Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Miss Granger, are you quite certain you understand what you're doing?" the Ministry witch – whose name tag read: Carrie Shafiq – asked her sternly.

"I'm applying to become a foster parent to the magical children of several known and convicted criminals with the intention of raising them to adulthood or until such time that their biological family claim them," Hermione replied primly.

"That's not what I meant," Carrie shook her head softly, making her bright blonde ringlet sway. "Have you read the fostering contract for these children, Miss Granger? Do you know how many of them there are? How many are you willing to take on?"

Hermione frowned.

"How many are there?" she asked. "And what ages are they?"

"There are four, currently in need of homes and care," Carrie told her. "All boys. The eldest, Lucian, is seven. The youngest, his half-brother - whose yet to be given a first name - is fifteen months old. There is also another boy, Dmitri, who will be three next month and the fourth, Alrik, has just turned two."

"Erm… Who do they belong to?"

"No one," Carrie shrugged. "If they belonged to someone, they wouldn't be in the custody of the Ministry."

"I meant, who are their biological parents," Hermione sighed, annoyed with the woman for being purposely dense.

"I'll get you their files," Carrie said after pursing her lips for a moment.

Hermione nodded and waited to be given four files for the four small boys who needed care.

"These are for the two who are related, Lucian and his little brother," Carrie said, handing it over. "This one is for Alrik, and this one is for Dmitri."

Hermione accepted them carefully, feeling dread pool in her stomach as she saw the surnames stamped across the front.

"Greyback, Lucian," Hermione read. "And Greyback, No First Name. How does a baby reach fifteen months of age without being given a first name?"

Carrie shrugged her shoulders. "He was delivered at St. Mungo's shortly after Fenrir Greyback was arrested. His mother said nothing more to the midwives than that he was the rape-baby of Fenrir Greyback and that she wanted nothing to do with him."

Hermione flipped over the file.

"Who was his mother?" she frowned, scanning for the name. She found it stamped across the child's Birth Certificate. "Isobella Greentree. I've never heard of her."

"And she'd like it to stay that way," Carrie said crisply. "You must understand, Miss Granger, these boys are here because nobody wants them. They either have no biological family who will take them, or their mothers are dead and their fathers are in prison."

Hermione frowned.

"Lucian Greyback, seven years old. Son of Fenrir Greyback and Charlotte Howard. I've never heard of her either. Lucian was conceived willingly?"

"I believe so. Lucian was brought into custody of the Ministry when Fenrir was arrested. I believe his mother was killed sometime before that time. He's very skittish and… for want of a better word, feral. He spent too long with Greyback, it seems. He snarls and snaps. His eyes flash different colours, and he eats like a savage."

"Is he afflicted with lycanthropy?" Hermione asked.

"Would that effect your willingness to take him?" Carrie asked carefully.

"No," Hermione admitted.

"I don't believe he's a werewolf in the traditional sense. He, erm… well, he doesn't fully transform at the full moon and he doesn't lose his mind, from what we've observed. He just… well, he transforms half way. He… he's an abomination, Miss Granger. He grows a long fluffy wolf-tail and his face elongates to a wolf's snout and his ears move up to the top of his head and grow furry, like a dog's. He grows claws and fangs, but he never attacks. He just squats in the corner of the room and growls if anyone gets too close. Thus far, we feed him steak – raw – on such occasions and he's happy to be left alone. He barely speaks."

Hermione frowned. She'd heard of the condition. It meant both of his parents had been werewolves, and that he'd been conceived of a mate-bond between Fenrir and Charlotte. When they'd been mated, Fenrir would have been unable to produce offspring with others until Charlotte died, which she'd obviously done shortly before the younger Greyback boy had been conceived.

"And the other boy? The baby?" Hermione asked.

"Normal, from what we can tell. He doesn't shift, or if he does, we've yet to see it happen. His eyes flash every now and then, but that's the extent of his weirdness. He hasn't been given a name because, honestly, no one seems willing to name him without claiming him."

"I'll name him," Hermione sighed. "The other boys? Dmitri and Alrik?"

"Alrik Rowle," Carrie said, frowning at Hermione like she must be barmy before pointing to the files. "Alrik is the biological son of Thorfinn Rowle and Becky Selwyn. Becky was killed in a flying accident a few months ago and her relatives are either in Azkaban along with Thorfinn, or incapable of caring for the boy."

"There's no one who could raise him?" Hermione frowned.

Carrie simply shook her head.

"And Dmitri?" she asked, not even needing to, really. "Son of Antonin Dolohov and Tatiana Rasmussen. Deceased mother. No living relatives. Of course."

"You don't seem quite so enthusiastic," Carrie said and Hermione would swear she could hear the sneer in the woman's tone.

No, she wasn't quite as enthusiastic. The three men who'd fathered these boys had personally wronged her since her debut into the wizarding world. Rowle had tried to kill her and made her first year at Hogwarts utter hell. Dolohov had hexed her and almost killed her at the Ministry in the Department of Mysteries. And Greyback had threatened to rape her, dragged her to Malfoy Manor to be tortured, and been disgustingly rude and lewd, feeling her up, licking her face and grinding his erection against her whilst holding her prisoner.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that the children were not their fathers.

"On the contrary, Carrie, I'm still very much on board to foster them," Hermione said. "What papers do I need to sign?"

Carrie's lips twisted.

"I don't think you understand, Miss Granger, just what fostering a child in the wizarding world means. Rather, I don't think you understand the stipulations for fostering those who belong to men currently serving prison sentences in Azkaban."

"What's not to understand?" Hermione asked. "Must I speak with their fathers before I can foster the boys?"

"Erm… well, you see, because you're not a blood relative of the boys, you have to… Gods, this is barbaric and I wish there was some way around it. You see, Hermione, in order to adopt the boys – to foster them – you have to have 'permission' from a blood relative of the children, or you have to be a blood relative. Now, ordinarily that's fine. A living relative will take them, or will sign over permission to whoever fosters the children and it's fine."

"But these three are as likely to grant me permission to their kids as they are to escape Azkaban," Hermione finished for her.

"Well… about that," Carrie bit her lip before looking over her shoulder. "There's a 'clause' that would get you around that requirement that still grants you permission."

Hermione frowned.

"I don't understand."

"Well, these boys need a mother. Magically speaking, there's a way to achieve that without needing written or even verbal permission from their fathers. But it can only be attained from their fathers."

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

Carrie leaned in very close, whispering now, as though fearful of being overheard. "Fidelity Magic recognises a witch as being given 'permission' to a man's children, his money, and everything he possesses, through sexual contact. It's along the lines that if you were to have sexual contact with these three men, you'd have rights to their children and their money. It's a very ancient law that not many people know about. Originally it was written into the magical fabric of the world as a means to keep wayward husbands from straying or shagging the servants and what have you. Any form of sexual contact triggers it."

"Meaning I have to… shag Rowle, Dolohov, and Greyback to be allowed to foster their children?" Hermione asked.

"No, you wouldn't have to shag them. Even a snog would do it. It was designed to ensure men knew what they'd lose if they touched any woman not their wife, and to protect victims of rape by allowing that witch access to the man's money to raise any ill-gotten children. Almost no-one remembers it, but you could invoke it to gain custody of the boys."

"And all I have to do is snog them?" Hermione asked. "Does past sexual contact count? Because during the war Greyback kissed me and licked my face."

"No, it's not a long-acting magical allowance in the instance of children not biologically yours. Any form of sexual contact that results in you falling pregnant would grant it for life, but since the boys aren't biologically yours, you'd have to renew the magic every month or so," Carrie whispered. "You'd have to snog them, which is unfortunate, but it would grant you access to their properties, their bank vaults, and their children."

Hermione blinked at the woman in shock.

"I'd have to snog the three of them every month to keep custody?" Hermione asked.

"Well, you could let it slide after a while, I imagine. When the Ministry stopped checking into the bond and the allowances, you'd be able to stop, but until then, yes," Carrie confirmed.

"You're sure of this?"

"It's how I got my daughter," Carrie muttered to her. "I adopted Corban Yaxley's daughter last year. He's still in prison, and Katie needed a home and a mother. He refused to give me written or verbal permission, so I snogged him and the Ministry granted me custody of her."

"You can steal a man's children by snogging him?" Hermione asked. "That's… barbaric."

"Only if they've been disowned or orphaned by the rest of their relatives," Carrie told her. "But yes. And it is barbaric, but it means that innocent kids get a good home, and it's not so much of a sacrifice."

"Speak for yourself," Hermione replied. "I've seen Yaxley, he's good-looking and his worst crime was… what? Torturing people?"

"I believe so. That's what he was convicted for, anyway," Carrie told her.

"I, on the other hand, would have to snog Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback."

"Rowle's dreamy, so I don't know what you're complaining about. And Dolohov's a bit older than you, I'll grant, but he's holding up well for a man who spent half his life in prison."

"And Greyback?" Hermione asked.

"You haven't seen him untransformed, have you?" Carrie asked her softly, smiling suddenly.

"I… Actually no, I can't say I have. He was always partially transformed whenever I encountered him."

"The Ministry have him in a cell that means he can't access his wolf outside the night of the full moon," she told her. "And they dose him every day with Wolfsbane to keep him human while he's in prison so he can't savage the guards since they did away with the Dementors. He's erm… well, I don't know if you know, but werewolves don't age the way we do. No one's completely sure of when his birthday is, but he doesn't look a day over thirty-five though certain records indicate his existence as early as sixty or so years ago. Killer eyes, brown hair to his shoulders. Very built. Honestly, if he wasn't a monster, I'd go there." Hermione's eyes widened in surprise but Carrie wasn't finished. "And it's only a snog. They've been in prison long enough, and they're all lecherous enough that you'd only have to provoke them a little and they'll snog you. You just have to endure a few moments of 'ick' every month and then you're free to keep raising the boys."

"This is what you do?" Hermione asked her.

Carrie nodded. "It works, I swear. If you sign the papers, travel to Azkaban, snog them and return, you'll be granted full custody and given keys to their bank vaults for all the money you'd need to raise those boys. I don't know how much any of them have left, but if you're snogging them, you get the same rights as if you were married to them. An all-access pass, of sorts."

"This is… madness," Hermione whispered.

"Do you want to raise the boys, or not, Granger?" Carrie demanded. "I'll be honest, it would be good to see them have a mother and a home. They're treated like dirt here. No one wanted any of them because their fathers are all wretches. The girls all got adopted, but those four have been here for months. Lucian's been here almost two years. He's isolated and withdrawn. He needs a mother."

Hermione bit her lip. Could she do it?

"All I have to do is snog them?" she confirmed.

Carrie nodded. "I swear on my magic," she said. "I'll even help you fill out the papers."

"You don't need to inspect my home to ensure it's suitable?" Hermione asked.

Carrie shook her head. "I'm supposed to, but you're Hermione Granger. I don't need to. And besides, you'd have access to Rowle Tower and wherever Dolohov lives. I don't imagine you'd want whichever squalid dwelling Greyback calls home, but the Tower is very nice. I used to go there as a girl."

"I'd live in my own cottage," Hermione protested. "It's very safe. But I'm unattached. Don't you need to prove they'd have a stable home environment?"

"You're not hearing me, Hermione," Carrie huffed. "Those boys have no one. The Ministry elves feed them and do their laundry and change their diapers. A Healer checks on them once a month. That's the extent of their interaction with anyone but each other."

Hermione's hand covered her mouth.

"Can I meet them?" she asked in a whisper.

Carrie nodded, getting to her feet and leading Hermione away down the hall. Hermione followed her, ignoring the looks from suspicious Ministry workers lurking about for a story or a scoop of gossip. Carrie led her to the very end of a corridor and used her wand to perform a series of charms to unlock the room.

Hermione's heart broke when she entered the room.

There were three small beds and a baby cot. All four boys were sitting inside, playing together, but it was clear they were unloved and unwanted. Their hair was too long, their skin grimy as though they didn't wash often enough because nobody made sure they did so. They looked a little underfed and the things in the room were shabby. Most of the toys they played with were broken and their clothes had rips and holes in them, obviously donated or pulled from lost property somewhere.

"Boys," Carrie greeted them softly. "This is Hermione Granger. She's going to adopt you."

The unnamed Greyback baby and Alrik Rowle were both likely too young to understand what she'd said. Dmitri looked puzzled, and Lucian watched the pair of witches with wary grey eyes, pulling his baby brother and the other two boys back toward himself, as though fearful they'd be taken away from him. Hermione recognised the urge to protect his 'pack' in the young boy.

"Lucian?" she asked softly. "Would it be alright if I came over there and sat down?"

The seven year old eyed her carefully, his eyes darting to Carrie. He bared his teeth at the other witch.

"He doesn't like me because I took Katie away," Carrie said quietly. "I'll leave you with them for a few minutes. When you need me, I'll be at my desk."

Carrie let herself out of the room and Lucian stopped baring his teeth. He eyed Hermione warily for a moment, watching the way she came closer slowly. She approached cautiously, not wanting to startle them.

"Who you?" Dmitri asked, surprising Hermione with his ability to talk at all.

"My name is Hermione," she told them softly. "What's your name?"

"Dmitri Dolohov," the little boy of three informed her, holding out his hand smartly to introduce himself. Hermione blinked in surprise before shaking his hand.

"Awik!" Alrik introduced himself, pointing to his own chest indicatively.

"Alrik," she corrected the boy's pronunciation. "And you must be Lucian."

She turned her eyes on the eldest boy. He clutched his baby brother in his lap and he jerked his head in a nod of affirmation at her words.

"What do you call your brother, Lucian?" she asked softly, settling herself to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the boys.

Lucian glanced at the baby.

"Pup," he shrugged.

Hermione frowned.

"He needs a proper name, don't you think?" she asked. "Maybe one that means wolf? Like you and your father?"

Lucian nodded warily.

"How about, from now on, we call him Ranulf?" she asked. "Ranulf Gryback."

Lucian's eyes flashed for a moment before he nodded again.

"Excellent," Hermione hummed. Her heart squeezed in her chest when little Alrik – all bright blond hair and blue eyes - wobbled forward on toddler legs to fall into her lap.

"Hello, Alrik," Hermione smiled. "Merlin, it ought to be illegal for anyone to be as adorable as you four are. Especially given who your fathers are."

"You know my Daddy?" Dmitri asked.

Hermione nodded, lifting Alrik into her lap and letting the boy tug on her curls. "I do, Dmitri. I know all of your fathers. I went to Hogwarts with Alrik's Daddy, Thorfinn."

"How do you know my Daddy?" Dmitri asked.

"He… we made acquaintance here at the Ministry one day while I was in my fifth year. And Lucian, I met your father in the woods one day."

"Did he bite you?" Lucian asked, leaning forward slightly and sniffing the air.

"He licked me," Hermione offered, not wanting to speak ill of their fathers, despite what wretched people they happened to be. "And he said he very much wanted to bite me. Among other things…"

Lucian's eyes flashed.

"You're lucky he didn't," he murmured. "Or you'd be a wolf, too."

"Like you?" she asked softly.

Lucian growled at her. "If you were bitten, you'd be a wolf like Mum. No one is like me. Not even the pup."

"Don't growl, Lucian," Dmitri whispered. "She might adopt us. Unless you growl."

Hermione smiled at the children carefully, seeing the veiled hope on Dmitri's face and watching the way Alrik pulled softly on her curls, intrigued by the long spirals. It occurred to her that being essentially neglected and uncared for while they'd been in Ministry custody, they'd obviously had to mature a little faster than most children would have done.

"You're taking them away from me?" Lucian asked sullenly, looking resentful and like he wanted to bite her. "I won't let you. They're my pack and you can't take any more of them away!"

Hermione squeaked in surprise when the boy set aside his brother, lunged at her and bit her forearm viciously. He withdrew just as quickly, snatching Alrik back as he went, and leaving Hermione sitting there in shock.

"That wasn't very nice, Lucian," Hermione told the boy, suspecting that raising her voice or growing angry would only upset him further. "You've drawn blood."

She showed him the beads of blood forming on her skin where he'd left a perfect ring of his teeth marks. Lucian's response was to growl and Hermione wondered if maybe he'd already been alone too long. Carrie was right, he was more than a little feral, left to his own devices so long and forced to be the most mature in a group of toddlers. Perhaps his distrust of adults would never subside, no matter what she might be do try and alter his perceptions. But she had to try.

"I have no intention of taking any of your pack away from you, Lucian," she went on softly. "I came here today to ask if you'd all like to come home with me, where I can look after you."

Lucian's eyes glittered with remorse, clearly thinking his aggression had cost him the chance of getting out of here or having a family.

"Lucian!" Dmitri cried out in despair while Alrik began to cry. "Now the nice lady goes away... leave us here alone... again."

Hermione's heart squeezed when Lucian growled at the little boy as Dmitri hit him in his frustration.

"Dmitri, we don't hit family, alright?" Hermione asked, catching the dark-haired boy's arm and preventing him from doing so again. "Lucian was scared and he struck out when he shouldn't have, but that's not his fault, and he's not going to do it again, are you Lucian?"

Lucian looked wary before he shook his head slowly, though he also shrugged, making her think he'd do it again if he thought it was necessary.

"Good. Now, if you would all like to come home with me, I will go and gain the permission of your father's to foster you," Hermione told them.

Lucian's eyes lit up.

"You're going to see my Dad?" he asked in an awed voice.

"Yes. I have to have his permission to take you home with me," Hermione told the young boy softly.

"Will you tell him about Pup? Ranulf?" Lucian corrected himself, suddenly looking excited.

Hermione's heart broke when she realised the little boy loved his father and missed him terribly. She understood why they couldn't be allowed near their fathers, given that they were in Azkaban, but the idea that without them, these little children had no one else to love them or care for them made her whole body ache with sadness. To her, Fenrir Greyback was a terrible monster. A murderer. A cannibal. A rapist. A wretched creature too dangerous to be allowed to interact with the public. But to Lucian, he was the man he called "Daddy". He was the man who likely played with him and cared for him. Born of a mate-bond, Hermione didn't doubt that for all his flaws, Fenrir Greyback would've been kind to his mate and would've loved the child they'd created together.

"Of course I will, sweetheart," Hermione whispered, her throat tight as she choked back her tears. "Will you do something for me while I go and see him?"

"Can't I come too?" he asked, looking crestfallen.

"No, Lucian. Your fathers are all in prison. It's not a nice place for little boys to go. The guards won't let me in to see them if I take you with me," Hermione told him. "But I'll tell him you say hello, and that you love him, if you like?"

"My Daddy too?" Dmitri asked, toddling over and pulling at Hermione's unwounded hand to get her attention. "Will you see my Daddy too?"

Hermione nodded.

"Of course, Dmitri. I'll tell all of your fathers that you say hello," Hermione whispered. "Can you do something for me while I do it?"

"What is it?" Lucian asked.

"Pack up your toys and have baths?" Hermione asked. "We'll leave as soon as I get back from meeting with your Dad, alright? Can you help the little ones get clean?"

Lucian nodded.

"I'll be back shortly, I promise," Hermione whispered as she got to her feet, watching them get up, too.

"Wait…" Lucian called, setting Ranulf down on the floor for a minute and racing after her as she approached the door. "I… Sorry I bit you."

He looked at his feet for a minute, before reaching for her still bleeding arm. Hermione frowned slightly when he licked the bite clean of her blood, some anticoagulant in his saliva sealing the wound shut. She'd never seen a wound do that before, and she wondered just what type of effects came as a result of his being born of a lycanthropic mate-bond.

"I'd appreciate it if you curbed your urge to bite anyone from now on, Lucian," Hermione told him, reaching for him carefully and watching the way he watched her hand until she touched his hair gently. "I know it's hard, sometimes, and if you feel threatened or like you or your pack are in danger, you do whatever you can to defend yourself and them, but please don't bite me again, alright?"

Lucian nodded his head.

"Sorry," he whispered again. "Will… will you give my Dad something from me?"

Hermione nodded. "What is it, sweetheart?" she asked.

Hermione blinked when the boy threw himself at her, pressing his face into her shirt and cuddling her tightly enough to make her wince ever so slightly.

"Tell him I miss him," Lucian whispered. "And I'm sorry. And I've been looking after Pup. Ranulf. And that I want to see him again."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she hugged the boy in return.

"I'll tell him, darling," Hermione whispered, smoothing a gentle hand over his tangled brown hair. "You get yourself and the boys ready for when I come back, and I'll take you all far away from this terrible place."

Lucian nodded, wiping his suspiciously wet eyes as he pulled away and hurried back to his brother without looking back, obviously shy and uncomfortable after being affectionate. She suspected she might've provided the only human contact he'd had from an adult not a healer in however long he'd been in this wretched room.

Hermione let herself out, warding the door behind her to keep the boys from getting out and running loose in the Ministry. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she hurried back down the hall to where Carrie waited with all the papers she needed to sign before going to Azkaban.

Hermione held her breath as they approached the towering structure of the prison on an island in the middle of the North Sea, far from any civilization. She pulled her cloak tighter around herself, shivering against the cold blasts of wind that buffeted her slim frame with enough force to almost knock her off her feet before she was led inside the prison.

"You sure are brave, wanting to visit these three, Granger," her Auror escort – a rough-seeming man named Clarence Stebbins – commented as he led her inside.

Carrie had sent word ahead to have Rowle, Dolohov, and Greyback prepped for visitation. Hermione suspected that meant they would be allowed - or forced - to bathe, shave, and brush their teeth. She really hoped they were able to brush their teeth, otherwise this was going to be even more unsettling that it already promised to be. She couldn't be more grateful to Carrie for at least insisting they be bathed. She recalled how filthy Sirius had been when he'd escaped Azkaban and she didn't fancy getting too close to any of these men at the best of times, let alone when they were unwashed. The idea of even seeing any of them was turning her stomach with fear and hatred, and Hermione dreaded having to snog any one of them individually, let alone all three.

"It's important that I do so," Hermione told Stebbins, trying to control the way her hands trembled with nerves at the idea of facing such wretched men once more.

"Who do you want first?"

"Which one is the worst?" she asked in reply.

Stebbins snorted as though she'd told a joke. "They're all scum in my opinion, doll. But Greyback's the worst of the lot, I'd say. Feral beast, that one. Dunno what you want to be seeing him for. Foul git, he is. Monster."

Hermione didn't comment on his degradation of his prisoners, unprofessional though it was. She had no interest in defending these men against those who judged and guarded them.

"I'll see Greyback first, then. Rowle last," she decided. She rationalised that of the three, Rowle was probably the most pleasant, since his attempt on her life had been little more than pushing her down a moving staircase in school.

"Right then, this way. Greyback's on the very top floor for the maddest criminals. We reckon that if any of them ever do escape by trying to jump down and swim for shore, the fall will kill the bastards who jump from the top."

Hermione nodded her head.

"Are they… erm… prepared for visitation?" Hermione asked.

"They will be, yeah. Greyback will be in chains, hands and feet and one around his throat. He's sedated a bit with the Wolfsbane, too. So don't be alarmed if he's a bit dopey. Got to keep him that way, or he savages folks."

"Delightful," Hermione whispered, stuffing her hands into her pockets to hide the way they shook.

"Oi! Scum!" Stebbins greeted the werewolf when they reached the top of the prison, rapping a baton on the bars of Greyback's cell. He stood in the middle of the room, hands and feet chained, a collar around his throat just as Stebbins had promised. His brown hair was long, falling past his shoulders, but it looked somewhat clean. He had some terrible scars across his face and visible on his forearms where they were bare.

Hermione blinked. Carrie had been right. If he weren't a wretch, he'd be sexy as hell. Merlin, even knowing what a monster he was, she knew her body reacted to the sight he made. His hair was brown but for a streak of silver in the front. His eyes were a pale shade of grey, almost translucent, when they weren't the yellow of the wolf.

They were also fixed on her and a cruel, toothy smirk was curling across his face as Hermione was let into the room.

"Hello, girly," he greeted her, his voice pleasantly rough in a way that made her hair stand on end.

"Greyback," Hermione nodded in greeting, her shoulders tense with the nerves of being in his presence. Chained or not, he was dangerous. She could feel it.

She looked over at Stebbins when he didn't follow her inside.

"You can wait out there if you're uncomfortable, Stebbins," Hermione told the Auror, noting the way he leered at Greyback from the door but didn't enter the cell after Hermione.

"Watch him, you hear?" Stebbins told her. "He's dosed up, but he's been known to break those chains."

Hermione nodded, looking away from the Auror and back at the werewolf when his chains clanked as he shifted closer, stretching to the ends of them as he drew in her scent.

"Pleased to see me, girly?" he smirked, taunting her, apparently picking up on the hint of attraction she'd felt.

"Who wouldn't be?" Hermione sneered in return, finding her courage.

"You smell… like…" he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath before his eyes shot open, deepening to the gold of the wolf. "Why do you smell like my pup?"

