Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons

Chapter 9: Out of the Frying Pan

The crone's mouth twitched, her eyes flashed red. She shrieked

Her laugh and made her curse; with one vile look

At Bram grinned she, "My lad, your straits are dire,

You've fallen from the pan and in the fire."

-- "Deirdre, Bram, and the Curse of Seven Centuries," from Early Magical Literature, in a 1912 translation from its original Irish.

August 1978

More than ever, Elliot Pittiman questioned his choice of career. A decade of his life was spent in the Experimental Charms Committee, a job full of late nights and trips to St Mungo's to get antlers removed and turn his hair from cotton-candy pink back to its natural greying blond, until he heard tell of the Werewolf Registry's need for charmsworker. A job with fewer hours, less danger, and a better likelihood of actual retirement as well as more time with his three children before they entered Hogwarts was a tempting prospect. Charlotte gave him enough trouble about not being around enough for her liking, anyway, and his children did deserve a father.

In retrospect, the plan was too good to be true. The Werewolf Registry, a controlled environment with predictable paperwork and no surprises, was too much to hope for. Werewolves. There was a reason people said they were cursed.

Today marked his tenth trip to Owen Curenton's Den, something he did not look forward to. Each trip there was worse than the last, with the miserable and angry werewolves who bitched and complained and glared at him like it was somehow his fault that the Ministry chose to reach out to them. Really, he was starting to think that the werewolves deserved even less recognition than they currently got.

Most days, Pittiman just did the Prophet crossword, pretended to keep his eye on the map, and hoped that he wouldn't get orders from either the Death Eaters or Twiddle. He really ought to've known, he thought as he walked through the small Welsh town, past the quaint little houses. Of all the things he'd chosen to get involved with, he had to choose the one the Death Eaters would focus in on as well.

At least the nightmares about his family, violated, bloody and shredded to bits, were starting to fade, replaced with dreams about Twiddle's new secretary and her desk. Definitely an improvement.

He stopped, hesitated really, at the house he knew was the Curentons'. He honestly considered going up the walk, knocking at the door, and telling whoever answered that they were wasting their time. Bleeding-hearts could reach out to the werewolves with the best of intentions, but the werewolves were stubborn beasts, and the Death Eaters were bound to win. After nearly a decade of terror, that much was clear. The struggle between the Ministry and the Death Eaters was less a war than a prolonged, sadistic game of cat and mouse.

"There's no point," he said aloud, and stared at the house. There was a garden, flowers on the windowsill, just like any of the quaint little houses in a quaint little village, but this one was housed the family that had, with their good intentions, incidentally unleashed Fenrir Greyback onto the world and into the hands of the Death Eaters.

Finally he got out a bit of parchment, a pencil, and picked up a rock from the walk. Give it up, bleeding-hearts, you haven't got a chance, he scribbled, charmed the parchment to the rock, and chucked it at the window. The minute it shattered the kitchen window, he began to walk again at a brisk pace as though he'd seen nothing.

Another item on the growing list of disturbing things about his life - it only grew easier each day to walk away from the scene of a crime and consider himself innocent.

"Elliot! I didn't know you had that in you."

The Curentons' house was still in sight, but he stopped, stunned and frightened out of his mind, until the young woman caught up to him with her skipping gait and laughed aloud. He could already feel her mocking gaze on him; he knew that laugh.

He turned to look and - the face was right, almost, but her eyes were too dark and her hair was mousy, curly. Her nose was all wrong, her hair wasn't the bundle of unwashed, straw-coloured hair, and most importantly, the pale, bright eyes of Alecto Carrow weren't staring him into submission. But that smile, that curiously wicked look like Anna's old tomcat set on its prey, that was her.

"You - you're here?" he asked, lost for words.

"Of course I'm here!" Alecto flashed him a smile and began to walk again, gesturing for him to follow. "It's good to see you again, it's been ages, hasn't it? Expect you've been in contact with our mates, though. We have such great plans in store."

"Yes, yes, of course," he answered her, following. He had no other option. Fenrir Greyback was the most terrifying person he'd ever met, but Alecto Carrow was a close second, her brother an even closer third. "I'm just on my way to the Den. I'm surprised to see you here."

She gave him an affectionate slap on the shoulder. "I'm doing a bit of research. Learning what I can from and about the Curentons, and what they do, who they know, who's visiting the Den - oh, let me come with you, I'm on my way there myself, obviously."

Long walks in Wales with Death Eaters. His life was so absurd at times. "Really," he said, to say something.

"Really! You know, the Curentons are fearless," she said, thoughtful, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "Even though they're as vulnerable, if not more, after all they've been through, they still fight the good fight without a fearful thought that things could get worse. Or maybe they just don't care! Wouldn't be a surprise. Remarkable," she concluded, with a fine imitation of admiration.

What worse could be done, he wondered, and to what end? Hadn't they played their part in the Death Eaters' story? "They are remarkable people," he said, neutral.

"I'm so glad we agree. Don't we?" She turned to him, her expression critical.

Pittiman nodded without hesitation. "Of course. Complete agreement."

Alecto tapped her chin thoughtfully. "So if I ask for a bit of help," she supposed, "you'll chip in? We have a new friend, you see, someone who could bring unwelcome attention, and it's just the sort of thing you'd be able to help us with."

Oh. He sighed, and went on quickly as she eyed him again. "I'll - I'll come up as soon as I can, no problem at all."

She smirked, then laughed, and he felt like the mouse being batted back and forth, because supper hadn't managed to piss his pants yet. "Not that your enthusiasm isn't appreciated," she said, "but just wait for the post. Spend the weekend with your wife and kids - Tim's growing into a very clever boy, I think, don't you?"

And there he was in their little game of cat and mouse, pinned to the ground, unable to breathe. "You, ah - you stopped by? I must have missed you."

"Mmhmm." Alecto strode ahead. "Oh, and your Charlotte's pretty, too, isn't she? And little Anna, practically a duplicate, just as lovely. You're a lucky man. I haven't got anything like that to go home to at the end of the day. I'd do anything to keep something precious like that together, personally."

Pittiman couldn't believe how stupid he was to relax in the first place, because now his terror was back in full force. He half-jogged to catch up to her, in hopes of stopping this train of thought. "I'm doing everything I can," he said. "Everything and anything."

"Good on you. You're a good man," she complimented with a bright smile and a flick at his nose. The Den was in sight - still a good distance away, but she stopped him and pointed at it. "Look at that. It's just a regular old house, rickety and falling apart, nothing special. Ready to be torn down, nearly, but the Curentons... well, they've made it something special. Something worth notice." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Remarkable," she repeated.

"Remarkable," he echoed, weakly, and looked at the house. He had never really noticed how old and weak it was, as old and weak as the Curentons' cause itself.

"Well, I'll see you about, I'm sure. Soon, if we're lucky! Keep up the good work." Alecto kissed him on the cheek and abruptly Disapparated.

Pittiman released the breath he'd been holding and tried to shake off the nausea that had threatened to rise since he'd first heard her voice and her vicious little laugh. He sank to his knees and drew in slow breath after slow breath until the terror subsided to the point where he could stand, and resume the devil's work. His mother's trite sayings had some truth after all - idle hands, it seemed, really were free to be seized as the devil's playground.

