded, panting like a bull. Her temper rose and rose and her vision started to tinge red around the edges. 

Her son tried to lay a hand on her shoulder but she shook it off, standing and pacing her kitchen. For years they’d balanced on the sword’s blade of poverty, and her aunt had done little more than chastise her for having so many children and having married a man who couldn’t provide better. The rotten old hag had refused to give her a single sickle more than what had been in her trust vault. Even when she’d begged pathetically. Even when she’d been drowning in young and hungry children. How dare she? How dare she!

She should grab her son’s arm and march down to the bank right this instant to claim what should have been hers all this time-

Molly heard a soft whimper, and spun around like a whirling dervish to see her son crouched on the floor next to Hermione, her precious girl who was shaking like a leaf despite his efforts to comfort her. She had let her damnable Prewett temper get the best of her, and she realized belatedly how her reaction might look to a child. Even a brave one. She hurried over and knelt beside him, taking the girl’s hands in her own, bringing them up to her mouth to press a kiss into the knuckles. It took her a moment to think of the right words to say to fix the mess her poor reaction had caused. 

“You just keep bringing blessing after blessing into our lives my darling,” she said breathlessly, smiling and hoping it showed her how much she was loved in this house “You’re going to drive me round the bend, you are.”

Big wet gray eyes looked up at her, wide and not quite so forlorn as they had been mere moments ago “Wh-what? I don’t understand, you got so angry… Your heart rate went insane and I could hear your teeth grinding and smell the blood from where you dug your nails into your palms,” her girl said mildly, keeping her head ducked low “I’m sorry, Molly. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard, shouldn’t have been so bossy and assumed that-” she had to cut her off there. She couldn’t let her even finish that sentence it was so wrong. 

She had so many thoughts in her head, it was time for a word storm of her own. 

“You didn’t push, and you certainly weren’t bossy, and I wasn’t mad at you at all, dear. I was mad at my terrible dreadful old fraud of an aunt! What you did was give me lots of good information I didn’t know about, and that I’m happy you trusted me with. Of course I want to help you make the wizarding world safer for you and your brother and all the other little werewolf and goblin children. It would be my absolute honor and privilege to join such a cause. And I just simply can’t believe the goblin chieftain has ever had a single solitary thought in his head about me - Molly Weasley! And he apparently thinks I’m a political asset! Goodness, it feels a bit like I’m in a spy novel, all intrigue and thrills. And yes! As your family by marriage the Prewetts do formally commit to allying ourselves with your house and championing this cause. We’ll go to the bank this very afternoon and Bill will challenge for the Lord ring-”

“I will?” Her son cut in incredulously and she waved her hand in his direction dismissively “He will! Read that letter from your boss’s boss’s boss and tell me it’s not the best job offer you’ve ever had, William Weasley. I dare you! And besides, Prewetts and Weasleys are both notoriously long-lived. We tend to stick around far past our usefulness. Your training as a curse-breaker will still be there waiting for you when you’re ready to come back to it,” she argued, and he didn’t have a rebuttal as he’d already cracked the seal and started to read it. 

His eyebrows rose and rose and rose, and when he looked up his cheeks were flushed “It really is an incredibly generous offer,” he agreed meekly. 

She continued on with a grin “And once he’s done that we’ll have to go up to the attic and find all of those ancient pureblood policy and etiquette manuals auntie Muriel gave me for Christmas when I came of age. Turns out she was right about them coming in handy someday!”

At that, Hermione threw herself into her arms and Molly held her tightly. She breathed in the scent of her curls and pressed a kiss on the top of her head “We’re in this with you my darling, I swear it. We’ve got you,” she breathed, rocking her softly and stroking her hair. “Weasleys stick together,” Bill said as he rubbed circles on the girl’s back, and she proudly hummed her agreement. He was such a good boy. 

“…Am I a Weasley?” Hermione asked in a voice so soft and tentative she nearly missed it, all the while clutching at her tighter and pressing her little face into her shoulder to avoid her gaze. The things this child did to her poor old heart!

She paused as if she were thinking about it.

“Well you don’t exactly have red hair, but you do have a ginger cat so I think that’s a point in your favor… You’re clever and kind and brave, that’s another three points… And you’re a twin, those’ll be the Prewett genes coming in strong, I’d say that’s five points at least… Your nose looks a bit like my dad’s if I squint so I’ll give you a half a point for that… You’ve got the same lovely grey eyes as my Artie’s mum did and she was certainly a Weasley, so let’s call that another two points there… I think that’s got to be at least ten points, I’d say that makes you more than Weasley enough for our taste, eh Bill?” She asked, and both of her children were beaming at her radiantly. 

