Reconstruction of a Death Eater

Hunter and Hunted

Leaning his forearms on the dark wood bar, Remus took another sip of his whiskey and snarled impartially at the middle distance. The noise and smoke were thick around him, too many bodies in too small a space. The stench of humanity was cloying and inviting at only six days until moon. He wanted to get drunk, hit something, shag someone into the carpet or simply curl up in a ball in a quiet corner and cry his eyes out. That thought made him laugh aloud, knocking back the last of his drink to drown the bitter noise. If he did that, it would be the last thing he ever did in this rabid den of mixed bikers, truckers and wanna-be hard men.

Spinning around, he leaned his back against the bar and hooked his elbows onto the brass rail, one booted foot crossed over the other. Three men at the far table perked up considerably as he stood there openly and half-smashed, a small, slim, easy target. A hank of his hair slid down over one eye, and he didn't bother to move it as he straightened and headed carefully for the men's toilets at the other side of the bar. He felt rather than saw the three men rise to follow him as he shouldered into the putrid smelling area and headed for the urinals as if to relieve his bladder. The door swung again, staying open too long to be just one person entering; they were there, right behind him.

The wind of a fist passing over ruffled his hair as he ducked and spun on his toes, taking the off-balance attacker in the belly with a hard, straight right. Physical action always felt good, and he revelled in his strength and power as the three men tried valiantly to subdue the tough little nut they had picked as an easy mark. Remus grinned ferally, a snarl showing off all his teeth as he slammed another body to the floor and put the boot in a couple of times to finish him off.

Someone shouted a warning, and he sucked in his belly as a roundhouse fist glittered with steel in its depths. The tip laid open his t-shirt and the first two layers of skin as neatly as a surgeon's knife. Breath hissing, Remus leaped straight up and kicked the man in the jaw before the pain kicked in and he howled aloud. Man and knife landed sprawled on the floor while the werewolf landed on his toes and one hand, the other pressing to his gut, a little fearful that it would all fall out, his eyes darting to make sure he was not about to be attacked.

A tall black-haired man had just finished the last of the three who had attacked him and was turning to look at the supposed victim of the vicious attack. Remus glared at him, ready to take on a fourth attacker if that became relevant, but the man merely held out his hands palm up, a slight smile on his face. He gave off a strong, almost alpha smell that made Remus snarl even further, his eyes widening at the sight.

"Oh no, no challenge," he muttered swiftly, ducking his head and shaking it swiftly. "I am Patrick O'Leary. These three bova boys have been trying to find some action all night, and when I saw them follow you in, I followed just to be sure they weren't contemplating murder; but they were, it seems. Come on, I'll help you home and get the wife to have a look at that."

Remus allowed the man to slip an arm around his shoulders and take some of his weight but wondered if he could Obliviate the man later, once they were out of there. He didn't trust this large Irishman's altruism, not now, not at this point. Still, he really needed help to get out of the Muggle pub and to somewhere he could heal himself in peace and comfort. Unfortunately, having taken a wound on top of the alcohol he had consumed, apparition was out of the question just now. Patrick O'Leary helped him down the street and into a fenced garden where vegetables grew in well-tended rows. The house was square and ugly but the windows shone with yellow light, and chintz curtains added a homey touch as they pushed into the back door.

A small woman stood at the stove stirring a pot of something as they stumbled into the back door and O'Leary deposited him in a chair at the scrubbed table. Remus groaned as his backside hit the padded wood, his stomach now becoming very painful as it bled down into the tops of his jeans, soaking them. There was a conference over his head, and a small hand eased him back, pulling the material away from his stomach with a gentle touch.

"This is bad, Paddy, very nasty. We may have to..."

The tingle of magic made Remus throw himself aside, his wand leaping to his hand as he bounced up to his feet, swaying dizzily but his wand remained rock-steady, even as he cast Protego over himself.

"Well, that seems to settle that," Paddy said in self-satisfaction, his own wand held negligently in one hand while his wife's was held defensively before her. "So you are a wizard, I sort of thought you were. So are we, wizard kind, that is. You want to sit down before you fall down?"