~*~

Damocles Belby considered himself a smart man. He was a Ravenclaw by house, which marked him as intelligent. He was a Healer with a specialty in creature-induced injuries and a leading Potions researcher. There were a lot of things he knew for certain, and could understand, but one he was sure he never would was what possessed certain parents to let their children play with certain magical creatures.

"Doxy bites," he said, squeezing the small bite marks on the boy's arms. The boy whimpered slightly and moved to scratch them, but Damocles caught his hand and put it back in his lap with a stern look. "No scratching," he told him, and turned to the boy's mother. "We'll give him the antidote and keep him overnight to make sure it's not worse, although he should be fine."

"Thank you," she said, giving him a tired, thankful smile. "We have a little doxy problem in a shed in our backyard, I've told him time and time again he's not allowed back there." Her tone became sterner as she glanced to her son, who looked appropriately contrite.

"It happens, the important thing is that you brought him as soon as you found them," Damocles replied, trying not to seem amused as well. "The trainee Healer will get him set up with the antidote and get you the paperwork necessary for checking in overnight."

The mother repeated her thanks as he left the room, and he handed the file off to Shelly, one of two Trainee Healers currently on the floor. "Treat him for doxy bites and check him in for overnight observation."

Shelly inhaled sharply through her teeth in sympathy. "Poor kid, those things hurt like the dickens."

"Perhaps the parents will now do something about what is apparently a doxy infestation in their backyard," he answered dryly.

Shelly spoke up as he went for the door. "There's a man in your office."

Interesting. Damocles stopped in his tracks and turned back around to look at her. "A man in my office," he prompted.

"Yes, very peculiar, and he wouldn't leave, either," she added, obviously perturbed by this.

"Thanks, I'll take care of it," he said, turning back around and continuing to his office. He already knew who was waiting there, and as he pushed the door to his office open, he found that he was right. Owen Curenton was sitting in the chair behind the desk, leaned back with his feet propped up on the desk itself, reading Herbology Quarterly as if the office were his. "What did I tell you about waiting in my office and scaring the Trainee Healers?" he asked with one eyebrow quirked.

Owen pretended to think about it for a second, putting the journal down. "Don't use my celebrity and fame to gain entrance and win friends among the staff?" he tried facetiously.

"Right, but the words I used were 'if you must, simply say you're waiting for me'," Damocles said. "Can I have my chair?"

"Fine, you sit, I'll pace," Owen conceded, putting his feet down and hopping up from the chair with surprising agility.

"Wear a hole in my floor and I'm going to let you fall right through," Damocles deadpanned as he slid through the narrow space between Owen and the desk to dive into his chair.

"It's a nice chair. I'd figure that the Head of a floor would have a bigger office, though," he said, looking through the makeshift shelves that held some rather rare and legally controlled potions ingredients.

"He does. Two doors down," Damocles replied dryly, and made himself comfortable in the chair all the same.

"Mm," Owen murmured. "So much for being rewarded for one's hard work, eh?"

"You tell me, you're the Hufflepuff." He reached for the post that was neatly stacked on the corner of his desk, and pushed down the twinge of guilt at the reminder of the offer that had been extended to him. A major potions project, exactly what he'd always wanted.

"If everyone worked hard, there'd be nothing remarkable about workaholics," he said, picking up a vial, reading the label, and putting it back down. "Brighid insists you come for dinner and insisted I carry the message."

Damocles took a parchment out of the top drawer of the desk, and held it up. "Oh, believe me, I got it. Brighid writes with a fervor that..." He regarded the letter and Brighid's quick, tidy script contemplatively. "Well. Frankly, it rivals your own. But hers is easier to read."

"Amazing, isn't it? I think she might actually write faster than I do," Owen said with a lopsided grin.

"How is everyone?" he asked very quickly after a pause of considerable length. After the events of two winters past, it was such a loaded question with any number of not exactly pleasant responses, but he wouldn't know anything if he didn't ask. The Curentons had always been self-contained, and having its youngest member ripped away from them had done nothing but encourage that.

Owen had to consider the question just as carefully. It still felt like a half-truth to give the generic answer of "fine", and he was nothing if not truthful. "We're all... all right," he conceded slowly. Satisfied with that answer, Damocles tore open a memo and he continued. "Brighid is the same as always, and Jeremy's back to teenaged angst compounded by condition and the fact that we keep him at home. I can't really blame him, but things are... well, they are what they are," he concluded. "He'll probably go back to sneaking out as a standby now, his girlfriend's gone back to school. Less to do, and all."

"Wait, a girlfriend?" Damocles interjected, eyes flickering up from the parchment. "Why am I not informed of these things?"

"I wouldn't start writing a toast," was the droll reply. "They're seventeen." With a whole mess of laws in their way if that's what they eventually decide they want.

"Weren't we all, once," he sighed wistfully, leaning onto his desk. "Do you see much of her? What's she like?"

"Jeremy's fairly vigilant about keeping us separate," he said, admittedly amused by the conversation. He took a comfortable seat in a chair on the other side of the desk meant for a visitor. "I have met her, though. She's a lovely girl. Beats him at football, that sort of thing."

"That being what you look for in a girlfriend these days."

"Right," he said. "She's been a very good friend to Jeremy, besides. That's most important." He paused. "She always seems... I'm not sure. I guess... what really counts is that Jeremy depends on her to a certain degree. And he can and should, I think."

"Right," Damocles said. He made a decision in that moment and began, "I've been offered the opportunity to head a potions research team. Full funding by the Ministry, chance to choose my own team, the whole deal."

There was more to this, Damocles was gauging his reaction, and there was an unspoken question that Owen didn't quite trust. "Congratulations," he said, at least able to give his oldest friend that much. "What of it?"

"They're looking to fund a potion that will... essentially allow a werewolf to keep their human mind while transformed," he said. "I'm not sure how it's going to work yet, but... well, that's what I get to figure out."

"They won't like it, whatever it is," he said. He didn't like it either. It reeked of bureaucracy.

He shouldn't have been surprised, because he wouldn't have expected any lesser reaction from Owen, but Damocles found himself somehow unprepared to answer for any of this to his friend. "If they're allowed to keep their mind - "

"They have a mind, Damocles, transformation is not a matter of losing it or not at the full moon, it's - did you actually read the book?"

"Yes, I know, and I did."

Owen stood and as he'd predicted earlier, began to pace slowly, running one hand over his hair. "I don't understand why you're telling me." There was no question anymore, just telling and to mention it was one thing, but this was another. It felt like another. "What, do you want to make me party to this?"

"Well, no. I was only - for all your knowledge, perhaps the most of anyone living in Britain now, don't you think you have some kind of societal obligation to share it for the greater good?" he asked.

"Where is this project coming from? Who suggested it?" Owen asked without bothering to answer Damocles's question.

"Twiddle came and presented it to me," he said.

"That explains it. Twiddle wouldn't know ethical if it walked up to him and spat on his robes." Owen gave a derisive chortle. "He's a bureaucrat of the worst sort, lax at best and completely apathetic at worst, sitting around waiting to retire, he..." He cut himself off with a small noise of disgust. "I don't like it," he concluded, deciding that he would never stop if he continued in the vein of Maldwyn Twiddle.