His teeth appeared to sharpen in his mouth and Hermione tipped her head to one side slowly, subconsciously displaying submission to him as the Alpha in the room so as to avoid having him think she was there to challenge him. That wouldn't end well for her, Hermione knew. She watched him carefully as he sniffed the air again, shifting a little bit closer.

"Lucian asked me to tell you that he missed you, Fenrir," Hermione replied quietly. "He asked me to give you a hug, too. But I think I might just tell him I passed it along."

"What's the matter, witch? You scared of the big bad wolf?" he challenged. "Why the fuck have you been anywhere near my pup, mudblood?"

"He's my pup, now. Him and his brother."

Greyback's eyes went wide.

"She got pregnant?" he smirked. "How old is he? What's his name?"

"Ranulf," Hermione answered. "I named him this morning. He's fifteen months old."

She jumped when he tipped his head back and howled triumphantly.

"Does he shift like Lucian?" he asked, appearing excited as though the notion of his illegitimate children were cause for celebration.

"I'm told not."

"Said they were yours?" he raised one eyebrow at the idea, obviously confused. "You claiming my cubs, Granger?"

"You know who I am?"

"You put me in this place," he retorted, waving a finger around the cell and making his chains clank all the more. "When I get loose, I'll rip your throat out for it, too."

"You put yourself here, Fenrir. And I didn't even testify at your trail," Hermione argued, frowning at the causal way he threatened her – he didn't seem threatening as he said it. In fact, he stated his intent to rip her throat out with as much interest as he might state that the sun would come out when the rain cleared. "However, I am here because I have been granted custody of your sons. I will be raising them from here on out."

"Where's my bitch? The young one. Izzy something," he asked. Hermione didn't bother trying to correct him for calling the girl a bitch, thinking he meant it in the sense of referring to a female canine by the proper title 'bitch' rather than that he was insulting the poor woman. Hermione frowned. Maybe he didn't know the woman was human and not a werewolf.

"She gave Ranulf up without even bothering to name him. She claimed him to be a rape-baby and an abomination, and said she wouldn't raise the child of a monster who'd raped her," Hermione said, goading him, suspecting she'd need to trick him into snogging her.

He rattled his chains, snarling fiercely.

"He's fifteen months old. Where the fuck's he been since I was locked up? Where's Lucian?" Greyback demanded through clenched teeth.

"They've been kept by the Ministry. Secluded. Only cared for by elves and a monthly Healer examination," Hermione replied.

"WHAT?" Fenrir roared and his chains groaned as he hit the ends of them.

"You heard me," Hermione shrugged. "No one cared and no one wanted them. When I found out about it, I agreed to foster them and two other boys, Dolohov's son, and Rowle's little boy."

Fenrir growled fiercely.

"They locked my pups up and experimented on them?" he snarled furiously, pulling at his chains now. "You can't have them, bitch. They're mine and I won't have them tainted by you. You and your Werewolf Rights bullshit. Don't pretend you give a fuck about my kind."

"I give a fuck about your sons," Hermione retorted, stepping closer, close enough to touch him, doing so as she slapped his chest angrily. "They're mine now! I'll raise them however I see fit, to be good, upstanding citizens who uphold the law and get a proper education and the love they deserve. And you will stay in this cell and rot!"

Hermione squeaked when he broke free of his chains, jerking free of the ones binding his hands and yanking his legs free of those binding his ankles. The metal groaned and gave with a snap, and he pried open the collar around his throat, showing a strength that unnerved her.

She grunted when he charged her, his hands scooping under the backs of her thighs and lifting her, propelling her backwards until she hit the wall. The air rushed from her lungs on impact and Fenrir Greyback slotted himself between her spread thighs easily, pinning her to the wall.

He paused in his intent to lunge for her throat when she made no effort to fight back or to push him away, or even to call for help.

"You're not afraid of me," he said in a strange voice, his eyes darting from her throat to meet her gaze.

"I'm wondering if, now that you've thrown your tantrum, you might actually listen to what I've been trying to tell you," Hermione replied, her voice shaking a little as she tried to control her reaction. "And put me down, would you? Before one of the Aurors comes bursting in thinking to save my virtue."

"Virtue?" he laughed, leaning into her neck and inhaling deeply. "You gave that up a long time ago, girly. Merlin, you smell fucking delicious!"

"Yes, it's a result of regular bathing," Hermione deadpanned, putting her hands on his enormous shoulders and realising, pressed this close, that he was huge. In all senses of the word. Something that became apparent when he ground his rapidly hardening cock against the seam of her jeans and almost drew a whimper from her lips.

She didn't doubt he could smell her unavoidable state of arousal at the touch, no matter that she was concerned that he'd broken free so easily. She wasn't exactly scared of him, nor was she attracted to him enough for it to matter much, but it'd been sometime since she'd had any action and her nethers were thrumming at the attention.

"You didn't smell this good last time," Fenrir informed her and Hermione gasped when he licked her throat before dragging his teeth very lightly across the skin. "Fucking hell, girly, did you come here to tell me you're claiming my sons, or hoping I'd fuck another one into you?"

"I did ask you to put me down, Greyback," Hermione said dryly, wondering just what counted as 'sexual contact' for the sake of activating her ability to gain custody of his kids. "Honestly, if the guards burst in here and think you're assaulting me, it will make it a great deal more difficult for me to come back next month with pictures of your kids and whatever other messages they might have for you."

Her words seemed to penetrate his excitement and he pulled back slowly to regard her through grey eyes threaded with gold.

"You mean to come back?" he asked quietly, his eyes scanning her face.

"Every month," Hermione nodded.

"Why?"

"Why would I come back? Or why am I adopting your kids?"

"Both," the werewolf shrugged, still not putting her down, but not at all hurting her either. Hermione felt rather fragile in his hands, knowing he was capable of ripping through chains; knowing he was a murderer and a rapist and a cannibal. Yet, she found that from up close, he was… strangely alluring, too.

"I'm adopting them and the other two boys because they need someone to look after them. They're not mistreated where they are right now, but they are ignored and left mostly to their own devices. That would be bad enough in a boy Lucian's age, but Ranulf is still just a baby, Dmitri is almost three and Alrik is barely two. They need a mother. They need proper care, and interaction, and to be taught how to walk and talk. How to read and write. How to dress themselves and how frequently they should bathe. Honestly, when I met them this morning, I was appalled."

Fenrir growled softly under his breath.

"You're getting them out of there?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "I have a quiet little cottage far away from the eyes of the public to raise them where Lucian's transformations won't be noticed and they can grow up away from the scrutiny of the public."

"Just you?" Fenrir asked. "Thought you and the ginger lad were a thing?"

Hermione shrugged. "Didn't work out. I expect Harry will be around often to help me raise them and to make sure they have a male role model, what with their fathers being locked in prison."

"Why would you come back, girly?" he asked. "You know what I am. You know that the other two are, too. Raising the kids might be some hang-up you've got, but why come back?"

"They're yours," Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "Lucian especially, very much wants you to be a part of his life, Greyback. He asked me to tell you he misses you, and that he loves you. If I can make them happy by letting them grow up knowing that even though you're all in prison and can't be there to raise them, you can at least watch how they're doing and give them some peace of mind that you care."

"What makes you think I do?"

"You attacked me at the very idea of those boys being mistreated," Hermione reminded him. "Broke your chains. Pinned me to the wall. Are you going to put me down, or shall all of our conversations take place this way?"

He glanced down at her body, pinned against the wall, his hands gripping her hips tightly.

"Been a long time since I had a witch, you know?" he commented. "And you smell fucking good."

"You know they'll extend your sentence if you try anything with me, don't you?" Hermione asked.

"I was sentenced to life, Granger. I'll never legally get free. I'm not exactly trustworthy. There's no parole in my future. If you're raising my sons, you'll be doing it alone," he drawled, tilting his head to one side.

"Somehow, I doubt that," Hermione murmured, her eyes searching his and finding a cunning gleam in them. "You realise that if you ever break out of here, my place is the first spot they'll look, knowing I've got your pups."

He nodded his head.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'd come human, girly," he smirked.

"Should I expect you shortly?" she asked, frowning at him and not at all liking the idea of him getting loose but doubting they'd be able to hold him for long. Wolfsbane every day was meant to make him docile and weak, but it didn't seem to be having much effect. Hermione suspected, from the gleam in his eyes, that he'd begun metabolising it at a rate that would soon prevent it from actually weakening him at all.

"Probably not for a year, at least. Takes more than the ability to break chains to get loose of this place," Fenrir smirked. "You're still not afraid, even at the notion that I might bust loose and hunt you and my pups down."

"I don't think you actually want to hurt me," Hermione admitted, eyeing him carefully.

"What makes you so sure? I hurt everyone, Granger. And you do smell delicious."

"Yet you've not taken a bite out of me," she commented. "You tried to, last time we met."

"Last time we met you almost killed me, witch."

"Turnabout's fair play, Greyback," Hermione retorted. "You had me tortured and threatened to rape me."

"Still might," he replied, grinning toothily.

"I don't think so," Hermione shook her head. "I take it you're not going to put me down."

"Nope," he said.

"Delightful. Now do you have any further objections to me raising your sons?" Hermione asked.

"Don't turn them into whiny little pansies who can't hold their own in a fight?" he suggested. "And don't try to normalise them by human or wizarding standards. They're wolves, girly. They'll always be wolves."

"They're little boys and I will raise them as such," Hermione corrected him.

He bared his teeth at her and looked amused when Hermione bared her own in return.

"You don't scare easy at all," he grinned. "Not like last time. If I do this…"

He ground his erection against her core and Hermione's breathing hitched. She wondered how twisted she must be and how badly she must need to get laid that she could feel her body responding to him. Animal magnetism practically rolled off him and Hermione hated herself a little for being ensnared.

Greyback chuckled smugly.

"By the time I break out of here, you're going to beg me to fuck you, witch," he practically purred.

"I don't beg," Hermione retorted evenly, squirming ever so slightly and making him hiss at the friction.

"You will," he assured her and Hermione wasn't expecting it when he leaned into her and captured her lips.

His lips were soft and slightly chapped, but firm against hers. She found herself alarmed that he actually knew how to kiss a woman nicely, having expected rough treatment and force. Her hands tightened reflexively on his shoulders and Hermione quivered when he rocked himself against her. Merlin, she was going to have to go home and shag someone silly to avoid this type of reaction in future. What was wrong with her?

"You should go," Fenrir informed her huskily, pulling back as his eyes brightened almost completely to gold. "Before I turn this into a conjugal visit, whether you're entirely willing or not."

Hermione nodded her head, trying to control her breathing and her reaction. She watched the werewolf sniff the air for a moment, before he stooped slightly, turning his head and sniffing at her wrist where Lucian had bitten her.

"My pup nipped you," he commented, lifting the appendage and turning it to the light to see the scarred ring of teeth marks where the boy had bitten her.

"He thought I was going to break up his 'pack'," Hermione nodded. "He's been in that facility so long, and other kids of Death Eaters have come and gone so often, and I don't doubt he's been frequently called an abomination for his partial shift at the full moons, that he feared he'd be left behind, alone. He bit me in protest."

"Tell me the truth, girly," Fenrir said, lifting the appendage to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the scars. "What have they done to my boy?"

"I haven't read all of his file, yet," Hermione admitted. "It was more prudent that I get him out of there."

"Then what are you doing here? Is he still there? Is Ranulf? Did you say you named the pup this morning?" Fenrir frowned.

"I'm not legally allowed to assume custody of any of the boys without consent from you, Rowle and Dolohov, respectively," Hermione explained. "But yes. Up until I got there, the pup was simply referred to as 'Greyback' or 'No Name' or 'the child'. Lucian was calling him 'pup'."

"Why Ranulf?" Fenrir asked.

"It means wolf," Hermione shrugged. "Since Fenrir and Lucian do, too, I figured it would keep in tradition."

Fenrir nodded.

"Granger?" he asked, his mouth still tormenting her wrist.

"Mmm?" Hermione asked, frowning as she watched him and wondering why she wasn't recoiling in disgust or fear.

"This might hurt," he muttered, before he lunged and closed his teeth over her wrist in a perfect ring around the one Lucian had left on her.

Hermione hissed, trying to pull her wrist from his grip but he held onto her elbow, his tongue sliding against her flesh to lap at the blood when it welled.

"That one won't seal with a lick like Lucian's do," he told her. "But it won't infect you, either."

"I know," Hermione nodded. "Trust me, I'm very well educated regarding your condition."

"It's not a 'condition', witch," Fenrir growled softly. "It's a way of life. I'm not a human with a disease. I'm a different species. A magical creature who sometimes takes almost-human form. Even on New Moon days, I'm never completely human. No werewolf is. I don't know what Lupin told you, but you've got us all wrong, girly. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll raise my boys right."

Hermione frowned at him. "I've seen the blood work, Greyback. You're human. You're strong, faster and you heal quicker, but you're human. Most of the time."

He shook his head, smirking a little. "When I break out of here," he murmured. "You'll get a few new lessons on lycanthropy, little witch."

"You can't infect me," Hermione warned him. "Ever."

"We'll see," he smirked at her. "Go on and convince the others to let you raise their boys, witch. Your blood is making me hungry and I'm not above fucking and feasting at the same time, from the same source."

"I'm aware," Hermione deadpanned. "Put me down, so I can leave."

He did, lowering her to the ground as though she weighed no more than a feather. Hermione watched him use his claws to tear a thin strip of fabric from the hem of his prison shirt, and she blinked in surprise when he licked her wrist clean of blood a second time before tying the fabric around it in a bandage.

"Put silver and dittany paste on that when you get home, Granger," he told her. "It'll stop the itch."

"It's not itchy," Hermione said, frowning.

"No?" he asked, his brow furrowing slightly before he leaned in and sniffed her again. "You been bitten by my kind before? Other than Lucian?"

"Remus bit me, once," Hermione nodded. She pulled aside the neck of her jumper to show him the faded pink scar in the shape of Remus's teeth marks.

"Bet he tortured himself over it, too," Fenrir smirked, touching the scar lightly. "Did it itch when it healed?"

Hermione shook her head.

Fenrir's eyes trailed over her from head to foot as though she suddenly intrigued him even more.

"Are they supposed to itch?" she asked, frowning. "Bill told me his wounds itched when you attacked him, but we all assumed that was just the nature of all wounds as they heal."

"They itch like a thousand fire-ants crawling under your skin and stinging," Fenrir told her.

"Mine don't," Hermione said.

"You don't have any other bites than the one Lupin gave you?" Fenrir wanted to know. "They should still itch every time, though less as time wears on and your system absorbs the infection, rather than fighting it."

"I've not been bitten by any other werewolf, to my knowledge," Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

"Go anyway," he smirked. "Check every inch of yourself when you get home. I'd say you've been bitten before, girly. More than once. There's a reason you're not scared of me."

"I was scared last time."

"I was running you down like prey last time," he pointed out. "Everyone gets scared when they're running for their lives. You were never scared of Remus either, were you?"

Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

"No," she admitted. "Not even when he transformed in front of me. I tried to approach him and my friends had to pull me away. I howled to draw him closer too, when he was about to attack Harry."

"Did you run?" Fenrir asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course I did. And I nearly got savaged, too. I was scared then."

"Of the wolf? Or of the pain you anticipated in the attack?" he wanted to know.

Hermione frowned, unsure of the answer.

"Think about it," he told her. "And Granger, one thing?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows, lifting her gaze to meet his.

"Next month, be sure to plan your visit around both our times of the month," he told her.

Hermione frowned.

"Would mine effect yours?" she asked.

"Even on a New Moon, yours will affect me," he nodded. "Tell my pups I love them, witch."

Hermione nodded, frowning all the more over the turn the visit had taken when Fenrir turned his back on her and walked across the small cell to peer out the window.

"Wait," he said when she reached the door.

Hermione turned back and jumped in surprise to find him suddenly in her personal space. He bent and took possession of her lips once more, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and bringing the taste of mint-toothpaste and blood. Hermione's fingers tangled into his brown hair and she found herself pressing her body against his needily, a little whimper of sound escaping her to be devoured by the werewolf.

He was laughing when he pulled back several minutes later.

"If I were you, I'd be looking into the friends, colleagues and neighbours of your parents around the time of your conception, Granger," he smirked at her. "That is not a normal reaction to being rushed and assaulted by a werewolf."

Hermione nodded speechlessly, her lips tingling madly and her breath coming in sharp little gasps.

"And good luck convincing those other bastards to give you permission to raise their boys," Fenrir laughed. "I recommend provoking Rowle into snogging you, and just stealing the snog from Dolohov."

"You knew I had to snog you to gain custody of Ranulf and Lucian?" she asked.

"Just because I'm a werewolf doesn't mean I'm stupid," he winked at her, turning the doorknob and opening it for her.

Stebbins was waiting on the other side and almost wet himself in terror to see Fenrir loose. Hermione almost laughed when he fumbled his wand, actually squealing in terror when Fenrir growled at him ferociously. The Auror forced the werewolf back into the cell and locked it tightly, warding it to prevent his escape even though Fenrir continued to watch them through the bars on the window into the cell. He seemed entirely too amused.

"Miss Granger?" Stebbins squeaked. "Are you alright?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm fine, Stebbins. Leave the cranky werewolf alone and take me to my next victim, please."

"Victim?" he said, still squeaking.

Fenrir's laughter followed them all the way to the elevator and Hermione found herself thinking she must be a terrible person for sharing amusements with the likes of Fenrir Greyback.

"See you next month, girly," Fenrir called just before the elevator doors closed and Hermione sighed.

"You mean to return?" Stebbins asked, frowning.

"I'm raising his sons," Hermione nodded. "I have to return."

"Like Shafiq and Yaxley?" Stebbins asked carefully.

"Mhmmm," Hermione nodded.

"Ah, shoot," the man sighed. "Dolohov next, right?"

"Unfortunately," Hermione nodded, making a face at the very idea.

"You look more alarmed by seeing Dolohov than you did to see that monster," he nodded his head toward the top of the elevator, obviously indicating Greyback.

"Yes, well," Hermione sniffed. "That one only threatened to rape me before he handed me over to be tortured. The next one almost killed me."

Stebbins winced.

"This is about kids, right? Their kids? Them ones the Ministry's been bleating about needing homes and care?" Stebbins confirmed.

Hermione nodded her head. "Yes, there are four boys I'll be fostering. Two are Greyback's, one is Dolohov's, and one is Rowle's."

"And you've got to snog 'em each month to maintain custody of the kids, right?" Stebbins said.

"So I'm told."

"You just snogged that monster?" Stebbins pulled a face of utter disgust at the idea of anybody willingly snogging Greyback.

"I don't exactly have much choice, Stebbins. I'd rather not be here having to even look at any of these wretched men ever again, but those poor little boys need care. They need a mother and I can't be their mother without gaining the right to their custody. This is all uncomfortable enough without your judgement, so if you could keep your thoughts about all this to yourself, I'd appreciate it."

"Right," Stebbins muttered as the elevator dinged several floors lower.

Hermione stepped through carefully.

"This one," Stebbins nodded, leading her down the corridor and to one of the doors. Most of the prisoners moved forward in their cells, watching the pair of them walk past, but none of them spoke to her.

"Are they… Silenced?" Hermione asked, frowning as she walked past the cells of both Lestrange brothers.

"Nah, they just learn early on not to cat-call," Stebbins replied, smirking. "Every time they do it, they get hexed. Makes bringing whatever visitors they have feel a bit more secure and keeps us from having to listen to their rot. Half of 'em on this floor are half-mad or worse, anyway. Nothing worse than being shouted at in gibberish."

"They're…" Hermione frowned. "Are they actually unhinged, or they're just classified that way because they followed Voldemort?"

Several hisses sounded in the corridor, coming from each of the prisoners who'd been a Death Eater.

"Bit of both," Stebbins shrugged. "The way we figure it, you've got to be cracked to follow that bastard. They're zealots, the lot of them. Some are more cracked than others. Some shout profanity, some just shout for their freedom."

"I see," Hermione murmured. "And… Dolohov?"

"Shouts in Russian so we ain't got a clue what to make of his bullshit when he gets rowdy. He'll be chained up too, though not as much as Greyback. This lot aren't dangerous enough not to be moved from their cells, so they get moved into the Visitation room when people need to see 'em. There'll be a table between you and he's cuffed to it."

"Right," Hermione muttered. "So… Greyback's cells is always like that? That's where he's kept?"

Stebbins nodded.

"But… there was no bed or anything…" she murmured.

"He's a monster. He don't get a bed, Miss Granger. He gets a cold stone floor and chains for when we've got to have him meet with someone."

Hermione frowned, appalled at the state of living of these prisoners.

"And this lot?" she asked, nodding toward the prisoners in the corridor as they all gripped the bars, leering at her in silence as she went by.

"They get a thin pad for something to sleep on and a ratty blanket. Bucket in the corner. That's it. Them on the top floor usually get a blanket, at least, but Greyback used his to capture some of his guards and hold them until he ripped their throats out. That was early on, before we got him sedated with Wolfsbane every day. We put it in his food and his water to keep him from accessing the wolf."

Hermione nodded.

"Right. It's this one. You want me to come in with you?" Stebbins asked. "He's cuffed to the table, but you being muggle-born and telling him you're taking his kid – he might get violent."

"I've got my wand," Hermione shrugged. "And Greyback broke his chains and pinned me to the wall. I hardly think Dolohov will be able to break his."

"Watch him," Stebbins warned her, putting a hand on her arm to prevent her opening the door. "We sedate these bastards too, but some of them still have some control of wandless magic. He might hit you with something. Keep a Shield Charm up."

Hermione nodded her head and Stebbins released her arm. Turning the handle, she opened the door slowly, taking a deep breath before she walked inside, head held high, to face the man who'd come closest to killing her.

When she returned to the mainland, Hermione's mind was suddenly racing when it occurred to her that her cottage was not equipped for the arrival of four young boys. She'd, of course, done some initial planning before going to the Ministry to consider fostering them at all; child-proofing the house by the Ministry standards and purchasing some toys, bedding and books for children.

But she wasn't prepared for four of them. She would need to stop by her cottage to ensure there would be enough beds before she could even think about picking the boys up, no matter how much she wanted to get them out of Ministry hands and into the safety of her care. She was loathe to admit that it might not be a bad idea to stop at Rowle Tower after all, not for the vault key Rowle had been so insistent she take, but to see if any of Alrik's things were there. Depending on how long Becky Selwyn had been dead, and whether the woman had moved back to Selwyn Hall before her death when Thorfinn had been incarcerated, there might not be much, or might only be things he'd grown out of, but they might fit Ranulf.

Hermione hadn't been prepared for a baby as young as Ranulf. She had been expecting that any kids she took on would be closer to Lucian's age than the three toddlers she was taking in, in addition to the seven year old. If she was being honest, she was more than a little bit terrified. Staring down the barrel of a future raising four young boys, all of whom had fathers in prison, looked like it might be a rather lonely existence, now that she thought about it.

Oh, she'd have the boys of course, but Hermione was thinking that everyday tasks like folding laundry, cooking, cleaning and even sleeping were going to be interrupted. She'd babysat Teddy Lupin often enough to know that raising a young child was not easy, especially a magical child. Without their fathers to help her, Hermione was thinking she might have to get used to living on no sleep for the next ten years or so. After all, she didn't want to neglect the boys any more than they'd suffered so far in the hands of the Ministry.

How she was going to find someone to sleep with, let alone find the time or the privacy to do so when she had four boys under ten to raise was a mystery to her. Hermione pressed her lips together as she apparated to her cottage and hurried inside.

She almost had a heart attack when she entered her kitchen and discovered a wizard lounging upon her breakfast bar, a cup of tea in his hands and his hair all in a mess.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, lowering her wand and leaning against the door-frame, clutching at her chest to still the rapid pounding of her heart.

"You alright?" he laughed, apparently unrepentant over scaring her half to death.

"I just wasn't expecting you," she admitted. "What are you doing here?"

Harry frowned at her, jumping down off the bench still dressed in his Quidditch training gear. He set down his cup and crossed to kitchen toward her.

"Did you think I'd be anywhere else today?" he frowned. "You know my training ends at eleven. You said you were going in to foster the Death Eater kids today. Of course I'm here. I want to help. Where's the kid?"

He peered around her, putting his hands on her shoulders to steer her from side to side as though the child might be hiding behind her legs.

"Kids," Hermione corrected. "Harry… there are four of them."

"Bloody hell," Harry said, staring into her face. "Where are they?"

"Not here, yet," she admitted. "I need to pick them up from the Ministry. I had to get permission from their fathers to raise them, you see, for custody purposes. I… Harry, they're all so little. The oldest is seven but the youngest is only fifteen months old."

"Shit," Harry sighed. "Whose are they?"

"They're all boys," Hermione said. "Two are the sons of Fenrir Greyback, the oldest and the youngest, ironically. Their names are Lucian and Ranulf. There is also Dmitri Dolohov, and Alrik Rowle. Dmitri's almost three and Alrik is two."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise at their young ages.

