Becoming Beta

Chapter 6

Draco awoke with a start and a groan. He felt like he had been in a hippogriff stampede, everything in his body hurt. His head was pounding, and his mouth was dry and scratchy. What had happened? Oh, that's right, I'm a werewolf now, full moon was last night. Draco cast a tempus charm and saw that it was six in the evening, dinner time then. Good, I'm bloody starving.

Draco rolled out of bed and headed toward his bathroom. It wasn't nearly as nice as his en suite upstairs, but the water worked and the shower was hot. He relaxed, letting the warm water sluice down his body and ease his aching muscles. He wondered if the rest of the pack felt this bad, or if it was just him because he was a first timer. He was glad that it was only one night a month he had to deal with this shite.

He still couldn't believe that he was a half-breed werewolf. He couldn't really remember anything from the night before, if not for his aching body and recalling his horror at seeing his hands deform and sprout fur he would have thought it was all a prank. Some sick joke someone made up for him. But as he shut the shower off and looked in the mirror, he could see evidence of the night before, he had scratches and marks on his body where he had played with the rest of the pack. And had he grown? He looked taller than he did just yesterday, and surely he didn't have that much muscle definition in his abs yesterday. He had always been fit, but on the slimmer side, never bulky enough to have muscle definition.

Draco shook his head to clear his thoughts and proceeded to get dressed. It was as he was buttoning his shirt he confirmed that he had indeed gotten bigger, his sleeves were tighter, almost uncomfortably so, and while the shirt tucked into his trousers, it was shorter than it had been the last time he wore it, the tails weren't nearly as long as they had been.

Once dressed, Draco headed out of his tent and to the circle in the dueling court. As he arrived he saw that the rest of the pack was there and eating, but they all stopped and looked at him. Greyback stood up and gestured him over.

"You alright pup? Sure you want to be out of bed?" Greyback slung an arm over Draco's shoulders while talking to him quietly and turning him from the rest of the pack so they were facing the door to the dungeons.

"Yes, I'm achy and sore, but otherwise I feel fine," Draco replied, but looked at Greyback questioningly. What was with the babying? He doesn't normally act like this.

"It's just, normally after the first change, a werewolf sleeps for two, sometimes three days. And I gave you dreamless sleep this morning, you took it right?" Draco was pretty sure he could hear a note of concern in Greyback's voice. Why does he care? I know we've gotten along a bit this last month, but he's still a savage, filthy, half-breed, right?

"I took the dreamless sleep potion, but really I feel fine. I'm hungry, I don't want to sleep until I've eaten again," Draco was almost petulant in his rebuttal.

"Alright, pup, calm down. I'm impressed with your stamina, rest of the pack will be too." Greyback turned to the rest of the pack, "Let's hear it for the pup! First full moon and he's up and about twelve hours later, never seen anything like it myself."

The pack cheered, they actually cheered for him. This is insane! Draco was secretly pleased, he didn't know the last time anyone had cheered for him, his birthday last summer perhaps? Draco could feel his cheeks reddening in slight embarrassed pleasure. As the cheering died down, Greyback squeezed his shoulders affectionately and Draco moved to sit in the empty seat next to Seff.

"Alright then, Draco?" Seff asked as he started adding food to Draco's plate.

"Yes, is it really so strange to be up this early after the first full moon? I mean, I don't feel great, but I'm not in the worst pain of my life either." Draco nodded his thanks at Seff as he started eating.