Work Text:
“It feels weird to be back, doesn’t it?” Ginny asked, throwing herself at the seat next to Harry. “I mean, we were carrying bodies around these same floors not four months ago.”
“Yeah,” Ron agreed, his teeth dragging flesh out of the chicken thigh. “I am actually glad we get to ressignify that, though. I’d hate for my last memory here to be–”
No one had to say it out loud; they were all picturing the same thing.
Lavender’s organs still warm and pulsing, splayed over the stone as a result of what Greyback had done to her.
“I think…” Ginny sighed, pushing some mashed potatoes from her plate while she pursed her lips to one side. “She's better off. Lav, I mean… I think she’s better off dead than, you know–”
“How can you say that, Gin?” Harry’s head whipped in her direction. “You knew Lupin–”
“He would’ve said the same thing, Harry!” Ginny argued. “He hated his condition, and I can bet Lavender would hate it too–”
“Definitely.” Ron nodded, mouth full but eyes vacant. “She’d never want to be a monster.”
Hermione’s entire body shuddered, but she remained silent.
“She wasn’t given a choice!” Harry spat.
Choice.
So that is what Harry called it?
To live like a beast or to die… is it really a decision?
Hermione’s gaze slid over past the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff’s tables to lie on the green and silver sea of robes. They were easy to spot, with the contrast between Zabini’s ebony and Malfoy’s marble.
At her side, Ron must’ve followed her line of sight because he scowled before saying, “Lavender would never choose this, Harry. Not like those bastards have.”
And he raised his chin to point at them.
Harry and Ginny turned back to glance at the three former Death Eaters who had been pardoned from Azkaban with only a slap on the wrist, compulsory mind healing sessions and mandatory Muggle Studies in their eighth year at Hogwarts.
“Bastards,” Ginny hissed. “Monsters.”
Harry and Hermione exchanged knowing, defeated looks. He took a shuddering breath, but she was the first to speak.
“We really shouldn’t call them that, Gin. There is already so much prejudice against Lycantropy carriers–”
“Werewolves, Mione.” Ron was grimacing as he served his plate for the second time. “You can call them by their real names.”
“Whatever name we call them, we shouldn’t be ostracising them. Don’t you remember how Lupin–”
“Lupin was a victim, Mione!” Ginny snapped. “They volunteered to become werewolves.” She pointed her fingers at them. The Slythering Wolves.
“Voldemort’s great army,” Harry sighed, absentmindedly rubbing his forehead. “But I don’t really think…I mean, they must have been blackmailed or something–”
“No, Harry.” Ginny shook her head. “When the Carrows announced the recruiting, Zabini, Malfoy and Nott stood up in the middle of the hall and volunteered to enter the Moon Squad.”
Hermione, Harry and Ron all glanced downwards.
They had already heard about it, of course. How, when they were travelling across the country in the search for Horcruxes, Voldemort had begun to increase his ranks by forcing young pureblood wizards and witches to turn into werewolves, which he would unleash to terrorise Muggle cities into submission. Lord Voldemort’s Moon Squad.
But now, Voldemort was dead, and the Wizarding community found itself with dozens of new werewolves, which had created a bloody crisis.
Literally, bloody, since every full moon, there were hundreds of reported attacks.
“Even if they had been forced, they shouldn’t be allowed back into school,” Ron grunted. “It is too dangerous for normal people.”
Hermione winced. “Normal people?”
“I think they ought to have been euthanised!”
“Ginny!” Harry gasped.
“What would you suggest, then?”
Harry’s face flushed, and he clenched his jaw. “I don’t know… Remus had this potion that gave him more control – and then he would stay locked up during full moons–”
“Remus was a good man, mate.” Ron moved on to the desserts that had materialised on the table. “He didn’t want to hurt people. These Death Eaters are quite the opposite; they love going out and hunting innocents. Some of them keep spreading this propaganda of infecting as many as they can–”
“There are extremists, yes, Ronald,” Hermione sniffed. “But Kingsley said a lot of them are coming to authorities requesting wolfsbane and assistance during their transformation–”
“Why were you and Kingsley talking about that?” Ginny asked.
She didn’t look suspicious, just curious.
