Chapter Nineteen
"So then . . ." she started, shaking her head beneath his jaw. Even without his very deliberate mention of how long his life had been as he was both a wizard and a werewolf, she knew he was much older than he looked. Despite appearing to be in his late 20s, she wagered aloud, "Would have to have been one my grandparents, then, wouldn't it?"
"I would assume."
This time she nodded, realizing she'd been right. The knowledge changed nothing. "Do you remember their name?" She didn't really know her grandparents. Two of them had passed away when she was very young, so really any of them could be the culprit.
"Strangely? No. She never—"
"She?"
He nodded and shrugged. "Not all werewolves are male, you know."
Hermione shifted in his lap a little. "Well, yes, I know that, of course. Just don't hear about the females all that much, now do you?"
"There aren't many of them, I admit."
"Why?"
"Hmm?" He curled around her to meet her gaze. "Why what?"
"Why aren't there many female werewolves? And please don't tell me its some rubbish like we can't take it. Female bodies can actually handle quite a bit more pain and—"
"Oh, no, nothing like that." Fenrir shook his head, sighing. "It's because of the stigma that comes with our affliction. There's no cure, and that knowledge can make some people literally prefer to die than let the change take hold. Males . . . we're sort of stuck. We can't fight our self-preservation instincts. But females are stronger. Those who can fight those instincts and don't want this life—"
"They've killed themselves?"
A sad look flickering across his face, he nodded.
"So, either my grandmother chose to live as a werewolf, or wasn't strong enough to—"
"Oh, no," he said, though he chuckled at they way they kept cutting one another off. "She was very strong. I just . . . I think she took pity on me because I was a runaway. Whatever it was she saw in me, it made her decide I'd be strong enough to not just handle the change well, but to take to life as a werewolf."
"And yet you didn't even know her name?"
Fenrir shrugged, a distant look in his eyes even as he held her gaze. "I think she tried to keep her human and wolf lives separate. Explains why whichever one of your parents is their child never knew they were anything more than Muggles. But every full moon, she'd find me. We'd change . . . hunt . . . she'd teach me things that have been forgotten to most of our kind."
"Like what?"
He snickered, a soft breathy sound. "Well, you'll learn about it eventually, I suppose, but there is a type of magic that only werewolves can perform. She said it was handed down from the one who'd turned her . . . dates back to before the bloody Vikings, the way she told it."
"So my grandmother taught you some type of ancient Barbarian wolf magic?"
"She did. In fact, she said the 'heathen magic' was the real reason wizards have always hunted us. They didn't want anyone possessing magic that was beyond them. Eventually that was forgotten, and all the magical community seemed to recall was that we were hunted for being godless creatures." He gave a quick eye roll and shrugged. "At least as far as I was told."
"But . . . okay, if her blood is in my veins, and that connects me to you, then . . . ." She shook her head, unknowingly coming to much the same conclusion as the eavesdropping Mulciber. "Then that connects me to all the people you've turned into werewolves, doesn't it?"
Those amber eyes widened in shock. He'd not even considered that before now. "I suppose so."
She pulled out of his arms to turn in his lap and look up at him. "Maybe that's what's wrong with me. We already know your presence has a, um, well, we'll say a certain affect on me."
He couldn't help but smirk at her deliberately chosen words.
"I've never been around more than one werewolf at a time before this mess." Hermione shook her head. "But then suddenly, I'm stuck with you and Orias, and your army is here. Maybe the close proximity to so many werewolves is having an effect on my blood."
"Fuck," he said in a miserable breath of sound. He leaned back, letting the back of his skull hit the headboard. "Here I thought I was protecting you by bringing you away from the castle."
She forced a gulp down her throat, trying not to notice that his changed position made her wonder what he'd look like reclined that way without his robes to obscure the view. "You, uh, you said that. But you didn't really explain to me why you thought that if what's going to happen tomorrow night is, well, no more than a staged skirmish, really."
He arched brow, deciding to keep his awareness of the direction of her thoughts to himself—he had decided he'd let her initiate any further intimacy between them, after all. Dammit to hell. "I had thought having you in the castle would be dangerous, because if I felt pulled by your blood while not shifted, then my wolves would certainly feel it while under the effects of the moon. I was afraid that with you there, they might be tempted to go and seek you out, themselves, and turn that 'staged skirmish' into something truly bloody."
"But then is it really any safer having me here? I mean. You and Mulciber will still be here tomorrow night."
"I have learned to control my shifts. It's also why I don't have to be shifted for my bite to turn someone, anymore. I don't have to be under the moon's sway unless I choose, and I'll be personally keeping an eye on Mulciber. My wolves will not return here until they've shifted back after sunrise. You are safer here, though I know it probably doesn't feel that way."
She'd dropped her gaze to his chest and dragged it lower, along his abdomen, and further, still, until his body disappeared beneath hers.
"So." He chuckled when she started a little and lifted her eyes to his. "These conditions?"
"Well, um, it was really only one. Well, no, two."
Fenrir nodded, watching as she slid her hands up over his robes. "The first?"
Hermione wasn't quite willing to stop herself when she found her fingers curling into the fabric at his collar. She could feel that sweet tingling ache just thinking about how much she didn't want to stop herself as she tugged at him to sit up, bringing him close to her, once more.
"Allow me to get a message to Harry. Just to let him know I'm safe, that I'm being treated well. It might cause him to start reconsidering the way he and the others have been thinking about your side if he finds you're acting, well, 'human' for lack of a better term."
His gaze dropped to trace her features as he nodded. "Done. And the second?"
"I want my wand back." She leaned up, nipping at his mouth.
"That one we'll have to talk about," he said in a rush of breath before slipping his arms around her once more to pull her tighter against him just as she darted her tongue between his lips.
Harry shifted under the covers again, sitting up to slam his fist against his pillow and laying down, once more. Yet, just as the dozen and a half times before that he'd tried, it didn't help.
His mind kept tumbling over all the things he'd noticed, only for him to argue with his own thoughts on the matter. No, he hadn't noticed that there was a dusting of pale-gold stubble along Draco's jaw. And so what that his grey eyes actually had some flecks of blue when one looked really closely? And he did not—did not!—keep recalling the sensation of Draco Malfoy's breath whispering over his skin!
God, he was angry at himself. That . . . whatever it was that had happened between him and Malfoy? He didn't even know what that was!
Groaning, he finally gave up and pulled himself out of bed. This must've been how Hermione'd felt, so tired, but so troubled by all the unknown factors going on around her. He wished he hadn't brushed off her worries about Greyback's fixation on her. If he had listened, maybe now he'd have some idea what was going on, or why.
Deciding it was best to use his time rather than stand about griping internally, he headed off to the kitchens for some of Winky's coffee. He was going to have another look at that body when there were no distractions around.
No professors looming over his every step, no students up and about who might stumble upon the grizzly discovery. He wanted no distractions, whatsoever.
Especially not distractions like Draco Malfoy.