"I mean… I knew it took a while for the Aurors to round them all up, but… bloody hell, Hermione. Are you going to be alright raising four boys that young? I know what a handful Teddy is and there's only one of him."

"They're… Harry, they're so neglected," Hermione whispered, feeling tears well in her eyes. "The Ministry is horrible. The only interaction they have with humans is a visit from the healer once month to make sure they're healthy. That's it. House elves handle everything else from bathing and feeding them, to changing nappies, and seeing to them. No one plays with them. No one talks to them. They're just locked away as though they're prisoners themselves. I don't know if I can raise the four of them very well, all by myself, but it won't be hard to raise them better than the Ministry has done so far."

"Bloody hell," Harry muttered, pulling her into a tight hug. "Well, I'm here to help. What can I do? We already kid-proofed this place."

"I need to make sure there are enough beds," Hermione told him, clinging to him for a moment and breathing in his familiar scent. "And I'll need help to bring them all here from the Ministry. I don't want to risk splinching them by trying to apparate five of us all at once. I… I also need to stop at Rowle Tower to check and see if there's anything there of Alrik's – he was the last one brought in after his mother died, so if I can find some of his things, that will help. I don't have any idea if Lucian ever had things, and I know Ranulf didn't…. Harry, Ranulf didn't even have a name this morning."

"What?" Harry asked. "How could he not have had a name?"

"Fenrir raped his mother to impregnate her shortly before he was caught," Hermione explained. "She kept the baby and gave birth, obviously, but she gave him up and refused to keep him after that. She didn't give him a name, only said he was Greyback's rape-baby, and that was it. When they realised he was Greyback's, no one else wanted to claim him and he's been raised, until now, by Lucian – his elder half-brother – who was referring to him as 'Pup' since he had no other name. I had to pick a name for the boy this morning."

Harry's expression flickered with anger, disgust, and sadness for the boy, obviously knowing firsthand what it was like to be raised by people who didn't give a damn about you.

"What can I do?" he asked softly.

"Help me?" Hermione whispered. "It will take a while to develop a routine with them, and honestly, to even get them to trust me. I know you've got training and matches and things, but any help you can offer will be a Godsend."

Harry smiled at her gently before pulling her closer to press a soft kiss to her forehead. "You couldn't get rid of me if you tried, love. Come on, let's fix the beds. Did you say something about Rowle Tower?"

"Yes. Oh… So, to get custody of the boys I have to have permission from their fathers. Only, it's Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback, so the likelihood of written or verbal agreement is obviously very low. But there's an archaic law that means that snogging them – having sexual contact with them – means I get access to everything they own."

"What, seriously?" Harry asked, looking shocked.

"Yes. So be careful who you kiss from now on, Harry Potter. Anyone who knows about that law could waltz into your bank vault and take whatever you have, you know? I could, essentially, do that with all three of the boy's fathers. Anyway, Rowle mentioned that some of Alrik's things will be at the Tower, and asked me to grab a few things from his place, namely a pensieve to take back to Azkaban next month to show them how their boys are growing."

"Wait…" Harry frowned at her, stopping her before she could climb the stairs. "You had to… snog them?"

Hermione blushed, nodding. "It's the only way to keep custody of the boys. And unless I shag them and get pregnant, I have to 'renew the contract', as it were, every month if I want to keep the boys. So I'll be having to snog those wretches for the foreseeable future until they're released or until the boys are grown."

Hermione watched the expressions on Harry's face dance. Confusion. Hurt. Anger. Disgust. A little betrayal. She could tell he didn't like the idea of her snogging the Death Eaters.

"Hermione… are you sure you want to go through with this?" he asked quietly. "That's the rest of your life, right there. Who's going to want to date you if you've got four boys who aren't even yours and you've got to snog their Dad's in prison every month? You said the youngest is only fifteen months old and I know for a fact that Greyback was sentenced to life. If you're to raise Ranulf to adulthood, you'll have to spend the next fifteen and a half years snogging Fenrir to keep the kid. Who is going to date you if you've got to do that? You're… you'd be giving up everything for them, Hermione."

She searched his face, knowing that he was trying his best to speak to her reasonably about it rather than flying off the handle over the idea. She knew it didn't sit well with him.

"It's just snogging, Harry," she whispered. "I mean, they push their luck. Of course they do, they're Death Eaters and they're locked in prison where sex isn't easily achievable. But it's just snogging. I just have to snog them every month and then I can keep the kids."

"I don't think you're hearing me, Hermione," Harry said softly. "This is the rest of your life. The likelihood that some bloke will put up with you raising four kids who aren't his and aren't even yours, is slim. Adding insult to injury by having to snog three bastards every month to keep those kids and your chances of finding a bloke drop pretty low, love. You'll be almost forty by the time those kids are all of age, Hermione. Forty. Do you understand that?"

"I know," Hermione whispered, her throat tight. "But Harry, I can't leave them there. They're… they're neglected. They have no interaction with other people. They have no social skills, I don't think Ranulf can even talk, though he should be able to by now. How could I leave them? And what's the prospect of marriage when held up against saving the lives of four innocent children?"

A tear trickled down her cheek, knowing that she'd gotten herself into what could only be called a bad situation. The type of men who might be willing to overlook her needing to snog three other men once a month and who might not mind raising other men's children weren't prevalent in the wizarding world. She might be brainy and she might be famous, but there were precious few who might put up with what she'd signed on for.

If the situation was reversed, Hermione didn't imagine she'd be willing to date a man who was raising the children of incarcerated witches and snogging them every month, so she didn't blame anyone for the idea that this situation might leave her without dating prospects for the rest of her life. But she couldn't leave them.

"Who was going to date me anyway?" she asked, trying to be brave as she shrugged. "There isn't anyone willing to do it, and you know it, Harry. I'm too smart and too intimidating for most wizards – it's one of the reasons Ron and I failed as a couple. I'll just… I don't know, find someone to assist me with my sexual needs when they arise and the rest of the time I'll be alone. I'll be fine. I'll have the kids and it's not like there aren't plenty of witches who don't have husbands. Look at Professor McGonagall. She's wildly successful, but she's unattached."

"She's been married twice, Hermione," Harry reminded her. "McGonagall's alone because she's too scared to date anyone else given that her first two husbands ended up dead not long after marrying her."

Hermione sighed.

"Well, what's your solution then, Harry? I can't just leave those boys in the care of the Ministry. They're treated like prisoners. No, they're treated worse than prisoners. At least their father's get fed regularly and are allowed to bathe. These poor boys don't even know how to change their underwear! I can't leave them there and if rescuing them comes at the price of my dating life, well, I'll just have to live with that."

Harry frowned at her for a long moment.

"You don't have to do it, Hermione," he told her. "Let someone else take them."

"There is no one else!" Hermione stamped her foot. "There is no one else who's even bothered to try adopting them, Harry, except one crazy person who would likely molest them or whore them out to other twisted bastards. Don't you understand that? I had no dating prospects, anyway. Just the other day you and I were talking about being fuck buddies because we're both short on dating options outside of people who want our fame or your money."

Harry sighed, nodding his head.

"Alright," he held up his hands. "I get it, alright. I don't want to see them left in a bad spot any more than you do, Hermione. I'm just saying that this is going to fuck up the rest of your life and I want to make sure you won't be crying on my shoulder two years from now when people refuse to date a witch who is raising four kids that aren't hers and who has to snog three other blokes every month."

Hermione nodded, hurrying up the stairs and wielding her wand, conjuring extra beds for the boys. Lucian and Ranulf would have to share rooms for the time being until she had time to do some renovations to make more room in the small cottage. Harry followed after her, helping her with the conjuring in silence.

She could feel his eyes on her and Hermione could tell he wanted to say more but was biting his tongue to avoid upsetting her. They worked quietly until the house was fit for four young boys and Hermione asked him to accompany her to Rowle Tower. Harry took her hand, apparating them both to the property and staring up at the massive structure in awe.

"It would be easier for you to just live here, since you have access and all," he said. "You wouldn't need to renovate your cottage if you lived here. There'd be plenty of room for everyone."

Hermione sighed. "I don't want to be seen as a gold-digger," she admitted. "And I don't fancy the idea of people catching on that snogging people gives you access to their stuff."

Harry nodded. "I'm pleased you told me about that, actually. Imagine the types of girls who might've found their way into my vault."

Hermione chuckled. "Oh, yes. Because you have such poor taste in women that you'd date a gold-digger."

Harry shrugged, grinning at her.

"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly as they entered the Tower, crossing the foyer and climbing the stairs to explore the rooms upstairs in search of anything of that might've been Alrik's and anything that would be useful when raising young boys.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, glancing up and meeting Harry's gaze.

He pressed his lips together for a moment before speaking.

"Well, you remember the other day we were talking about the notion of shagging for the sake of handling the sexual stuff since neither of us was dating…?" he began leadingly. "I… well, since you're going to be facing the next fifteen plus years as a single mother and I'm still trying to find a witch who doesn't just want my fame and my money…"

Hermione's eyes widened slightly when she realised that, unlike last time he'd brought it up, this time Harry wasn't joking.

"Wouldn't you have a problem with the idea of me having to snog Rowle, Greyback and Dolohov every month?" Hermione asked him. "I don't want to ruin our friendship by having you resent me for the kids, Harry."

"Well, we wouldn't have to be exclusive," Harry shrugged. "I'm not suggesting that we date – honestly, with how close we are and how much time we spend together, we practically are boyfriend and girlfriend anyway. I mean, I tell you everything. I trust you. I love you. The only thing different about you and I, as opposed to how things were when I was dating Ginny, is that currently, we're not shagging."

"You want to shag me?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Hermione, I'm a guy. Of course I want to shag you. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Every bloke I know wants to shag you. They just don't want to date you because they think you're neurotic and because you're too brilliant."

"Neurotic, eh?" Hermione asked.

"Don't give me that look," Harry grinned. "I've seen you go fully neurotic about things in the past. I just… I mean, you know I'm going to be there every step of the way helping you with those boys, and if we kept count of the number of times you sleep over at Grimmauld and actually crawl in next to me to cuddle, it's probably higher than the number of times you sleep elsewhere. Since you're not dating anyone, and I'm not dating anyone, and we both have needs… maybe we should be shagging."

Hermione nibbled her bottom lip, recalling how desperately she'd been thinking she needed to get laid when she'd been snogging Greyback and Rowle.

"I'm about to adopt four children, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "I don't imagine that having them around will be conducive to wild sex when the itch arises."

"Well, no, but they have to sleep sometime, don't they?" he grinned. "And if they're already going to be looking to me as their stand-in father figure, it only makes sense that they see the two of us as a couple to give them an idea of how a proper family is supposed to work. I mean, they know I'm not their Dad, but they'll still be looking to me regarding how to be a man, right? Same way Teddy does. Maybe it would be a good idea to let them think that we're together in a stable, family unit."

"Are you saying you want to… move in with me?" Hermione frowned at him.

"Why not?" he asked. "Ron's been living Ebony for a while now and you know he's going to pop the question to her soon. Grimmauld is big and empty and kind of creepy. Honestly, every time I'm there it makes me miss Remus and Sirius. Half the time I wander the rooms hoping that they've just wandered off somewhere and I'll find them in the attic or the library. And you're going to need help to wrangle four boys, love."

"You'd… obviously I no longer have a spare room, Harry. If you moved in with me, you'd be sharing my bedroom," Hermione pointed out.

"Well, that'll make it easier to shag you, won't it?" he raised one eyebrow. "And it'll help keep you from turning all those kids into mummy's-boys by letting them all crawl into bed with you every night."

"So we'd be… what, exactly?" Hermione asked, frowning at him.

"Best friends. Lovers. Whatever you want, 'Mione. You know I love you."

"Will you still when I have to go off and snog Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback every month?" she asked.

Harry shrugged. "We don't have to be exclusive. And it's not like I'll be selling Grimmauld Place. I'll come and go and we can shag or cuddle or whatever and I can help you with the kids and watch the young ones while you've got to take the elder kid to primary school and all that. It's going to be hard to balance them alone, love."

"What about the psychological damage it would do when you inevitably find someone who isn't me and move in with her, marry her and have kids with her?" Hermione asked. "I don't want them to think they've got a new Mum and Dad only to have another father figure walk out of their life."

"As though I'd be able to leave them?" Harry asked. "As though I'd ever abandon you? Even if I did find someone else and fall for her, if she had a problem with you or those kids, she wouldn't be the witch for me, would she?"

"Harry… I… this is a lot to consider," Hermione frowned.

"So think about it. Just tell me one thing. Do you want to shag me? Can you see yourself shagging me without being drunk or lonely or miserable? Because if not, it kind of defeats the point of continuing to discuss it."

"I…" Hermione gnawed her lip, looking down at her feet for a moment. She'd never really thought about it. The one time she'd shagged Harry in the past had been good. Hell, she'd been feeling so low at the time that the sex and the endorphin rush had felt incredible. But she'd never really, seriously considered doing it again. He'd been dating Ginny, she'd been dating Ron, and it had just never been suggested seriously until now.

Lifting her gaze back to his, Hermione stepped toward him, closing the distance and reaching to cup his cheek. Stretching up on her toes, Hermione pressed her lips to Harry's, wanting to see if it would feel awkward or strange to kiss him. He blinked in shock before closing his eyes and reaching for her, his hands lifting to lightly grip her waist as he leaned into the kiss.

His lips were chapped from flying, but they were warm and soft and felt good against hers. Hermione sighed against his lips as she opened to him, tasting his tongue carefully and quivering at the little thrill that shot through her. She would swear she could feel Harry's lips twitching toward a grin as he kissed her back and Hermione felt a giggle burble up from within herself in response. Something about kissing him felt silly, but also good.

"Mistress!" a voice suddenly shouted.

Hermione and Harry sprang apart, each of them drawing their wands and aiming them at the source of the sound.

Three small house-elves blinked in surprise, putting their hands up in surrender to suddenly find two wands levelled in their direction.

"Goodness!" Hermione exclaimed, lowering her wand immediately. "Sorry about that. I didn't realise there would be elves still here."

"Mistress," one of the elves said, smiling toothily at her. "How can we be of service? Do you have tasks you'd like us to do?"

"Err..." Hermione glanced over at Harry. "I'm not... uh... in charge of you, am I?"

"Of course you is, Mistress. Master be kissing you and now we be yours to command. We has been waiting a long time to have someone command us once more."

Hermione sighed. Just what she needed. House elves who were going to treat her bogus title as Rowle's witch like it was law.

"Oh, dear. I should've known this would happen. Alright then, well, as you're obviously aware, I snogged Rowle and here we are. I'll be taking custody of Alrik from the Ministry too. We're here looking for some of his toys or clothes, you see. He'll be moving in with me at my cottage, along with three other boys and so we need whatever we can find of his things for them all."

"But Mistress... Master Alrik is be living here. He belongs here."

Hermione smiled.

"I know, little one, but I can't be seen living here. It would be very bad for wizards everywhere. Until Thorfinn is released from Azkaban, Alrik will live with me in my cottage. The three of you are, of course, welcome to assist me in raising the four boys, in addition to seeing to your duties here."

"What is you be needing us to be doing, Mistress?" the elf wearing the blue pillow-slip asked.

"Erm... do you mean here, or at my cottage?" Hermione asked. "Here, I'd expect Thorfinn would like you to maintain everything, keeping it all neat and tidy, not letting any pests in, that sort of thing. At the cottage I'll probably need whatever help I can get raising four boys under eight."

"You is having more for us to do?" the elf in a green pillow-slip asked, her eyes lighting up with delight at the very idea. "We be serving Master Alrik and the Mistress? We be cooking and cleaning?"

"I... er, well, I'd like to help with those things, of course. But yes, I suppose so," Hermione smiled tentatively. Harry laughed when all three elves shared high-fives of triumph.

"We be getting all of Master Alrik's toys and clothes for you, Mistress. He be leaving some at Selwyn Hall when Mistress Becky moved him there, but we fetch them."

"Alright," Hermione nodded. "I need to get into Thorfinn's study, too. He gave me the password, but could one of you show me the way."

"Right this way, Mistress. I is being Blicker. These be Zippy and Zest and we be the Rowle family house elves."

"I'm Hermione," she smiled at Blicker - the elf wearing orange - before shaking hands with all three elves while they looked mightily impressed by her show of manners. "This is Harry. He's going to be living with me and the boys at my cottage and helping out with them, too."

"Mr Potter is be needing no introduction, Mistress," Blicker told her, bowing low to Harry. "Mr Potters is being the one who be vanquishing the Nasty Wizard who made our master do such bad things."

Harry smiled at them and shook hands with all three, pretending not to notice the way they all looked awed that he would treat them like equals.

"Nice to meet you," he offered.

"This way, Mistress, Blicker will show you to the study while Zippy and Zest fetch the items. Come."

The elf dashed off up the steps and Hermione glanced at Harry before following.

"So I'm moving in, eh?" he teased quietly from behind her.

"Oh, Gods," Hermione spun back, her eyes wide as she collided with Harry's chest. "I forgot to check. I... well, the idea suits me... does it work for you?"

"Am I attracted to you?" he asked, grinning.

Hermione blushed, nodding.

"Let's just say that you had better be grateful those elves interrupted us," Harry muttered, dropping a kiss to the middle of her forehead. "Otherwise, I think that your arse might've become intimately acquainted with that rug over there."

Hermione pressed her lips together as she blushed, trying not to grin.

"Well, aren't you sure of yourself?" she replied.

"Yep," Harry grinned, popping the 'p'. "Now, come on. Let's get the stuff you're insisting we need from this place before dropping it all off at the house and heading to the Ministry for our kids."

"Wait... does this mean we're... dating?" Hermione said.

"Living together," Harry shrugged. "Adopting four kids together. Sleeping together. Call it dating if you want to, love. If you don't want to, we'll call it being the very best of friends and anyone who asks questions can stuff it."

"You realise that Ron and Ginny are going to be terribly upset when they find out about this, right?" she sighed, letting him sling his arm around her shoulders.

"They'll be fine. Ginny has her boy-toys and Ron's got Ebony and they're both over the two of us. They'll likely be happy for us, all things considered. And anyway, they don't own us, so they can just get over it."

Hermione smiled at him.

"You're not going to... I don't know, complain about the fact that to keep those boys I have to go to Azkaban every month and snog three other men? Violent criminals, no less."

"Of course I'm going to complain," Harry rolled his eyes. "Every month I'll nag you about it and bitch that they should keep their sticky paws off you. And every month, when you come back from snogging the three of them, hot for it, I'll be the one shagging you."

"You..." Hermione blushed crimson.

"What?" Harry teased. "You think that I expected anything different? You've never gone for the idea of shagging me before, love. No matter the number of hints I dropped about it."

"Wait... you were serious all those times? Harry, I thought you were just joking."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure my libido might be raging a little more than yours, but yeah, I hate going to the pub to pick up some random bird, and my own hand is kind of lonely, you know? Since you were lonely and bitching about your toys being the only attention you got most weeks, too, I figured... But you never went for it until today. So it's either out of fear of being alone forever, or because those gits got you all hot and bothered. And since you don't fear being alone and tend to prefer solitude, I think I can figure out your motivations, Hermione."

Hermione was sure her cheeks were crimson but Harry just laughed before leaning down and stealing another kiss from her surprised lips. Blicker led them to Rowle's office and pointed when they were right outside of it. Hermione cleared her throat, very carefully pronouncing the password to gain access. For a tense moment she waited for the door to open, the magic of the spell slowly unlocking without causing her harm.

"Master be giving you the password," Blicker grinned. "He never be giving it to Mistress Becky. Master must like you Mistress Hermione."

"Your master is a right sod, Blicker," Hermione told the elf, smiling. "And I'm sure he's only being nice the sake of having someone nice and sane raising his son."

The elf "mmmhhmmmmed" in a very knowing sort of way and Hermione made a face at Harry while he snorted with amusement.

"What are we looking for... Ouch!" Harry exclaimed, trying to cross the threshold and slamming into an invisible force-field, knocking his glasses askew.

"Just because the door is open doesn't mean you has access, Mr Harry Potter," Blicker said, sounding amused - the cheeky thing.

"Maybe you have to say the password or be given special access or something. Its fine, Harry. I'll grab the pensieve and we can go."

"Master be saying Mistress is to have the vault key too, Mistress," Blicker reminded her.

"Rowle gave you his vault key?" Harry asked, surprised.

"He essentially told me that what's his is mine," Hermione sighed. "The git. Anyway, I don't need the vault key; I have plenty of my own money."

She entered the office and fought the urge to sigh in delight. She could understand why he'd warded it. It was a very nice office, full of rare magical items, mahogany bookshelves and a matching desk, in addition to more books than she'd seen anywhere outside of a library or her own house in a long time. The space was lit by one large window that overlooked the grounds and though the hearth was unlit, it had a nice, cosy sort of feel where she could imagine herself whiling away hours and hours on her research. Sitting on of the shelves, Hermione spied the pensieve, before moving over to collect it carefully. There were a number of phials filled with memories lining the shelves of a cabinet next to it and Hermione eyed them curiously, wondering what they might be and what she might learn about Rowle should she view them.

The urge to peek was strong, but she set it aside for the time being. She had four young boys to collect from the Ministry and to bring home. Hurrying back out with the pensieve in hand, Hermione was met with all three elves clutching large bags of toys, books, clothing and more.

"Ready to go?" she asked of them all.

They all nodded and Harry grinned, intending to apparate himself since she had hold of the pensieve with both hands.

"Alright, to my cottage it is, and then we'll go to the Ministry for the boys."

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Harry accompanied her back to the Ministry, where they found Carrie waiting for them.

"Ah," Carrie smiled. "I'd begun to wonder if you'd be coming back. Everything is in order, Hermione. The papers are all taken care of. I just need you to sign here, and we can release all four boys to your custody."

Hermione nodded, reaching for the quill and quickly reading the contract she'd been handed before signing her name, agreeing to care for the boys as her own until such time that their fathers were granted custody once more, or until they were of age, whichever came first.

"Excellent. They're ready to go. Mr Potter, I assume you're here to help Hermione take them all home?"

"Yep," Harry nodded.

"Well, you won't be able to apparate. Not while they're so young. The best and safest option is Floo Travel. You don't want to risk splinching them and their will isn't strong enough to apparate without splinching when they're just little boys. You can, of course, take them with you in the Floo, so that's fine."

Hermione nodded in understanding, following Carrie back down the hall to where the boys had been kept. When Carrie opened it to let them inside, all four boys were packed and ready to go. Hermione's heart clenched as she entered the room to find all four boys sitting on one of the beds, looking hopefully toward the door.

"Now, they're not allowed to take the toys from here; the Ministry keeps those for any other children who might be brought into our care, but the clothes they're wearing are fine to be taken home."

"The rags they're wearing, you mean?" Harry said dryly, his eyes scanning all four boys critically.

His green eyes behind his spectacles scanned the four of them and Hermione could tell he was searching for the signs he would know to look for regarding abuse. After all, he'd grown up in a situation that was much worse than what these boys had endured so far.

"Unfortunately, Mr Potter, the Ministry relies on the charity of the community to handle situations like this and as such there isn't room in the budget to be buying brand new clothing for orphans no one wants," Carrie said sadly, frowning at the boys as well. "Lucian having been here so long, and growing so rapidly, meant that many of the clothing articles we had in supple were given to him and worn until they fell apart."

"Right," Harry said. "Well, in future, I'd like someone from this department to owl me regarding all orphans of the magical world, alright? Not just the kids of Death Eaters, either. Actually, I'll speak to Kingsley. It's high time we set up a more effective solution to dealing with orphaned magical children. We don't need a repeat of Tom's life, and I'll fund it myself if I have to."

Carrie looked surprised and then perhaps pleased, but Hermione was focusing too closely on the boys to pay the other witch much mind.

"You came back," Lucian said quietly, getting off the bed and moving toward her cautiously, looking very much like a skittish animal. He bared his teeth at Carrie again, though she stayed over by the door, and he eyed Harry suspiciously.

"I promised that I would, Lucian," Hermione smiled gently at the boy. "Are you all ready to come home with me?"

"We is clean," Dmitri told her. "Did you see my Daddy?"

Hermione smiled at the boy, stooping slightly so she was on eye level with them all and smoothing a hand over Alrik's hair when he reached to tangle one of his little fists into her curls.

"I did," Hermione said. "You Daddies all asked me to pass some things along for you, but let's share them at home, alright? We'll get you out of here and then we can talk all about how happy your Daddies were that I'd be looking after you from now on."

"You saw my Dad?" Lucian asked, surprising Hermine when he reached for the arm he'd bitten earlier, lifting it to his nose and inhaling the scent of the bandage.

He closed his eyes on a soft whimper as he breathed in the scent on the fabric. As part of Fenrir's clothing in the prison, it undoubtedly smelled like him.

"Smells like Dad," he whispered. "Smells like home. You… why does it smell like blood? I sealed the bite I gave you."

Hermione smiled at the young boy when he opened his eyes, their light grey colour shot through with amber.

