There was a time when Taverson's Tavern had filled each night with boisterous banter and the crackle of fireplace flames. Not so big as the Leaky, Cauldron nor as well known as Rosmerta's Three Broomsticks, it made up for what it lacked with heart. At least that was what the owner Tilly Taverson always said.
The tavern had been in her family for generations. Patrons joked the family had no choice but to go into the business with that name of theirs, but the Taversons' never felt shame about their work. They built real relationships with their customers, serving them Firewhisky and smiles, lending their ear to any in need. Relish the good times, tough it out through the hard ones— that was their family motto.
And by Merlin, Tilly was trying.
She swished her wand left to right. A half-dozen mugs hovered around her, cleaning charms making their already-spotless surfaces glisten. She tried not to look into the corner, she really did, but it was impossible not to glance.
Three men cackled and shouted around a table deep in the bar's bowels. They'd knocked back three full bottles of Firewhisky already, and splashed at least that much onto the floor around them. A large roast sat between them, torn down to the bones. They hadn't used a single piece of silverware to do it. One even bent over the table and tore into it like a wild animal. Tilly moved her wand with a little more urgency at the memory.
"Bar wench!" shouted one, twisting to glare at her with unnatural yellow eyes. "Get us more!"
He hoisted his mug, leaving no doubt to what he was requesting.
"Right away!" Tilly said quickly.
She reached under the bar…
She froze. There were no bottles left there.
Crash!
Tilly screamed and jerked her head as a mug whistled past. It crashed into one of the glasses she'd been cleaning, toppling to the floor with a spray of whisky and the crack of glass.
The men snickered while the Tavern's only other patron, a man drinking alone at the far side of the bar, only looked up momentarily.
"I asked for more alcohol," said the yellow-eyed man. "You know who we are? We're Snatchers. One word from us and you'll never see the light of day again!"
"One moment," Tilly pleaded. "I just have to get—"
The door to the back room burst open.
"Here you are, sirs!" cried her daughter, clutching a large Firewhisky in both hands. She quickly reached the table, popping the cap and filling every glass in a perfect show of service.
To Tilly, it felt like a dementor had swooped down beside her.
Ashly Taverson, Tilly's daughter, was her mother's gem. A Hufflepuff graduate only a few years out of Hogwarts' halls, she was a gorgeous young blond who could never lose her smile.
Even when the world around them grew dark and cold. Even when shadows dragged her father away from them both, never to be seen again.
"I told you to stay in the back!" Tilly hissed urgently as her daughter returned to the bar, leaving the bottle behind with the men.
"I'm not leaving you alone with them," Ashly said back. "I'm a grown witch, Mom. I can help."
"You can't be worrying about me," Tilly said urgently. "Think about yourself! If anything happened to you—"
"Bar wench!"
"Yes?" Tilly said immediately, twisting toward the drunken men. As long as their attention was on her, she could get Ashly tucked away in the back room again.
Except their attention wasn't on her.
"Not you," growled the man who first threw his cup. He was an ugly thing, with a face like a giant's footstep in mud, but that didn't make him any less frightening. "I was asking the other one."
Ashly adopted a barmaid's smile. "Yes?"
"I need a glass," he said, gesturing to the empty table ahead of him. "Get me one."
"Right away!" Ashly said.
She shared a brief look at her mom before grasping an empty glass and returning to the table. Deciding it was too late to simply hide her again, Tilly didn't try to stop her.
She should've. Only later would she realize that was the moment to act— to fight, to flee, to scream, anything. Anything but the way she stood there in silence, watching.
It happened too fast. As Ashly approached the man, he reached out as if to accept the cup. The second that Ashly stepped too close, he lunged.
Claw-like nails slashed through the girl's robes like daggers. Tilly screamed, certain that her skin had just been sliced along with them, but that wasn't the case. Ashly stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. Her robes fell to the floor, followed a moment later by the glass she'd been carrying
She was left in nothing but her bra and knickers, bent halfway forward as she tried to shield her modesty with both hands.
The man and his friend licked their lips while the third, the largest out of them with furry hair all around his neck and chin, focused on draining the rest of the Firewhisky.
"This is a meal I'll be taking to go," said the first man.
"As long as you share," said his friend, licking his lips.