Remus blinked, then straightened a little as he fumbled back into the seat. "I had better warn you before you offer any more help that I am a lycanthrope, and my blood may be contagious so close to Moon."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Paddy, you can really pick them, can't you?" Judy O'Leary snorted as she lowered her wand. "Let me look at your stomach then."

Paddy grinned, knowing his wife's manner and her gentleness were directly in opposition, the nastier she sounded the gentler her touch. It seemed to take his find by surprise as the small man allowed her to ease the material aside and cast an Acclaro over him. The wound was nasty, but only dangerous at one end of the eight-inch slash where it had dug in a little deeper and nicked an intestine. "What's your name, lad?" he asked as his wife went to work with the healing spells.

"Lupin, Remus Lupin," Remus said and sucked a breath as the spell hooked something deep inside his gut.

"Beta Prime!" The exclamation made both Remus and O'Leary's wife pause as Paddy nodded his head respectfully. "It's nice to meet you in the flesh, so to speak. I have heard of you in the packs and on the wind but...."

"You are a werewolf, too, then?" Remus managed to ask as the woman continued her ministrations.

"Turned four years ago," Paddy said bitterly. "I got caught out on the way home from the pub of all places. Never gave it a thought until it was too late. Usually there are warnings if there are werewolves about, but with the attacks and everything...," he trailed off bitterly.

"Quite. Are there many of us around here and are any of them blatantly Dark?" Remus asked keenly.

"There used to be!" Judy O'Leary answered with a bitterness that made Remus' eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "We killed him, or as the Ministry so delicately termed it, we put the animal down when he became rabid." The word 'Ministry' was spat out like a mouthful of poison. "He was one of You-Know-Who's minions, using his disease to manufacture his own recruits for that, that..." She spluttered to a halt when she realised her husband was watching her in amusement. "What?"

"Aye, yer a true fighter, Mrs O'Leary," he said fondly. "She was so incensed she led the charge, and the ladies of the town took him out neatly."

"Well done, someone like that gives all werewolves a bad name, and we really don't need any adverse publicity at this point. Who was it?" Remus asked, feeling a lot better now that the spells were finished and his gut was not torn in two.

"One of the Rosier family, a cadet branch admittedly but still enough to give us a hard time for a while," Paddy replied, pouring tea for all three of them. "So, may I ask what you are doing in this part of the world and why you let those three idiots corner you?" The questions were shrewd but delivered in a conversational tone.

"I just needed to blow off a little steam," Remus admitted sheepishly. "Oh, I knew they were Muggles and couldn't really hurt me too much but...." He broke off as a clean shirt landed in his lap with a 'humph' of disgust and a muttered comment that sounded a lot like 'stupid boys'. Paddy and he traded glances and both winced, but they both understood the urges that drove them at this time of month. It was those urges that gave the Wild Wolves such a fearsome reputation as they did nothing to curb the impulses that ruled them.

"There's a wild pack in the area, camping with the gypsies on the last of Hampstead Heath," Paddy informed him as Remus pulled on the clean t-shirt and cast a quick cleaning spell over his jeans. "They are wild boys but not particularly malicious yet. One of the Snake's people was hanging around, buying drinks and making 'idle talk', you know how it goes."

Remus sighed, rubbing his forehead. "The Alpha Prime does not want us to join He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He wants us to be neutral if possible and a little more Light than neutral if we can...."

"And the Ministry encourages this how?" Judy O'Leary snapped, thumping bowls of soup and a loaf of bread on the table in front of them.

"It doesn't. The Ministry is controlled by Death Eaters or their sympathisers. They have tried to have Harry taken into their custody. They have tried to discredit him and break him over the last couple of years. And finally, they tried to engage his sympathetic support after the murder of his Godfather when their attempts to destroy both his spirit and his credibility failed, but they haven't succeeded, thank Merlin. The death of Dumbledore was a blow like no other, but it was not a death blow for the Light. We are all still there, and we are all still fighting. To do any less would be a repudiation of all we believe in and all we hold dear."

The O'Learys looked at each other, an indefinable message passing between them, then Paddy smiled. "We're in. It's not much, but if ever you need us, we will be there. Just send a message or floo us."