"Fenrir gave me a little love-bite, too," Hermione told him. "I'll show it to you at home, if you like."

"We're… we're really getting out of here?" he asked, his voice almost scared.

"We really are. I know that each of you have a mother you might recall fondly," Hermione told them, scooping up Ranulf and propping him on her hip as she stood straight once more. "But from now on, I'm going to be your mother, alright. You don't have to call me 'Mum' if you're not comfortable with it, but you can if you'd like to."

"I…" Dmitri frowned at her as he slipped off the edge of the bed to stand beside Lucian. "My Mum is dead."

Hermione smiled sadly. "I know, love."

"You aren't my Mummy," he went on, still frowning. "But… you saw my Daddy?"

"I did, indeed."

Dmitri frowned before taking Lucian's hand and glancing up at him for a moment. The older boy was eyeing her warily, obviously unsure about the idea of calling her 'Mum' too.

"Well… if you're taking me home and my Daddy doesn't mind," Dmitri said. "Then I call you Mummy."

Hermione's heart clenched inside her chest.

"I'd like that very much," she told the little dark-haired Russian boy, smiling widely. Dmitri smiled back.

"Who's he?" Lucian asked, eyeing Harry, who'd remained over by the door.

"This is Harry Potter," Hermione told them. "He's my best friend and he's going to help me take all of you to my house. He's going to be spending a good deal of time there with us, too."

"He's your boyfriend?" Lucian asked.

Hermione glanced at Harry for a moment.

"I suppose you could say that," she said carefully.

She jumped a little when Lucian darted closer, sniffing her face inquisitively.

"Does he mind that you've been kissing people who aren't him?" Lucian asked.

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"You can smell who've I've been kissing?" she asked.

Lucian nodded, eyeing her thoughtfully. "You smell like my Dad. And a bit like Alrik – but different. And you smell like him," he pointed to Harry.

"Well, yes, I suppose it's safe to say that I had to kiss each of your father's goodbye before leaving," Hermione said, thinking on her feet, trying to find a way to explain all this without confusing them all.

"And Harry doesn't mind?" Lucian asked. "I'd mind, if you were my girlfriend. Dad always minded if anyone even sniffed in Mum's direction."

"Yes, well, you father is a bit territorial, isn't he?" Hermione said. "Harry and I are the very best of friends and he knows that when I kiss your fathers goodbye, it's for a purpose."

"Oh," said Lucian. "So… he's not going to challenge them to a fight the next time he sees them?"

"I don't think so," Hermione smiled. "Harry's not a very violent person."

"Funny, Dad told me that Harry Potter is the one who killed the Dark Lord," Lucian replied. "He killed the Dark Lord and got the rest of the world hunting our Daddies down."

Hermione sighed.

"Why don't we talk about this at home, Lucian? I'll be able to explain it better at home."

"Did Harry put my Daddy in prison?" Dmitri asked.

"No, sweetheart. Your father's were all put in prison because they broke the law."

"What's law?" Alrik asked, still fiddling with her curls.

"The rules, love," Hermione told the little boy. "There are rules in society and in life, that we all have to follow. And if we break the rules, there are penalties. If the rules say not to break your toys, and you break them, you might not get to play with them anymore. Does that make sense?"

"Did Daddy break toys?" Alrik frowned.

"No, darling," Hermione said. "Your Daddies all broke the laws that adults in wizarding society must follow. They broke the law and they did some very bad things. They were put in jail because they weren't to be trusted in mainstream society until they learn their lesson. Do you understand?"

"Dad told me that the Pack lives outside the laws of the wizarding world," Lucian muttered.

"Yes, well, that's why he's going to spend his life in Azkaban, isn't it?" Hermione replied, getting frustrated with all their questions.

"He won't be there forever," Lucian said knowingly, reaching for her arm and sniffing at her bandage again. "He promised me he'd see me again soon."

Hermione realised she was going to have to be careful with the four of them. It was a very fine line to walk between allowing them to understand that their fathers were criminals who'd broken the law and must pay for their crimes; and between letting them have an affection for their sires and know that though they were bad people, they still loved them. Lucian, as the oldest, and with the most criminal of fathers for his role model, would have to be spoken to shortly, she supposed. The others were a bit too young to grasp the idea of laws and prison sentences and why they're fathers were bad men who'd done bad things, even if they still loved them.

"I'm sure he will, Lucian," Hermione said softly. "Let's talk about it at home, alright? Are you ready to go?"

Lucian shrugged, still sniffing her arm. Ranulf gurgled on her hip, having burrowed his face into her neck where he seemed to be drooling on her. Hermione smiled at the baby.

"Are you all ready to meet Harry? We'll be travelling by Floo to get to my house, so he's going to help us, alright?"

"Harry. Harry. Harry," said Alrik, waving in Harry's direction.

Harry grinned and waved back. Hermione beckoned him closer.

"Harry, I'd like you to meet Lucian and Ranulf Greyback," she said, indicating to each boy in turn. "And this is Dmitri Dolohov, and that's Alrik's Rowle."

"Hello," Harry said, offering his hand to Alrik, who reached for it and shook it smartly. Dmitri followed suit after giving him a suspicious stare.

Lucian eyed the hand Harry offered to him like he might bite him. Hermione watched with her heart in her throat as the lycan boy slowly released her bandaged forearm and reached for Harry's hand instead. He shook it carefully before pulling it closer and sniffing it. If Harry was surprised he didn't show it.

"You smell like her," Lucian told Harry, pointing to Hermione. "And like broom polish."

"I was polishing my broom earlier, yeah," Harry nodded. "It got a bit banged up at training."

"Training?" Lucian asked.

"Quidditch training," Harry smiled. "You boys know what Quidditch is, right?"

"Quidditch!" Alrik's blue eyes widened and his whole expression lit up before he reached little hands up toward Harry, making grabby-hands like he wanted to be picked up.

Harry grinned, stooping to lift the boy and propping the toddler upon his hip.

"You like Quidditch, huh?"

"Rowle used to play before…" Hermione reminded him.

"That's right. Ballycastle Bats, wasn't it?" Hermione nodded. "Well, no wonder the kid's into Quidditch," Harry said.

"Let's go home," Hermione said, smiling and taking Lucian's hand while Dmitri began trying to climb Harry, wanting to sit on his other hip to talk about Quidditch.

"Hermione?" Lucian asked as Harry scooped Dmitri up and carried both boys toward the door.

"Yes, Lucian?" Hermione asked, looking down at the young boy where he was walking carefully beside her.

"Is… will Harry live with us, too?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "Will that be alright with you?"

Lucian frowned. "Is he… he smells like another kid, too? Does… does he have a son?"

"No, love," Hermione smiled gently at the boy. "Harry has a godson – that means he's the mentor and fun 'uncle' type of person for a boy named Teddy Lupin. He's four."

"Lupin?" Lucian asked, his eyebrows lifting. "I know that name. Dad used to say that Lupin needed to fall into line."

"Yes, Remus Lupin was a werewolf. He was bitten by Fenrir when he was just a little boy himself," Hermione explained. "He was killed during the war and now his son, Teddy, is being raised by his grandmother, Andromeda. Harry often looks after him, so I'm sure you'll meet him."

"Is he… like me?" Lucian asked, looking guardedly hopeful.

"No, love," Hermione shook her head. "He's like Ranulf. His Daddy was a werewolf, but his mother wasn't a werewolf or his father's wolfmate, so his eyes might flash every now and then, but he doesn't transform like you do at the full moon."

"Oh."

Hermione smiled at him. "Are you alright? Does it bother you that no one is like you?"

Lucian frowned. "The others used to transform with Dad… but not like I did. They turned to wolf the whole way. I don't."

Hermione nodded her understanding.

"Dad said I was special," Lucian said quietly, sniffing occasionally at the bandage on her arm as they walked out of the room and toward the nearest fireplace where they might Floo home. "He said that what I can do is very rare, and that it made the Pack stronger.

"You are special, sweetheart," Hermione promised the young boy.

Lucian smiled quickly before hiding his expression once more. When they reached the Floo, Harry climbed inside, still holding Alrik and Dmitri. Hermione picked up some Floo powder and dropped it for him as he called out that he wanted to go to her cottage. Lucian watched curiously as though he was unused to Floo travel and Hermione supposed that having been cooped up in that little room for so long meant he wasn't used to a good many things.

"Wrap your arms around me, sweetheart. We'll go together," Hermione told the young boy, Ranulf gripped tightly in her arms. Lucian did as he was told after a moment's hesitation, burying his nose against her stomach and hiding his face while she dropped the powder, whooshing the three of them off to her cottage after Harry and stepping out when they arrived, ready to start her new life.

Motherhood, Hermione immediately discovered, involved dealing with lots of tantrums and tears over things that made absolutely no sense. Upon arrival into her cottage Hermione was greeted by a worried looking Harry who was attempting to console two sobbing toddlers. Before she could even move toward them to offer comfort, Ranulf began to wail upon her hip and she realised that all three little boys were reacting to the disorienting and uncomfortable vertigo associated with Floo travel – Ranulf perhaps for the very first time.

"Oh, Merlin," Hermione sighed. "Lucian, sweetheart? Do you think you could give us a hand to calm the boys down? They don't seem too fond of Floo travel."

Lucian nodded, reaching for Ranulf from her hip and expertly manoeuvring the boy onto his hip before unceremoniously moving Ranulf's small hand into his mouth, silencing the boy's cries.

"How did you do that?" Harry asked, looking slightly amused when Ranulf immediately quieted his sobs, sucking his thumb instead while Lucian jiggled about a bit, dancing and murmuring something too low for Hermione to hear.

Hermione realised with a jolt that he was probably very used to quieting unhappy toddlers and though she didn't want to encourage the idea of the boys sucking their thumbs, she hurried over to Harry, taking Alrik from him and popping the boy's thumb into his own mouth. Just like Ranulf had done, Alrik quieted and when Harry did the same thing with Dmitri, he stopped wailing, too. They all still looked confused and unhappy, but they stopped screaming and Hermione marvelled, wondering how Lucian had taught them to quiet so quickly.

"You have to scare them," Lucian told her quietly, catching her questioning gaze. "They learned pretty quickly that if I put their thumbs in their mouths and they kept throwing a tantrum, I'd growl at them or nip them. They won't keep crying if they know it will get them into trouble."

Hermione frowned.

It might be effective, but she didn't want to encourage negative reinforcement. She'd been spanked as a child when she'd done something wrong and while it had been effective to keep her in line, it had also left her with a rather unhealthy dislike for wooden-spoons. She especially didn't like the idea that up until now, the only kind of authority figure the toddlers would recall was Lucian, and she didn't fancy having them fear him because of what he was.

"Right, well, in future let's try to avoid scaring them or hurting them unless they've hurt you first, alright sweetheart. I'm grateful that you've found a way to quiet them, and I know it's going to be a learning curve for all of us to get used to things as a family, but I don't want you to feel so responsible for them. You're just boy yourself, Lucian."

Lucian didn't respond, he just cocked his head to one side and stared at her, still jiggling the baby perched upon his hip and looking entirely too adorable for words. Hermione smiled at him gently.

"Well, come on," she said. "I'll show you all to your rooms."

She beckoned him, still carrying Alrik while Harry carried Dmitri and Lucian carried his baby brother. The whole lot of them trooped up the stairs, and Hermione led them into the room she planned to have Lucian and Ranulf share.

"This one will be your room, Lucian. I didn't think you'd like being separated from Ranulf, so if it's alright with you, the two of you will be sharing this one," Hermione explained to the small boy.

Lucian's eyes trailed over the room carefully and he looked almost fearful, like he didn't know what to make of the whole thing and a little like he was afraid. She supposed that after being cooped up for so long in that room at the Ministry, he probably was rather afraid of the outside world.

"What about the others?" he asked. "There's not enough beds."

"Well, that's because they'll have their own room down the hall here, see?" Hermione smiled encouragingly, leading them down the hall and into the bedroom she planned to house Alrik in. "This one will be your room, Alrik."

"Me?" Alrik asked, his eyes lighting up at being addressed when Hermione looked at him. His eyes were still wet from crying, and Hermione wiped them carefully even as she smiled.

"You," she nodded. "This is where you'll sleep. Won't that be nice?"

Alrik squirmed to be let down and toddled into the room, looking around.

"My toys," he smiled, picking up a stuffed dragon toy and cuddling it into his arms.

"Yes, we collected them from the Tower after I visited your Daddy and he told me where they were. Isn't that fun?" Hermione smiled.

Alrik grinned before picking up another dragon and crossing the room to Harry. He held out the dragon to Dmitri, who leaned down in Harry's arms to accept it.

"Thank you," Dmitri said politely, frowning at the toy.

Alrik repeated the process when he collected a toy wolf from the bed and carried it over to Lucian, who looked wary but accepted it just the same.

"Thanks," Lucian said.

Ranulf gurgled on his hip and Hermione reached for the baby so that Lucian could hold his new toy better.

"For Pup," Alrik said, tugging on the leg of Hermione's jeans when he'd fetched a fourth toy.

He held the small bear up toward her, and Hermione wondered how it could be that, just like his father, the boy was clearly generous and not afraid to share what he had.

Ranulf yipped like a puppy when Hermione handed him the toy and she smiled a little.

"Can you say thank you, Ranulf?" Hemione asked. "Thank you."

Ranulf furrowed his little brow at her.

"Fank oo," he said, surprising her.

"You can talk," she exclaimed, surprised.

"I taught him," Lucian said quietly, clutching the stuffed wolf he'd been given.

"Oh, Lucian," Hermione said, her heart clenching. "You darling boy."

He looked like he didn't know what darling meant, but his mouth pulled up at one corner.

"Do I get a room, too?" Dmitri asked quietly.

"Of course you do, sweetheart," Hermione smiled at the little boy, turning to him where he still sat on Harry's hip.

She glanced at Harry, noting the way he held the boy and was eyeing him curiously, almost as though he couldn't believe such a polite little boy could be the spawn on Antonin Dolohov.

"It's just down the hall here, see?" Hermione led them down the hall and into the final bedroom. "This is where you'll sleep Dmitri. What do you think?"

"It's nice," Dmitri said, squirming to be put down before he looked around the room curiously, toddling over and putting his dragon on the freshly made bed.

He climbed up and sat next to the toy before looking at Lucian and Alrik expectantly. Hermione didn't know what to make of it when both boys moved over and climbed up next to Dmitri, all of them perching on the edge of the small single bed. She looked over at Harry, who was grinning and had propped his shoulder against the doorframe. Hermione suspected he was having entirely too much fun watching her try to figure out what to do with four children.

"You guys hungry?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"There's food?" Lucian asked, his nose twitching as he began sniffing hungrily.

"Course there is. Why don't I go down and start cooking us all some pancakes while your new Mum shows you where she'll be sleeping and where the loo is, eh?" Harry grinned, winking at Hermione when she met his gaze.

She'd almost forgotten that while she had limited experience with children, he was used to them because he spent so much time helping Andromeda with Teddy.

"Mumumumumum," Ranulf chattered happily on her hip and Hermione looked into the baby's little face, smiling as her heart clenched inside her chest.

"That's right, Ranulf," Hermione nodded. "I'm your Mum now."

"Mumumumum," he said again, giving her a gappy smile.

"Where's your room?" Lucian asked.

"It's this one down the hall. Would you like to see?" she asked, beckoning the three boys on the bed.

They all slid off the bed obediently and followed her down to the end of the hall, where her bedroom was.

"This is where I sleep," she said.

"Doesn't smell like Harry," Lucian said, strolling into the room and sniffing around curiously. "Does he sleep here too?"

"He will do," Hermione nodded. "He's moving in today, too. But he's slept over a fair few times."

Lucian glanced up at her, nodding slowly and Hermione wondered how much of the world he'd really seen. Did he understand the complications of relationships when people weren't technically a couple, but were close and would be getting closer?

"Can I sleep here, too?" Alrik asked, toddling over to the bed and climbing up on it.

"Sometimes," Hermione nodded, following him over and climbing onto the bed too, setting Ranulf down by the pillows and patting the space to invite Lucian and Dmitri up, too. "When you're scared, or you're not feeling good, you can all climb in a cuddle with me, if you need to."

"Me too?" Dmitri asked.

"Of course, Dmitri. I'm going to be your mother, now. Mums love cuddles, you know?" Hermione said, smoothing a hand through his dark hair affectionately and noting that when he looked suspicious, it was very obvious he was Antonin Dolohov's son. They had the same eyes, and the same shape to their faces.

"Will you tell us what our Dads said when you saw them, now?" Lucian asked quietly, perching on the edge of the bed beside where she'd sat down and picking up her arm so that he could hold her bandage to his nose again.

Hermione nodded, smiling when Alrik crawled across the bed and plonked himself down in her lap again.

"Of course, I will. I went to see Fenrir first," she said smoothing a careful hand through Lucian's hair while the boy tensed and looked unsure what she planned before he relaxed slowly when she scratched her fingers through his hair gently. "He was a bit surprised to see me, since we hadn't crossed paths in a long time. I told him that I was going to be looking after all of your from now on and he was a bit unsure at first, because we didn't used to be friends when he was free. But when I told him about how horrible the Ministry had been to all of you he got very angry, and even though they had him chained up, he broke his chains when he lost his temper."

"He's in chains?" Lucian growled, his eyes narrowed hatefully.

"Yes, darling," Hermione nodded. "The guards at the prison didn't know if he would be nice to me or not, so they chained him up for my visit to make sure he wouldn't hurt me."

"But he did," Lucian said, touching her bite, having unravelled the bandage Fenrir had wrapped around her arm.

"He bit me, yes," Hermione nodded. "But when I told him I was going to take care of you from now on, he stopped being quite so angry."

"He's always angry," Lucian said quietly. "He's been angry since my Mum died."

Hemione smiled sadly.

"He asked me to tell you that he loves you and Ranulf very much, Lucian," she told the little boy.

Lucian's eyes filled with tears and he looked away, fisting the scrap of fabric from her bandage as the tears overflowed his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Hermione reached for him, jostling Alrik in her lap and pulling the skittish lycan boy into her embrace. Ranulf crawled closer, burrowing into his brother's arms, and Hermione's heart squeezed while tears overflowed her own eyes when Dmitri and Alrik cuddled Lucian and Ranulf, too, all of them piling onto her lap and holding each other tight.

"He'll be free before you know it, sweetheart," Hermione whispered in Lucian's ear. "Not too much longer now, he said. We'll know when he comes."

A low whimper tore from the boy and he pressed his face into her neck as he sobbed softly. Hermione knew he'd been starved for attention and affection for so long that he was overwhelmed, and she doubted anyone had bothered to remind him before today that his Daddy still loved him and that he would come for him.

"Do you know what Wolfsbane is, Lucian?" she asked the boy in a tight whisper.

Lucian hiccupped, but Hermione felt him nod.

"The guards at Azkaban have been putting it in his food and his water. That's why he hasn't already come for you, love. But he will. He assured me, he will."

"Soon?" Lucian asked.

"He said it might be more than a year. It takes more than overcoming the Wolfsbane to get him free, darling."

Lucian nodded, clutching her tightly.

"When he comes, will you stay?" he asked very softly.

"Stay here? Or stay with you?" she asked. "I expect that when he comes, the first place the authorities will look will be here, sweetheart. And I'll be in some trouble if you and Ranulf go away when Fenrir comes. He'll be in some trouble, too."

"He won't take us away," Lucian shook his head, pulling back from her and reaching for her bitten arm again. "He bit you. Your ours, now."

Hermione frowned, looking down at the bite.

"What do you mean, love?" she asked, confused.

"He's the alpha," Lucian said. "And he gave you the bite."

"Yes, but it wasn't a full moon, darling. I'm not a werewolf."

"No, but he made you Pack," Lucian whispered. "You're part of the pack. He'll come for you when he's free. And he'll ask you to run with us."

"I can't run with the pack, Lucian. And you're too young to run with them, too. You need to go to school. Ranulf, too."

"Dad doesn't think much of school and wizarding society's ideas of how we should live."

"Your Dad will just have to get used to it," Hermione said sternly.

Lucian smirked.

"Tell him that," he said. "I dare you."

"I already did. He told me I'm not allowed to turn you and your brother into wimpy little pansies. And I told him you will both grow up to be upstanding citizens who uphold the law and don't follow in his footsteps of being a criminal."

"What did he say?" Lucian asked, smiling widely.

"He growled at me and threatened to rip my throat out."

"Were you scared?" Lucian asked, though he chuckled like the threat was funny and Hermione wondered how damaged the little boy was already after the years he'd spent being raised by Fenrir before he'd been locked away. She wondered how much damage he'd do when he was free.

"I'm not afraid for the Big Bad Wolf," Hermione shook her head.

Lucian laughed again. "You should be. He's mean."

"I know," Hermione sighed. "But we'll figure out what happens when he's free, alright? Until then, he wants you to stay with me so that I can keep you safe. Okay?"

Lucian nodded.

"What about my Papa?" Dmitri asked, pulling on one of Hermione's curls. "What did my Papa say?"

"He asked me to pass along a message for you, darling. It's in Russian, though. Will you know what it means?"

"Da," Dmitri nodded, smiling widely.

"Alright, good. I'm sorry if I don't pronounce it right. We'll have to learn how to speak the rest of the language together, won't we? So that we understand your Daddy's messages."

"Yay!" Dmitri cheered, clapping his hands together, and looking at her imploringly, waiting for the message.

"Alright, Antonin asked me to tell you: Privet, synotchik. Ya lyublyu tebya. Skoro uvidimsya. Do you know what it means, darling?"

Dmitri nodded, smiling widely.

"He says hello, son. I love you. See you soon," Dmitri translated.

Hermione smiled.

"Was he nice to you, Mum?" Dmitri asked, surprising her with the endearment.

"Not as nice as he could have been," Hermione sighed, telling the boy the truth. "He's a bit put out about being locked away, you know?"

Dmitri nodded.

"And your Daddy, Alrik, said many things that made me laugh, and informed me just how cute you are, in case I hadn't noticed, and said he loves you more than anything else in the whole wide world," Hermione told Alrik while he played with her curls, smiling a happy little smile. She suspected he was a bit too young to really understand anything other than that his father loved him, but that was ok.

"We stay here now?" Alrik asked.

"Yes, sweetheart. We'll all stay here, now. We'll eat and play and sleep and we'll start getting all of your ready to go to school, won't that be fun? We'll read, and I've got a telly for the days when reading is too hard, and there's a lake nearby for swimming when it warms up, won't that be fun?"

"Is there food now?" Lucian asked. "Can we eat now?"

"Are you hungry, love?" Hermione asked him, letting him pull out of her arms and watching him wipe his eyes on his sleeve.

"I'm always hungry," he whispered, looking away and from the pained expression he wore, Hermione suspected he meant it in memory of his time in the Ministry's care.

"Well, you'll never go hungry here, darling," Hermione promised. "Let's go downstairs and see what Harry's up to, yeah? He'll have those pancakes cooking away nicely, I'm sure."

The boys all scuttled off the bed in a flurry of movement and Hermione laughed when the three who could, dashed out the door and down the steps, clearly relaxing into their new surroundings with ease.

Following after them, Hermione reached the kitchen in time to watch Alrik barrel right into Harry's legs, almost knocking him over and she laughed when he had to catch himself on the bench.

"Oi, watch it there, Alrik," Harry laughed. "Little bulldozers, the lot of you! Now, who's hungry?"

"I am!" Dmitri shouted, pulling himself up onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, intent on getting to the food.

"Hermione, love? Maybe a hand?" Harry laughed when Alrik tried to climb up too and almost toppled the stool.

"Coming. Lucian, sweetheart, let's put Ranulf in this chair, alright? That way he won't fall, and you won't have to hold him while we eat."

Lucian looked uncertain but relinquished the baby to her when she reached for him. Hermione tucked him into the high-chair she'd drawn up, and she reached for one of the pancakes Harry had cooked up, setting it on the food-tray of the high chair and cutting it into pieces. Before she could even finish doing so, the baby scooped up one of the pieces, popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed it before giving her a big, gap toothed grin.

"Tasty, Ranulf?" Hermione asked, smiling at the baby.

Ranulf nodded his head, scooping up more pieces of the pancake.

"Oh, Lucian, sweetheart, maybe a knife and fork?" she suggested, looking over to see Lucian had double-fisted a triple stack of syrup smothered pancakes and was attempting to eat them like they were a burger.

Harry laughed when he saw the two smaller boys copying Lucian, clearly used to taking their cues from him, and he flipped a freshly cooked pancake to Hermione to cut up for Ranulf, before setting aside the frypan to help Lucian when he looked lost.

"Like this, buddy," Harry said, pulling out enough cutlery for all of them and handing a knife and fork to each boy.

Hermione watched, still cutting pancake bits for Ranulf, as Harry showed the other three children how to hold a knife and fork, showing them how to spear the pancake with their fork before cutting it with the knife. Lucian seemed to remember doing so in the past and got the hang of it very quickly, but Alrik and Dmitri – both having been entirely too young when they'd gone into the system – struggled for a while longer with Harry helping them.

