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The Werewolf	By : chedevy Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 9799 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Wednesday; 15 April 1998, evening
Draco awoke to the sensation of every fibre of his body hurting. His head throbbed, his eyes stung beneath his heavy lids, and his lungs appeared to be on slow-burning fire. His heart felt like it was trying to burst out of his chest one moment, and then stop beating altogether the next. While his throat was, seemingly, still in bloody shreds from screaming, his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. The worst, though, was, by far, his shoulder. It felt like that was where the source of all his suffering was located – the core of pain Draco had not known before. It throbbed like his head and burned like his lungs – radiated heat in waves that were blazing and freezing at once, each as long as one beat of his heart, and each carrying the sensation of thousands crawly insects.
A low noise escaped him as Draco slowly came to, but he hardly cared. His mind was blank. However much he tried to remember what had happened, his memory wasn’t forthcoming. After a few minutes of simply lying down, for he knew now that this was the position he was in, Draco opened his eyes.
At the first contact with light, he shut his eyes right back. The stinging behind his lids grew instantly, and he fought to resist the tears. His headache was raging. Yet another lengthy moment passed before Draco attempted to see again, and this time it was more successful, although no less of an effort for his feverish body. With slitted gaze, he took in the bedside table on which a candle faintly burned, casting an orange glow to the dark green walls in a room he recognized as his own. He was in his bedroom in Malfoy Manor, lying on his large four-poster bed, with no idea whatsoever how he got here in such a miserable state.
Had he been drinking his father’s Firewhisky again? Smoking some suspicious plants? Draco toyed with the ideas in his head for half a minute before he dismissed them. Somehow he knew, in his subconscious mind, that something serious had happened which put him in his current position – just as he knew that it had to do with the Dark Lord.
Perhaps he’d gotten hit with the Cruciatus Curse one too many times, he thought blearily, sleep already taking hold of his brain again. Maybe he’d displeased the Dark Lord in some way, and was chastised for it. That notion yanked some invisible string in Draco’s mind, and his focus zeroed in on it, like a vulture might on a piece of carrion. He couldn’t tell what the latest Death Eater meeting had been about, or when it was. Struggling to stay awake, he concentrated harder. He recalled standing in the drawing room of the manor, a woman writhing on the floor as he tortured her. He remembered the Dark Lord’s red irises narrowed at him in malice. An image of a full moon staying suspended in the fathomless sky came to mind, and Draco remembered he’d been terrified. The Dark Lord had been very angry with him back then...
Then, Draco remembered Greyback, and he froze on the bed, his eyes flying wide open, his heart missing a beat. Greyback... And now it was all coming back – his own refusal to kill, the Dark Lord’s wrath at the Malfoy family, Greyback’s transformation, glinting yellow eyes of a predator, the werewolf’s howl... the feeling of sharp teeth biting through his shoulder. Draco tightened his jaw, welcoming the pain for once, and let his eyelids fall shut.
He’d been bitten. Infected. Greyback’s saliva was coursing in his bloodstream now, which meant he was going to become a werewolf himself. Basically was one already, only had to wait for the next full moon for the disease to expose itself...
His burning throat constricted with a hard swallow, and Draco fought back a sob. He could hardly imagine himself in a situation worse than his current one that didn’t include his own death. He’d rather have had his arm severed, or his sight taken away. Being a werewolf meant absolutely no future, Draco knew. If people found out he was infected, even in a world where the Dark Lord prevailed, he would be despised and ostracized. Regardless of his wealth and family name, his now favourable social standing would be lost irrevocably in an instant, and his very presence would invoke feelings of hatred, disgust, and fear in those around him – he would become everyone’s personal anathema. He knew all this, because that was how he, himself, had always felt about werewolves walking freely among wizards and witches.
Never had he pictured himself in such a position – he’d been turned into one of the things he’d wished extermination on. Swallowing again, Draco made an involuntary sound that was neither a groan, nor a whimper, and then...
“Draco...”