"Appreciate it," Remus said as the two men shook hands solemnly.

"Well, now that that is understood, eat your supper before it gets too cold!" Judy shook her head fondly as she took her place.

~~*~~

The camp was sprawling, a row of caravans to the left, cars rather than horses lined up to tow them when the Muggle council finally moved the gypsies on. Fireplaces of ringed stone were clustered near the stream's bank, tripods for cauldrons smoke-blackened and in place. Gypsies might be Muggles, but there was enough wizarding blood in their veins to make even a wolf sit back and take notice. In the past centuries, it was not unusual for a Squib who was cast out from his family to join the local gypsies; the gypsies used to appreciate the source of new blood in their lines. Of course, in these modern times, the distrust and uneasiness sown first by Grindelwald and then by Voldemort had caused the insular gypsy bands to grow even more so.

To the right of the vans was a motley collection of tents, tarps and canvas bedrolls, strewn in haphazard circles to denote current alliances. It wasn't often that wolves and gypsies shared the same campsite, but it was an indicator that the wild wolves were planning some sort of trouble. Remus wasn't sure if they planned to harass the gypsies, but if they were, then they were in for a rude shock. Whoever had thought of that plan was obviously naïve or simply had no idea of the power of the gypsies. Or perhaps they did and hoped the gypsies and wolves would join in a mutually destructive fight over space.

Entering the campsite, Remus looked around and made a mental note of where everyone had decided to place their beds. Wild wolves tended to lean on the instinctive knowledge their lycanthropy gave them as the bonds of civilisation grew more tenuous. There were at least four factions in this nebulous pack, according to the nesting circles, two allied with each other, two diametrically opposed to each other.

The alphas of each of the four circles were not hard to spot, two were people he knew. Paddy O'Connell or Roarer was an old acquaintance, his position in the Prime Pack well known. He was a moderate, wanting more rights for werewolves, but he didn't want to destroy the wizarding world to get them. Maxilan Hamilton or Wind Biter didn't care how werewolves achieved equality, as long as it was real equality, not a paper-based equality that gave only lip service to their rights. The two alphas he didn't know were obviously acting as arbiters between the two factions as indicated by the camp circles.

Squatting on the grass at the 'head' position, between the camp and the water, Remus conjured a fire and calmly began to make tea, cinnamon tea with toast, from the supplies provided by Judy O'Leary. The fire was all but smokeless, only the grass under it being solid fuel, but it was enough to start noses twitching and wolves stirring. Calmly and with total ease, Remus made and consumed his breakfast while ignoring the growing circle of faces ranging from curious to angry.

Cradling a mug of tea in his hands, Remus looked up and acknowledged the two alphas he knew in the circle, pointing to the grass opposite him with a regal hand. The hiss of speculation and unrest swept through the almost silent circle as the two alphas actually bowed their heads to the stranger and lowered themselves warily to the grass. Mugs appeared before them, curls of steam wafting up from the mahogany liquid in the surreal silence.

"It's cinnamon," Remus remarked, sipping from his own mug casually.

"It would be," O'Connell replied softly, picking up the mug and drinking, causing his own faction to back off and settle down. They didn't know who this small intruder was, but he was obviously more than he seemed.

Hamilton eyed the mug uneasily, but picked it up all the same. He drank a little of the brew, enough to satisfy tradition and settle his followers but no more. He knew Remus Lupin and had fought and lost to him on two occasions, acknowledged him as the second in charge of the Primary Pack in Great Britain, but that didn't mean he liked the man or the role he had been forced into. And besides, he didn't like cinnamon tea. As he looked up he caught the laughing amber eyes studying him, assessing him, and sighed, realising he was caught in the ritual now.

"Did those two pussies just roll over and beg?" someone hissed from the crowd, a wave of hostility suddenly jolting the gathering back to fever pitch.

"They acknowledge the Beta Prime," Remus said mildly, taking a bite out of his toast as he again swept the crowd with hooded eyes, noting the trouble makers.