“Oh certainly! And you don’t seem to mind listening to dad talk about his muggle junk, that’s got to be another couple points,” he said charmingly, with that handsome boyish grin of his that always made the girls swoon. Hermione giggled and rubbed her cheek onto Molly’s shoulder and her nose into the crook of her neck “And you’re tough and protective and you care a lot about your pack, just like a Greyback should,” the girl whispered. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was a bit later as the pie was just going into the oven that she heard Ginny exclaim about Hermione’s cat having brought her a rat and her helping him kill it the rest of the way. She wished it hadn’t happened in her kitchen, but it was good that she had put the poor thing out of its misery. How a child could be so vicious and compassionate at the same time still turned her head inside out. To see a creature suffering and to snap its neck as a kindness was anathema to her, but she supposed it made sense for someone who was used to catching her own dinner. 

Her and that cat really were an incredibly well matched pair, she thought with a chuckle, and reminded herself to soup up the burrow’s anti-pest wards a bit more before going to bed for the night. How on earth a rat had managed to find its way inside the house was going to keep her up if she didn’t do something about it “Banish it to the orchards or let him eat the thing, but either way I want it out of my kitchen!”

Chapter Text

Monday morning came and the conversation it brought with it was beyond tumultuous. It felt like a penance to be served in direct proportion with how smoothly the rest of the weekend had gone. 

After much deliberation and some heated argument, followed by tender reminders that they still were family and loved each other even when they disagreed, Hermione had gotten her father to concede to offer the new bite to whoever wanted it. Although he had clearly been uncomfortable with the idea at first, he had slowly come around. It had taken some deep reflection and trust on his part, and he had spent the better part of the morning meditating and searching within his pack bonds with Harry and Remus to determine that her altering their wolf spirits hadn’t changed any aspect of their pack allegiance to him. He was still their alpha. 

It had stung a bit at first, though she had tried her best to shove that feeling down deep to where it couldn’t be picked up on by her highly intuitive father. She was his heir, and would be alpha after him one day - a seductively rebellious part of her wondered idly if it would really be the worst thing in the world for a few members of the pack to consider her the alpha. But immediately she recognized the danger of such an arrogant and unwolflike train of thought. 

It wasn’t a hierarchy like outsiders assumed. The pack was a family and the alpha was the parent, and there was nothing worse than a family divided. She was a child still, and as strong as she knew she was, as much as she knew she would be able to handle it when the responsibility passed to her one day, she wasn’t ready to be a parent now. Especially not to over a hundred wolves, most of whom were adults or elders. 

With that in mind, she found the patience and humility to embrace her father’s hesitance and caution, and reassured him that she was more than certain she could bite members of their pack to endow them with this gift from the goddesses without influencing their loyalties. Her bite would not steal the allegiance of wolves that already belonged to her father, it would only do its work to affix their human and bestial spirits together as it had done for her brother and Remus. She could tell that she had won him over when she was able to take his concern seriously and acknowledge the importance of their pack remaining one single family.

He smiled at her and the weight of the pride in his gaze was nearly overwhelming. “If nothing else, it will be amusing to see what the rest of the pack does with the ability to shift at will. You’ve always been more comfortable with four legs than two, I can’t wait to see wolves all around, lounging around casually in their fur in the middle of the day the way you do,” he had admitted with a wry grin, and she shared the sentiment entirely.  

What was more difficult was deciding just how much to tell the pack that evening. The matters at hand were of a highly spiritual nature, but they were also of a highly sensitive nature. A good deal of the information would almost certainly have to be significantly abridged before it could be disseminated. There was no one who would be better to consult on circumstances such as these other than her father’s beta Ófnir, who was the spiritual leader of the pack as well as his right hand. If he were around to provide insight. 

Her father hadn’t come right out and said it, but if it hadn’t been obvious from the last few letters they had exchanged before coming home for the weekend, then the last few days had made it abundantly clear that something had happened between him and Ófnir. The man had been a near constant presence in her life growing up, and suddenly he was nowhere to be seen. She knew he was somewhere on the compound, she could feel that he wasn’t far away, but he hadn’t been by once to visit or even say hello since they had come through the floo on Saturday morning. His absence all weekend long was loud and it spoke volumes. 