His eyes snapped open. It turned out he wasn’t alone in the room, like he’d initially assumed. While his heartbeat sped up, Draco took care to move as little as possible turning his head to the other side, more mindful than ever of the dull pounding in his skull. He was met with the sight of his mother’s wane figure at his bedside. She was sitting on a gothic looking chair, her long blond hair loose and her face paler than usual. She didn’t look frightened, or even repulsed by him though – only uncertain and worried. He took small confidence in this.
“Oh, Draco,” Narcissa Malfoy breathed despairingly, “How are you feeling, darling?”
Draco made an effort to speak, but what emerged from his mouth was merely a hoarse croak. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat, and tried once more. “Mother. ‘M fine.”
In truth, fine was one thing Draco was not. Talking to his mother about his actual frame of mind wasn’t a thought he liked to entertain at the moment, however – the action would hurt both physically and otherwise. In fact, Draco intended to evade addressing his predicament for as long as he could, considering he’d just woken up several minutes ago. His mother, though, obviously had other ideas.
“I worried about you so, Draco; you were asleep for three whole days! After Greyback...” she cut off, her eyes searching his face. Guessing it was a cue for him to deny having been bitten, Draco remained silent. “Your shoulder... Is it hurting a lot? We didn’t call a Healer, as your father was against it, but I have read up a bit on your... disease, and... now that you have awakened, the infection is said to have mostly settled – the worst is behind you.” There had been noticeable strain in her voice when she said the words ‘disease’ and ‘infection’. Draco only nodded; he didn’t think he could speak without choking right now.
“Darling, I’m so sorry –”
“Mother –” There was that croak again. He had to clear his throat. “It’s fine. Don’t... What did Father say?”
The question tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. Truthfully, he’d just grasped at the first thing that came to his mind, because he didn’t want to hear his mother apologize. When the word ‘father’ was actually out in the open, though, Draco realized he had no desire to hear the answer at all. Dealing with his father’s disappointment was one thing – over the years, he got used to it. But when the disappointment was bound to reach a scale much greater than mere school grades and Quidditch, when it actually concerned the Malfoy bloodline, it was a different thing altogether. He didn’t want to think about Lucius Malfoy’s reaction to the news that his only heir became a werewolf; the image was making him physically sick.
“Your father is... very confused right now, Draco. He doesn’t know what to think. You can imagine he was very surprised when we found out about...” she trailed off. Draco said nothing. “That isn’t to say he is mad at you, darling, of course not! He is just... give him some time to come to terms with your new situation. Let him gather his thoughts – you know how much blood purity means to him. But no matter what, he loves you, Draco, and he always will – never doubt that.”

***
The next couple of days constituted possibly the most stressful time in Draco’s young life. His mother was trying very hard to make him as comfortable with his ‘new situation’ as humanly possible without actually speaking of it, and she took to treating him like one would a traumatised child. In a sense, Draco supposed he was, which only made his teeth grind harder; being on the receiving end of others’ pity was certainly never a pleasant experience, but Draco found it exceptionally degrading when the situation didn’t benefit him at all.
His father’s attitude was even worse – though in a vastly different way. In truth, these days Malfoy Senior seemed to be in a slightly different world altogether. While his behaviour following that haunting night wasn’t nearly as violent as Draco had feared, the unpredictability made it so much more stressful.
Lucius Malfoy at first took to avoiding his son like a plague; then, after the initial shunning, he just slowly returned to his cold, aloof self.
While Draco was initially completely thrown off course, he concluded in the end that the brush-off should have been expected. After being bitten by Greyback, Draco’s conversations with his father became stilted, and the silences awkward. He could tell Malfoy Senior was indeed majorly disappointed that his only son was now a half-breed and a werewolf, to boot. How humiliating for the family, imagine what the society would say – he could nearly taste his father’s upset on his tongue, which was a weird notion when Draco paid attention to his thoughts. It was exactly how it felt, though – like he could somehow sense faint waves of vexation and uneasiness rolling off his parent’s shoulders.