Damocles leaned back in his chair again. "I don't think there's any... sinister intent here. They don't want to drug them, they want to prevent another tragedy, like what - well, Fenrir Greyback still on the run and everything..."

"Fenrir Greyback is the exception, not the rule. I don't understand what is so difficult to understand about that." Owen was clearly agitated now. "But I get it. If they can't hold up Fenrir to the citizens, then they have to have something to show. Politics."

"I guess I'm having some trouble understanding why you think this is a bad thing," Damocles confessed after a short pause. "Terrible things like this, they're... they're preventable. What about Jeremy? If I never had to Heal him after he tries to run through a wall again, it'd be too soon. And Erin was - "

He instantly regretted the words leaving his mouth, each and every last one of them, when Owen turned around and he saw the look on his face. "No, stop. If you want to do this because it's a big chance for you and your potions passion, then do it, but do not put my daughter's name with this project. She doesn't deserve to be made a martyr for something that she didn't understand or have anything to do with. My family's had all it can take." He sank back down into the chair, unwilling - for once - to go on standing.

There was something about looking at Owen at that moment that made Damocles want to look away, and so he did. Right at a stack of files on the edge of the desk. "I shouldn't have even mentioned her. That was terrible of me. I won't again," he promised.

"My children were punished because I couldn't keep my mouth shut," he replied, staring at the knees of his trousers. "It was... horrifically systematic. Revenge, really."

"But you're still talking," Damocles said. "That's something."

"Something," he echoed. He was uncharacteristically quiet for a long moment. "Jeremy's actually doing much better. I think he's starting to figure it out."

"I'd figured," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "I mean. That's a good thing, it is."

Owen nodded, tapping his finger on the arm of the chair. "You're not going to have a hard time getting support for this, you know. At first there will be some who say 'That's all?' but they will eventually acclimate to the idea that it's what they can get, so they'll take it. Some will be impatient for a result, even. But you're going to have a lot of support for this project. And you're not going to get a say in how it gets used. Maybe if you did it by yourself, but with their backing and with their money..."

"I'd thought about that," he said with a slow nod. Thought about it a lot, really. "What about you?"

Owen considered it for a long moment. "I'm probably going to have to fight against this once there's something to fight against, and take a licking for it. Nothing personal."

Damocles gave a dry smile. "I figured you'd have to."

~*~

Things outside of school were turning out to be a bit more disappointing than Remus anticipated. He wasn't sure that he would have found that possible, but it most definitely was. There had been a job, of course -- at a bookshop in the wizarding quarter of Cardiff, a small but a fascinating one that specialized in difficult to find texts. It was only a matter of time, of course, before they found out; when they did, it was taken care of quietly. The owner had been disgustingly nice about "letting him go" and even offered to not say a word. Remus found it hard to accept that with a light smile, but he had done it.

That, combined with thoughts that had been tumbling through his head since last July, ended with Remus wandering the Welsh countryside semi-aimlessly. He found that the wolf knew known its own, almost a sixth sense for him. The pack house, in the end, was not all that difficult to find. It was away from town, it looked like someplace that one could expect to find a pack living under the radar, and it just felt right.

For awhile he stood back, trying to get up the resolve to knock or... something, that was the thing to do, wasn't it? He stared at the door, until he became aware that he was being watched. When he looked, he saw a pair of eyes watching him through grimy window panes - a child who barely looked to be primary school age. They backed away (boy or girl, it was impossible to tell through the window) when Remus tried to give them a friendly smile, and he decided that it was now or never. He knocked, with a confidence that he didn't completely feel.

The knock startled Fenrir out of a quiet moment with Laurel, but since Alecto had left, they were common enough, so he sent her off. Visitors rarely brought good news, always complicated things, but he could hardly another Ministry official seeing and seizing him at the door of his own pack's house.

Laurel opened the door and stared Remus down, the wolf at the forefront of her gaze. "Who are you?" she asked, making it nearly into a challenge. Oh, she thought she could recognise him, sense his wolf, but she wasn't sure in the least. "What are you doing here?"

"I - " Remus was not sure about this at all. He tried to let the wolf have a little more control, but it didn't seem sure of what to do when it did have that power. That made two of them, at least. "Is this the house of Fenrir Greyback's pack?"

Laurel's initial reaction was panic, and forgetting the flashes of a sense of a wolf in him, she seized him by the robes. "Wizard, you should leave right now." She shoved him back and stared him down with a look that dared him to ask again. "You never saw this house and you never saw me."

Backpedaling to keep his balance, he very nearly did so. There was a part of his mind that insisted it was good advise. If nothing else, he now had an answer. "No, I'm..." He was named, had a name -- that meant something here. "I'm Remus, he knows me."

Laurel withdrew and stalked back inside after sending Remus a final hateful look. "Fenrir," she said in her most acidic tone, "Fenrir, your first son is here!"

Fenrir didn't even have to be told, as he knew the moment that Remus's wolf made itself known. Finally his first son had returned to the pack -- finally, finally. "Remus," he said, arriving at the door with a grin that was surprisingly genuine. "My son, you've returned."

Remus felt lightheaded, again. It was the same feeling he'd had when Fenrir had showed up at his parents' home, but not nearly as jarring. Of course it wasn't, the wolf was behaving itself despite being excited. He didn't feel ready to be physically ill. Nervous, but not nauseous. "Well, I'm here, anyway."

"As you should be. Come in." Fenrir spoke and gestured genially, the proud father displaying his life's work. "We're mostly settled now -- Wesley is with the children or I'd have him show you around -- I could show you myself. This is temporary," he added. "We've been caught once by the Ministry but that was easily solved."

Remus certainly remembered well enough -- of course, with a scene further down the breakfast table that was hardly to be believed, it had truly stuck in his brain. "Of course," he stammered out and stepped into the house, looking around to take everything in at the wolf's behest.

"If you need anything, feel free to tell the bastards." Fenrir gestured nonchalantly to the room they passed, where a group of eight or nine werewolves talked in low voices amongst themselves. "They're not good for much else than fetching. Laurel!" he snapped.

She ran without hesitation to his side, not giving the boy beside him a second glance. "Yes, Fenrir," she said, poorly masking her desperation. "What would you -- "

He gained an unpleasant sort of smile and shut her up with a hand to her mouth. "Show Remus around. Show him his room, you know the one. Be sparing with the witch's comfort items, we must show him how Pack life truly is." He yanked her towards Remus by the wrist.

Laurel stared at him and did not smile or greet in any deferential way. "Whatever you want, Fenrir," she said with a small glance to him, then spoke specifically to Remus. "Listen to me carefully, boy, because pack life is not the easy life you may be used to. Follow me."

Fenrir stopped her by seizing her shoulder hard enough to make her wince, his fingernails deep into her skin. "Laurel," and his voice was the calm anger before the storm. "Remember your status."

"I remember my status, I remember serving you loyally since the moment I met you, Fenrir," Laurel snapped off. "Since the moment you woke me and told me to call you Father I've served you more loyally than any of your named wolves -- "

Fenrir shoved her towards Remus. "Feel free to remind her of your status in any way you want, you have every right in this house, Remus," he said amicably, and left without another look at Laurel.