A burley, barrel-shaped man pushed to the front, swaggering and sneering as he stared down at the insignificant looking chap who was calmly eating his breakfast. The other two alphas obligingly slid away from the fire leaving a wide grassy surface for the display. They had been there at the time, and they had seen exactly what Thaddeus Horfund was seeing now. They had been put on their backs, and they still didn't know how a skinny, short-arsed shrimp like Remus Lupin had done it. Still, it would be good for a laugh.

"Beta Prime? What nonsense is this? There are Alphas and there are Betas, but no one is prime over others. Oh, I've heard of Hayborn's wild and crazy scheme of bringing us all into one big happy family under the rule of the Wizengamot, but only domestic animals would submit to that indignity!"

Remus immediately knew where this alpha's loyalties lay, and it wasn't with his. "Rather the rule of the Wizengamot than being slaves to the Dark Lord," he replied softly, never taking his eyes off the man who was pacing and gesticulating, obviously playing to the audience. "Besides, as werewolves, McCarthy wants us to have our own rules and laws to live by that do not bring us into conflict with the Wizengamot but do allow us to live as we wish."

"Hiding in corners, making no waves, pretending we don't exist? Is that how you see us; as outcasts, curs, children of the night?"

The rush came on the last word, the man lashing out a foot over the flames aiming for Remus' head. Rolling backward, Remus bounced to his feet and slammed the steel-capped toe of his boot into the man's thigh muscle, neatly corking his leg. Thaddeus gave a cry of pain as he doubled over, and Remus slammed an elbow between his shoulder blades, ramming his face into the dirt. One knee on the back of his neck held him as Remus wrapped a hand in his thick brown hair and dragged his head back until his throat was completely exposed; wrapping his free hand around the vulnerable length he dug a thumb into the mastoid bone until his quarry stopped struggling.

Leaning forward, Remus murmured in his ear. "If I roll back your left sleeve, will I find the branding of a slave? Or the clear flesh of a patriot?"

"Fuck off, you little worm, I'll kill you!" Horfund roared bitterly, struggling to get out of the hold to no avail.

Smiling slightly, Remus pulled harder on his hair, digging his thumb in deeper despite the bucking that became frenzied as black spots danced before Horfund's eyes. Finally, his struggles became limp thrashings, then vague twitches, then stillness. Sneering, Remus eased the pressure off his throat and snorted when a huge gasp of air rattled the man, his followers gasping in time and relief. "And which worm is that?" he asked mildly, almost academically as he glanced around the circle of astonished and disbelieving faces.

Thaddeus Horfund gargled something incomplete and slapped his hand on the grass to signify defeat, gasping and choking as Remus allowed his head to fall forward as he rolled off. Continuing the movement of a roll to his feet, Remus strutted around the circle of watchers, daring any of them to challenge. Most dropped their eyes and bowed immediately, one or two more slowly, but the three factions acknowledged him as the stronger, if not the bigger of the meeting.

Only Artimus Aguis caught and held his eye, a half-smile on his lips as the smaller man approached. His followers almost held their breaths as the two approached each other, circling warily and nostrils flaring to gather scent. "So, Moony, we meet again."

"Runner," Remus acknowledged in the same half amused tone. "It's been a while, how is the family?"

"They tried to take the kids away, but my sister stepped in and said they were hers. Lila allowed it as it was the only way they could be with us; my sister Susanna is their second mother anyway. This doesn't make us happy; it alienates those of us who were undecided and turns settled families into wild ones once again."

"As it was meant to," Remus acknowledged the man's argument with a regretful moue of distaste. "They were trying for another fish, but it wasn't theirs to fry."

"Your, er, ward?"

"Who is not and never was. It was a rumour that should never have started."

Aguis nodded and sighed deeply, turning to a jean-clad figure beside his left shoulder. "What do you think, Sly?"

"The little fast one is often right, more right than he is wrong, accept him," the woman said flatly, eyeing the younger man who faced her husband, his back turned confidently to the three alphas he had already conquered.

"My wise council," Runner half smiled then bowed his head abruptly. "Beta Prime - for now."

"Accepted - for now," Remus acknowledged him, the tension running down around the circle as the alphas called the shots.