"You can have the leftovers."
The friend growled, before finally shrugging. "Better than nothing."
"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Ashly shouted.
"That's what they always say," said the first one. "It never helps."
They jumped up and lunged. Ashly shrieked, trying to run, but her wand had fallen away with her robes. She never stood a chance as the two men grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward the doors.
"NO!" Tilly shouted.
This was everything she was scared of, a nightmare she'd had time and again playing out in front of her eyes.
She jerked her wand, hurling glasses, bottles, anything that could fly at the men. As they traveled across the room, she flicked her wrist and shouted, "Stupify—"
Before the motion could finish something collided with her hand, ruining the spell. She dropped her wand, shouting in pain. A freshly drained firewhiskey bottle had shattered against her wrist, shards slicing her skin.
The last of the men, the largest one with the distinctive hairy neck, was standing now.
"Do you recognize me?" he asked.
Tilly felt herself begin to cry. Because she did.
Fenrir Greyback was one of the most powerful men in what the wizarding world had become. A werewolf with no morals, no restraint, whose only goal was to add as many to his pack as possible.
Tilly was willing to die for her daughter's sake. But she was no fighter. She'd never been in a duel. She couldn't beat Greyback with a million tries and all the luck in the world on her side.
Her knees gave out.
Greyback snorted. "Seems you do. Don't worry. Your daughter's going to be a part of something bigger than this dingy bar ever was… if she survives the boys till the next full moon."
He turned his eyes toward the room's only other patron. The man had been nursing a single Butterbeer for the last fifteen minutes. When the commotion started, he pulled his hood further over his face and tried carefully not to attract attention. Tilly didn't blame him. It was good sense.
The two underling werewolves — for that was what the rough men must've been — dragged Ashly out the door into the night. Greyback followed a moment later. For a while Tilly heard her daughters cries growing further away, and then they disappeared entirely with a soft pop. She sobbed.
The room was left maddeningly silent. The only sound was Tilly's own cries as she knelt in shattered glass, unable to acknowledge the cuts forming on her legs.
Wood scraped against wood. Footsteps echoed in the silence, one foot dragging. A pair of boots appeared in Tilly's vision.
"Look at me."
Tilly wasn't sure why she listened to the stranger. She wished he would just go away. Then she could end this awful night, one way or another.
But listen she did, urged on by an underlying authority in the voice. She tilted her head back, tracing up the figure's robed form until she reached the face—
Her breath caught.
"Your daughter is going to come back," said the boy. "She is going to walk in that door in one hour. If anyone comes around asking questions, you and her are going to tell them the truth. About those men, the fact that they were here, and about me. If you do that, you might not even die."
He knelt, staring into her face.
"Understand?"
Tilly nodded slowly.
"Good." He straightened. "See you never."
He limped out.
Tilly wouldn't forget those green eyes for as long as she lived.
O-o-O
Fenrir Greyback was having the time of his life, and he owed it all to a wizard.
His pack was larger than ever and free to roam. Muggles and the few Mudbloods still hiding out were easy prey, filling their stomachs on full moons or giving the boys playthings in the time between. So long as his pack avoided pureblood manors, there were no borders drawn around them. Just as it should be. Finally, werewolves were something for ordinary wizards to fear and cower from, not spit on in the street!
Just the thought gave Greyback the same thrill as knocking back a bar's finest shot of whiskey. He'd known that the Dark Lord was a gamble worth taking all those years ago.
Pecker and Porp trudged behind him, dragging the terrified barmaid between them through the dark wood. Ahead birds sang into the night and animals crunched through the undergrowth, yet the forest went silent when they passed. Nature could always recognize a predator.
Glancing back, Greyback watched his boys play with their prey, taking turns grasping at portions of her exposed flesh. The girl had long ago quit her sobbing, although tears still trailed from her eyes.
Greyback said he'd welcome her into the pack, and he would, provided she lasted that long. A pity for her that the moon peeking between pine branches was waning. A full moon had just passed, placing them squarely at the start of a new cycle.
Lass didn't stand a chance.
Ah well. Not everyone could transcend their puny wizardhood. The boys needed prizes, and Greyback always treated his pack well.
The Scottish woods were biting this time of year. Snow would set in soon. Greyback sniffed the air, wondering if he could catch a scent off any storms blowing in.