Even so, Hermione tensed. “I I-I am just very interested in getting an internship at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures…”
Ginny hummed, satisfied. Ron brought up Quidditch, and the conversation drifted easily.
That is, until Minerva McGonagall intercepted them in the middle of the fourth floor on their way to the Gryffindor Tower.
“Potter, Weasleys, Granger, might I have a minute, please?”
They both exchanged curious looks, but nodded and followed the headmistress into an empty classroom, where she locked the door and cast a silencing charm around them. If Hermione hadn’t been wary before, that would’ve done the trick.
“Very well, we don’t have much time, so I will be direct,” she began. “I believe you four are aware of the Wizengamot’s court decision that we house some of the former–”
“Death Eaters.”
“Yes, Miss Weasley, precisely,” McGonagall chirped. “I was extremely against this measure, for the great risk that it puts our students in, considering that–
“They’re werewolves.”
“ Yes, Mr. Weasley.” She pursed her lips. “Although I appealed several times to Kingsley’s common sense, he was adamant in his ruling. And now we find ourselves with this terrible predicament: there aren’t enough aurors to be on guard during the full moon. I have contacted former Order members, but everyone will either be in the law enforcement brigades or volunteering at St. Mungos for injuries and bites–”
Understanding dawned on Hermione before the headmistress had finished speaking, and she gasped.
“You were all in the Order as well, and are of age. Granger and Weasley are prefects… I wouldn’t ask it if I believed we professors alone could deal with this, but the truth is we need help protecting the students from the werewolves.”
Panic bloomed inside her chest, and just as Harry, Ron, and Ginny reassured McGonagall that they would love to patrol the corridors and ensure every student was safely tucked away in their common rooms, she started hyperventilating.
What would she do?
The question, the dread, the all-consuming fear accompanied her for the entirety of the following fortnight. While eating, studying and lying in her bed, it was all Hermione could think of: how would she survive a werewolf hunting night?
It didn’t make it easier that Harry and Ron seemed so excited to be back into action, how thankful they were to have things more interesting than the school subjects to concern themselves with.
Ginny, too, had always been shielded from the action by her family and was enthusiastic to be included in the Golden Trio Eighth Secret Adventure – as she called it.
Hermione could understand all of them.
But no one had any idea of how she felt about the prospect.
She hadn’t told anyone that, while it made them thrilled, facing a werewolf alone in a forest, in the middle of the night on a full moon, was the very thing she was most afraid of.
And only because she had already experienced it.
So, she would hide herself in the girls’ bathroom on the second floor whenever her friends’ subject drifted towards tactics and planning for the patrolling. They were exaggerating, she knew McGonagall didn’t plan on actually sending them into danger.
“The three registered carriers of lycanthropy will be given mandatory wolfsbane each day for a week preceding the full moon, and then they’ll be released in the Forbidden Forest. Professor Flitwick has already cast several wards to keep them inside that delimited area, and we, the staff, will be patrolling the grounds. Your job is to be in the hallways, making sure no student is out of bed,” she’d guaranteed.
“But those wards don’t always work, right?” Ginny said, eerily hopeful, during the last breakfast before the full moon. “Maybe they’ll try to break into the school and–”
“The wolfsbane works, though, regardless of the wards,” Harry provided. “They’ll be conscious during their transformation, Lupin said it himself that he was able to curl up in his office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again.”
“Well, but Lupin’s consciousness was good, those are Death Eaters we’re talking about! They want to attack students, so–”
“So, what good is the potion, then?” Ginny asked. “I mean, is it really a good idea to give them consciousness while they have the superhuman strength of the wolf?”
Hermione chuckled, a bitter laugh, while moving a pea around her plate with her fork. She glanced up and found all her friends were looking at her, waiting for the inevitable influx of knowledge she would always provide.
“What do you think is best, Ginny? An eighteen-year-old traumatised war victim or a bloodthirsty beast?”
The redhead faltered, mouth falling slack.
“I mean, it isn’t really a hard decision. If Malfoy, Nott and Zabini decided on acting, they would probably focus their attack on us, right? We’re the ones who defeated their master and imprisoned their parents,” Ron said.
“Yes, it is that against them wanting to feast on anything that moves in front of them; teachers, children, centaurs, unicorns, wizards from Hogsmead or muggles from nearby villages,” Hermione replied, getting to her feet. “I have to study, I’ll go to the library. We’ll see each other soon.”
