Born A Weapon

the wolf speaks

(tw: mentions of child abuse/ mentions of self-harm/mentions of gender disappointment/ mentions of violence and war)

This is quite a light chapter, but please know

Fenrir Greyback is a horrible person. He only speaks this way with delphini because he has known her since birth and bears an oath to never hurt delphini in any way

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27 July 1997

During lunch, there was a meeting, but I practically slept through it. Ever since that silver substance touched my blood and ever since I started wearing that stupid locket, I had been exhausted and irritable all the time.

Father hadn't said anything about it, but I caught him staring at the locket whenever I was nearby. A few days ago, I even saw him reach for it while I was grabbing a book from the bookshelf in his office. He must have thought I hadn't noticed.

The meeting had ended only a few minutes earlier. Most of the Death Eaters had either returned home or dispersed throughout the manor. After going so long without a cigarette, I desperately needed one, so I stepped out into the front gardens of Malfoy Manor and made my way towards the fountain on the right-hand side of the grounds.

The gardens were unusually quiet. The soft trickle of water from the fountain was the only sound, accompanied by the occasional rustling of leaves in the afternoon breeze. It was peaceful deceptively so.

Sitting alone on a weathered bench, its black paint cracked and peeling with age, was Fenrir Greyback.

To most of wizarding England and even beyond, he was a name spoken with fear. A monster. A ruthless werewolf responsible for countless attacks. To me, however, he was simply a man I had grown up seeing around the manor, someone I had spoken to whenever the opportunity arose.

One of my earliest memories of him was from when I was eight years old.

I'd wandered far too deep into the forest surrounding Malfoy Manor, ignoring every warning I'd ever been given. That's where I came face to face with Greyback in his wolf form. The encounter lasted only moments, but it left a permanent reminder: a long claw mark stretching from my left shoulder across my chest to the middle of my right side.

It hadn't been his fault, nor had it been mine.

He hadn't possessed the mind of a man while transformed, and I had never been told where the werewolves' territory began. I had simply been a curious child who wandered too far, and he had been a creature acting on instinct.

Even now, years later, the scar still ached whenever I thought about that day.

He sat quietly, sharpening a dagger that looked as though years of blood and damp had stained the metal with rust. As I approached, he glanced up at me, pushing a curtain of long brown hair out of his eyes without ever loosening his grip on the blade.

F: "Well, hello there, Princess. Come to grace me with your presence, have you?"

I hadn't spoken much since the ritual.

Instead of answering, I sat down beside him, absent-mindedly fidgeting with the sleeve of my robes. He watched me for a moment before returning his attention to the dagger, drawing a whetstone slowly along its edge with a harsh scraping sound.

The blade was made of cast iron.

Most of the daggers I trained with were silver, but that obviously wasn't an option for him. Silver burned a werewolf's skin, even in human form, so iron was the next best thing.