Remus avoided glancing back at Laurel as long as possible. There was no mistake that he was not one of her favourite people, all for the status that he held. "I did not come here to -= that is, I don't want..." It was pretty clear, however, that it didn't matter what he had intended.

Laurel wiped her nose with her sleeve and gave the stupid boy, the typical wizard, a steely look. "Remus," she said, with forced cordiality at being humbled. "A good name, fits a prince like you. Come along, I have to show you the pack's house."

Explanations were going to be wasted here, he saw. He glanced quickly into the front room that Fenrir had indicated as containing 'bastards'. They didn't pay him any sort of attention, and the wolf felt no sort of kinship with them -- recognised them as wolves, but more inclined to ignore them. That was a first, he reflected dryly, and followed Laurel.

"How much did the wizards teach you, Remus?" She seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in spitting out his name. She gestured into the room where a large group of children shouted, played, and scribbled on parchment. "The children are kept here, as you can see," she chose to actually mention, clearly not relishing her job as tour guide.

"About pack? Not a lot," he replied. Which was to say, hardly anything. He spent more time examining the children in their room than he did with the last room, anything to keep his mind away from reminder of what had been done years ago, for whatever reason. They were still being children, and that was a bit refreshing.

Her expression said Of course so she didn't have to. "These children are all named. When your wolf is named, you gain status. If it isn't, you're a bastard. Unless you are a very skilled bastard, you're not much more than a servant. You're named, even though you know nothing, you're above any of the bastards here who have served this pack for years. And if Fenrir were to die, you would rule us all."

He wasn't quite sure that he liked that. In fact, the idea was not enamouring at all. "I see," he said neutrally. A perfectly good reason for her to resent him, then.

"I wouldn't worry about that. Fenrir won't die anytime soon, he's under fine protection," she sneered. She tucked her light hair behind her ears and impatiently gestured for him to follow her. "These first few nights will be hard for you after years of living like a wizard. Weak little things that they are."

If she wanted a rise, she was going to keep working for it, he resolved. He didn't come here to make waves, but that seemed unavoidable wherever he went. It just showed that no matter how far you ran from the world, there was something in front of you. He ignored her remarks and slid his hands in his trouser pockets, following her as she had indicated.

Laurel had no intention of stopping her jeers there. "We eat here." She jabbed her thumb into the room. "Usually meat, the wolf prefers it, but we can cook it if your stomach can't handle it. The children begin that way. Wesley is with the children, you'll meet him soon; he's named and is second to you. Careful with him, he took a piece out of me once." She tugged at her sleeve and revealed a nasty scar on her forearm. She grimaced at him and glanced up the stairs. "You'll be sleeping upstairs. It's reserved for you."

So this Wesley would undoubtedly be no friend, either. A fighter, he could see, if the scar on Laurel's arm was any kind of indication. "I see. Erm, thank you." As soon as it came out of his mouth he realized how condescending it sounded, but there was no calling it back.

Laurel shook her head in disgust and began the trek up the stairs. "We're not done yet. More warnings to give you if you want to survive. I don't care if you survive, but my Father does and that's all that matters." She glanced back at him as he followed with a faintly pained expression. "These are the full moon rooms on the left, on the right there is... Fenrir's and the witch's room, Wesley's, and yours."

He nodded, until he picked up on an item in the list that didn't seem to fit. "There's a witch here?" he asked, feigning disinterest.

Her expression hardened at the mere mention of the witch. "Was. She's gone for a while. I wonder if you know her? You Hogwarts students all seem to be very close."

"Perhaps. The school isn't so large that one would go without hearing about someone." He couldn't imagine that a witch would be any more welcome here than he had been.

She walked slowly to the door to Remus's room, waiting for him to follow before she shoved him against the wall and gripped her hand around his neck. "You will not betray Fenrir. You will not betray this pack. He's..." Her voice wavered for a moment and then she went on in a furious whisper, "You're already a waste, but I will kill you myself if I find you're a traitor."

She was very strong. The back of his head throbbed not only from hitting the wall, but the wolf was seething at this show of violence. Defend yourself, defend us, it demanded to Remus, although it seemed as though there were no point, pinned as he was. "I understand," he said evenly.

"I don't trust you," she reiterated. "I don't trust trained, tamed werewolves from little wizarding towns who think that pack is a bloody joke. You commit to this, you leave now, or you die."

"I didn't come here looking to be trusted," he returned. He hadn't come looking for anything at all. This was the very definition of being in over one's head.

She released him fractionally. "... you don't mean to be trusted here?"

Was it such a foreign concept? Maybe it was to her. "My reasons for coming here are not anyone's business but my own," he said, a note of imperium in his voice. This could come in handy.

Laurel couldn't help but be startled at a werewolf declaring his lack of loyalty. "Your business is pack business, and it always will be. You realise that?" And now the fear crept in, with that note of dominance in his voice. She felt herself pale. He didn't seem to be powerful, but Fenrir had given him full license, and at least Fenrir had some affection for her. Remus had no reason to, surely.

"I wouldn't bring anything down on this pack." The honest fact was that he was nothing out there, or not much, and he had no idea what he was doing here, either. "I have no hidden agenda, if that's what you're afraid of."

"Just... serve the pack. It's what our Father asks of you." She took a step back, head bowed, hands tucked demurely behind her back. "Your room is to your left, there are comforts there that the witch brought. If you need anything, ask me or Wesley; don't trouble Fenrir unless you must."

"I will," he said, merely relieved that her hands weren't around his neck anymore. Bothering Fenrir was honestly the furthest thing from his mind.

She nodded, head still lowered deferentially, and left before his mood could change. No chance in risking it, not with a werewolf with a wand.

Remus was left in the corridor, with little more to do than enter the room that was his. He twisted the knob and opened it, thinking over the curiosity of the witch in the pack. It was something to focus on in the midst of the absurdity he'd gotten himself into, anyway.

~*~

September 1978

It was a good day for September, with a rare amount of sun. Jeremy Curenton found himself curled up in the window seat in the loud, occupied frontroom of the Den with a quill, ink, and some parchment, unable to decide if he was writing the Next Great Activist Book, a brilliant letter to the Daily Prophet, or a much less ambitious letter to his girlfriend at Hogwarts. He bit at the end of the quill and contemplated his aims.

The weeks since Julia went back to school for her seventh year had been decent, and he was doing well with his studies, including details on the history of werewolf treatment by the Ministry he'd badgered out of his father. He had a free out from Hogwarts, though, good or bad, and it was a good September day. Why do the extra work, at least on a day like this, when the wolf was quiet?

He leaned his head back and dropped the ink gently to the floor. Relaxation and contentment for once was nice. So things would probably get worse, and quick. So what? It wasn't bad now.

It was said that the best laid plans of mice and men often went astray, and mice and most men didn't have Alecto Carrow working with them. Briony had been quite careful to not say anything that could possibly contradict whatever story the witch had been concocting for the Curentons and whoever else was listening, but it was difficult -- especially when Briony had seen so little of her.