"Too hard," Alrik complained, tossing down the utensils and using his hands. Hermione had to stifle a laugh when Harry was splattered with syrup, especially when Alrik proceeded to roll up his pancake into a cylinder like it was a cigar before taking a bite out of the end and chewing ravenously.

"I think we're all going to need a bath after this," Harry laughed in return when Ranulf, apparently hungry for more, chomped Hermione's hand with his syrup covered mouth.

"Ouch!" she hissed, withdrawing the appendage reproachfully. "Raanulf! That wasn't nice."

Hermione blinked when Ranulf growled at her, clearly still hungry and not afraid to challenge her for more.

"You'll get a smack if you keep that up, Mister!" Hermione chided him, booping him gently on the nose with the tip of her finger. "If you want more, you say please."

Ranulf bared his teeth again, but he froze when Hermione bared her own in retort.

"Pwease?" he asked, fixing her a set of great big puppy dog eyes instead.

"Oooh, you're so in over your head, love," Harry chuckled, coming up behind her and bringing another pancake with him.

"Tell me about it," she muttered. "You have syrup of your face."

Harry grinned.

"Get it for me?" he asked.

She did, and she didn't know which one of them was more surprised when she did so by licking his cheek.

"Is that a promise of giving me a more thorough tongue bath later?" he whispered in her ear before fixing her a cheeky grin.

"What if it is?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Then I say let's get these kids fed and washed and down for a nap, yeah?" Harry smirked, bouncing his eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh before having to reach over and catch Alrik's little hand when the boy drew back in preparation to lob a hunk of masticated pancake at Dmitri. She was beginning to think that this motherhood business wasn't going to be nearly as easy as she'd hoped it would be, but also that she was going to love every minute of it.

Three days into her custody of the boys, the story hit the Daily Prophet and Hermione cringed over her morning cup of coffee as she perused the front page of the paper. She'd been expecting it. Of course, she had. She'd known from the minute she'd taken custody of the boys that the story of a war heroine adopting the 'orphans' of monsters would create a stir. She'd been bracing for impact since the minute she'd laid eyes on her boys in that horrible Ministry facility, if she was being completely honest with herself.

Sipping a little more of her coffee and knowing she might need the caffeine in her system to keep herself from committing murder when she saw the name of the article's author, Hermione braced herself psychologically before beginning to read.

WAR HEROINE FOSTERS ORPHANS OF DEATH EATERS! SURVIVOR'S GUILT, OR DOES THE BATTLE WAGE ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?

By Romilda Vane

Well-known justice warrior and muggleborn witch, Hermione Granger, has recently fostered four children belonging to incarcerated Death Eaters! The children, having fallen into Ministry custody when no sane, free, and physically capable living relative was available to care for them, are said to be the sons of none other than notoriously terrifying werewolf, Fenrir Greyback; the most reviled and previously escaped Azkaban inmate and Death Eater, Antonin Dolohov; and former Ballycastle Bats Quidditch superstar turned arsonist and Death Eater, Thorfinn Rowle.

On Monday morning, Hermione Granger was spotted in the Magical Orphans and Child Protection Department of the Ministry for Magic, enquiring after the children currently in Ministry custody. At that time, this reporter has learned, there were four children in Ministry custody, and it's rumoured all four have been fostered by the young war heroine. But how does an unattached woman barely just entering her early twenties classify as a suitable legal guardian for four young boys under the age of ten?

This reporter certainly wanted to know.

Granger, well-known throughout the wizarding world for her contributions alongside Harry Potter during the Second Wizarding War, is currently unattached following a flagrant break-up with fellow war-hero, Ronald Weasley several years ago. Despite what can only be called a healthy curiosity from the wizarding public, Granger has been very private about any of her relationships since that time and is not currently seeing anyone, sources say. How she imagines she'll find a wizard to marry after adopting four young sons of Death Eaters, this reporter certainly has no idea.

The children are none other than those that The Daily Prophet has oft reported on, requesting someone step up and offer their home and their love for these unlovable sons of wretches. In this endeavour, Hermione Granger has not been alone. Within our world, a number of witches and wizards have stepped forward to adopt or foster children orphaned during the war, or as a result of their parents' incarceration in Azkaban. Carrie Shafiq, one of the MO&CP Department's very own employees has even fostered the daughter of a Death Eater and we are all quietly proud of these brave individuals for their sense of civic duty.

However, while her actions and open-mindedness are admirable, one can't help but wonder just how it is than an unattached woman of such a young age and with such a complicated past with all three of the Azkaban inmates whose children she has adopted, has been able to do so. Surely this reporter isn't the only one who finds it a little suspicious that Miss Granger would seek to adopt the son of a man who tried so ardently to kill her that she was hospitalized for weeks at the end of her fifth year at Hogwarts? Antonin Dolohov, it is well known, has been locked up in Azkaban since the end of the First Wizarding War. What's more, he was amongst the number of Death Eaters who escaped Azkaban in 1996 and was considered to be at large until late 2000. His child, a boy of three, has been in Ministry custody following the untimely death of Dolohov's witch, Tatiana Rasmussen shortly after Dolohov's re-sentencing at the end of 2001.

What would possess one such as Miss Granger, a victim of Dolohov's, to adopt his son? What's more, this reporter wonders what would prompt such a man – so violently in favour of blood prejudice, he is serving a life sentence for several counts of murder – to agree to a muggleborn witch raising his son? Is it, perhaps, a more sinister plot at play? It seems highly unlikely that such a bigoted man would wholeheartedly consent to a witch like Hermione Granger raising his son. I certainly wouldn't want one of my victims raising my child, were I ever to attack anyone as violently as Mr Dolohov attacked Miss Granger. Moreover, Miss Granger is closely associated with one, Molly Weasley, whose very own brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, were slaughtered at Dolohov's hand during the First Wizarding War.

Fellow Order of the Phoenix members, and friends of Granger, including Frederick Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin also met their end as a result of Antonin Dolohov's wand-work. Mr Dolohov has, on numerous occasions, personally wronged Miss Granger and it need not be said that the witch has done terrible things to people who've done far less to her than Dolohov has. Begging the question of Granger's motives with this supposed act of selflessness and civic duty, and indeed, Dolohov's at agreeing to grant Hermione Granger custody of his young son.

So, which is it? Blackmail? Desperation? Poor Ministry conditions regarding child welfare? Or something of a most unsettling nature? Does Miss Granger seek to exact revenge upon Dolohov through his son?

This reporter attended Hogwarts alongside Hermione Granger, and there are numerous instances that readily spring to mind that suggest Hermione Granger – for all her talk of equality, and fair rights for all beings, and her overall status as a warrior for justice – has been only too ready to indulge in revenge in the past. Everyone who attended Hogwarts with Granger can easily recall the cursed parchment that destroyed the complexion of one, Marietta Edgecombe, when she reneged on an oath of silence, unaware of the impending consequences. And while it ought not to be discussed in polite society, this reporter doubts she is alone in the recollection of Miss Granger handing over one Undersecretary to the Minister and Hogwarts High Inquisitor to the herd of centaurs calling the Forbidden Forest home following her tyranny up at the school.

Miss Granger has an incredible capacity for cruelty, it would seem, and yet she has been entrusted to shape the minds and protect the lives of children belonging to men who have wronged her. Fenrir Greyback, the father of two of the children Granger has adopted, is considered the most notorious and most dangerous werewolf currently living. What's more, he was the werewolf who infected Miss Granger's teacher and fellow Order of the Phoenix member, Remus Lupin with lycanthropy in the first place. A detailed account of Mr Greyback's involvement in the Snatching of Granger, Potter, and Weasley during the height of the war, and their delivery of the trio to Malfoy Manor – where Granger was repeatedly subjected to the Cruciatus Curse – is also a matter of public record following the sentencing of Fenrir Grayback, Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange – in addition to the posthumous trial of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Does it truly stand to reason that she would seek to raise two children belonging to such a monster after all he has done? Are Ministry standards for background checking so lax? Is Miss Granger's status as a war-heroine currying more favour than the rest of us are permitted? Sources say that Granger was not the only candidate who applied to adopt the boys, and yet she has been successful at gaining custody of all four.

Perhaps the entire situation is simply born of the Survivor's Guilt that Granger is certainly not alone in feeling. Perhaps her intentions are pure, and she seeks only to provide a loving home for children who can't help who their fathers are. Perhaps she's attempting to gain sainthood, following the pattern of other admirable movements she's headed, including the Fair Rights for House Elves, and the abolishment of the Werewolf Registry, and even the Victims Protection charity she created that allows victims of the war to seek any medical or financial support they might need to get them back on their feet following the war. Perhaps her heart is simply in the right place and she's taking on a task no one else could be bothered with. Sources say that both of Greyback's children have been in Ministry custody for years, owing to their father's identity and the taint of lycanthropy running through their veins as a result. Perhaps Miss Granger is simply the one witch unafraid of their father and uncaring over a little lycanthropy in their DNA.

Miss Granger was unavailable for comment, owing to an exclusivity bargain struck with retired Daily Prophet journalist, Rita Skeeter during the height of the war, but we are very much open to your interpretation on the matter.

I'll let all of you decide.

Is Hermione Granger a saint suffering survivor's guilt and bettering the world as a result? Or is she a wicked witch bent on destroying the lives of innocent children just because their fathers wronged her? Send your letters to the Public Affairs Correspondence of The Daily Prophet by owl to register your opinions.

Hermione was vibrating with rage by the time she reached the end of the article. She had known it wouldn't be pretty the moment she'd spied Romilda's name at the top of it. The wretched little harpy had had it out for Hermione since their Hogwarts days, imagining Hermione to be monopolizing Harry's affections for herself despite Romilda's obvious interest in him. What was more, the staff of The Daily Prophet had long been irked by her refusal to their requests for interviews over the years unless Rita was the one doing the reporting. As such, she'd expected that they would be less than flattering in their report on her latest endeavours.

But she'd never imagined they would stoop to this.

How dare they suggest she would ever harm a child! Even the child of a Death Eater. The very next time Hermione saw the woman, she was going to ensure something terrible befell Romilda Vane.

As Hermione laid down the paper before she could rip it into a thousand pieces in her fury, she froze when she spotted Lucian standing on the other side of the room, watching her warily. He was alone, his eyes threaded with gold as he regarded her, and from the way his nostrils kept flaring, she could tell he could smell her anger.

"You're angry," he said quietly, watching her like he was curious, rather than afraid and Hermione wondered how often he had smelled the scent associated with anger to recognize it across her cottage.

"I am," Hermione agreed quietly, rather than greeting the boy.

She had learned over the past few days that even when prompted, Lucian didn't seem to like bothering with formal greetings. He tended to speak to her and Harry as though whatever time there was between past conversations evaporated the next time they spoke. Unfortunately, this related both to things that made him happy, and also to things that made him angry. He'd been holding a grudge against Harry for the past two days after Harry had gently reprimanded Ranulf for biting him during meal time on their second day together, in fact.

"At me?" he asked, frowning. "Is it because the moon is full tonight?"

Hermione blinked, having forgotten that it would be full, and that as a result, Lucian would undergo his partial transformation.

"I would never be angry at you for something you cannot help, Lucian," Hermione told him quietly, shoving aside the paper and getting to her feet.

She rounded the corner of the kitchen bench and opened her arms to the boy, intrigued to see if he would come to her.

"But you're angry," he said, taking a hesitant step closer before stopping and scenting the air again.

He frowned and Hermione wondered if he was confused by the lingering sense of her fury, now intermingled with the affection she felt for the young boy.

"Not at you, darling," Hermione said honestly, knowing he would be able to smell a lie. "Mummy's angry because there are some horrible people within our world who are trying to make a fuss over my having adopted you and your brothers."

Lucian raised one eyebrow in a way entirely too reminiscent of Fenrir and Hermione sighed.

"Come over here, Lucian," she said quietly, supposing she would have to explain to him what had happened and how things were going to work for their family in the future. "I think it's time we talked about a few things while your brothers are still sleeping and can't distract us."

Lucian's frown intensified.

"What things?" he said, taking one step closer but still not crossing the distance between them.

"Things about your Dad," Hermione said, A `1knowing it would lure him closer. "Would you like some breakfast while we talk?"

"What about Dad?" Lucian wanted to know, frowning at her.

Hermine patted the bar-stool at her breakfast bar as she began fixing some bacon and sausage, suspecting he would need a lot of energy for the night ahead.

"Do you understand why he's in Azkaban, Lucian?" Hermione asked the boy carefully as she waited for him to join her.

"He broke the law and got caught," Lucian replied, crossing the room and climbing up on the stool, never taking his eyes off her.

Hermione made a mental note to address his specificity at a later date, knowing it was likely a red-flag that he considered Fenrir's incarceration only the result of having been caught breaking the law, rather than simply that he'd committed several crimes.

"He did. In many ways, your Dad did things that aren't considered good, or lawful, or polite in wizarding society. Some of them are very bad things, do you understand?"

Lucian nodded.

"The Pack liked to talk about it, sometimes," he confessed, and Hermione felt the strangest sense of dread settle in the pit of her stomach at the idea of Fenrir ever having had a Pack that Lucian had been exposed to.

"What did they say?" Hermione asked.

"That if he kept biting people, he would get caught. And that if he kept running witches down and mating with them, he would be in big trouble. That's how we got Pup. One of those witches he chased down got pregnant."

"You understand how mating and pregnancy are correlated?" Hermione frowned.

Lucian tipped his head to one side.

"You understand what I am, don't you?" he asked a question of his own.

"A child born of a mate-bond between two werewolves," Hermione nodded.

"Then why wouldn't I know about mating and babies?" he said.

"Well, you're only seven, darling," Hermione said, smiling gently. "Most children don't learn about this stuff until later in life."

"I lived with the Pack," Lucian shrugged his shoulders. "We're not like wizards. Dad says wizards shelter children from the facts of life. He says wizards are fools, not in tune with their own natures until they snap. And being seven in human years compared to seven in werewolf years seems to affect how smart people are."

"What do you mean?" Hermione frowned at him.

"I'm a werewolf," Lucian shrugged his shoulders. "I develop at a different rate to a human. My Mum used to rave about it before she died, after Dad bit her. And I can see the difference between Alrik and Ranulf."

Hermione frowned.

"You believe Ranulf is developing cognitively at a faster rate than Alrik, even though Alrik is older than him?"

Lucian nodded. "But, I've bitten both of them, which helps."

"You know you shouldn't bite them, don't you?" Hermione asked him.

Lucian nodded. "Dad would say I should, but I know you don't want me to bite them anymore. The elves used to scold me for biting them."

Hermione nodded slowly, frowning as she tried to gather her thoughts on all the boy was sharing and all she had witnessed in him over the past few days.

"Why are you angry?" Lucian asked. "Did Dad do something?"

Hermione sighed.

"How well can you read, Lucian?" Hermione asked, having found that interacting with him was best done by being direct, rather than dancing around topics. To him, things in life were simple. Primal. Instinctual. She would go so far as to say that Lucian Greyback saw the world only in shades of black and white. Good and bad. There seemed to be no half measures in his eyes. Either you were a friend, or a foe. Either a topic should be spoken of plainly, or not at all. He didn't seem to grasp nuances very well, only that there were things he should do and things he shouldn't.

Lucian shrugged defensively, obviously not wanting to admit to a certain level of reading skill lest it fall short of what a seven year old ought to be able to manage and thus, refusing to acknowledge any such shortcomings aloud.

"We get our news about the world around us via the newspaper," she told him, coming over and tapping the paper on the bench between them. "People read it to find out about what else is going on in the wizarding world. This morning, there is an article about me adopting the four of you."

"What's that got to do with talking abut Dad?" Lucian wanted to know.

Hermione sighed again, frowning a little and wishing desperately that there was a way she could make him understand everything about the war and the Death Eaters and her own role in it, without needing to explain it all in layman's terms such a young boy might understand. For all that Fenrir might be a monster, Hermione didn't want to colour his son's opinion of him based on the perspective of the war she had to offer.

"You understand that your Dad, along with Alrik and Dmitri's dads are all in prison, don't you, darling?" Hermione asked him quietly, biting the bullet and diving right into the first hurdle she would face raising these sons of devils.

Lucian nodded warily.

"Well, when they weren't in prison, they all did bad things to a lot of people," Hermione said carefully. "The three of them all did bad things to me before they were locked up."

Lucian began to frown.

"What's 'war heroine' mean?" he asked, pulling the newspaper closer. "What's 'survivor's guilt'?"

Hermione sighed.

"War Heroine means that when we were in a time of war, I did things that were considered very brave in the face of the danger that some people posed. Those people included each of your fathers. Despite their involvement with Voldemort, Harry and I worked against them and against Voldemort to stop him from doing horrible things," she explained gently. "People within the wizarding world are proud of me for it and many think well of me for it."

Lucian blinked, watching her, still waiting for more information.

"Survivor's guilt means the feeling people who survive something like that live with, knowing that despite their best efforts, other people were negatively impacted. You boys, for example, were left without parents because of the war. My own parents no longer know who I am, because to protect them I had to take away their memories. Some of my friends died during the fighting. You see? And I feel bad that those things have happened while I got off scott-free."

"This is why you adopted us?" Lucian said.

"Part of the reason," Hermione nodded truthfully, knowing he would smell it if she lied. "I adopted the four of you because you need parents and because if Harry and I had managed to stop Voldemort sooner, your Dads might never have done such horrid things to put them in prison."

"Dad's a lot older than you, Hermione," Lucian said seriously, surprising her when he called her by her first name, rather than 'Mummy' like the other three boys had taken to doing. She supposed that he recalled his mother more clearly than they must and wasn't yet comfortable referring to her in that manner. "He's been doing bad things for a lot longer than I've been alive. Probably longer than you've been alive. Some of the pack said he'd been doing bad things since he was born. You can't change a person's nature, Dad says."

Hermione marvelled at his maturity in that moment, surprised he was being so open with her. Over the past three days while he'd been in her care, he'd come to trust her, she knew, but she was surprised by his intelligence and his maturity, and especially his willingness to talk to her about it.

"That doesn't stop me from feeling bad about things beyond my control, Lucian," Hermione said quietly. "Guilt doesn't stop just because we shouldn't feel it."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"This says that people think you adopted us to hurt us and hurt our Dads," Lucian said, looking down at the paper he'd claimed. "It says they did bad things to you and to people you loved. What's the Order of the Phoenix?"

Hermione shook her head slowly, marvelling that he could read it all, if she was being completely honest.

"An organization of people who worked outside the law for the sake of stopping Lord Voldemort from overtaking the wizarding world. He was a very bad man who wanted anyone not of pure magical heritage to die. He used your Dad as something of an attack dog, and he had Dmitri's Dad and Alrik's Dad working for him, too. They did bad things in his name, which is why they're in prison, too."

"Says Dmitri's Dad almost killed you," Lucian frowned.

Hermione nodded.

"When I was sixteen, he cursed me during a duel. The spell was very powerful and would've burned my insides to a crisp had I not managed to use a Silencing spell on him so he couldn't say the words of the spell out loud. I still have this scar," she explained, lifting her shirt and showing him the starburst of purple scarring on her sternum.

Lucian blinked before reaching over the counter, surprising her when he dragged one long fingernail over the scar just hard enough to smart.

"It's got magic in it," he noted quietly, sniffing loudly like an inquisitive canine. "Magic that smells like Dmitri."

Hermione frowned at the scar.

"That… isn't what I expected," Hermione admitted, unsure what to make of the pronouncement.

Lucian leaned back, still sniffing her but withdrawing his hand.

"Says in the paper that Dad took you somewhere and that you got tortured," Lucian said, his eyes lowering to the newspaper once more as though he hadn't just shocked her.

"Yes," Hermione admitted. "I mentioned that we originally met in the woods one day."

"When he licked you," Lucian said, apparently recalling the conversation.

"Yes," Hermione nodded.

"Did you adopt us with the intention of hurting us?" Lucian asked bluntly, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course, I didn't," Hermione said. "Which is why I'm so angry about this article. I would never seek to harm an innocent child for any reason, let alone something so silly or petty as past grievances."

"Even against men like Dmitri's Dad, who almost killed you and marked you with his magic?" Lucian asked. "Even against my Dad? Who bit you three days ago and who handed you over to be tortured?"

"You know what the Cruciatus curse does?" Hermione frowned at the boy.

"Yes," Lucian said. "Dad used to say that it was the worst of the spells wizards with their death-sticks could inflict on us. That it was worse even than the transformation."

"He didn't keep much of the grit of the world from you, did he?" Hermione sighed, shaking her head sadly as she brought the boy his breakfast.

"Being sheltered from something only means you're not ready to fight it when it comes for you, he reckons," Lucian told her.

"I'm having words with him when next I visit him," Hermione decided, crossing her arms over her chest.

Lucian smirked.

"He won't change his mind," he told her. "What are you going to do about the article?"

"Do you think it's true?" Hermione asked the boy seriously.

Lucian eyed her for a long time whilst wolfing down his breakfast, his hands and face sticky with bacon grease and brown sauce.

"No," he said finally. "You're not doing this to get back at them. You have to kiss them to keep us, and no one with a grudge against men like them would willingly kiss them for the sake of a vendetta. You're helping us out of guilt, I think, but you're not interested in using our adoption as a means to lash out at our Dads."

"What makes you so sure?" Hermione asked the boy when she noticed the strength of his conviction.

Lucian pushed aside his plate and wiped his hands on his shirt, much to Hermione's dismay, before reaching across the counter for her arm. He cradled it in both of his hands, examining the scar where he'd bitten her and the slowly healing wound that ringed it where Fenrir had bitten her.

"Do you understand what this is?" he asked her, tracing the scabbed over ring of Fenrir's teeth marks upon her skin.

"Not really," Hermione confessed to the boy, unnerved by his forwardness for the morning before recalling the impending full moon and supposing it must be affecting him.

"Dad didn't just nip you for the sake of being angry or fearful or defensive, like I did," Lucian told her. "He marked you as a member of the Pack. He knew I wouldn't trust you to look after us if he didn't, and he knew that the Pack might come for me and challenge you for me without it."

"The Pack are still free?" Hermione asked. "Why were you in Ministry custody if one of them could've minded you, Lucian?"

Lucian scowled.

"I got caught with Dad when he was arrested," he said, growling softly. "And none of the Pack are considered capable of being my legal guardian because they're werewolves. The Ministry doesn't allow registered werewolves to obtain custody of minors, you know?"

Hermione scowled, recalling that though she'd worked to abolish the requirement of a registry, the Ministry still maintained a copy of the register up to the time of her abolishment. They weren't supposed to be able to use it to discriminate against werewolves, anymore, but she knew they still must.

"My only blood-relatives by Ministry standard within the Pack aren't of legal age to maintain custody," Lucian went on. "Even though they're not on the Registry."

"You have blood relatives aside from Fenrir and Ranulf?" Hermione asked, alarmed.

Lucian nodded, tracing Fenrir's bite on her skin again.

"I have a sister," he told her. "She'll be twelve this year. She lives with her Mum in the pack. Aunt Janey was bitten and mated by Dad before he met my Mum and they found out they were wolf-mates. And I have an older brother, who is almost sixteen. His Mum's dead, but he was still running with the pack the day me and Dad got caught."

"What are your siblings names?" Hermione asked him curiously, frowning at the idea that he might grow up alongside Alrik and Dmitri, rather than his half-brother and half-sister.

"Fillan and Rieka," Lucian told her, smiling toothily. "They'll hear me howl, tonight. Then they'll come and you'll be able to meet them."

Hermione frowned.

"And then what will happen? Your brothers won't be safe here, Lucian. Not if a pack of werewolves come to call. Dmitri, Alrik and Ranulf aren't werewolves, and I would like for them to remain that way until they are grown up and can decide for themselves if they would like to be."

Lucian nodded.

"The Pack won't stray too close when they're wolf. They don't know I'm here, yet. They don't know about Ranulf, yet. When they come, it will be after the moon. They might be hostile until they see Dad's bite on you."

Hermione's heart turned over inside her chest at the thought of the young boy disappearing from her life so soon after he'd come into it. He might be prickly and unsure and sometimes even unfriendly, but she was already growing to love him. She was growing to love all four of them and she couldn't bear the thought of losing any of them, especially not to an unknown pack of werewolves, even if they were Lucian and Ranulf's family.

"And… then what?" Hermione asked the young boy. "I'll be in some trouble if you and Ranulf disappear with the pack, Lucian. And I'd like very much for you to stay with me."

Lucian cocked his head, regarding her curiously.

"I won't leave," he shook his head, seeming a bit baffled by the suggestion that he would.

"But… if the Pack are coming here, and you've siblings among them…?" she said, frowning at him.

"Dad bit you, Hermione," Lucian told her quietly. "My Mum is dead and has been since I was five. Ranulf's Mum… I don't know what happened to her. None of the people at the Ministry would tell me why he'd been put in that place with me and why none of the Pack had come to collect him."