After their discussion about whether or not to offer the bite before the full moon had concluded, she steeled her nerves and tried to broach the subject as delicately as possible. She regretted asking almost immediately when he and Remus both growled low and rumbly, their teeth bared and visibly elongating. Her ears popped and a buzzing filled the edges of the room and she realized one of them must have cast a powerful privacy charm. She looked between the two of them nervously, and whined softly in the back of her throat. 

That did the trick, and brought them both out of their sudden rage “What happened dad? What did he do to make you so angry? Is it because of what he told me?” She asked, terrified that she might have been the cause of this animosity between her father and his closest friend. “This is absolutely not your fault, darling girl,” Remus interjected adamantly before her father could say a word. She glanced his way, knowing how he hated to be interrupted, and to her surprise he looked relieved. 

He nodded in reluctant agreement “He’s right, little wolf. It isn’t what he told you, it’s how he asked you not to tell me. A responsible and trustworthy adult never asks a child to keep secrets from their parent. Especially not about something so important. He convinced you to be dishonest with me and I can’t forgive him for that, no matter his reasoning behind it. You need to understand how serious this is Hermione - he’s given me a very real reason to distrust him. He’s broken something between us, and he used you to do it. You’re my child, in my eyes you are completely blameless in this. I don’t want you feeling guilty or ashamed, he was the adult in the situation and he knew what he did was wrong or he wouldn’t have asked you to keep it quiet. Ófnir has betrayed our trust in him in doing this, and as much as we love him, it makes me question his place in this pack,” he said with an air of finality that made her feel as if she were already at the man’s funeral. 

Hanging his head and looking deeply troubled, her father continued “You haven’t seen him this weekend because I asked for some space to have you to myself. I haven’t told him that I know what he did, and I don’t want you to either. I don’t know how to handle a situation like this neatly, and I’m afraid of what might happen when he finds out that I know of his treachery. I feel like a coward for not having confronted him as soon as I read the confirmation in your letter last week, but I wanted to make sure I had a chance to speak with you first so he can’t wedge his way between us again. I beg you now to always be honest with me daughter. I will never be angry with you for telling me the truth, I swear it with everything I have in me. Whatever he or anyone else may try and tell you, we are stronger if we face it together. There is never any reason for you to keep me in the dark. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s silly. If it comes from you, then I promise I want to hear it,” he said, and his eyes glistened with unshed tears and his voice began to crack and wobble near the end. 

She rushed forward into his arms and he held her more tightly than he ever had before. She felt her ribs flex with the force of his embrace, but it steeled her that she would obey him and never keep anything from him again for any reason, if only to never elicit this emotion from him again. Her father was a strong and proud man, he simply wasn’t made to be brought so lowly. She whispered a bit breathlessly through tears of her own that she promised, she promised, she promised. 

Suddenly she gasped and pulled back far enough that they were nose to nose “We can’t bite anyone else at all or he’ll know as soon as we do. It’s the same prophecy!” She exclaimed, and her father’s face morphed from confusion to shock as he realized what she meant. Remus made a pained noise and swore, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut tightly “…Tell us again exactly what Amalthea and the goddesses said to you,” he ground out. She frowned “Honestly, they said a lot and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a good deal of it.”

Her father grimaced but tried to remain upbeat “Try, my girl. Remember as much as you can, I know it’s all there inside that brilliant head of yours. You’ve never forgotten a single word you’ve read or that anyone’s said to you. If it happened in front of you then it’s got to still be in there somewhere,” he prompted gently, but his teeth were gritted and his face looked terribly anxious, and it made her feel panicky and not in the right mindset to do the type of deep mental dive she usually needed to pull footage like that.

It wasn’t exactly as effortless as she liked to let on. 

His expression softened then, and he turned her hand over in his own so their palms were touching “Connect to your brother with the-… the mind thing you have now. He should be able to help you focus and remember, right? He was there that night too, maybe he even noticed something you missed,” he teased gently, successfully bringing her competitive side roaring to life. If it were a memory game she would always win. She saw his eyes light up in triumph in response to whatever had just passed over her face, and she stuck her tongue out at him before closing her eyes and mentally sinking down into the deep space between her and her brother where the edges of Harry and Hermione blended and became harryandhermione.