So Briony stayed where she was. She spent her full moon nights in rooms with other werewolves whose control was lacking severely, even non-existent, and her days keeping herself occupied. At the Den it was somewhat easier than she thought it would be, although she usually was satisfied to keep silent and on the side. She spent some time with Jeremy -- there weren't very many children or teenagers at the Den, but getting him alone had been a challenge. Until recently, he spent a great deal of time with his girlfriend -- another witch, strangely. It seemed like witches were bound to confound this plan in one way or another. The moment was coming closer, but she was still waiting for it.

She tried not to smirk when she saw him resting in the window seat, but was unable to keep from being amused. "Hi?" she tried, leaning on the wall.

He sat up, a little drowsier than he realised, and sent her a smile. "Hi. What, decided to stop lurking?" he teased.

"Something like that," she said, nudging his feet aside and taking a seat. "What're you working on?" she asked, noticing the parchment and abandoned ink on the floor.

"No idea yet," he admitted, looking at her instead of out of the window at the nice day outside. "A letter to Julia, a letter to The Daily Prophet, something. Today's just one of those days that's full of potential, d'you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," she said. "I guess I know what you mean." She checked out the window to see if there was any sign of Alecto nearby.

"It's September and the sun's actually out. This is the kind of day you... you go out and win football matches, or see a history-making Quidditch match, or -- the sort of day it must have been when Caesar was assassinated by the Senate, or something," Jeremy went on with a vague gesture. "There's something in the air. So, I think I should write. I'm really only good at writing, never did get the hang of practical magic while I was at Hogwarts."

He babbled, Briony had found. She almost hated to take him back to Fenrir, but that was her job. "Never went," she said. "I was bit young."

He had honestly figured as much, but it was good to hear her say it. "Well. I'd say too bad, but it's almost worse to go and then get pulled. You're better off. Besides, there's not much there that you can't learn out here, and faster, with fewer distractions, at that. I'd put even money that Julia would stay out if her parents would let her."

"Well, what won't you put money on," she said dryly. It had never occurred to her that a witch or wizard who went to Hogwarts might not want to be there, but she supposed it made sense. People did things they didn't want to do all the time.

"There is nothing I won't place bets on. No, wait -- competitive eating, how many sweets can you eat in one minute, that kind of thing. That's just beneath me," Jeremy said, grinning. "It's fun, though. Quidditch is the best. You ever seen a match?"

She'd been deemed too young for her father -- her wizarding father -- to take to a match, no matter how she'd begged and begged. And then she'd been bitten, and large crowds of wizards and witches no longer suited her. "No," she answered simply.

"It's worth it. It takes some effort to keep control, you know how it is, but you've been dealing with this a long time, so you're probably better than I am." Only recently had Jeremy started to find the secret to keeping an even relationship with the wolf, what was accurately called 'control' -- compromise.

"You're not that bad," she admitted to him. She'd seen worse, and he hadn't been making the effort nearly as long as some. Even since she'd arrived, she could tell the difference. She'd also been keeping hers more tightly controlled than if she'd been at home. She allowed her wolf to playfully seek out his.

The touch of their wolves startled him, but his wolf was fine with it, even pleased, and it took him a moment to remember what he was going to say. "Thanks," he said. "Yeah. After a while, it's... necessary. You know, so you don't end up trying to plow through a wall during the full moon." He paused. "It's hard to learn this by yourself."

"I understand," she said immediately. His wolf was jumpy and not used to direct contact with other wolves. There was always an awareness, but touching wolf to wolf was an acknowledgement. "I... when I was little, before I learned -- before I was taught. I know the feeling," she concluded.

Two months Briony had been there, and he'd learned more from her, taciturn and shrewd as she seemed, than half of the werewolves that had ever passed through the Den. He could trust her. "I meant to ask something," he started.

She glanced up at him, but when he did not continue, prompted him with, "Okay."

"Named and unnamed." He looked out the window. "I don't understand the difference. I feel I understand a lot -- but I'll never understand that. I'll never understand pack. It's just -- " he let the wolf, which always grasped for contact no matter what the situation, touch to hers, gently. "That's all I've got."

Briony hesitated. She didn't quite know how to describe it and struggled for her words. "I..." she started. "Wolves recognise each other, you know, and being named is... that. All the time, you can tell when they're - happy, or scared, or hurt." She felt his wolf reaching, grasping at the edges of her consciousness. She reached for his hand and held it firmly. The physical contact made connecting with him easier. I'm sorry it's not easier to explain.

The double contact gave him another start, and Jeremy took in a sharp breath, too sharp, and exhaled. "Like family," he said. "Like they just know each other?" He let the wolf interact with hers, and even guided it, starting to understand. "No wonder unnameds are on the outskirts. It sounds... you're lucky to have had that. To have pack."

She suddenly missed Conor very badly, she'd never gone this long without seeing him since she knew him. And Geoffrey too, and Ralph, Tobias, and the others. She swallowed hard, startled by her own wolf's reaction, not expecting it to be so strong. "Yes," she said, and took a breath. "Yes, I am."

He looked at his shoes, then, hating to presume, but he was crossing all sorts of lines with her today. "Do you miss them?" he asked. "Your pack."

"Um." She gave a small laugh; there wasn't anything particularly funny about the situation, but it seemed like the thing to do. She'd been pushing thoughts of them away all this time. "I - yes. Very much," she answered truthfully.

How had he managed to make things this awkward? "I'm prying, I'll stop," he swore. "Only I've got you talking, I feel like it's my obligation to keep you going."

Briony shook her head. "No, you're not, I swear, it's just - " She exhaled steadily and looked at him, with the sudden realisation that she was not going to have this kind of chance again. There was no sign of Alecto, but if she waited for the witch it may never happen and she had him interested. It was now or never. "We could go to them, me and you. It was... it was just Alec - you know, her that made them uncomfortable. They might like to meet you."

The offer left Jeremy speechless, while his wolf remained simplistically playful with Briony, until he finally realised and swallowed before he spoke. "If it's not too far, I can sneak out for a bit," he said casually. "No harm in a bit of a trip. If you don't mind. You miss them, I might as well escort you - and no danger when you've got a wand, right?"

"I'll take your word for it," she said with a rare, genuine smile. "It's - not too far, I promise. I think."

"Well - okay." The idea was too tempting not to really follow through on. To see a real pack... to see if maybe he could understand more than his father could, more than anyone really had before. "Are you sure it won't be a problem?"

"Okay," she said, and jumped up from the window seat. She moved too fast and had to stop because Jeremy's hand was still firmly clasped in her own. They had to go, now, before something inevitably screwed it up.

Jeremy smiled at her eagerness and stood. "Let's go." He found himself in rare unison with the wolf as they left. He'd read that portion of his father's book countless times, on the feeling of pack, knowing he would never feel it. Even something close to that, observing and feeling like part of it, would be more than enough.

Briony was completely satisfied as they left the house and strode across the lawn, hand in hand. In no time at all they'd be back at Fenrir's pack house. He would have Jeremy, and she would be back with Conor and they could start looking after their pack again.

Brighid Curenton could not believe that her husband had managed to forget his lunch, despite her having the sense this time to charm the bag to the door. With her owl already occupied taking a letter to her sister, she was forced to trek up to the Den, in a huff. On her way, though, she saw Jeremy leaving the Den, heading in a strange direction with a strange girl. "Jeremy?" she called, her voice rising with anxiety. Hopefully the worst thing her son would experience today was a lecture on not two-timing his girlfriend. "Jeremy! Come back here."