Hermione bit her lip.

"You said that sometimes the pack spoke about how he would be in trouble if he kept running down witches and mating with them," Hermione said, supposing the topic wasn't appropriate for so young a boy but knowing no other way to explain to him how Ranulf had come to be motherless. "Do you understand that there were times when he did that, and the witches didn't want to mate with him?"

Lucian tipped his head, looking rather curious but somewhat confused.

"If they were in heat…" he began, shrugging his slim shoulders.

"In heat?" Hermione frowned. "Lucian… even if a woman is ovulating, she must always give consent before any man should mate with her."

"What's consent mean?" Lucian frowned.

"Permission. She must agree to the act. Mating is a very serious thing among humans, and it is important for all parties involved in the act to enter into doing so willingly. They must be asked if they want to mate, and they must say that, yes, they do, if they would like to do so. And even if they say that they do to begin with, but later change their minds, that right must be respected."

"Like if I say Alrik can play with my toy, but then say I want it back?" he confirmed.

"A little. It's a bit more complicated than playing with toys, sweetheart, but the essential gist is the same. One of the reasons your father is in prison is because he often didn't bother to ask the women he mated with if they wanted to mate with him. He didn't ask Ranulf's mother if she wanted to mate with him before he did so."

"But now we have Pup," Lucian pointed out, like that made it all okay.

"We do have," Hermione nodded. "But his mother chose not to raise him, didn't she? She was still so angry with Fenrir for what he had done that she refused to raise the baby he sired. Do you understand?"

"She's not dead?" Lucian confirmed.

"Not to my knowledge," Hermione shook her head. "She wasn't dead when Ranulf was placed in Ministry custody alongside you. She gave birth to him and refused any further responsibility for him."

"But she's his Mum," Lucian frowned. "She can't just… walk away."

"She can, darling. She can, and she did. That is why he is with us here, and not with her, or with the Pack. She left him at the hospital without even giving him a name. She was so angry with your Dad for making her pregnant – for attacking her and forcing her to mate with him – that she left him there without even naming him. Do you understand?"

"But he's her Pup!" Lucian said, growling. His face visibly darkened with anger and Hermione watched his nails lengthen and darken into lethal looking claws. "She can't just leave him! She's his mother!"

Hermione sighed, shaking her head slowly.

"I'm his mother now, sweetheart," Hermione told him gently. "I know it's upsetting to you. I know it will be upsetting to him when he is old enough to understand why she left him. But he's got us, doesn't he?"

"If she was Pack, she never would've left him," Lucian said, his voice gravelly with the wolf that lived inside of him.

"She still might've, darling. That's why it's so important for a woman to consent to mating. It can and often does result in pregnancy, and if she didn't want to mate, she didn't want the baby. She has the right to give him up."

"But she's his blood!" Lucian said, and Hermione could see that for all that Fenrir had taught him some incredibly twisted things, apparently, he'd at least instilled a strong sense of family loyalty in the boy.

"Yes, but she didn't want to be, sweetheart," Hermione explained. "No matter the apparent heartlessness of the act, she did not want to be his mother, she did not willing enter into the act that resulted in her being his mother, and as such she is under no moral or legal obligation to fulfil the role of being his caregiver."

"Why?" Lucian demanded. "Why do wizards have laws that mean mothers can abandon their young? No werewolf would abandon her young!"

Hermione eyed him curiously, noting the way his fangs began to length in his mouth as he spoke, his temper rising.

"I'm sure they would, sweetheart. In the wild, full blooded wolves eat their own young if there's not enough food available to raise them," she tried to explain. "Some people simply are not cut out for parenthood, darling. I'm sorry that it seems unfair, but that's the way it is."

Lucian growled at her angrily as though it was her fault before he looked away.

"Unfair," he bit out angrily. "It's not unfair. It's unnatural. A witch who carried a baby inside her belly for months and months can squeeze him out and walk away without another word or thought for him. And then witches like you, who've never carried babies in your belly, can come along and be our mother instead. How? How does it work? You didn't carry Ranulf. You didn't carry Alrik or Dmitri or me. Why do you want to help us?"

"Because I have the means and the inclination to do so," Hermione offered helplessly, reaching for him in the hopes of carding her fingers through his hair, having learned that the action tended to soothe him. "I want to raise the four of you. I want to make sure you're happy and healthy and well-fed and loved and that you grow up to be wonderful men. I want to make sure that even though all of your Father's made mistakes, you do no have to pay for them."

"But you hate them," Lucian accused, his fangs flashing at her and his eyes brightening with the gold of the wolf. "You hate our Dads, don't you? How could you not? Ranulf's Mum abandoned him because Dad mated her. Our Dad's did much worse things to you than mating and yet you want to help us."

"Oh, Lucian," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "No, they didn't, darling."

Lucian frowned.

"Dolohov hexed you and almost killed you," he argued. "Dad took you hostage and handed you over to people who tortured you with spells more painful than the transformation. That's worse than a bit of mating. Everyone in the pack says mating feels good. You mate with Harry, don't you?"

Hermione winced.

"Mating by choice is vastly different from rape, Lucian. That's what it's called. When one of the people involved in the act of mating doesn't want to do it, the other person involved is violating their wishes. That violation is one of the most unforgivable things in the world. Do you understand? Antonin tried to kill me, yes. And it hurt. And I hated him for it. Part of me still hates him for it and might always hate him for it, but I would hate him more – I would do unspeakable things to hurt him and to kill him – if he had raped me, darling."

Lucian looked like he didn't understand. Like he couldn't understand the importance of consent, or the difference between sex and rape. He looked like he couldn't fathom how being hurt so violently could compare to something that she was beginning to suspect he'd only witnessed or heard about in favourable lights.

"You need to understand, darling. Mating when someone doesn't want to hurts," she told him. "It hurts more than the transformation. It hurts more than hexes like the one Dolohov used. It hurts more than the Cruciatus curse."

"How?" Lucian said. "How can it sometimes feel good and other times hurt that much?"

Hermione wracked her brain, trying to think of a way to explain it to him without exposing him to the wretched truth of such heinous things and without forever altering his perception of his father.

"Well," Hermione said. "It hurts inside, rather than outside. Do you understand? It can sometimes leave scars, create tears and draw blood, but the pain it inflicts is often more psychological than physical. To be forced to do something you don't want to do, and to be powerless to prevent it from happening, that causes terrible pain inside a person, Lucian."

"You forced me to eat my vegies last night, but I'm fine," he argued.

"Vegies are a bit different than mating, sweetheart," Hermione said patiently. "And had you really put up enough of a fight, you would have been able to refuse to eat them. You see? When someone is raped, no matter how much they might fight, they can't stop it from happening. That makes them angry and it makes them feel powerless."

"But wouldn't being hexed like that make you powerless, too?" he asked, jabbing a claw toward her sternum.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "It did. I was angry and scared for a long time after I was hexed."

"Then why would you want to ever see Dmitri's Dad ever again?" Lucian asked.

Hermione sighed, shaking her head.

"To be completely honest, I don't want to see him ever again. But no one else wants to see him ever again either, except Dmitri. And because they don't want to see him, they don't want to look after Dmitri."

"And he needs looking after," Lucian finished for her quietly, some of the anger tightening his small body beginning to lessen.

"Yes, he does," Hermione nodded. "You all do."

"But why you?" Lucian frowned.

"That's what the people who wrote this mean story about me want to know," Hermione shrugged her shoulders, tapping the paper once more and reminding him of the reason she'd been angry.

"Will you tell me why?" Lucian said. "Or is it just because no one else wants to talk to our Dad's and you're brave? Because you feel guilty that we're alone?"

Hermione smiled.

"Not many people are brave enough to speak to your Dad, darling. Especially not many people who aren't werewolves."

Lucian nodded.

"He can be mean," Lucian said. "He's scary when he growls and wants to bite people."

"He is," she agreed. "Dmitri's Dad is scary, too. He says nasty things and he uses nasty spells that make people hurt."

Lucian nodded.

"What about Alrik's Dad?" Lucian asked. "The paper didn't mention much about him."

Hermione looked down at it for a moment, frowning. No, she supposed it hadn't mentioned anything about Thorfinn.

"Thorfinn is younger than your Dad ad Dmitri's Dad," Hermione told him. "He hasn't had as long to try to hurt me."

"But he's still locked up," Lucian pointed out.

"He is. He has a very bad habit of setting things on fire when he loses his temper."

"That's bad," Lucian said. "I don't like fire."

"No, lots of people don't like fire. Especially when it's consuming their houses."

Lucian shuddered.

"Do you hate having to see him?" Lucian asked. "Do you hate seeing my Dad?"

Hermione bit her lip, knowing she couldn't lie to him; knowing he would smell and lie, but knowing the answer was important to him.

"I don't hate seeing Thorfinn," she told him. "I'd rather I didn't have to, because he was very mean to me when I was Rieka's age and tried to hurt me very badly. If I did not have to see him, I would not do so."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"And my Dad?" he asked.

"Your Dad… truthfully, he wasn't as bad when I visited him the other day as he had been the last time we met," Hermione said quietly, frowning and looking down at the newspaper for a long moment. "He said he couldn't smell any fear of me when I was there, which surprised me."

"He can be scary," Lucian allowed. "But he's scariest to people who are afraid of the wolf. You're not afraid of wolves, I don't think."

"What makes you say so?" she asked him, lifting her eyes back to the young boy, her heart aching over the frank discussion they'd had and over the strange relationship she was developing with him.

He held out his hands, revealing the lethal claws at the ends of his fingers, and then he pointed to his teeth – his mouth full of sharp canine fangs.

"I look like this and you haven't once flinched away. I can't smell fear on you," he said, sniffing again.

Hermione nodded slowly, frowning and recalling what Fenrir had said about her conception and how she ought to begin looking into why she wasn't afraid of the wolf and why his bite didn't itch and burn like hell-fire.

"Well, I'm a bit bigger than you, darling," she said quietly.

Lucian smirked.

"Yeah, but I'm stronger," he told her quietly. "If I wanted to, I could rip your throat out with my fangs. You wouldn't be able to fight me off. Especially not on a moon day."

Hermione blinked at the quiet certainty in his voice and on his face.

"You're still just a boy, Lucian," she reminded him. "I'm an adult."

"Maybe, but I'm a werewolf and you're a human. Or…" he leaned closer before climbing down out of his chair and moving around the bench to close the distance between them. "Mostly human, might be a better word."

"Because I've been bitten by you and Fenrir?" Hermione asked, unsure what to make of it when the boy curled his small arms around her waist and he buried his face against her stomach, breathing in deeply.

"No," he said, his voice muffled as he continued hugging her and sniffing her intensely. "You smell like the Pup."

"I was up in the middle of the night feeding him," she offered, frowning at the change of topic.

"No," Lucian shook his head. "I don't mean his scent is on your clothes and your skin. I mean your blood smells like his does."

"In what way?" Hermione asked, alarmed. "I'm certain we're of no actual blood relation."

"No, but you smell like him. Like a human with a werewolf for a Dad."

"Both of my parents were muggles," Hermione said, repeating the words she'd said to Fenrir.

"Were they?" Lucian asked, frowning. "You're sure?"

Hermione sighed, looking down at the young boy and carefully curling her arms around him.

"I thought I was," she admitted. "Until you and your Dad started saying that it might not be the case."

"Dad said so too?" Lucian asked, looking proud of himself for coming to the same conclusion as his father.

"Yes," Hermione said, cuddling the boy while he was allowing the affection. "He suggested a way for me to stop the itch of his bite. When I told him it wasn't itchy, he suggested I begin looking into my parents' friends, neighbours and colleagues at the time of my conception, implying that my mother had an affair…"

Lucian looked like he didn't know what an affair was.

"He suggested that my Mum mated with someone other than the man I've been led to believe is my Dad," she explained.

"Why's it called an affair?" Lucian wanted to know.

"Because when two people are in a relationship, they make commitments to one another that mean they're not supposed to mate with other people. If they're married, it's referred to as adultery because they promise to only mate with each other, and then break that promise."

"You're not supposed to break promises," Lucian said.

"No, sweetheart, you're not," Hermione said, smiling gently at him. "Are you still angry? You can put away your fangs and your claws now, you know?"

Lucian winced a little.

"No, I can't," he admitted. "They won't go away until after the moon, now. They stay out once they come out on moon days. They'll get longer and more wolfy when the sun goes down."

"Do they hurt?" Hermione asked him worriedly.

"No," he shook his head. "Can we go outside?"

"I… of course we can, darling," Hermione frowned at the boy, releasing her hold on him and watching him make a beeline for the backdoor into her yard.

"It's nice out here," he said when they were outside in the sun.

He walked slowly over to the day-beds and the small table that looked out over the lake, stopping next to one until she joined him.

"Will you tell me about your transformations, Lucian?" Hermione asked the boy quietly when she followed him over and he gestured that he wanted her to sit down.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, turning at look at her with wolf eyes for a long moment.

"What can I expect this evening when the sun goes down? Do you know what happens to you at the full moon?" she asked gently.

Lucian's mouth twisted like he didn't want to tell her.

"Are you going to give me back to the Ministry if you don't like what happens to me?" he asked, scowling.

"Never," Hermione vowed solemnly. "Until the day I die, Lucian Greyback, you will be welcome in my home, no matter the effects of your transformations. I promise it."

Lucian eyed her seriously, as though taking measure of her seriousness before he nodded once.

"I don't always remember what happens," he confessed quietly, fidgeting a little. "It hurts when my fur grows in. I get really itchy. And my ears hurt a lot when they turn to wolf ears and move up to the top of my head. My hands and feet ache when my claws get longer, and my face hurts from the way I have to hold my jaw, so I don't cut my lips on my teeth when they get bigger."

"Do you get cranky?" Hermione asked him.

"Yes," he admitted. "I feel… not like me, anymore. But still a little bit like me. I feel like there is a wolf inside me and he takes control when the moon is full, but he lets me watch and sometimes he listens to what I want. Dad says that doesn't happen to him when his wolf takes control. He says when the rest of the pack go wolf, they can't make any decisions or sway their wolves to do what they want."

"Everything I've read and witnessed suggests that under the light of the full moon, the werewolf forgets who he is completely," Hermione nodded.

"Forgetting doesn't seem right," Lucian shook his head. "I don't forget who I am… I just… I'm not the one in charge, anymore."

"Do you ever feel the need to bite people when your wolf is in charge?" she asked, wondering if she would need to isolate him when the moon rose.

"Yes," Lucian whispered truthfully, his eyes gold as he watched her. "I want to bite things. I wanted to bite the Pup, and Alrik and Dmitri every full moon when we were in the Ministry. But they're so little, and they were scared of me when I had my fur and my fangs… I didn't like it when they were scared of me, so I made my wolf not bite them."

"Do you think you could make your wolf not bite me, too?" Hermione asked.

Lucian tipped his head first one way, then the other.

"I think so," he nodded.

"Do you think we should do something to make sure you won't bite me, in case your wolf doesn't agree?"

"Like what?" he asked, frowning.

"Do you think we should put you in another room where you can't bite me or your brothers? I have no desire to be a werewolf and endure the transformations, Lucian. I wouldn't be able to effectively mind your brothers on full moon nights if I was a wolf, too. And I wouldn't be able to stop my wolf from biting them, or even eating them."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"Maybe we better put me in a special room just in case. The people at the Ministry always put me in a different room where I could still see the Pup and the others, but couldn't hurt them."

"Did being able to see them help?" Hermione asked.

Lucian shook his head. "Seeing them makes it harder. When I can see them and smell them, my wolf can smell that they're human and it wants to bite them. I have to fight with my wolf to keep from trying to bite them when I can see them."

Hermione frowned, wondering where they could put him so he wouldn't run off into the forest and get lost, and so he wouldn't harm them.

"What do you think about using the greenhouse as your room for transforming so you won't want to bite us?" she asked, spying the greenhouse she'd had Ron and Harry help her build for growing potions plants where is was tucked against the back of her cottage.

Lucian looked at it for a minute before wandering toward it.

"I could get out easily," he told her when they reached it and he let himself inside.

He demonstrated how he would do so by running the sharp point of one claw over the shade-cloth fabric, splitting it in two.

"Not if I used spells to make it unbreakable," Hermione told him, repairing the hole with her wand and casting the charms before nodding at him to try ripping it again.

This time the fabric did not give under his claws, even when he slashed at it viciously.

"It's soft enough that if you fling yourself at it, it won't hurt you, but it will contain you.

"I could burrow out," he said, using the claws on the ends of his toes to dig a small hole in the dirt floor.

"I can charm that too," Hermione said, doing so.

He tested it again, and again found it impenetrable.

"What if I still find a way out?" he asked her.

"Did you try to find ways out at the Ministry?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "I just curled up in one corner. They fed me, and I could think alright as long as I didn't get too hungry."

Hermione nodded her head slowly.

"Well, how about we make sure you have a lot to eat today, and that there's food in here with you when you come out before the sun goes down, and we'll give it a try? Will that be alright with you, darling?"

Lucian frowned, sniffing loudly for a few minutes without answering her before finally he tipped his head up to look at her. His face was calm and serious as he regarded her for a long time.

"The Pack won't like it," he told her.

"The pack aren't here," she reminded him. "And we're trying to make sure you won't feel like biting me or biting your brothers."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"I'll try it," he agreed. "And I'm sorry if I wreck your plants."

Hermione looked around.

"I might move some of them out before the sun goes down," Hermione told him. "There are a few in here that might fight back if you go flinging yourself at them or trying to bite them when the wolf takes over."

Lucian looked alarmed.

"Plants can fight back?" he asked.

"Of course, they can, darling," Hermione smiled. "At Hogwarts, there's even a Whomping Willow. A great big willow tree that flails it branches around and whomps it's boughs against things when they come too close. In fact, do you remember the man they spoke of in the paper? The one your Dad bit? Remus Lupin?"

Lucian nodded slowly.

"He was one of the only werewolves to ever attend Hogwarts," Hermione told him proudly. "Every full moon, to make sure he couldn't hurt anyone, he would be taken out to the Whomping Willow. Underneath it, there's a passage that leads to a safe-haven just like this one where he was able to transform without hurting anyone or biting anyone. And anyone who got too close to the entrance to that haven at the base of the tree would get whipped and run away, so they would stay safe and couldn't trick him into hurting or biting them."

Lucian looked intrigued.

"What's Hogwarts?" he asked, frowning at her. "They wrote about Hogwarts in the paper, too. The writer said she went to Hogwarts with you."

"Hogwarts is a school for magical folk," Hermione said, slowly, frowning. "Didn't your Dad ever tell you about Hogwarts?"

Lucian shook his head.

"Do they let werewolves in?" he asked. "Dad doesn't like people who don't like werewolves."

"They let Remus in," Hermione said. "I don't think they ever forbade werewolves from attending, though he did have to keep his lycanthropy a secret to keep people from realising what he was. Lots of people are scared of werewolves, you know?"

"Dad said that," Lucian nodded, trailing back out of the greenhouse almost absently. "He said wizards had no concept of what true power was, and that they were so afraid of the wolf, they couldn't see the benefits the wolf brings."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't find fault in him for that," Hermione sighed. "Many people are afraid of things they don't understand, and unfortunately, very few people make an effort to learn much about werewolves other than the basics."

"Could I go to Hogwarts, one day?" Lucian asked quietly when he trailed back to the day-beds and stood near the end of one, looking out over the lake.

"I don't see why not, darling? I'm on very good terms with the current Headmistress. I will owl her when you're a little closer to being old enough to attend, requesting that you be permitted to go to Hogwarts and to learn about the magical world, just as your brothers will."

"Will you have to request permission for them, too?" Lucian asked, and from the bitter edge to his voice, Hermione could tell he'd picked up on the implication that the others, being human, wouldn't need special permission.

"I might have to, Lucian," Hermione sighed sadly. "In your case it will be because you being a werewolf means there are special precautions the teachers will need to take to keep you and the other students safe."

"But not for them," Lucian said, baring his teeth though he wasn't looking at her. "They're not wolves like me. They're not savage abominations like me. They're not monsters like me."

"Who called you those names, Lucian?" Hermione asked, stilling as she listened to the way he rattled off the sneers with practiced ease. She could tell someone had called him those things many times over.

"It doesn't matter," he said, though he growled softly.

Hermione reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, turning him and squatting a little so she could look him directly in the eye.

"Who?" she asked firmly. "Who called you an abomination?"

Lucian looked away, obviously not wanting to tell her.

"Who said it, Lucian?" Hermione demanded.

For the longest time, he said nothing, and Hermione feared he wasn't going to answer her at all.

"The healers," he spat gruffly when she was just about to ask him again, not about to let the insults go. "They would come and prod me and poke me and I wanted to claw their stupid faces off! I hated them! They said I was hideous and a monster. A savage, ugly beast. Part boy and part wolf and not even one or the other at full moons."

His face twisted into a savage snarl that she imagined had frightened more than one healer over the years while he'd been in their custody and Hermione found a deep and abiding hatred building inside her for whichever wretches could say such things to an innocent boy. She could feel it welling up from some pit in her stomach and threatening to overflow in a burst of violent rage.

"You're none of those things, Lucian," Hermione said fiercely. "You're a boy and a wolf. You're a werewolf. And you might not be my blood, but you're my son. I swear to Merlin, I'm going to make them pay for saying those things to you, sweetheart. Don't you listen to them for even a second. You're a person, not a savage beast. And if I have to threaten her at wand point, Professor McGonagall will let you attend Hogwarts when the time comes, and by the Gods if anyone so much looks sideways at you or your brothers because of your surnames and who your fathers are, I swear I'll make them regret it."

Hermione huffed out a breath all in a rush when the boy before her threw himself against her, his arms closing around her waist and squeezing so tightly she feared he might crack her ribs. He buried his face against her stomach, and he clutched her to him desperately. His actions, more than the hatred on his face as he'd repeated their cruel words, spoke volumes to Hermione that made her want to wring the necks of anyone who'd ever dared hurt him.

Cuddling him in return, Hermione silently vowed that she would do everything in her power to make the people who made him feel like he was less than human pay for what they done.

"He'll be alright, love," Harry whispered from beside her, squeezing her hand where she clutched his tightly, her heart aching inside her chest.

"What if he's not?" Hermione whispered. "You saw the things Remus did to himself when he was locked up all alone. Lucian has never been alone to transform before. Even at the Ministry, they put him in a different room, but he could still see his brothers through the glass."

"He's a brave kid, Hermione," Harry reminded her, speaking softly so as not to wake Dmitri and Alrik where the pair sprawled on the mattress between them. "He'll be alright. He's not a full werewolf. He said it himself that he has some control over his wolfish side even at the full moon."

"Lucian," Ranulf whimpered where Hermione had tucked the boy down to sleep on her chest, though the baby was no more asleep tonight than she was.

There was no way the child was cognisant enough to understand that it was a full moon and that his brother was potentially in pain, but the baby did not sleep, whimpering along with every howl Lucian emitted and once, howling in return. Harry had been quick to silence him, lest he wake Dmitri and Alrik, though both boys slept fitfully, fretting over the absence of Lucian from their dog-pile on Hermione's bed – something that had become a nightly occurrence since she'd brought them home. She put them all to sleep in their own beds every evening, but they joined her and Harry in her bed every night, just the same.

"What if he's hurt?" Hermione asked fretfully. "What if he's broken a pot and cut himself trying to get out. He's all alone. He's never been alone like that, Harry…"

"Hermione, love, you can't go and check on him until dawn. You know that."

"But…"

"Love," Harry sighed, squeezing her hand again. "I know you're scared for him, but he's potentially dangerous right now. You need to think of these boys, too. If you go out there and he bites you, you'll have to give them all up, you know?"

Hermione bit her lip, nodding, though a tear trickled from the corner of her eye when Lucian howled again. She couldn't stand it. She wanted to protect him. She wanted to save him. She needed to help him. And she couldn't and she hated that more than anything else in the world. Maybe she would look into making him Wolfsbane potion every full moon. Maybe that would be better than whatever he was doing out there now. They could rely on the potion to keep him in control of his faculties and keep the wolf under control. Then he could curl up, transformed, alongside them like he did every other night when the moon wasn't full.

"Close your eyes and try to get some sleep, Hermione," Harry whispered, before he began humming Scarborough Fair very quietly – the song having become the lullaby the boys all asked for every night when they were put to bed and again when they crawled in with her.

Hermione tried. She tried to go to sleep, telling herself he would be alright; telling herself there was really nothing left in there that he could hurt himself on except his own fangs and claws and that he wouldn't seek to attack himself because he wasn't full of self-loathing like Remus had been and he wasn't a full werewolf, either. She tried to sleep and maybe she dozed in and out between his howls as the night wore on.

When morning came, Hermione eased an exhausted but finally sleeping Ranulf from her chest, tucking the baby in next to Alrik, who slung an arm over the smaller boy readily though he slumbered on, unaware. Slipping from the sheets, Hermione dressed quickly, running her hands through her hair and trying to revive herself, trying to make her tired mind focus long enough to get her socks on her feet.