She ignored Harry’s attempt to call her as she stormed out of the hall and straight up the stairs towards the second floor. The turmoil inside her mind and chest was so distracting that she didn’t notice the wall until she collided against it, face-first.
A somewhat soft wall–
Hermione fell back on her bum.
“What the hell?”
And then, when glancing up, she was struck with a vision that nearly caught her breath.
White-blonde fringe, falling delicately over his silver eyes, in a swaying motion, as he looked down at her, eyebrows furrowed in question. His lips tugged slightly, and he moved his arm to help her up–
“Watch where you’re going, Granger,” he used his hand to right his shirt, where Hermione had wrinkled the fabric and walked past her, down the stairs towards the Entrance Hall.
“You watch where you’re going!” she spat at his back, pushing herself up.
She walked into the bathroom and ignored Moaning Myrtle’s taunts while rummaging through the improvised shelves she had conjured inside the third stool.
“Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and–yes, Friday.”
A relieved sigh: everything was going according to plan.
“What are you doing with that potion, hm? Trying to look less ugly?”
“Shut up, Myrtle.”
Hermione uncorked the seventh vial and, just as she went to down its contents, the ghost flew in her direction, the freezing sensation of walking into an ice-cold shower made her body jerk and the vial, the very last one she needed to take, clunked on the floor–shattering and spilling its contents over the flooded tiles.
“NO!” Hermione shrieked. “Myrtle, what have you done?”
“Serves you right for being rude,” the ghost sniffed. “I only stayed behind to haunt bullies like you–”
“If you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you for that! ” Hermione growled.
And then she froze; jaw dropped, and eyes wide at what she had just done.
Shaking her head in disbelief, the girl ran.
Ran as fast as she could, as far away from everyone as possible.
Down the stairs, past the Entrance hall, through the school grounds and into the Forbidden Forest.
She couldn’t be near her friends, the students or the teachers…
Because as soon as the Full Moon rose, Hermione would become a werewolf.
And one without wolfsbane.
───°°°☾°°°───
“You are not taking my wand!” Blaise hissed.
“I am afraid this wasn’t a suggestion, Mr Zabini,” McGonagall said. “It is explicitly detailed in the terms of your Wizengamot sentence that the three of you surrender your wands before each full moon–”
“We are not getting inside the Forbidden Forest unarmed, McGonagall–”
“It’s Headmistress!”
“Headmistress,” Theo drawled, with his charismatic smirk. “Surely we can reach a common ground? It is not safe for us to be wandless amidst so many creatures–”
“We all know you three will be the most dangerous creatures in the forest this night, Mr. Nott.”
“So we agree, then?” Nott smirked. “We should only enter the forest minutes before the moon rises?”
“I won’t risk my students’ safety by having potential werewolves inside school grounds minutes before the full moon!” she shrieked.
Draco had had enough of that; he got to his feet and slammed his wand on the oak desk with so much strength that the several silver trinkets on top of it shook dangerously. The headmistress also jumped with the impact and had trembling fingers when she reached for the wand.
“Thank you, Mr. Malfoy.”
Zabini and Nott followed his act, even if not so harshly. Not like they had the choice not to.
“I’d stay inside tonight if I were you, Headmistress,” he murmured, showing only a hint of his canines. “You don’t have enough teachers to fight three werewolves, even without our wands–”
“Is that a threat, Mr Malfoy?”
“It is a fact.” He raised one eyebrow, getting up and closing the front buttons of his robe before sauntering out of the office.
The afternoon sun cast soft rays of light through the thick castle windows, painting orange and pink lines along the corridors they walked through.
Neither of them spoke; they didn’t have to.
Draco knew how they felt; the skin already prickling, ready to crawl out.
Their path towards the forest was almost empty, except for one of two teachers with their wands raised and suspicious eyes.
I hope they get in my way tonight.
His teeth and claws ached for something to shred.
The wolfsbane didn’t silence the beast; it only made him conscious of its effect on him.
Someone could try to fight the urges, but it would be painful and… demeaning.
Draco loved being a werewolf: it gave him power, strength and freedom.
But the transformation… he didn’t like it one bit.
As the sun drew closer to the mountains over the horizon, his body temperature began to rise.