Briony looked up at Jeremy's name being called, and at the woman who called it. No, no interruptions, not now. She pulled him more urgently, walked faster, beginning to panic.

The sound of his mother's voice snapped him out of the excitement that the wolf dragged him into. "Briony," he said, half-questioning, half-pleading, and started to slow.

"We have to go," she whispered, now terrified of being caught, of failing. She was beginning to regret her hasty actions, when she could have offered and waited for later when she knew they couldn't be caught.

"That's just my mum, it's not a big deal," he promised her, his wolf anxiously pressing him on. Go with her, do it, go now.

She forced herself to breathe slower. This could still work out. But the desire to be back with her pack was overwhelming everything else now. "Then... we can't..." Think, Bri, think she told herself angrily.

"We can't?" Jeremy repeated, a bit numbly.

"Jeremy!" Brighid called, her panic clear. "Just - wait for a moment, all right?"

"I'll be back, Mum," he shouted back, the wolf's desire for pack overwhelming even his common sense, and he kept on walking, his hand still gripping Briony's. The wolf didn't like his mother much, as she was largely responsible for penning him in. He managed a few feet before a spell slammed directly into the side of his head, blood blooming at the point it struck home. He hit the ground a dazed moment later, unconscious.

A still-disguised Alecto appeared beside Briony an instant later with the whipcrack of Apparation, seized her arm roughly, and Side-Along Apparated the useless werewolf who'd buggered it all up as far as she could think of. Fenrir was going to be furious, nearly as furious as she was.

It was perhaps a matter of five seconds or less between when Briony and Jeremy had been walking away from the Den and when she landed on her back in front of Fenrir's pack house. Her face flushed red. No. "What the bloody hell was that?" she demanded as she clumsily pushed herself off the grass and back onto her feet.

"That was you failing," Alecto snapped, running her fingers frantically through her awful tinted hair. "That was you showing how worthless you and your pack are to Fenrir's cause, be prepared to bow, little girl, because otherwise you'll really suffer for your failure to complete one little task."

"I had things under control!" she screamed back. "We're not worthless, I was doing my job, I had him! He was coming with me willingly!"

Alecto seized Briony by the front of her shirt and hissed, "You didn't have him. If I hadn't stepped in, you'd be caught now without any hope of escape, you stupid girl. You would've fallen right into their hands, and you'd suffer a worse fate at the hands of the Ministry!"

"He wouldn't have given me up, let go," she cried, and lashed out with one hand at Alecto. She didn't draw any blood, but there were three very satisfying red marks on her cheek.

Alecto reacted with a vicious shove that pushed her to the ground and gave her the time to stalk into the house. "Fenrir, come now, you have a failure to execute!" The Pack house, at first silent, began to fill with the sound of mumbling discontent until Fenrir thundered down the stairs himself to find his long-lost witch sweeping out of the door.

"Alecto -- "

"Here is your Conor's precious first," Alecto interrupted with a sarcastic flourish to the girl. "His useless, thoughtless, spineless first..."

Briony hit the ground and recovered quickly, struggling to pick herself up. "I had him! If you think I'm worthless, why don't you ask her what the hell she was doing all the time."

"Oh, let's see," Alecto said nastily. "Nothing important, really, I was just getting information on where other packs were, how they fared, the current events - oh, and tearing a hole into the Curentons' wards, so we could snatch him out of his bed, so his parents couldn't interfere! You were too busy cosying up - "

"Shut up," she snapped in return. "We didn't have to make this into a scene by going into their house, I had him coming willingly. It would have been hours before they missed him."

"Apparently not, you'd already been noticed," Alecto retorted.

"Enough, both of you," Fenrir snapped, any favouritism towards Alecto overwhelmed by his own anger at the bickering. This wasn't at all the time. "Now tell me what happened there, the truth, one of you. And keep from blaming each other!"

Briony took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully, but now frightened. "I've been at the Den, and I got to know him - we... it doesn't matter. He trusted me, and I was bringing him here. Two months, and I'd seen her I don't know, a dozen times?" she said, motioning at the witch with extreme frustration.

"I see how well it worked," Alecto said acidly, then turned to Fenrir. "I will admit she was doing well in convincing him along, with what questionable tactics I'm unsure, but then," she waved her finger at the girl, "then the boy's mother caught her sneaking him out. I knocked him unconscious, I brought us both here, she would have easily been caught and betrayed her purpose, you know that!"

She took his hand, sank to a knee, and looked up at him imploringly even as he stared down at her with scepticism. "I saved her and kept your people and your purpose safe, and that was what you sent me to do."

"I sent you there to get the boy." Fenrir pushed away her hands and took a step back, giving the two a cold glare. "Both of you were sent there to do that, you didn't, and you'll both be punished for it. I don't care whose fault it was. Briony, get inside of the house."

"Fenrir," Conor called from the steps. He knew Fenrir's punishments after many years of closeness between their packs, and that was nothing he wanted his first to experience. "Fenrir, this was a fool's errand, he's a bastard and you don't need him, just forget this -- "

"You had no problem sending these two to this fool's errand, but now that your little girl's going to be punished, you've changed your mind?" Fenrir brushed that off. "Stand aside and let me assert my rights, yes, brother?"

"I'm not yours." Briony spoke as evenly as she could through her thoroughly frayed nerves. Frightened, she pulled at her tie with Conor, unsure of what she was looking for but unwilling to go through this alone.

Fenrir approached her and slapped her across the face without a thought, and she cried out. "You both agreed to work for my cause, both of you, and failure demands punishment." He turned to see Conor furiously holding himself back, gripping the rail beside him. "Do you want to force this issue further, Conor?"

"This madness has gone far enough," Conor shouted. "This madness, witches and wizards and pledging your life to the wizards' Dark Lord, how many wizards have promised us freedom and refused to give it to us once we gave them power? You've gone absolutely mad, Fenrir, stop this -- "

"I think you're the mad one, Conor," Alecto spoke up from her spot on the ground, deferring to Fenrir. "Mad to challenge a man who has the strength of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at his fingertips the moment he reaches for it."

"Don't speak to him!" Briony yelled, and held the side of her face, blinking back tears.

"I think you're in no position to judge me, Briony," Alecto retorted, not even allowed the chance to reconsider her words before she received a similar chastising hit across the face.

"STOP," Fenrir shouted above them all, and glared at each in the silence. "Enough, I said. Briony, Alecto, get to your feet, Conor, out of my way. My house, my pack, my rules." He gestured the two subordinates ahead, watching Alecto hurry past him with the tell-tale shudder of oncoming tears.

Briony took a deep breath of her own and forced herself to walk into the house, one foot in front of the other with as much dignity as she could manage.

Conor forced himself to not stop her, to have no reaction, to let himself be powerless. This was almost an act of war by Fenrir himself, but other packs might not see it that way, even the ones who would be inclined to side against him. No, this was diplomacy, though diplomacy did not halt his rage when Fenrir passed him by without a glance.

"You first," Fenrir said to Briony while they still stood in the foyer, gesturing to Wesley to seize her. "Twenty," he decided, looking her over without much enthusiasm, and watched Wesley hit her with blow after calculated blow to cause the each bit of pain she had led the Pack to suffer with her failure.