While it was Lucius who tried the hardest to avoid remarking upon Draco’s new condition, all three Malfoys were, in fact, in denial. Above all, it made Draco wonder how his parents’ attitude towards him would change with the next full moon, when the convenient veil of denial was no longer an availability, and when they would be forced to acknowledge the issue. Although Draco was trying to dodge the problem himself, it was proving near impossible. There was just no way to deny it – he was a werewolf. He could feel it in his bones, and in his blood. He could tell something in him was changing, even if he couldn’t place accurately what it was.

***
The Death Eater meetings were more nerve-racking than ever. Draco was only grateful Voldemort hadn’t revealed the truth about his condition to the rest of his followers, although that didn’t stop the Dark Lord from cruelly taunting and mocking him. It was a bit of a gamble, really, Draco thought – if, someday, one word too many spilled from Voldemort’s vicious mouth, Draco’s illness would be exposed, and therefore his life forfeit. The young man was extremely careful not to give anything away about himself, but he was helpless in face of his Master’s amusement and desire to humiliate.
For that reason, among others, Draco found himself actually hating the Dark Lord, which was a very dangerous thing to do. It was said that Voldemort had the ability to sense people’s emotions without using Legillimency, or any other magic. He wasn’t sure whether that was even true, but he dreaded how the Dark Lord would react once he discovered Draco’s loyalty was far from solid, and that his feelings were essentially becoming quite the opposite from what they should be. For all he knew, though, the Dark Lord could already have been aware of all this, and was just deriving delight from his youngest follower’s forced servitude.
One meeting in particular made Draco further convinced of that suspicion. It was April 24^th in the late evening, merely twelve days since he’d been given to Greyback. Even before the meeting began, Draco could tell by the increased burning of his Dark Mark, that this summons was something he definitely didn’t want to miss, unless he was prepared to reap very severe consequences. Being a minute late for a Death Eater meeting alone was simply calling for trouble, but being late when the Dark Lord was obviously in a bad mood was unofficially the equivalent of a death sentence. Therefore, Draco wasn’t surprised at all when barely five minutes after the summons, everybody was already seated at the table in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. The overall atmosphere was very stiff, more so than usual – even Bellatrix looked solemn.
“The time is coming, my friends,” the Dark Lord announced to the room at large, his voice as clear and high-pitched as ever. “Soon, Britain will begin to function under my rules. The balance will be restored – we will be on the way to purge the Wizardkind of disgusting Mudbloods and blood-traitors. Soon, everyone will get their respective justice.” Those, who didn’t pick up on Voldemort’s actual state of mind behind the supposedly jubilant speech, started cheering and clapping wildly. “Silence.” And the noise instantly died down. Because, indeed, instead of the triumph his words seemed to portray, the Dark Lord’s typical cold demeanour was really tinged with restlessness. This slight inconsistency notwithstanding, one thing all Death Eaters could sense collectively was their Master’s very genuine excitement. The Dark Lord fully believed in the authenticity of his own words, and so his loyal followers had no reason to doubt them either – they were now convinced it wouldn’t be long before pure-bloods took absolute control of Wizarding Britain.
The meeting went on in a similar manner for the next two hours – with the false zest his conduct belied, Voldemort continued the harangue about the approaching final battle, sometimes quietening the less intelligent Death Eaters who got carried away with their blind fervour and bloodlust.
“The other side is weak, my faithful companions. They console themselves by believing to be above using the Unforgiveable Curses,” the words were suddenly saturated with mockery, “but in truth, they are simply afraid to be in power. Unable to achieve their goals using any means necessary, they are no threat to us. As we struck, we will exploit that weakness – while those fools stumble uselessly trying not to hurt and kill anybody, we will show no hesitance. Think not of taking prisoners just yet, my friends, as there will be enough time for that once I take the reins. On the battlefield, there will be no place for mercy; unless it comes to Potter, you will aim to kill...” A pause. “Will you not, Draco?”