Theo was already grunting at his side, pulling his outer robes over his head and throwing them behind a tree. Blaise took no time with his, merely yanking the sides of his shirt so they would tear in two pieces.
Draco felt like doing the same, but he wouldn’t. He was supposed to be the calmer one, more controlled.
He had been the first to be bitten, and with Greyback’s death, he became the leader of their small pack.
But the sun was already hiding itself, and Draco’s body began to shiver violently. His bones sizzling inside his flesh and digging their way out, stretching and elongating painfully.
None of them could hold back the agonising howls that tore through their chests, as their body wrenched themselves into a new form.
It was like dying and being born again; three giants, covered with thick fur, their snouts snuffling out for prey, and their jaws snapping, deadly fangs clunking against one another.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
Draco could hear Blaise and Theo’s beasts at his side, as well as the beast in himself, roaring into life and demanding blood.
Focus, he was telling them. Obey.
He barked, circling the black and brown wolves, their glittering eyes fluttering as they lowered their heads in a sign of submission to Draco.
He huffed, pawing the ground in front of him.
They had talked about it before, in their human forms, how they would proceed during their transformation: circle the perimeter, search for weak spots in the wards, and, if they found none, they would hunt on the most human-like creature of the forest: the centaurs.
But the plan meant nothing at that moment.
It was not about reason or strategy; it was about instinct and leadership.
Draco lunged forward, loping to the edge of the forest.
Theo and Blaise followed close behind, snarling and huffing on their way.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
It was maddening. They needed to rake something, tear it into pieces and then gobble it.
Blaise was the first to break, pouncing on a unicorn damned enough to cross their path and mauling him in an unyielding assault. The pure creature was reduced to bone and flesh in seconds.
The smell of the blood was to die for, and, despite wanting nothing but to bury his muzzle in it, Draco stood firm.
Instead, he sprang over the black wolf and bared his canines at him, claw on his neck and foam-flecked maw inches from his eyes.
Obey.
Blaise trashed, trying to rip free.
Obey.
With resignation, the glistening eyes closed, and Blaise whimpered.
Yes, alpha.
And so, they left.
Circling the perimeter, trying now and then for a weaker spot.
Theo was growing restless; he was ready to go for the centaurs. Draco could hear his beast yelping for the leader’s permission.
Not yet.
He was about to give in, when they heard it–
A loud, acute, suffering howl came from the middle of the forest.
It made Draco’s entire being coil, muscles taunting in alert.
Female
His gaze glistened greedily, and his heart hammered, inflaming instinct into jarring jolts of jealousy.
Mine.
MINE!
Draco looked back at his pack, and he knew their carefully crafted hierarchy was gone the moment that female entered the woods.
Both Theo and Blaise had their hackles bristling and fangs bared in menacing snarls.
Any claim Draco wished to have on the female would have to be rendered from his friends’ paws – and he was more than ready to do it.
But, before any of them could attack, the female howled again, the sound ripping across the trees and making Draco’s entire body convulse, blazing desire gathering at the base of his spine.
Claim.
Female.
Claim.
The three of them bound towards the sound, moving solely on animal impulses and senses. Draco was able to swerve from trees most of the time, and he would slash them in the middle whenever they stood in his way.
He could smell her now.
My female.
He gnashed at the wolves at his side, signalling he was ready to kill for her. But so were they. Theo growled, trampling over Blaise and crushing his ribcage. The two were fighting, that ugly scene with bared fangs, battering claws and blood spurting in all directions.
Good. Let them kill themselves.
Had it been any other night, he would’ve stopped it, but at that moment, he was glad they would be each other’s distraction as he pursued his female.
And, after a thick spot of trees, he saw her.
A looming silhouette, crouched on all fours over a gored centaur, whose intestines she was hastily removing out of the way with her talons until she could find a liver or a heart.
Her maw was bloodied, her breath steaming in the cold night air, and her amber eyes practically fluorescent in the dark forest.
It was the most beautiful scene he had ever seen.
Draco growled, feeling himself hard already and ready to knot her.
Her head whipped up towards him, and she hissed menacingly.
Mine.
But the female didn’t listen; instead, she hissed and smashed the centaur’s body in his direction, a feeble attempt to slow him down as she bolted into the forest.