What he smelled stopped him in his tracks.
The idiots behind him continued pawing at their prey, laughing among themselves, and nearly walked into his back.
Greyback snarled. "Now's not the time for that! Use your noses, fools!"
They jumped, looking up at him before sniffing the air.
He could see it in their eyes. They didn't smell it. He picked these two as snatchers because they remained more man and less wolf than most of the others, but he hadn't thought they were this out of touch.
"What is it, Boss?" Pecker had the bollocks to ask.
Greyback cursed, still sniffing the air. "Smoke. Plenty of it, coming from the direction of camp."
"Maybe the boys started a fire?" Porp suggested.
Greyback spun and punched him, knocking him into the dirt where Porp whimpered, holding his face with a hairy hand.
"You think my nose can't tell the difference between a campfire and something like this?" Greyback gnashed his teeth. "Idiots. I'm going ahead. You two follow, and make sure you don't let go of the girl!"
Without waiting to check their reactions, Greyback tore into the night.
He abandoned moving on two legs like the inferior method it was, digging his fingers into the hard-packed dirt and kicking up dead pine needles in his wake. He raced between trunks at the speed of a car, weaving on a dime. In minutes he burst into a clearing full of tents and huts with thatched roofs. There wasn't a lick of flames in sight, even as the scent of smoke overpowered his nostrils to the point of uselessness.
Something was very wrong.
"Get out here!" Greyback bellowed.
His voice made the branches around him shake and bob, but no faces appeared from the huts. Even so soon after a full moon that wasn't right. His pack always answered him. If they couldn't run they'd walk, and if they couldn't walk they would crawl.
He marched forward, drawing his wand in his right hand and flexing the claws on his left.
Alone, he prowled across the dense mud of their camp, churned up and packed flat by boots and paws. His eyes traced the ground for fresh tracks, finding nothing.
As he reached the first building, he suddenly yelled and leapt back.
Holding up his left arm, he examined singed hairs on the end of it. He reached out again, feeling waves of heat wafting off of something just out of reach.
Someone had been casting illusions. They had come for his pack, and they'd done it using parlor tricks.
Channeling all his anger into the motion, he whipped his wand to the side. It wasn't a proper spell, just a raw wave of magic. Once you knew it was there, an illusion was nothing. This was all it took to tear one away. All at once, Greyback found himself illuminated.
His fangs locked together, grinding in his mouth as he stared across his kingdom.
Every shack, tent, and stake of wood had been set alight. The flames roared high and hungry against the dark sky. Greyback stalked between them. Reaching one of the largest buildings, he dispatched the flames with a chain of extinguishing charms before stepping inside.
Muddy floors, patches of matted and now-burned grass for bedding, and worn wooden tables laden with grimy mugs— everything was as Greyback remembered it.
Except none of his pack were visible, alive or dead. On a hunch he sent out another pulse of magic and felt the tell-tale snap of an illusion.
It only revealed one thing. Blood splatters painted the floor and walls in a dozen places. Greyback marched out of the hut angrier than he entered it.
He stomped around camp hurling out his magic to snap any possible illusions, revealing more blood and no people. Finally, he reached the center.
The Warren, they called it. A mud patch thirty feet across for the young ones to play in, the children they inducted young and raised properly, as wolves nearly from birth. Greyback was not a soft man, but watching his pack members grow up free of wizards' poisonous influences made this his favorite spot in the whole camp.
Now, a pile of bodies lay in The Warren, filling it. Some were burned, others scarred, and more than a few weren't in one piece at all. Greyback's eyes roved the pile, picking out face after familiar face. Piled at the top, eyes glassy and throats still dripping, every last child had been piled in plain view.
A howl tore from Greyback's throat, wild and raw.
Only when it finally ended did he hear the steps behind him.
They squelched only slightly in the gooey earth, far too light to be Pecker or Porp. Which meant it wasn't them. It was the one who did this.
Greyback whirled toward the newcomer, his wand rising to summon his nastiest curse while his claws stretched for their throat.
The girl from the tavern screamed and shielded herself, flinching away. Greyback froze.
She was here. Alone. And hanging off of her, still gripping her elbows, were the arms of Pecker and Porp. The rest of the men was nowhere in sight.