Briony was determined to take it quietly, scenes were for children and she was not a child. Her stoicism worked for about the first four or five blows. Beyond that, she didn't bother to count and knew she had cried out. When it stopped she could hardly make herself believe it, staring at the floor in dumb shock on her hands and knees. She wasn't sure what was bleeding, but she could hear it drip to the floor rather than feel it, staining the worn floorboards.

Conor pulled a bleeding Briony into his arms without a second thought, like a father comforting his daughter, his expression stoic. "He'll pay," he whispered into Briony's ear, barely audible, his rough hand stroking her hair.

Alecto stared as the punishment went on, not so much surprised by the brutality itself but rather by the person inflicting it and the effectiveness. She had done a very good job of avoiding being on the wrong side of Wesley's fist since her arrival at the Greyback pack, but those days were over. As Fenrir began to examine her, she hoped for a ten, maybe a fifteen at worst, and tried to remind him with her expression that she was in his bed nearly every night.

"Twenty-five," Fenrir decided. Her look of utter surprise was almost comedic for as long as it lasted -- Wesley wasted no time in taking her off of her feet with a punch. She lost count of the blows, lay on the floor, and tried to remind herself that Cruciatus was so, so much worse.

Briony heard the number as clearly as she heard Conor whisper in her ear. Even though she felt that the witch had deserved it and more, she didn't think she could watch. Leaning on Conor heavily, she tenderly dabbed at her bleeding lip, and watched Wesley and the witch with a view mostly obscured by her hair. When she saw one of Wesley's calculated blows land, she flinched. Instead of watching, she pressed her face into Conor's chest, and concentrated on breathing.

"Twenty-five," Alecto whispered, glaring ahead at Briony's feet.

Fenrir looked on with the amusement of a ringleader, nudging a shivering Alecto onto her side with his toe before commenting down to his fellow pack leader. "Your weakness is showing, Conor," he noted with a smirk.

"Your need to control is showing, Fenrir," Conor said evenly, not making a single move to withdraw from comforting Briony. "Tending to your pack doesn't make you weak, it makes you effective -- "

"What would you do if I killed her?" Fenrir wondered. "Wesley can kill her. Back, Wesley," he ordered, as the werewolf locked his eyes on the girl again. "I could kill her. It's -- "

"A power trip," Conor said, closing his eyes and leaning to kiss the top of Briony's head. "If you kill my first, I declare war. You know that. If you kill my first, I kill your first and any who stand in my way."

Fenrir turned his back on the happy pair; he had his own first to tend to. "Find me if you want to talk about this later. If you don't, just let yourselves out," he called casually as he went upstairs, and knocked on Remus's door.

Conor pulled Briony to her feet and pressed a fatherly kiss to her cheek. "You're going home," he whispered to her, damn what any of the others heard. "I refuse to see you as a casualty of war."

~*~

Anyone who read The Daily Prophet knew that Greyback's pack was active, ready to snatch, kill, or intimidate anyone who got in their way, and the Curentons knew they were a target for a fact. Nevertheless, it was quiet in Pembrokeshire with little werewolf behaviour besides that of their own werewolves at the Den, and Brighid Curenton had been lulled in by the peace. Paranoid as she was, terrified as she was that her last child would be stolen from her, she let her guard down and now paid for her mistake - her son was lying on the ground, bleeding. She desperately held back tears of panic and ran into the Den as fast as she could, pushing open Owen's door so hard it slammed against the other side. "Owen. Owen, it's Jeremy. Come now. Now," she demanded, only aware she was shaking when she took a much-needed breath.

No more needed to be said to get him to drop the parchment in his hands, jump out of his chair, and leave his office. When he didn't see Jeremy where he last had, in the window seat, he turned to Brighid. "Where is he?" he asked her.

"Out... out front." A faintness at the memory of late December 1977 made her have to lean against the threshold as she spoke. "Edge of the hill, he..."

He gave Brighid's arm the briefest of squeezes and left the Den at a run, and finally, he saw Jeremy, unmoving on the ground. His heart jumped into his throat, a disgustingly familiar feeling for a disgustingly familiar sight. He slid to a stop beside Jeremy and saw where he was bleeding. "Jeremy," he said urgently. "Jeremy, it's dad. Can you hear me?"

"A witch or wizard was here, it was a spell or a hex or something, it was nonverbal, I don't know who could've - who would want to," Brighid got out as she approached her husband and knelt by her son. "I think he's unconscious, I hope there's nothing permanent... there was a girl!" She'd nearly forgotten entirely. "A girl, he was with a girl, they were walking this way, and I tried to stop them..."

"Definitely spellwork," he said, carefully pushing Jeremy's dark hair aside to look at the wound. "Just broke the skin and knocked him out, I should think." Just to make sure and quiet any leftover doubts about it, he felt for and found a pulse in his son's neck, strong and steady.

"Owen, there are wizards involved," she said quietly after a moment, touching her son's face. This was the only way things could get worse. "It's... there are wizards and werewolves and they're all coming after him."

He conjured a towel and pressed it to Jeremy's temple in hopes of stopping the bleeding. "Do you remember the girl? What she looked like, I mean," he said.

"Blonde, but she had a girl with her, a brunette, she Apparated," Brighid sighed, before her panic got to her and she felt faint again. "I... I can't take this again, Owen. I can't. Once was enough. More than enough."

Jeremy started to come to, but almost wished he hadn't. Things were going much better before he had. "Nn," he managed, swatting at whatever was on his forehead.

Owen didn't answer Brighid right then but exchanged a look to let her know that this conversation was not over, probably by a long shot. "Hey, hey," he said to Jeremy, gently catching his hand and putting it back at his side. "Hold on, you're still bleeding."

"Bleed... no." Jeremy pushed himself up, blinking heavily. He could vaguely recall what had happened before, but not anything with blood. "What -- where is she?" he asked after a long pause.

"Yes, bleeding," Owen said, his concern right now being that Jeremy would overexert himself. "Lie still."

"I'm going." He stubbornly reached to sit up, but found himself a little too light-headed to manage. "I am. Mum," he added with a resentful sigh.

Brighid's mouth formed a tight line of agitation. "Don't you Mum me, Jeremy, if I wasn't here to feed your father who knows where you could be right now! What are you thinking, running off with girls?"

A girl. A girl, who'd led him out of the Den, and now he was flat on his back bleeding from the head. The realisation struck Jeremy and he sat in shock, a hand going to his face. "Briony," he said, his voice shaky. "She - "

Briony, and Alex. A blonde and a brunette, a werewolf and a witch. It made all too much sense. Owen mentally kicked himself. "She's not here," he said.

"No," Jeremy said, insistent. "Don't look like that, Dad, she didn't - maybe the witch did but Briony wouldn't - "

Owen hesitated. They came together, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to think. "Lay still, Jeremy, you were just knocked out."

It hurt too much for Jeremy to focus on the betrayal. "I want to go home," he muttered. "Bollocks. Home," he repeated to his dad. "Who hit me?"

"I would guess the witch. Alex. Briony didn't have a wand, I didn't think. Pretty quick spellwork," he said, letting Jeremy take over the duties of pressing the towel to his head. "Come on, let's get you up."