Draco roared, bounding after her. His legs were longer, and it didn’t take him long to reach her, gripping her front paws with his and sinking his teeth into the nape of her neck.
The shewolf yelped painfully, arching her back and attempting to fight.
He didn’t want to hurt her, but his claws pierced her skin as she wrestled. He snorted against her shoulder.
Stop.
Mine.
Stay.
She whimpered, but he overpowered her easily, and the more she squirmed, the more she would get hurt. He started to lick her back, sniffling all over her and making sure his scent stuck to her pelt.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
She sighed eventually, body melting into submission and hormones welcoming him closer.
Yours.
The two other wolves were forgotten somewhere, as Draco pushed her against the soft, damp grass and made her his. Entirely his. Until the sun dawned.
───°°°☾°°°───
Her beast hadn’t left yet as her consciousness began to drift back into her mind.
Hermione woke up in a clearing, the early hours of the morning tinting the sky with purple and pastel blue.
At her side, his limbs clinging possessively around her, was a white wolf.
She gasped in horror and wrenched herself free as silently as she could, fear gnawing at her insides.
What had she done?
And then she sprinted through the woods, feeling the painful transformation sear through her body as her bones broke and retracted back into her human form, the cold air biting her skin as she lost her fur, and her feet aching while she stepped over twigs and rocks.
Hermione couldn’t get inside the school naked, but she didn’t have a wand with her.
She rested a palm on a tree and panted nervously, trying to gather her wits and come up with a strategy. She had left her wand and clothes tucked under a root.
Where was it?
Near Grawp’s clearing.
Using the fading Ursa Minor, Hermione walked north, shivering in her struggle to hug her own body. Luckily, she didn’t encounter anything dangerous until she found her belongings; the forest was gloomily quiet. Once armed and clothed, she felt safer to walk back into the grounds.
“HERMIONE!” Ron's thick arms engulfed her as soon as she stepped outside the edge of the forest.
It took her some effort, but Hermione managed to successfully convince her friends and the staff that she had been reckless enough to walk into the forest in an attempt to protect the magical creatures, like unicorns and centaurs, from the werewolves.
Yes, she knew it had been a stupid idea.
No, she hadn’t actually encountered any; instead, she took refuge under an oak trunk.
Yes, she was perfectly safe and sound.
No, she would never do it again.
And Hermione really meant it. Her plans for the next full moons involved taking the wolfsbane correctly and locking herself inside the Room of Requirement.
Merlin, that had been her plan for that full moon.
But instead, she had turned in the Forbidden Forest, completely wild and uncontrolled, and… something warm and tingling prickled inside her womb, coiling in a sickening motion.
What had she done?
Hermione excused herself to the prefect's bathroom, where she assessed the damage. Her shoulder had a bite mark: big, ugly and denouncing. Her four limbs were scratched and bruised, but thankfully, her face was alright.
She’d have to hide those marks, but it was easier to do it when she could cover them with clothes.
No one could know about her secret.
Her friends wanted to hunt werewolves; they saw them as monsters. Frankly, she did too.
There was no other word to describe the urges to tear apart and kill that buzzed through her veins in electric jolts of instinct.
No, Hermione would take her secret to the grave. No one could know.
Especially after seeing how people jeered at Malfoy, Nott and Zabini: calling them names, sneering, keeping as much distance as possible.
Hermione had already been the weird kid in Muggle School, the Mudblood in the Wizarding World... She just wouldn’t allow herself to become even more of an outcast.
She had done a decent job hiding her condition until then; she could keep on doing it. There were only nine full moons left of that school year. After that, Hermione would live as far away as possible from humankind and work from home.
You are the Golden Girl; your faults and fears must never be seen.
Kingsley’s words kept reeling in her mind as the days passed. She buried herself in studies and brewed a year's worth of potions, with several spares should Moaning Myrtle try anything.
And she did her best to avoid the Slytherin Wolves.
Especially since, seeing how injured and almost maimed Zabini and Nott were, Hermione had a hard time trying to convince herself that she hadn’t woken up entangled with Draco Malfoy’s wolf form – but his white fur kept haunting her. So similar to his soft locks.
As did his smell, whenever she walked past him in a crowded hallway. Hermione even caught herself sniffing once or twice, completely inebriated by it.