"They did as you asked," said a voice behind Fenrir. "They didn't let her go. Of course, it was over before they knew what was happening, but that must still count for something."
Impossibly, Fenrir Greyback tensed more than he already had.
"You," he growled.
He knew what he'd find before he turned— a pair of cold green eyes the color of an unforgivable curse.
There he was, wrapped in a dark cloak with the hood lowered and the sleeves drawn up. Two things stood out against his pale skin: his messy hair darker than the sky, and a mangled crescent of scarred skin nestled on his forearm.
"Hello Fenrir," greeted Harry Potter, gazing at the werewolf from behind half-moon spectacles.
Greyback snarled. "I've given our master nothing but good service. I fought faithfully. Why would he cut me off now?"
"He hasn't," Harry said.
The wizard was standing close to the pile of corpses, illuminated by bright flames. Only a dozen paces separated them both.
"My pack is dead," Greyback spat. "I won't listen to lies."
Harry merely peered at him. After a moment, he raised his forearm. The crescent scar glowed in the light of flames. "Do you recognize this?"
Even in this situation, Greyback couldn't quell the vindictive grin that formed across his lips. "You screamed wonderfully. For a brat."
Harry traced the scar with his fingers, brushing over marks in the shape of canid fangs.
"When you first bit me, the ten year old apprentice to your master, he let you walk away unscathed. Do you remember why?"
"Because I was valuable," Greyback boasted.
"Incorrect," Harry said without inflection. "He told me that it would be a lesson. The Dark Lord does not coddle anyone, even his apprentice. If I wanted to survive, I had to find the power to do so. The power to protect myself. The power to take what I wanted— including revenge."
"So you came for me now." Greyback spat yellowish saliva to the side before baring his fangs. "Bring out your friends, then. I'll gut every single one of you. I'll stack you all the way to the moon, and eat what's left! And when I'm done, the Dark Lord won't raise a finger, because you were weak."
Harry raised his wand.
"Come," he said. "You will find how weak I am."
But Greyback didn't charge. He sniffed the air; no good, the smoke was still stuffing his nose, masking everything else. His eyes darted around them.
The girl from the tavern had scrambled back to a safe distance, leaving his mens' dismembered arms behind on the ground. Greyback couldn't spot so much as a flicker of movement anywhere else. He sneered.
"An ambush? Is that all the 'power' you're bragging about is worth, Boy?"
"I came alone," Harry said.
"Bullshit."
"I don't care if you believe me."
"My pack wouldn't have fallen to a single mutt!"
"But they did," Harry said. "It was easy enough. Especially the children… they screamed wonderfully, for a bunch of brats."
The taunting twist of Greyback's words was delivered in a complete monotone, just like every word before them, but they were enough. The werewolf snapped, launching himself at the wizard with a feral howl.
A purplish spell fired from Potter's wand, something Greyback couldn't recognize, but it sputtered against the shield he raised as he ran. Greyback didn't bother with any other spells. He used the opening that his shield earned him to close the distance and swipe with his claws.
The way the brat's eyes widened filled him with unbridled pleasure. Greyback watched as he tried to scramble back, slowed down by his limp as his bad left ankle got in the way. All he could do was watch as Greyback's claws slashed straight through his throat in a single motion.
The boy's frightened face faded, replaced by a much older and uglier one full of fear. Greyback stared into the eyes of Porp. His pack member was missing both arms, but very much alive… or he had been, until Greyback himself tore out his throat.
He hadn't smelled a thing, masked by the smoke. He'd been goaded into attacking an opponent that was never there.
Twisting back and raising his wand—
Greyback found himself staring into the tip of a wand. The barmaid's nearly-nude appearance shimmered and disappeared, replaced by a familiar pair of bright green eyes.
"Diffindo."
As the spell sliced cleanly through his neck, Fenrir Greyback's last sight was an upside down view of his pack as a pile of soon-to-rot carian. And then his head hit the dirt.
O-o-O
Ashly Taverson had been certain that this was the most awful night of her life, even worse than the one when her dad got caught in a Death Eater attack at Diagon Alley and never made it home.
Now, she wasn't so sure.