He was currently upstairs at his desk not even pretending to do the homework he’d claimed to want to finish, and all he’d really accomplished in the last hour or so were some rude but funny doodles of the Rowle boy. He’d been listening in every now and then just to stay updated but for the most part had simply been killing time, not feeling as if it were really his place to be a part of the earlier conversation between her and their father. It was alpha business after all. There had been a moment when he’d needed to briefly present himself for his pack bonds to be thoroughly inspected, but that had come and gone and he’d fled back to his room when he was no longer needed. 

She and Ófnir were the only ones in the pack with the status to really even have such heated arguments with their father, the rest of them were hardwired to generally go out of their way to avoid confrontation with him. Although Harry was as destined to be her beta one day as she was to inherit their father’s position, the powerful mix of displeased alpha pheromones the two of them gave off whenever they argued like they had was enough to send him scampering away with his tails between his legs just like it would any other member of the pack. She hardly ever fought with their father, but when she did the whole pack had the good sense to steer clear and her brother was no different.

He immediately pressed himself close to her in the mental space they shared when he felt her enter it, and nearly instantaneously he was helping her scour through her memory of the conversations with the centaur woman and the goddesses. With him helping her focus, her recollection was scalpel precise. Like watching a VHS tape fast forward and rewind, she sped through every word that had been spoken by the priestess and the three divine entities that night until she was certain she’d seen enough. 

* * *

We have both been touched by the moon, little sister. Out of all the magical mortals on this earthly plane, she has chosen the two of us to be her champions; I as her voice, and you as her sword. We have a great deal of work ahead of us, but it is work that only we can do. There will be a battle of hearts and minds, and a war of blood and beasts.

You should have been able to give him the gift I gave you. You should be able to give everyone you wish the same gift that I have given you, it was my foremost intention of your very design. You are to be a great bringer of change for your kind, it is why we have touched and blessed you so. Amalthea spoke truly when she called you our little champion. Yet despite all our considerable efforts, another has interfered to thwart your grandsire’s scheming and has threatened our plans in their doing so.

When we draw you here again many years from now, if you have done all these many things that we have commanded, then when you transform together and howl before us it will finally empower and awaken our own metamorphosis. We three, Selene and Artemis and Hekate, the mother the maiden and the crone, the full half and dark phases of the moon, shall amalgamate into Mani, the living embodiment of the moon himself. By that time you may already know him well, but when we transform the geas shall be broken and we may at last tell you the name of the one who plots and schemes against you. There is little we can say, but know that he is cunning and cruel, and closer than you realize. Your grand sire can help you, but alas the geas has stolen his name from our lips as well. You will know him by the color of his magic. Seek the wolf in the woods, and the snake in the school, they can tell you what you need to know, but be kind for the years have been hard on them.

* * *

“None of them ever explicitly mentioned a prophecy, but several times they edged around the fact that they created us with specific greater purposes in mind. Amalthea told me that she and I were their chosen champions, and mentioned a battle and a war that were coming. The lady Artemis told me that she made me to be able to give all wolves the same version of our gift that I was born with. And the last thing they told us was that we would help them transform one day the way they helped us - apparently they need to merge like we did into a god named Mani, and then they’ll actually be the moon and not just the phases,” she reported. 

Her father and Remus seemed as baffled by the last part as she was still, and she continued “The prophecy Offy told me about was supposed to have to do with a werewolf preventing a tragedy. He was sure that there were people who didn’t want it to be fulfilled. That some people hated werewolves enough to rather have the tragedy than be saved by one of us,” she said, not needing to dive into her memories again to recall exactly what he’d told her that night before school started. She couldn’t believe it had only been three weeks, it felt like it had been years ago that they’d sat by the bonfire and he’d confided in her like she was an important little leader. Now she felt like a fool for listening to him and not going to her father sooner. 

Remus looked up at her and his face had relaxed somewhat, his expression more pensive than pained “I could see how that might be distantly connected with the goddesses wanting more werewolves to be able to shift freely. It sounds like they want you to use your gift on as many werewolves as possible, maybe even all of us. Imagine a world where no werewolf is cursed to lose control or live in fear of themselves, a world where there are no violent loners to make the humans hate us. Many packs, enormous and free, safe and healthy and wild. Howling to the moon in thanks and devotion… Devotion!” He exclaimed, eyes wide and hands coming up to run wildly through his hair.