As soon as the sun rose, Hermione left the house and charged to the greenhouse, intent on patching Lucian up however she could, and holding him until the ache in her chest went away. He was whimpering inside when she reached the door, scratching at it, and her heart broke for him.

"Lucian? Sweetheart?" Hermione called through the door.

Another whimper sounded.

"Are you transformed back, darling?" Hermione asked.

Lucian's sniffling could be heard.

"I want my dad," he said in answer and Hermione figured that if he could talk, he must be transformed.

Wrenching open the door, Hermione charged into the room, her eyes on the boy who, for all intents and purposes, was now her son. He looked unharmed, though he was naked and dirty, covered in dust and soil from the interior of the greenhouse. He still had wolf ears, but they were shrinking, and his teeth had returned to their blunt, human squareness.

"Oh, darling," Hermione sighed, holding her arms open for the softly crying boy.

He shook his head.

"Hurts," he whispered mournfully.

"Being hugged?" Hermione asked. "Or the transformation?"

"Both," Lucian whispered. "Have to… the fur…"

He waved an indicative hand to the fur slowly receding back into his skin, disappearing before her very eyes.

"I understand," Hermione nodded. "What can I do, darling? Can I help you?"

Lucian cried a little harder, choking on a sob before he coughed, trying to rein in his overwhelming emotions.

"I want my dad," he repeated. "Please, can we go and see my dad? Please?"

Hermione bit her lip.

"You dad will be transformed too, sweetheart," Hermione reminded him quietly.

"Moon's gone," Lucian shook his head. "He'll be human again soon. Please? Please, Mum? I need to see Dad. I need to. I have to. Please."

His pitiful begging broke Hermione's heart, and tears ran down her cheeks when, as the fur finally all disappeared from the child, he threw himself against her and buried his face against her stomach, one of his clawed hands pulling her arm to his nose and breathing in the scent that must still linger in the bite Fenrir had given her.

"Please," Lucian whispered again.

"I… I'll arrange it, darling. First thing. Let's get you inside and showered and I'll go directly to the Ministry and arrange to have you and your brothers put on the list to visit your fathers."

"I need to see my Dad," Lucian repeated and Hermione cried harder, stooping to scoop him up though he was already rather too big to be carried around like the others – almost as big as her thanks to her short stature and his own tall one.

He clung to her neck, crying as she carried him into the house and up the stairs.

"Will a shower hurt you terribly, darling?" Hermione asked him, wanting desperately to make everything better but not knowing how. Even her friendship with Remus hadn't prepared her for the horrors following a full moon because the man had been so very private.

"Yes," Lucian said. "But it will help, too."

When Hermione set him down, Lucian turned and began seeing to the preparations for the shower himself.

"Are you hungry, sweetheart? Can I make you something?" Hermione offered.

"Starving," Lucian whispered, nodding. "But I want to see Dad."

"The Ministry won't be open yet to process my request anyway, darling," Hermione shook her head. "I'll make you something to eat, alright."

Lucian whimpered, but nodded before stepping into the shower. He whined and twisted away from the stream almost immediately, obviously in agony and Hermione's stomach twisted with sympathy, hating her own uselessness to help him. Leaving him to it, lest she sob openly in front of the brave boy, Hermione returned to the kitchen and began cooking as much food as she had on hand, thinking the poor boy would need every ounce of nourishment he could get and knowing the others would soon be awake.

When Lucian joined her in the kitchen, he didn't even wait for her to finish cooking everything before he snatched up a strip of raw bacon and gobbled it down. He looked a little better, practically back to normal, but the dark circles under his eyes and the red puffiness of them told tales of a sleepless night and the tears he had cried.

"You're so brave, sweetheart," Hermione told him, rounding the counter to cuddle him again when he climbed into the breakfast bar-stool as she plated up a mound of protein for him to devour.

"Please can we see Dad today?" Lucian croaked between bites, his throat probably raw from howling and crying.

"I'll arrange it, darling."

"Now?" Lucian pressed, looking up at her with big puppy-dog eyes that clenched her heart all over again.

"I…. yes," Hermione nodded, resolving to invade Kingsley's house before the man could even get to the office for the day if necessary. "I'll… I'll wake Harry and make sure he can stay with you all while I arrange it with the Minister."

Lucian nodded, devouring his food ravenously.

Hermione hurried up the stairs, waking Harry and confirming that he could be late to training. She was relieved when he told her that he'd asked for the morning off, knowing Lucian would be suffering and that they wouldn't get much sleep.

"I'm going to see Kings," Hermione told him. "He has the authority to sign on getting the boys in and it's all Lucian has asked for since dawn."

"Are you sure it's a good idea, Hermione?" Harry asked. "It was a full moon last night, and this is Fenrir Greyback we're talking about. You won't be safe."

"He won't hurt me, Harry," Hermione shook her head. "I can't keep the boys if he does, and he knows it. And he's their father. I'd like to take all the boys to see their Dads if I can. Wouldn't you want to see them, even if it was your Dad in that place? Wouldn't you wish you could see your son if you were them?"

Harry sighed, nodding.

"Go, then," he said. "I'll wait here. Do you want to take Lucian with you to see Kingsley? Those puppy-eyes will push him over the line if he's on the fence."

"Good idea," Hermione nodded, changing out of her house-clothes quickly and into jeans and a jumper. "Will you be alright with these three?"

"You don't want to take Ranulf, too?" Harry asked.

"Not this morning," Hermione shook her head. "He'll be tired and cranky after last night and Lucian needs to see his father desperately. Undivided attention will be better, I think. Maybe I can take Ranulf next time. If Kinglsey gives me permission, I'd like to take each of the boys to see their respective fathers individually, I think…"

Harry nodded.

"Go on then, love," Harry smiled as Dmitri rolled over and crawled across Harry's chest to pillow his head there, one of his little arms resting across Harry's stomach as he slept on. "We'll be here when you get back."

"I don't know what I'd do without you," Hermione told him seriously, shaking her head and feeling emotional, another tear slipping down her cheek.

Harry smiled kindly and reached for her one-handed, pulling her down when she took his hand. Hermione kissed him quickly before resting her forehead against his, taking strength from her best friend.

"We'll figure it all out, I promise," Harry told her. "And you know I'll always be here for you."

She nodded, closing her eyes against more tears and kissing him again before she kissed Dmitri's cheek and leaned over him to kiss Alrik's forehead when she saw that the toddler was awake and watching them solemnly.

"Good morning, Alrik," she whispered.

"Mummy," Alrik replied softly, touching her face softly. "Why sad, Mummy?"

"Just tired, darling," Hermione promised. "Be good for Harry while I'm away, won't you?"

Alrik smiled widely. "Good. Good. Good." The young boy promised, nodding.

Hermione smiled, ruffling his hair before straightening.

In the kitchen, Lucian had finished his breakfast and was pacing the length of the hallway repeatedly, looking worried.

"Come on, Lucian," Hermione said, holding her hand out to the child. "We're going to see the Minister for Magic, himself. He's who we have to convince to let you see your Dad."

"Can I go like this?" Lucian asked, looking down at his clothes indicatively.

"That's fine," Hermione nodded. "We'll have to apparate. Have you ever done it?"

"Dad took me," Lucian nodded.

He crossed to her quickly, burrowing into her stomach again and wrapping his arms tightly around her.

"Ready?" she asked.

Lucian nodded again.

"Alright, hold tight, sweetheart. One… two… three."

With a sharp twist, they disapparated with a loud crack and Hermione clung to the child tightly, until they landed in Kingsley Shacklebolt's apartment foyer. He had given her, Harry, and a number of other former Order members direct access and Hermione knew it was a little uncouth to call on him so early, but she didn't know what else to do.

"Kings?" she called out loudly.

"Hello?" Kingsley called back, sounding surprised at having company, though the crack of their entrance had tipped him off to the idea before her voice could.

Hermione released Lucian, who looked a little nauseous, and took his hand, leading him through the apartment.

"It's Hermione," she called.

"Hermione?" Kingsley asked, and she found him on the balcony off the kitchen, overlooking the park in the distance, enjoying a morning coffee and some breakfast in his pyjamas.

"Morning, Kings," she said, smiling at the man

"Good morning, love," Kingsley smiled welcomingly. "And who do we have here?"

"This is Lucian Greyback," Hermione told him. "Lucian, this is Kingsley Shacklebolt. He's the Minister for Magic."

"Hello," Lucian said warily, clenching Hermione's hand tightly.

"How do you do, Lucian?" Kingsley asked polite, smiling encouragingly at the boy and rising to his feet to reach out, offering his hand to Lucian to shake.

"Oh… um…" Hermione frowned. "He might not…"

Lucian surprised her when he hesitated before reaching over and shaking the proffered hand quickly. He retreated swiftly, almost darting behind Hermione in his wariness, squeezing her hand again with such force Hermione had to bite her tongue on a whimper.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Hermione?" Kingsley asked. "Would you care to join me for breakfast?"

"Oh… well, we're…" Hermione began.

"There's food?" Lucian interrupted, peeking around her again.

"Of course, there is," Kingsley said. "Sit down, sit down. Tea?"

Lucian surprised her all over again when he sat opposite Kingsley, accepting the plate of food when an elf appeared, proffering more. He ignored the offer of tea, but immediately dove into the bacon, eggs and sausage on his plate, devouring it wolfishly.

"Full moon last night, wasn't it?" Kingsley asked, appealing to Hermione a little worriedly.

Hermione nodded, running a hand through her hair and sitting as well, taking the tea the Minister offered and sighing gratefully at the first sip.

Cups of tea fixed everything.

"That's why we're here," Hermione said. "Lucian would like to see his father. Actually, I'd like written permission from you to allow me to take each of the boys to see their fathers, please."

Kingsley frowned.

"To the prison? Hermione, it's no place for children…" he protested quietly before stopping when Lucian began to growl very softly in warning.

"Their fathers are inside, Kings," Hermione said. "Two of the three serving life sentences. Visitors are not prohibited, only discouraged. Lucian would very much like to see his father."

Kingsley frowned worriedly at her.

"Hermione," he began carefully, eyeing Lucian, who was watching the exchange with the eyes of a cunning predator, ever on the lookout for weakness.

With his wolfishness so recently at the surface, his eyes were threaded gold and Hermione suspected that only Kingsley's years as an Auror and his friendship with Remus allowed him to keep from quaking in his seat.

"Please, Kings," Hermione asked. "They're the children's fathers. It would be immoral to keep them parted when there is no legal reason that visitation is prohibited. They won't be in any danger."

"But they're just kids," Kingsley said. "Do they… understand?"

"My Dad broke wizarding law and was caught," Lucian interrupted, his voice gravelly as though the wolf lurked right beneath his skin, fighting for control. "Doesn't mean he's not my Dad, Minister."

Kingsley looked over at Lucian for a long moment.

"That's true, lad," he nodded, finally.

"They need passes, obviously," Hermione said. "I'd like to take Lucian to see Fenrir today, if possible."

"Blimey, Hermione. The day after a full moon? He'll be in no state…"

"He's been force-fed Wolfsbane, I believe?" Hermione raised her eyebrows in challenge.

"Told you that, did he?" Kingsley sighed.

Hermione nodded.

"Well… I guess that's true enough. Not that it's stopped him from attacking anyone…."

"There is no cage and drug powerful to make a wolf forgets it's nature, Kingsley," Hermione reminded quietly, quoting something Remus had once said to the pair of them when discussing werewolf rights and the dangers of Remus returning to one of the packs during the war.

Kingsley sighed, sitting back in his chair and glancing between Hermione and Lucian quickly.

"True," he conceded.

"The passes?" Hermione asked.

Kingsley nodded.

"For Fillan and Rieka too?" Lucian asked, looking hopefully at Hermione. "And Pup?"

"Pup?" Kingsley frowned.

"The second boy of Greyback's in Ministry custody," Hermione prompted. "In my custody, now."

"The nameless one?" Kingsley guessed.

"We've christened him Ranulf," Hermione said.

"Who are Fillan and Rieka?" Kingsley frowned. "I thought Dolohov and Rowle had boys… Alrik and Dmitri, wasn't it?"

Hermione nodded.

"Fillan and Rieka are Greyback's other children."

"There're more of them?" Kingsley's eyes widened in shock. "How many have you adopted, Hermione?"

"Fillan and Rieka live with the Pack," Lucian piped up.

Kingsley looked baffled, turning his eyes to Hermione once more, waiting for an explanation.

"I haven't met them," she said. "They're Lucian's half siblings. Both to different women from before Fenrir ran across Lucian's mother."

"And you want passes for them? If they don't live with you… why…?" Kingsley said.

"They'll come," Lucian told her. "I'm out now. I know they'll come."

"Here, now, son, I can't just be giving out Azkaban passes to any old body," Kingsley reasoned with the child.

"But they're Pack," Lucian frowned as though that changed everything.

"Even so," Kingsley said. "What proof do I have that they'll uphold the rules, lad?"

"They're Pack," Lucian repeated.

Hermione sighed sadly, reaching to smooth a hand through the confused boy's hair when he started to snarl.

"If I speak for them, can we have the passes?" Hermione asked.

"You haven't even met them, Hermione," Kingsley said.

"I know," she sighed. "But I expect it won't be long…"

Kingsley frowned deeply, his eyes conveying concern for her even if he didn't voice it in front of Lucian.

"How about we get you passes for yourself and the boys in your care, and when the time comes that this Fillan and Rieka find you, we can revisit the issue?" Kingsley bargained.

"But they're Pack," Lucian said insistently.

"Lucian, sweetheart," Hermione said. "It might be days or even weeks before they come. Plenty of time to get them permission to see your Dad. I promise we'll get it for them as soon as they come, okay? Until they do, we'll have to settle for what's available, won't we?"

"But…" he protested, frowning.

"Do you want to see you Dad today or don't you, darling?" Hermione appealed. "If you want to go today, we can't have passes for Fillan and Rieka. If you want to wait until we can have passes for them, we'll go home and try to get some sleep, hmmm?"

Lucian growled again before shoving a whole breakfast sausage in his mouth and chewing it aggressively.

He didn't answer but Hermione looked back at Kingsley. The ex-Auror shook his head at the stubborn child and flicked his wand, summoning parchment and quill. He scratched out the required letter granting her and the boys permission to visit the prison whenever it suited them.

"I'll have official passes printed for the five of you, but this will do to get you in today," Kingsley said.

"Thanks, Kings," Hermione smiled tiredly. "I owe you one."

Kingsley waved her words away.

"Ready to go, Lucian?" Hermione asked.

Lucian pushed away from the table and rose quickly, stalking out of the room without saying goodbye. Hermione shook her head.

"Sorry," she apologised.

"It's fine. He's young. And last night was probably rough," Kingsley said, rising to his feet and hugging her goodbye despite being in his pyjamas. "Be careful with Greyback, Hermione. So close to a full moon, he might not be entirely himself, even with the Wolfsbane."

"I'll be alright," she said, rolling up her sleeve to show him the bite Fenrir had given her. "Apparently this make me Pack, too. As long as his boys are in my custody, I'll be safe with Fenrir."

Kingsley scowled.

"He did that?" he confirmed, eyeing the scabbed over wound.

Hermione nodded, shrugging. "Something wolfish to communicate to Lucian to trust me. I'm alright."

"The boy expects his siblings to join you at the cottage?" Kingsley pushed.

Hermione nodded again, glancing in Lucian's direction again.

"Lucian believes they'll have heard him howling and that they'll come for him. I think it might be best that I speak to Fenrir about it, just in case…."

Kingsley nodded.

"How are you holding up about the papers?" he asked.

Hermione shrugged.

"Let's just say that Ms Vane should expect an unpleasant visit from me just as soon as things settle down at the cottage," Hermione said darkly.

Kingsley chuckled.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," he said.

"I'll be back to discuss some things about the state those boys were living in too, Kings," she warned the wizard steadily.

"Shall I have Carol schedule you in for a meeting?" he asked, smiling good-naturedly.

"That might be best," Hermione nodded solemnly.

"Next week?" he suggested.

"Sure," she said. "I better go."

"Be careful, Hermione," he said kindly. "And if there's anything else you need, you know where to find me."

Hermione thanked him, before heading for the other room where she found Lucian pacing up and down the entrance hall just as he'd done in the kitchen at the cottage, obviously agitated.

"Ready to see your Dad, sweetheart?" Hermione asked Lucian, trying to sound upbeat, rather than worried.

Lucian nodded, converging on her quickly and wrapping his arms around her middle tightly, obviously waiting for them to apparate. Uncertain she was even allowed to apparate directly to the prison without an escort, but willing to try it just the same, Hermione closed her eyes and twisted sharply, her arms wrapped around Lucian tightly and clinging to him as she thought of the place she'd landed on her last visit to Azkaban prison.

When they landed, Lucian pulled away from her quickly, falling to his knees and vomiting on the rocky beach, obviously regretting scoffing down so much food at Kingsley's place before the nauseating affect of apparating.

"Are you alright, darling?" Hermione asked sympathetically, vanishing the mess he'd made and smoothing her hand over his back comfortingly.

Lucian wiped his mouth before he looked up – way up – his eyes widening in horror as he took in the towering structure of the prison and the tiny beach, thrashed by the waves that surrounded it.

"Dad's in there?" Lucian breathed, looking a little terrified.

"That's right," Hermione said softly. "He's inside. This is Azkaban prison, Lucian."

Lucian gulped audibly while a collection of Aurors converged on them, wands out threateningly until they realised who she was and until Lucian rose to his feet and they noted that he was just a little boy.

"Miss Granger?" one of the Aurors asked, sounding baffled at the sight of her. "You're not supposed to be here."

"I have authority," she said, handing over the letter from Kingsley.

"This is from the Minister," he said when he read it. "And this is…?"

He eyed Lucian.

"Lucian Greyback," Hermione answered.

"Bloody hell," someone exclaimed. "Fenrir Greyback's boy?"

"One of," Hermione nodded. "We'd like to see him, please."

Lucian said nothing, cowering into her a little, obviously intimidated by the powerful wizards and still scared at the unnerving sight of Azkaban Prison towering above them.

"Was a full moon last night," one of them argued and Hermione sighed.

"We're aware. Take us to Greyback now, please."

They all exchanged glances before looking at Lucian's determined face.

"I want to see my dad," he said roughly, his voice thick.

"Blimey," someone muttered. "Come on then. On your head be it, Granger."

Hermione nodded in agreement, taking Lucian's hand and allowing the Aurors to escort her and the child into the hideous building. And if Lucian clung to her side so tightly that she could feel him trembling, well, that could be their secret, couldn't it?

Fenrir Greyback felt like shit when he dragged his body upright following the change. The Wolfsbane practically poured out of him, the stink of it burning his nose as it bled from his pores like sweat on a muggy day. They'd tripled the dose they'd been giving him in the lead-up to last night's full moon and Fenrir thought they might've finally succeeded in giving him aconite poisoning.

He'd never felt so horrible after a full moon in his entire life.

As such, the sound of footsteps in the corridor leading to his cell had his hackles raised immediately and a feral snarl ripped from his ragged throat. Merlin, he hoped it scared away whichever prick thought it'd be fun to poke the werewolf this morning. When the steps continued, undeterred, Fenrir crouched in the corner, prepared to spring at whoever it was that dared come to torment him when he felt like he was on Death's doorstep.

"Be right out here if you need us," one of the gruff voices of the guards filled the corridor and through the pounding in his head, Fenrir wondered if this was what mortality felt like.

The door to the cell opened without hesitation, suggesting to him that it was probably some Ministry prick, one of the scientists they'd been sending for the sake of trying to study his species and figure out what made him so vicious and so indestructible. Hackles raised, a growl ripping out of his throat, Fenrir sprung the minute the invader stepped through the door as it opened.

And his eyes widened in surprise and then horror when first the Granger girl stepped in, followed quickly by Fenrir's pup. Already mid-leap, he gave a shout of warning and watched the little witch bring her wand up while Lucian tried to step into his path, obviously intent on protecting the witch, and Granger simultaneously attempted to put the boy behind her, trying to move him out of Fenrir's path.

Fenrir landed awkwardly in front of them, twinging his ankle badly as he tried and failed to keep from colliding with the pair. Granger managed to wrap Lucian into her arms, lifting the boy and twisting them both so that her back was to Fenrir, braced for impact. Propelled by unspent momentum, Fenrir barely managed to catch hold of the pair, caging them in his arms and twisting them both as his ankle gave under him and took all three of them to the floor. He bore most of the impact on his rump, rolling to his back with Granger and Lucian bundled in his arms and sprawled across his chest.

"What's going on in there?" the guards demanded though they already shut the door.

Morons. He could've killed them if he hadn't registered their identities in time.

"Fuck," Fenrir grunted as he slammed into the cell wall, hitting his head but preventing the witch and his pup from coming to too much harm.

"Dad?" Lucian asked. "Are you alright?"

"Fucking Artemis, that hurt," Fenrir growled, dazed, his ankle throbbing and his skull feeling split open.

"Lucian, are you hurt, sweetheart?" Granger was asking, already wriggling in his embrace and disentangling the boy, searching him for injuries.

"I'm fine, Mum," the pup assured her. "Dad, are you alright?"

"Are you sure, sweetheart? You didn't hit your head?" Granger fussed and despite the pain ravaging his body, Fenrir was bitterly grateful that the witch was obviously so focused on the boy.

She was still in his lap where he slumped low against the wall, having stood Lucian back on his feet, her hands roaming his small body checking for injuries.

"That was me," Fenrir told the witch.

"What?" Granger asked, still worrying over the kid.

"That hit their head," Fenrir said. "Fucking hell, you're squashing my nuts, girly. Shift over, could you?"

She did, lifting off him and scooting toward Lucian quickly.

"Are you hurt?" she said, crouching next to him. "Lucian, if you're alright, maybe fetch your Father's pants for him, love?"

Lucian didn't move, too busy staring at him in elation and worry and fear and happiness and love and agony.

Fenrir patted the witch's knee when she glanced at the boy impatiently, obviously keenly aware of his nudity after the full moon.

"C'mere, pup," Fenrir grunted at the kid, the wolf in him not caring about human foibles like clothing when he was seeing his kid for the first time in two years.

Lucian didn't wait for a further invite, flinging himself down on Fenrir's chest, his arms wrapping tight around him and squeezing hard.

"Shhh, pup, shhh," Fenrir crooned when the boy clung to him, his body trembling, a low whine coming from deep within him.

Granger put her hands over her mouth, her eyes filling with tears as two years of misery and heartache and missing each other poured out of the boy and his father. Fenrir curled both arms around his son, careful not to squeeze him too tight, knowing yesterday's moon would've left him tired and sore all over.

For a long time, Fenrir simply held the kid while he whined, crying into his chest, clinging to him desperately. It had been so long. Too long. Listening to the pitiful sounds his pup emitted, Fenrir felt wracked with guilt for the first time in his life, remorse flooding him that his actions had landed them in this situation and caused his pup so much pain. His job was supposed to be to protect the boy, not wound him like this.

"It's alright, pup. Shhh," Fenrir murmured, smoothing his hands over his hair and down his back, comforting him quietly even though his head was aching and his ankle might be broken and he was still sweating aconite.

Tears were running down Granger's face as she watched them, her heart in her eyes, and Fenrir winced at her, trying to indicate that though he didn't want to rush the boy, he was in agony.

"I'll get your pants," she whispered, rising quickly and hurrying to the pitiful pile of clothing in the corner, before returning to him. "Oh, Merlin…. Your ankle…"

She stopped on her way back, eyeing the appendage and Fenrir glanced down, noting that it was twisted unnaturally.

"Lucian, sweetheart, your Daddy's hurt, darling. I know you're happy to see him, but I think we should heal him, don't you?"

Lucian jerked back quickly, his eyes red and swollen from crying, his little face horrified.

"Hurt?" he asked hoarsely.

"His ankle, sweetheart," Hermione said, hurrying closer and pulling her wand out, training it on the broken foot and muttering a spell, trying to mend it.

"Spells will just bounce off," Fenrir grunted, nudging Lucian aside a little and wincing as he slid further up the wall into a proper sitting position.

"No, no, there's a spell that works, even on werewolf wounds," Granger muttered. "Oh, what is it? I know it. I read it last week."

"Are you hurt anywhere else, Dad?" Lucian asked, before sniffing loudly. "I smell blood…"

"Blood?" Granger asked worriedly, her head jerking up from where she'd remembered the spell and was in the process of healing his ankle though it itched like hellfire.

Lucian leaned closer, sniffing loudly, before pulling back and covering his nose, his eyes watering again.

"What is that?" the boy choked, coughing as the stink of the aconite pouring out of him.

"Wolfsbane," Fenrir grunted. "Think I cracked my skull open, too."

"It hurts my nose," Lucian whispered, looking horrified.

"Wolfsbane?" Granger asked, moving around him with ease once his ankle was healed – the bone mended though she could do nothing for the swelling.