It all started when she brought out that Firewhisky like an idiot. Her mother had told her to stay hidden— she warned her! But Ashly told herself she couldn't leave her mother alone, and then she went and got herself dragged out.
She wasn't stupid. She knew what those men planned for her. Only, they never got the chance to follow through.
She sensed something was strange when the leader ran ahead, but she hadn't thought much of it then, not until the men holding her slumped under bright red stunners that hit them from out of sight. That was when he appeared.
The green-eyed boy, wrapped in black and moving with a limp. Ashly only knew one person who fit that description, and he was the type that was whispered about in dark rooms and back alleys, the sort that people swore you were better off turning your own wand on your throat rather than letting him catch you.
But maybe there were more men that fit the description than she realized, because he saved her.
Or maybe not. Glancing to the side of the tree she sat huddled against, Ashly eyed the corpse of Pecker, one of the men that came so close to raping her. She still remembered the way the stranger had studied the two stunned me, sizing them up under criteria she couldn't guess at. With one flick of his wand he bored a hole straight through Pecker's head, all without a single flinch.
He told her, in a monotone slightly velvety voice, that she was free to go. That her mother was expecting her. And then he limped off in the direction the leader went, Porp's unconscious form levitating behind him.
And Ashly… she sat down, in the dim forest in nothing but her underwear, and chose to wait.
She could've left at any time. She discovered her wand on the ground nearby, left out for her. Considering it had been left back in the bar, the stranger must have brought it for her. She remembered the cloaked figure drinking alone in the corner of the tavern and put two Knuts together. Whatever this was, it had been planned by him. Thoroughly.
Yet despite how in control he seemed, despite how certain she was that this was a man feared across the entire country, Ashly couldn't bring herself to Apparate away. Not yet. Not until she knew—"
"What are you doing?"
The sudden voice made Ashly yelp. She'd applied a warming charm to fend off the cold, but a chill swept her spine as she realized she'd been snuck up on, even while she was supposed to be on high alert.
She stared at the green-eyed boy. He was almost her age— No, he might even have been younger than her. Against her will, her eyes dipped down, staring at what was certainly a decapitated head he was clutching by the hair. It seemed the leader hadn't put up any more of a fight than Pecker and Porp.
"Did you, uh, win?" Ashly asked lamely.
The boy raised one eyebrow. His own eyes dipped to the head in his hands. Blood was still dripping from the place it used to attach to a neck, and the rest of a body beneath that.
"Yes," he said dryly.
"That's… nice."
"I seem to remember telling you to leave."
Ashly flinched.
"Technically, you told me I was free to leave," she said. "Not that I had to. So I kind of waited."
"Alone. In a dark forest. Next to a corpse."
"Yes?"
He sighed, and Ashly was shocked by how genuinely tired he sounded. She was struck again by his age. He should barely be out of Hogwarts, although she was certain she'd never seen someone like him in her time there.
"Why?" he asked.
For the first time that night, she felt confident as she answered.
"I had to know you were okay."
Neither of them moved. His glasses caught the light of the moon, shining like silver disks with their bright metal rims. He looked at Ashly, and she held his eyes for a minute that felt like hours, but she couldn't shake the strangest impression that right then it wasn't her he was seeing at all.
"You shouldn't worry about me," he said finally. "Someone tried that once. It didn't work out for her."
With that, he turned on the spot and Disapparated. Ashly left only a few seconds later. She was starting to realize just how ridiculous her decision had really been, and how lucky she was to walk away from it perfectly healthy.
The Dark Lord's inner circle was not known for their generosity.
She returned home. Her mother wrapped her in a hug, squeezing her tight and sobbing into her hair. Ashly hugged her back, tears of her own breaking loose after the night she'd had. The two started drawing up plans for how to escape the country that very night.
But even after weeks, even after a smuggler managed to get them over the border into neighboring France, even after her mother and her started a new Taverson's Tavern in Montpellier, as far from the Death Eater's kingdom as they could get, there were certain things she couldn't forget.
Mainly that green-eyed boy's final words to her, and the indescribably heavy expression that crossed his face.
No matter what anyone else said, she knew. Even with all the rumors swirling around the Dark Lord's right hand man, even with every crime he'd committed and the way he could kill without blinking, there was more to him than a merciless murderer.
Despite what people said, Harry Potter was not pure evil.