Seated between his parents, Draco jerked in his chair. “Yes... my Lord.” The answer was automatic – anything other than an assent would not have been acceptable.
Seemingly contemplating this, the Dark Lord said, “Will you really... I have doubts, you see, Draco. You do not appear nearly as enthusiastic as some of the others. It does make one wonder about the strength of your resolve as my soldier... and as a pure-blood.” Draco could feel his heart beat accelerate. After another beat, “Tell us, Draco, are you a pure-blood?”
The world stopped. His breath caught in his chest, Draco stared at some vague spot on Voldemort’s black robes, completely unmoving. He wanted to say that yes, of course he was, except that he couldn’t possibly lie to the Dark Lord so blatantly. Because Draco wasn’t a pure-blood anymore. He was a half-breed now, which he could feel at all times in the confines of his body, in the different hum of his own blood, even if he hadn’t experienced the transformation yet. How was he supposed to respond? It was true Voldemort had made some back-handed remarks concerning his condition a few times before, but they were never such a bold invitation to lie. Draco could tell there was a slight sheen of cold sweat beginning to gather on his skin, and still he didn’t react in any way, didn’t answer the Dark Lord’s query. And as slow seconds passed, Draco hated the wretched creature more than ever – first, obviously, for making Greyback transfer the disease to him, and then, even more, for using it against him.
Just as the other Death Eaters started frowning with confusion and no little amount of suspicion, some hissing at Draco not to disrespect their Lord, Voldemort spoke again, evidently bored. “Two weeks,” he said, and the attention shifted back to him; Draco could breathe again. “No more than two weeks, and my power will be entirely unquestioned. I expect all of you to be prepared for the new order that will come with my ruling.”
The meeting ended not long after that. Draco couldn’t relax one bit for the remainder of the night, however, and he slept not a wink. His mind kept whispering, “Too close...” over and over again.

***
In the end, it turned out the Dark Lord was right in his premonition regarding the date of the final battle, but completely wrong concerning its outcome. The Light side won; the Dark Lord was, somehow, defeated by Potter, and the majority of the Death Eaters were captured. Draco was in equal measure relieved and alarmed, though, mostly, he was just resigned. His experiences and the war in general made him numb; he was uncertain of what to feel. He dreaded the backlash of the society to the fact that almost the entire Malfoy family was composed of actual Death Eaters, and he positively cringed every time at the thought of going to Azkaban. Then again, he wondered whether there was anything worse than being Voldemort’s servant. He was only cheered when he found out Greyback had been killed in a scuffle with some Auror.
What truly rattled Draco out of his mild stupor was the discovery of his godfather’s death. He was surprised at how deep the sense of loss he felt was. While relatively close in the past, after his father’s imprisonment, Draco was extremely suspicious, embittered, and even hateful towards Snape, believing the Potions Master had intentionally usurped his father’s position in the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle. Later, when he found out in a very short, inconspicuous article in the Daily Prophet that Snape had actually been a spy for the Order of the Phoenix, he was incredulous. His parents felt just as betrayed at the revelation as Draco, none of them having expected such a turn of events, yet he still mourned the passing of his once favourite professor.
The day the article came out, his mother also accidentally let slip that she’d told Snape about Draco’s condition in order to ask him to brew a Wolfsbane Potion for the next full moon. Draco hadn’t thought about that aspect at all – he was too caught up in his brooding to ponder how he would actually cope with the werewolf transformation. As it turned out, his godfather hadn’t finished the concoction before the final battle, and so Draco’s hope was lost. He resigned himself to the fact that in his werewolf form he would be out of his right mind.