"Sweating it out," Fenrir answered. "They increased my dose for the full moon."

"By how much?" Granger was frowning. "Lean forward, can you? Let me see your head."

Wincing, Fenrir attempted to lean forward, aching all over, and Lucian rushed to help, the kid lending his strength to pull him forward so that Granger could examine his head. She clicked her tongue and Fenrir could tell that wasn't a good sign, smelling the spike in her anxiety as she examined it.

"You've cracked it," she said. "There's blood. I can heal it, but it might hurt."

"Do it," Fenrir shrugged, unconcerned about a bit of pain after the intensity of the pain associated with the transformation.

She nodded, healing him quickly.

"Fuck," he swore again quietly, the resounding thump of his pulse in his skull driving him mad, his scalp itching as she repaired the fracture in his skull and then knitted the split skin back together with magic.

"Are you all right, Dad?" Lucian asked when Fenrir winced as Granger sat back, frowning.

He mustered a smile for the kid even though he felt like a thousand hornets were swarming inside his brain, stinging him all over.

"I'm fine, pup. Just fine," Fenrir nodded. "Hell, Pup, you got big."

Lucian looked down at his feet and bit his lip before looking back up at him, his eyes filling with tears.

"Shit, kid, don't cry," he said quietly, pulling the boy back into his arms and cuddling him fiercely when great wailing howls wracked him, sobs rocking his slim frame and wrenching ungodly sounds from his chest.

Granger was crying again, and Fenrir's wolf snarled and howled and paced restlessly, desperate to spare the kid the pain he currently endured. Desperate to find a way free of this cage so he wouldn't have to be without the boy for much longer.

"He needed to see you," Granger offered through her sniffles as she dried her face with the hem of her shirt when there was nothing else to use. "After the transformation…"

Fenrir nodded.

"It was the first he spent alone," she elaborated. "At the ministry facility, he was kept in a separate room, but he could still see Ranulf and the others through the glass."

"Where'd you put him?" he grunted.

"In the greenhouse," she admitted. "Just in case. He mentioned that his howls would've drawn the pack."

Lucian's sobs intensified at the mention of the others and Fenrir winced again, clutching the child even tighter when he bit Fenrir's chest, Lucian's claws raking over his shoulders and his arms as his wolf fought to wound him as Fenrir had obviously so wounded his son.

"I'm so sorry, Lucian," Fenrir muttered into his hair. "I miss you every day, son. Every day. They're keeping me drugged up and chained so I can't get free, but don't think for a second that I don't miss you or that I don't want you, boy. You're my son. My blood. My pack. I love you. Don't ever forget it."

Lucian sobbed harder, outright howling now and the guards opened the door, obviously alarmed for Granger's safety. They winced when they saw the state he was in while the child cried. Fenrir wondered viciously if they'd ever been faced with the agony of a child like this before. Not many dared to bring a kid to Azkaban prison to visit a parent. Maybe these dumb cunts would go home and feel guilty that they rendered such agony in an innocent child. Fenrir had committed the many crimes that had landed him in this place, and Lucian was the innocent bystander hurt by his actions and his incarceration.

More than ever, Fenrir regretted having been caught.

Granger cried quietly, looking helpless as all of Lucian's pain and fear and rage and hurt and sadness and desperation and longing poured from his throat. Fenrir's eyes moved to her as she watched Lucian while the boy cried, and he could see that she'd obviously had a rough night too. Had this strange witch he'd once planned to ravish, and then to devour when he was done, really spent a sleepless night worrying for his son? The dark circles under her eyes and the pain hanging on her face for his boy suggested she had.

She had no cause for it, he mused frowning thoughtfully, never letting up the strength of his embrace for the son in his arms. She had no reason to want to raise his sons. No basis for it. No logic, if he thought about it plainly. She'd be ostracized for it, he was sure. No one in the wizarding world would ever understand lycanthropy in all its glory, and thus, they feared it and shunned it whenever they discovered it. With documented proof of Lucian's special circumstances on Ministry record, she would have a hard time hiding the truth of what she'd allowed into her home.

That he was a werewolf would be bad enough in the eyes of the wizarding world. That Lucian was the result of a mate-bond, more so, given the freakishness of Lucian's half-shift. That this witch was so young – so fresh from war and education – so new to her womanhood and her adulthood, and suddenly playing mother to anyone wouldn't sit well with the dense human creatures she would be forced to associate with. That she'd dared take on both of his sons, and the sons of two other convicted criminals – vicious killers, both – would surely do more damage to her reputation than any one person should reasonably volunteer for. Such things were usually the result of ill-fate and unfortunate circumstances, not voluntary.

And yet, she had done it. Even knowing she might have to come back to this wretched prison every month and snog him for the right to raise his boys, Granger had done it. She'd taken them in, and from the look of agony on her face, she'd opened her heart to their suffering without reserve. His arms were occupied cuddling Lucian while he lost control, this pain overwhelming, but Fenrir felt the strangest urge to reach out and wipe the tears from her cheeks.

It was an unusual urge for him. Tears were a sign of human weakness, most often, and the predator he'd become had little time or use for weakness. And yet, it persisted, this strange need to touch her, to offer her comfort even though her heartache was second-hand and empathetic.

"I had to come," she repeated while he watched her, still clutching Lucian to his chest, in no hurry to let his son go. "He was so insistent…"

Fenrir simply nodded. The yearning for Pack was strong when one spent the first moon alone, and all the more painful for every moon spent without them thereafter.

"He said… that the Pack would come?" Granger whispered, worrying her lower lip with her teeth while she searched his face, looking for something he couldn't offer her.

"Outside the Ministry, he'll have been howling in such a way as to be heard," Fenrir nodded. "If the Pack were within hearing distance, they'll have come."

"I didn't see anyone when I went out to collect him this morning," Granger frowned.

"Doesn't mean they aren't there," he shrugged. "Wolves are wary creatures by nature."

"Should I be worried?" she asked. "If they try to take the boys… I'll be in a good deal of trouble. I would be forced to stop them."

"You wouldn't survive trying if the Pack was determined to take them," Fenrir shook his head at her, smoothing his hands over Lucian's hair, and using his nails to scratch behind the boy's ears, trying to comfort him.

"They can't," she shook her head, frowning heavily.

"They won't," he told her, reaching for her arm where he'd bitten her and tapping it indicatively. "If they try, show them this. They'll stop."

"Why would they stop?"

"Same reason it makes Lucian trust you. I've marked you," he told her, curling his arm back around Lucian and shifting the exhausted boy further up his chest, sitting up a little more, intent on getting to his feet and carrying the boy over to his cot in the corner where they'd be more comfortable.

"Marked me?" she asked, her eyes widening in horror.

Fenrir chuckled darkly when she blushed just a bit.

"Been reading werewolf-themed bodice-rippers, girly?" he smirked.

She shook her head in denial, but he could smell the guilt on her.

"Only means I've bitten you," he said. "Made you part of the Pack. Made you smell a little like me. The mark will indicate to the Pack that you're one of them and that they can trust you. They won't try to take the boys from your care as long as you carry that mark unless I order them otherwise."

"Are you sure?" she worried. "I'll be in big trouble with the Ministry if they go missing."

"I'm sure, girly," he promised quietly, glancing down as Lucian when his sniffling and whimpers evened out into the slow breaths of slumber.

"Do you need me to take him so you can get up?" she offered, reaching for him.

"He'll wake," Fenrir warned.

"He's exhausted, the poor thing," she shook her head, leaning over on her knees and collecting Lucian even though he was all knees and elbows in sleep. Fenrir watched the way she scooped him up so carefully, easing him off Fenrir's chest and cradling him so gently, rocking back slowly onto her heels and rising to her feet despite the boy's weight.

"Huh," he grunted when Lucian didn't wake, but instead snuggled into her shoulder and sighing contentedly in his sleep. "He likes you."

She smiled, evidently pleased at the assessment.

"Maybe pants?" she suggested when Fenrir rose to his feet too, rubbing his aching head and walking a little gingerly on his ankle. "They'd lock you up again for indecency, carrying your boy around in the nude."

Fenrir scoffed.

"Most parents bathe their pups together, don't they?" he challenged. "Even the human ones?"

"Some," she allowed. "But typically none as old as Lucian."

"Aye, well, he's a werewolf. Nudity means fuck all," he said, but he put his pants on nonetheless, sensing that she was wildly uncomfortable while she did her damnedest to keep her eyes off his junk.

"You want him back?" she offered when he moved over and sat on his cot, leaning against the wall.

He nodded, reaching for the boy and gathering Lucian into his arms when she handed him over unreservedly, obviously trusting him enough to know he'd be decent to his pup, even if he'd never been overly decent to anyone else.

"I wanted to bring Ranulf, too," she said. "Got permission from the Minister to do so… but I thought Lucian needed you more today. He was very insistent to see you when I collected him this morning."

"Rough night, probably," he nodded, smiling at the youngster when he burrowed into his chest and nipped him lightly in his sleep before sinking even deeper into unconsciousness. "It was a bad moon last night, even from here."

"Some are worse than others?" she asked curiously.

Fenrir glanced sideways at her, noting how intrigued she looked, suspecting her brilliant mind would just love to absorb everything and anything he could tell her about life as a werewolf.

"Same as any other shift in the planetary sphere, girly," he told her. "Some moons are better than others. Some half-moons hurt, depending on the alignment of the earth on its axis and how it correlates to the other planets in the galaxy."

"Was there something special about last night?" she asked. "I didn't think there was anything terribly important about the date…?"

Fenrir shrugged. "They don't exactly let me keep a calendar in here," he reminded her.

"Oh," she frowned. "Yesterday was June 24th. I think I read that there was supposed to be a partial full moon lunar eclipse last night, now that I think about it."

"No wonder it was horrid," Fenrir grumbled.

"Do eclipses make the transformation worse?" she asked, frowning at him. "I'd have thought that with the moon partially blocked by the sun, you'd suffer less?"

"Makes it worse," he said. "On a full eclipse, we change when the moon comes out, change back for the brief length of the eclipse, and then change again when the eclipse passes. Double the transformations."

"So a partial full moon?" she asked.

"Partial shift," he shrugged. "No wonder they dosed me triply."

"I'm certain they can't legally be allowed to do that," she frowned at him. "Your lips are blue from the aconite. I think you might actually have aconite poisoning…"

"So do I," he sighed. "It's why I didn't heal when I busted my ankle and my skull just now."

"You could ordinarily heal from those things? Quickly?"

He raised one eyebrow at her.

"Girly, you threw a Killing Curse at me during the final battle up at the school. What do you reckon?"

She looked a little horrified.

"You remember that?"

"Wanted your throat for it before they caught me," he said quietly. "Hurts like fuck when you get hit with one of those. The body actually dies, briefly, but the lycanthropy heals the cells as quickly as they perish. A bit like being electrocuted for you, I'd imagine. Only a thousand times more painful."

She winced.

"I was protecting a friend," she shrugged. "And you were eating people. You deserved it."

Fenrir supposed she had a point. He'd been at his lowest during the height of the war and had resorted to scare tactics and heinous practices far beyond his usual wretchedness. Humans didn't even taste nice.

"Probably did," he conceded, sighing again and smoothing his hand over Lucian's back.

"Will you tell me about the Pack?" she asked. "Lucian tells me you've another son and a daughter, too?"

"Fillan and Reika," he nodded.

"I've asked for passes for them to visit you too if they should come to call on me," she said quietly. "Kingsley wouldn't give them to me outright without me meeting them first, and he might insist on meeting them himself, but I expect he'll give them to me easily enough."

"Really?" Fenrir asked, his heart soaring with hope at the thought of seeing all of his children.

"Lucian insisted they would come to find him, and that they would want to see you if they can," she nodded.

"They will," he nodded. "If they hear Lucian howling or catch his scent, they will."

"Shall I bring them to see you?" she asked.

"Would you?" he raised an eyebrow. "I imagine the Pack will help themselves to your life if you let them, girly. Fillan's trouble. You let him in your house and you'll have trouble getting him out."

"Yes, that's what I'm afraid of," she admitted quietly. "I've already got my hands full with Lucian, Ranulf, Alrik, and Dmitri. The last thing I need is a headstrong teenager invading my cottage. We haven't the room… Lucian and Ranulf already have to share until I get a free moment to perform some renovations. Not that I could separate them if I tried. Though I suppose given that all four boys have ended up sneaking in and climbing in with me since I took them in, there are technically several empty beds."

"They bunk with you?" he asked, surprised.

"All four every night," she nodded, sighing tiredly and sitting down beside him, leaning against the wall and looking exhausted. Fenrir wondered how worn out she must be that she trusted him so much. Then again, he had his pup dozing on his chest. He could hardly lunge at her.

"Wearing you out, girly?" he grinned, reaching a hand for her and smoothing the backs of his fingers across her cheek.

She didn't even flinch.

"You have no idea," she murmured. "I'm not used to the insanity of toddlers and Lucian's such a help with the younger ones, but he's got his own set of troubles, you know? I can't imagine letting anyone else into the house at all when I'm barely holding it together as it is."

"The Pack could help with that," he told her quietly. "They're a handful, and they live by their own rules, but they're used to caring for Pups. If Janey's still alive, she'll be able to help you with them."

"Rieka's mother?" she confirmed.

"Lucian told you?" he raised an eyebrow.

"A little. He called her Aunt Janey?"

"Pack pups call every adult not their parents Aunt or Uncle."

"Even you?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"They call me Alpha unless I sired them."

"Macho," she rolled her eyes and Fenrir thought about growling at her for the disrespect but sensed she was teasing him.

"You would really bring them here?" he asked.

"Your children?" she confirmed. "Yes. I don't see why not. Being incarcerated doesn't actually prevent Azkaban inmates from receiving visitors, or post for that matter. It's just not widely advertised and when the Dementors were guarding this place, no one was going to volunteer, were they?"

"They'll drive you mental, girly," he told her seriously. "Pack's a grumpy lot. Don't like outsiders. Even with that mark, they'd be suspicious. They'll test you. Especially Fillan. With me locked up, I expect he'll have taken a run at the Alpha title."

"He's not even sixteen," she frowned.

"Werewolf," he shrugged.

"Lucian said something about aging differently as a werewolf?" she nodded, her frown deepening, making her look troubled and world-weary.

Fenrir nodded.

"How differently?" she pressed. "He said that Alrik and Ranulf showed a noted difference in development, even though Ranulf is younger, but that being bitten by him helped."

"He's been biting them?" Fenrir asked.

"I've told him not to. It's not good for them. They're only little."

"Good for their development," he disagreed. "Wolves age faster than humans until they reach adulthood. A bit like full-bloods, you know. The process is sped up until they're of an age, build, and cleverness to protect themselves. Lucian could probably survive on his own if he had to."

"He doesn't have to," she said.

"If he was with the Pack, he'd be expected to run and hunt and kill for his dinner," Fenrir shrugged. "He might try it now that he's not locked in a Ministry cell, especially if the Pack visit."

"I am perfectly able to buy enough food for him," she huffed.

"Can't fight nature, girly," he said.

"So I should be wary of Fillan, is what you're saying?"

"Probably," he shrugged. "Did most of his developing during the bad years and the war. Hasn't had me there to savage him and keep him in line. And he's young. Powerful. Cocky. He'll give you trouble."

"That's the last thing I need," she grumbled.

"Probably behave if you tell him you'll help him come and visit me," he suggested.

"That won't work for long after I bring him the first time," she sighed.

"Might be out of here before you need to bring him a second."

"With Wolfsbane poisoning?" she frowned.

"It'll pass," he said. "They've got to keep upping the dose because I keep metabolizing it. Soon they'll have to stop or kill me. Building up an immunity, see?"

"And when it no longer works?" she asked, looking sideways at him. "Last week you said it might be more than a year."

"Still might be," he nodded.

"You don't imagine Fillan would want to see you more than once in the next twelve months?"

Fenrir smirked crookedly.

"Don't imagine so," he shook his head. "He'll have grown wild with no alpha to pull him into line. He'll come in here and try that cocky youngster bullshit with me and I'll have to savage it out of him. He won't want to come back for a while after that."

"You would savage your own son?" she scowled at him and blimey, this little witch really was something, ready to defend another one of his sons from the world and even from Fenrir himself if he had to.

He snorted.

"You're screwed, girly," he chuckled, grinning at her. "If I was you, I'd get a move on renovating that cottage. You're ready to put yourself between me and a kid you haven't even met yet. You might as well roll out the welcome mat for him."

"He's a boy," she huffed, crossing her arms defensively.

"He's a werewolf," he corrected her.

"Like that really matters, at the end of the day," she rolled her eyes. "If you're just going to hurt him, I won't bring him."

"Won't hurt him if he doesn't try and pull rank on me," he shrugged. "We're wolves, Granger. It's the way of the Pack for youngsters to challenge their elders and fight for their place."

"Well, I'm not a wolf," she retorted. "And if you think I'm going to let you savage someone for being a little cocky and arrogant, you had better just think again."

Fenrir laughed darkly.

"We'll see," he smirked. "But you pull rank with him like you're trying with me and maybe I won't have to pull him into line."

She huffed, scowling at his amusement and obviously displeased.

"Should I be worried about the others?" she asked. "Janey and Rieka and whoever else you have in your pack?"

Fenrir tapped the bite on her arm again, shaking his head.

"If they ignore this?" she challenged. "If there's some other Alpha in your absence?"

"Won't be," he shook his head. "Except Fillan."

"There are none you might've turned during the war who would take over in your stead?"

"Plenty who could," he shrugged. "None who'd dare."

"Why not?" she challenged. "You're locked up."

"Won't be for much longer."

"You have been for over two years, Greyback," she reminded him. "And you anticipate a third. Why shouldn't someone else step into your shoes after such an extended absence? Someone has to lead them, don't they? That is the nature of wolf packs."

"Fillan will have done it."

"Fillan's a teenager who's barely cut his teeth," she argued.

"Anyone else who dared will die in my jaws," he threatened darkly.

"That may very well be, but as you don't plan to be free for a while yet, what am I to do in the meantime if someone has dared, and they try and take the boys?"

"Kill them," he shrugged.

"I'm not a murderer."

"Bullshit," he scoffed. "Caught a Killing curse from you myself, Granger. You're a killer. Nearly killed me with that spell, and I'm hard to kill."

"You got up and walked away," she shook her head.

"Aye, but I'm old, and I'm tough," he admitted. "Age brings power, girly. And I'm older than I look. Taking the life of other wolves brings more power, and I've taken many."

"Meaning?" she narrowed her eyes on him.

"Meaning that unless they're older and tougher than me, you could probably take them out with one of your killing curses," he shrugged. "In those with no pack to draw on and no strength built up through years of fighting and killing to survive, death can still come easy."

"Is that why Remus succumbed to the curse and you walked away?" she frowned.

Fenrir nodded.

"Lupin rejected his wolf and the lycanthropic way of life right from the off," he shrugged. "Made do with that make-shift pack of humans he befriended in his youth, but they were picked off one by one and he was left alone. Lone wolves are tough, sometimes, and he was in his way. But without anything to fight for, he had no hope of surviving a killing curse."

"He had a son to fight for," Hermione frowned.

"Lupin's got a pup?" he frowned in return, shocked to hear it.

"Teddy," she nodded.

"With that weird witch? The shape-shifter?"

"Metamorphagus," she corrected.

"He a wolf? The boy?" Fenrir asked.

"No," she shook her head. "He's like Ranulf. Born to a werewolf father and human mother. He doesn't shift."

Fenrir frowned.

"She wasn't his mate, then?" he asked.

"Tonks?" Granger raised her eyebrows. "I always thought she was."

Fenrir rolled his eyes.

"And anyway, she wasn't a werewolf. They couldn't have had a mate-bond bearing offspring like Lucian without her being a werewolf, too."

"Can have something else," he said quietly. "Still powerful. Still different."

"In what way?" she wanted to know. "Teddy transforms like Tonks did."

"Shape-shifter?" he guessed.

"Metamorphagus," she corrected again.

"Can he do animals, too?"

"Animagi is learned," she sighed.

"Wouldn't be animagi," he shook his head. "Not if they were mates. Have him try it one day. Reckon he can shift to a wolf with no trouble. How old is he?"

"Three," she frowned at him. "Three years olds can't perform animal transfiguration."

"Most can't shape-shift either, but this one can, right?"

"A genetic gift from his mother."

"And he's probably got a few genetic gifts from his father, too," he insisted. "Check it, girly. See what he can do."

"I'm not going to suggest to any three-year-old that he transforms himself into a wolf. What if he gets stuck and can't change back?"

"He would eventually," Fenrir rolled his eyes. "Nothing wrong with going wolf for a while."

She simply shook her head, obviously too tired to argue, but sticking to her guns nonetheless. Fenrir sighed. He could do with a nap if he was being honest. His body still ached with the wolfsbane pouring from his skin and throbbed dully from last night's transformations.

"I should go," she said after they lapsed into silence but for a delicate yawn she tried to cover.

"Can stay if you like," he offered.

She glanced around dubiously.

"Lucian needs his rest," she said tactfully. "At home, in his bed. Not in a prison cell, even if he does get to be with you here."

Fenrir sighed, supposing she had a point. It wouldn't do anyone any good if they all bunked down for a little cat-nap in his cell. She would be dealing with enough bad press as it was, without adding to it with whatever gossip the guards in this shithole might leverage as fuel for the fire.

"I'm sorry to have brought him only to have him be so upset and now sleeping," she offered as she scrubbed her hands over her face before she rose to her feet, looking down at Lucian where he was still cradled in his arms.

"To be expected after a moon night," he shrugged, rising too. "He'll sleep hard for the rest of the day and overnight, probably. You'll have to carry him home."

"That's alright," she smiled, and Fenrir could tell she already loved the pup almost as much as he did. "He had a long night, and a lot of emotional upheavals this morning."

She held her arms out for the boy, prepared to cradle him and carry him home. Fenrir didn't want to let him go. It'd been so long since he'd seen his son that the thought of being apart from him again so soon caused him physical pain, but he knew there was nothing for it. She was right. His prison cell was no place for his son.

Resignedly, he passed the child over to the young witch who had no conceivable cause to want to raise Fenrir's offspring but had resolved herself to do it anyway.

"Oh, before I forget," she said just as she was about to turn away with the boy in her arms. "In my back pocket, I have something for you."

Fenrir quirked an eyebrow.

"Inviting me to put my hands on your arse, girly?" he teased, smirking. "Subtle."

"My hands are full," she rolled her eyes. "But I can keep it and bring it with me next time if you're too chicken…?"

Fenrir laughed, shaking his head and stepping into her, sliding both of his hands into the back pockets of her jeans and squeezing her arse firmly. He heard the cadence of her heart pick up, beating a little faster inside her chest, and she glared at him but he could smell the way her body reacted to the touch.

"All this for me?" he teased before his brow wrinkled and he ducked his head, leaning into her and sniffing the side of her neck. "Smells like it's been for someone else recently, actually. You getting laid, girly?"

"I hardly see how that's any of your business."

"Smells like Potter," he replied and her cheeks flushed crimson.

"Would you just take the photo and release me?" she sighed.

"You rutting Potter now?" he smirked instead, squeezing her arse again, not about to let go when the fleshy globes felt good in his paws, even despite the denim clothing them at present.

"Must you be vulgar?" she scowled at him.

"It's a simple question," he answered.

She huffed.

"Harry and I are… well, that is… He's helping me with the boys and we're both mature adults with human needs and…" she stammered uncertainly.

"You got all hot under the collar after your last visit and needed an outlet, huh girly?" he laughed, pulling her in closer against him despite his son curled in her arms, breathing her in, and squeezing her arse again one more time.

"Greyback," she hissed.

"You did," he grinned. "No shame in it, girly. Better to see to your needs than suffering."

She frowned up at him and he could tell she still thought like a human instead of a wolf. Not surprising, given she wasn't a wolf, but he'd wear her down and make her see things his way.

"Just take the photo, Fenrir," she sighed, obviously not wishing to discuss the matter.

Humans. So fussy about such basic needs.

Rolling his eyes and grinning wolfishly, he caressed her arse for a long minute before turning his hand and retrieving the sliver of paper from her pocket. When he pulled it out and inspected it, his heart clenched inside his chest. It was a picture of his pups.

"This is Ranulf?" he asked hoarsely, staring down at the photograph of Lucian holding a small, dark-haired boy on his lap and grinning toothily for the camera.

"Yes," Granger smiled gently. "This was taken two days ago after I got them all haircuts. I thought you might like to keep it until I can bring Ranulf by to see you."

Fenrir didn't even think about it before he gripped her chin and tipped her head up, his lips crashing down on hers in a show of gratitude. She made a startled sound at the sudden attention but she didn't pull away. Instead, she kissed him back, tentatively at first, and harder when he leaned into the sensation, overwhelmed with gratitude that this tiny witch who had every right to hate him kept going out of her way to do kind things for him that no one not of his Pack had ever done before.