Brighid helped with an uncharacteristically grim expression and pointed Owen's attention to the abandoned lunch bag. "I'll take him home, but you have to eat. I swear you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached."

Owen looked between Brighid and the lunch and quickly acquiesced rather than push the point. "All right. I should be home early, in any event. You," he pointed at Jeremy, "rest. Take it easy."

Jeremy just gave a weary nod, and Brighid leaned to give Owen a quick kiss. "Please, as soon as you can," she said, sliding Jeremy's arm around her shoulders. "We need you."

"Mum," Jeremy groaned, looking up at the implication that he needed to be babied. "Come on."

"You worry about him, that'll keep you plenty occupied for the rest of the day." Owen picked the lunch off of the ground and headed back into the Den as Brighid helped Jeremy down the hill. He paused long enough at the door to watch them make their way home, before heading back to work.

~*~

Going home took Briony a longer time than leaving had. Granted, when she and Conor had left their house for Fenrir's, she hadn't just had the beating of her life and was not running on little to no sleep. Walking in a straight line was a trial at times, but as long as it was in the opposite direction, she hardly cared.

She reached the house at dusk and stopped at the steps for a moment. The feeling of familiarity and home threatened to overwhelm her, leaving a ball of emotion in her throat and tears pricking at her eyelids. Finally giving in to the wolf's impatience (Go in, what are you waiting for?), she took a breath to compose herself and then lifted the latch to let herself inside.

Even before he heard someone at the door, Geoffrey knew that someone was there, no, that Briony was there. He left Melinda with a kiss and managed as dignified a run as he could to the door, reaching it just as it opened. "Briony," he said at the sight of her in a half-sigh of relief, before the beaten look of her or the ramifications of her returning alone even struck him.

Jane poked her head down the stairwell at the sound of the door opening, Geoffrey was already there with Briony. Alone. Who really looked like she'd just been through the wringer. Immediately worried, she jumped up and went down the stairs, taking them two at a time. "You're alone," she said, in lieu of a greeting.

"Yes," Briony replied, leaning against the door and feeling almost completely relieved. How to explain to them. She caught the eye of some of the other pack members, who watched her carefully through the doorway to their main room. "We need to talk, the three of us."

"Conor's room." Geoffrey briefly caught Briony's hand and squeezed it, an extra intimacy with the wolf already worriedly nudging at hers.

Jane turned right back around without a word and led them back up the stairs. Briony gratefully accepted his hand squeeze and relented to his persistent wolf. "It's not as bad as it looks," she lied to him under her breath as they climbed the stairs.

Geoffrey gave her a scolding look, albeit with much affection. "Yes it is," he said.

She shook her head, caught in her blatant lie but unwilling to give up the bravado that it had created. She sank to the floor and leaned against the wall as Geoffrey closed the door behind them, resting for a moment, trying to figure out how to word this.

Jane sat as well, waiting patiently for Briony. Although she finally couldn't stand it anymore and asked, "So... where's Conor?"

"Back at Fenrir's," Briony answered wearily. "He's... he's fine."

"For how long, in that snakepit?" Geoffrey sat near her once again, too naturally protective.

"He can take care of himself," she said, although she could feel that her worry was showing through. "And he couldn't leave, someone had to stay there and keep an eye out. It's a lot worse than we thought."

"How?" Jane demanded. "Is - the witch? Is it her?"

"The witch has taken the pack and turned it upside down," she said, with as little bitterness as possible -- which wasn't saying much. "It's worse. The Death Eaters use werewolves for weapons."

The sentence made no sense to Geoffrey until he forced himself to believe it; Briony had no reason to lie or joke in this context. "How?" he asked, for once his temper lashing out worse than the wolf's. How dare he, how dare he betray his race in service of someone who wanted them exterminated?

She grasped for the words. "I don't -- I don't know," she said, knowing he wasn't talking about the technical how to of betraying your kind. "They threaten who they want and use Fenrir if they don't comply. Especially if they have children. Otherwise, they mostly don't bother with the pack. Except for her," she added, clearly meaning the witch.

He sought her hand again, rubbing his thumb over the top of it as he surveyed her injuries and weariness. "Is she the one who did this to you?"

Briony laughed. There wasn't anything particularly funny, but it was easier to laugh than remember the punishment and humiliation that had gone with it. "No. If it was her, I could have given as good as I got. It was Wesley."

One of Jane's eyebrows shot up, her stomach had just stopped twisting. "Oh."

"Yes, oh. The witch looks as bad as I do, Wesley got her too. We supposedly failed to attract one of Fenrir's bastards to the pack. One that he doesn't need, at that." She tried not to think about how things had turned out, with the witch complicating things more than necessary, and she should not have made friends with Jeremy. That had made it all the harder, not easier. "Fenrir was acting like we were a part of the pack already."

Geoffrey's temper flared. "Wesley? That brute? On Fenrir's orders, I would guess." Restless, he rose and walked to the window only to see the few children playing outside. He forced himself to look back into the room, at his injured sister.

"Obviously," Briony said, straightening up and trying not to look like she'd just had her arse kicked into next month. Geoffrey was getting himself in a snit and that wasn't going to help anyone and just make for a particularly bad full moon for them all. "That's. That's all, really. He's staying there to keep an eye on things."

Geoffrey made himself breathe slowly and the wolf reassured him, supported him. Only then could he respond to that. "I have faith in Conor," he said, "but how will we know if something goes wrong? What if the witch tries something? What if they deem Conor just another of their pack and hurt him as well?"

"I don't know," she answered again, sighing and rubbing her eyes.

"We just have to sit and wait," Jane said, frowning. She didn't like that idea, but it was about all that they could do - short of going back.

"Sit and wait, while our Father leaves us to compromise with a madman who's already hurt our pack's first," Geoffrey sighed. He resisted the desire to pace, and merely said, "Well. We have to talk to the pack."

"Then we'll do that," Jane said evenly. She stood to leave, but stopped at the door. "We'll figure something out."

"I want to rest first," Briony said, recoiling at the idea of talking to the pack just now.

"Go on, rest," Geoffrey said, exhaling. "I have to go talk to them." He was the heir. It was his job, after all, and if Conor died, that was the way it would be.

She reached for a helping hand up, and received it as she told him, "Just stay calm. It's not going to do any good for you to get like you do."

"I don't get any way," he said defensively, even though he knew what a lie it was. "This is my job, Briony."

She gave him a Look. "Yeah. 'Course you don't," she said, touching his wolf gratefully. She'd missed him, headstrong and foolhardy crazy boy that he could be.

He really had missed her terribly. "Fine," he said, grudgingly conceding the point. "I'm still going to talk to them."

"You should. I'm going to go die now," she announced, pushing past Jane at the door to go to her room, where she could rest without interruption and without worry. For the moment, her relief at being home could overtake her worry for Conor.

Geoffrey turned to Jane and sent her a thin, weary smile. "Ready?" he asked. Now that Briony wasn't so near, he could feel the pack -- his pack -- and it comforted him.

"Ready." She nodded, and motioned for him to go first.

He descended the stairs, collecting himself in preparation to face his pack as the leader he was going to be.