He shied away from reflecting on that, however. The full moon was approaching, and the closer to it, the more restless Draco became, Death Eater trials notwithstanding. He was extremely glad that, due to his mother’s saving Potter’s life at the last second, his family was allowed to stay in the manor while awaiting their own trial, because for seemingly no reason Draco had developed several urges and cravings he couldn’t imagine having to contain. For once, while he’d never been an outdoors person before, there was suddenly the need to be as much on fresh air as possible. He felt cramped between the walls of his house, restricted somehow – he needed space. Although the manor was under Ministry supervision following the battle of Hogwarts, so long as he was within the allotted premises on the grounds, he was basically in the clear. Therefore, Draco spent most of his days outside, sometimes wandering aimlessly around, and other times just sitting under shade trees, nearly dozing. It was a while until Draco realized what he actually longed for was a territory. Regardless of how animalistic it sounded in his own mind, it still didn’t stop him from appeasing the impulse.
The most notable changes were those in his diet, though.
When he had the craving for raw meat for the first time, Draco disregarded it entirely, brushing it off as a weird aftershock of the war. But as the craving stubbornly remained for the next three days, and he finally connected it with the impending full moon, he figured something had to be done about the issue. Having made certain his parents were occupied and wouldn’t disturb him, Draco secretly summoned a house-elf, Riggy, to his room.
“I want you to bring me a bowl of raw meat.” He kept his voice quiet, as if afraid of being overheard. “I want it to be beef, and only the best cuts. Make sure it’s fresh, and bloody. Now go, and make it quick.” Wide-eyed, Riggy made to snap its fingers to Disapparate, but Draco stalled it, “You’re not to tell my parents about this – in fact, tell no one.”
Ashamed with himself, but just about salivating at the thought of indulging his hunger, Draco slumped in his chair and waited.
When Riggy arrived with his order not a minute later, he dismissed the creature straight away. Then, he all but pounced on the food.
The smell was like that of the most inviting dish he’d ever been served, and the sight of the bleeding tissue made his mouth water so intensely he had to keep himself in check not to drool. He couldn’t turn away from the meat if Voldemort himself were to tap his shoulder at that very moment. He lifted one bloody chunk to his face, and, unmindful of all the possible dangers of this action, bit into the rubbery flesh. His senses were instantly overwhelmed. While the taste was nothing special, metallic and still warm, the urge to keep chewing, and to devour the whole contents of the bowl was unstoppable. One after another, he wolfed down the scraps of meat in a manner his mother would have been appalled to witness, and he even gobbled the pieces of bones he encountered. At some point, Draco had the weirdest notion that the strength of his jaws must have increased as the full moon neared, because he knew he couldn’t possibly have been able to chew flesh so effortlessly if he were still fully human.
Finally, with a contented sigh, Draco swallowed the last bit down, and leaned back in his seat. The bowl sat on the table in front of him, empty but for the red smears on the surface. Closing his eyes, Draco abruptly pushed the utensil away.
“Oh God,” he moaned, as the mortification finally set in. He was truly becoming a monster. He’d utterly lost all control at the mere sight (and smell, and feel...) of raw meat, acting like some starved animal, oblivious to everything around him until his hunger was appeased. He wanted to retch, but the fact that he hadn’t felt this sated for years betrayed his true sentiments. He could still taste the blood on his tongue, and in actuality, it didn’t disgust him one bit – more than that, a feral part of his mind was now filled with satisfaction. Running his tongue across his teeth to gather the remnants of the flavour, Draco wasn’t even surprised his canines felt longer than usual – it explained further why slicing through the tissue wasn’t more of a difficulty. While he hadn’t felt them extending through the haze of his greed, he could now tell, by the tickling of his gums, that the canines were gradually retreating.
Hesitantly, Draco looked at his bloodied hands. It seemed like now that his craving was satisfied, the extreme hunger induced by the smell and sight of blood diminished to a distant hum in the back of his mind.
Greatly discomfited, yet very much satiated, Draco fell into a pleasant sleep that night.

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Kain; thank you so much for the wonderful review! Don’t worry, Ron will not be made into a villain J And yes, I’m really looking forward to writing Draco, considering a lot of his views are about to change drastically... but in due time! I don’t want to rush anything, and I think having Draco renouncing all his prejudices would not be realistic. So yes, I’m afraid he’s going to be a jerkass for a long time still!
Sarah; thanks so much for the support!
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The Werewolf