His voice, on the rare occasions that he used it. So deep and powerful.
And his eyes. Silver eyes. Piercing into her soul.
Mine.
The word kept ringing, a reminder of something. What exactly she couldn't say.
Something primal, forbidden and completely evil. Which was why she avoided them as much as she could.
Until she couldn’t.
If asked, Hermione would not be able to tell how it had begun, but her friends were arguing with the Slytherins at the Study Hall one evening.
And Ginny called them monsters, which Nott replied was much better than being a Weasley.
So Ron said he was anxious to hunt them in the next full moon, and Blaise said likewise.
Harry was the first to draw his wand, but Malfoy landed the first spell, and it all went downhill after that.
Even if she hated confrontations, Hermione couldn’t just stand and watch her friends get hurt, so she lunged to drag Harry’s stunned body somewhere safe as the hexes flew around her head.
A slicing jinx, whose caster she didn't see she didn’t see the caster slashed the sleeve of her robes and shirt, just over her shoulder.
Hermione froze.
Nothing but sheer panic kept her in place.
The bite mark, still red and swollen, made itself known.
She glanced around, everything seemed to move in slow motion: Ginny was duelling with Nott, Blaise and Ron had no wands left and resorted to a fist fight.
Her eyes found Malfoy’s.
His silver ones were glued to her wound. Jaw slack. Chest heaving.
He looked up.
Mine.
“Mione, I need your help,” Ginny shouted.
She would see the bite. They all would. There was no mistaking it for anything else.
Even before Hermione had time to worry about it, Malfoy whipped his wand, and her shirt mended in an instant, the cold feeling of magic licking her skin.
“Let’s go.” Malfoy’s tone was commanding, and it immediately snapped his cronies out of the confrontation.
“You cowards!” Ron shouted at their back, a thread of blood running down his severed lip.
But the three wolves had left.
───°°°☾°°°───
Draco had no idea if Granger would show up.
Merlin knew she had gone out of her way to avoid him until then, especially since he had seen her bite the previous week.
His bite.
His.
She was his now. He had claimed her. Had imprinted his name on her body and soul. In the most primal and pure of ways.
But the mere thought made him dizzy.
She was the Golden Girl, the swot, the muggle-born…
And yet, his instinct had made him chase her through the woods. He had been ready to kill his best mates for her. To own her.
“You wanted to see me?”
Draco glanced back and saw her on the last step of the iron staircase. He lifted his feet from the edge of the tower and rose to greet her.
Granger winced from his extended hand. He pulled it back.
The beast might have thrown her to the ground and bit her into submission, but he… wouldn’t do that.
“Granger,” he greeted. “Yes, come… I want to talk to you—“
“I don’t know what you think you know,“ she said, chin raised in defiance. “But we don’t have anything to talk about.”
“That’s curious,” he said. “Because I want to talk about the bite mark I left on your shoulder when we spent the night together at the—“
“Shut up!” she hissed, glancing around as if anyone could see or hear them at the Astronomy Tower. “Don’t you dare think that means anything. It wasn't even me, it was the beast—“
Draco sighed in amusement. He could see it now. How feral she was. The howling fight she had in her heart. And it made something inside him purr in return, eager to claim her again.
“Funny thing that is,” he said, looking intently at her. “People think the transformation is about possession, like a foreign spirit takes hold of our body… That isn’t true. The transformation doesn’t add anything new into us, it drags out what already exists in our core—“
“You say that because you chose this! You are a Death Eater that sees this curse as a means to power!” she cried. “I didn’t choose this. I was a victim! I was attacked in the woods while on the run from your Lord. The werewolf didn’t even plan on turning me. He wanted to kill, but the sun rose before he finished his job. I am a mistake.”
The word hurt him, so Draco threw caution to the wind and closed the distance between them. Thankfully, Granger allowed him to hug her, his arms wrapped around her shoulders as he sniffed her hair. Still scenting him on her.
“For what a Death Eater’s opinion is worth, Granger,” he whispered. “I don’t think you are a mistake.”
She looked up at him, wide eyes desperate for comfort. “Then what am I?”
“You are Hermione Granger, you survived a war, and you won’t let this new reality be what destroys you.”
And you are mine.