Hunter and Prey

It was full night by the time Ralph Hutchins finished his diatribe. They were still in his yard, the only light from a single bulb in the kitchen window. Presently that clicked off when the farmer stormed back into his house leaving Hermione in the moonlight. It wasn’t romantic. She pulled her phone out and sent a text message to her team, being frugal by habit. Then she made her way to the gate to sit down on the low stone wall.

The earbashing had got her several promising leads. The ram’s carcass had been in such a state that a man from the Ministry, Agricultural not Magical, had taken it away for inspection. Hutchins wasn’t the only one who had reported livestock losses. Hermione knew that. The SMS tracked a lot of reports and sometimes rarely it was a werewolf. But it was also a lot of paperwork. She rubbed her thigh. The wound ached when her leg got cold. A stone wall wasn’t the most comfortable perch.

The ram had been killed in Hutchins’ furthest field. He’d given her vague directions to it but there was no chance in Hell Hermione was going to trek there to have a look without back-up. She pulled the scroll and a flashlight out to make notes while her memory was still fresh. Very little meat was missing from the carcass, which suggested it had been killed for amusement, which in turn suggested a dog attack. A lone werewolf would be hungry.

She was sitting alone in the dark. The thought occurred to Hermione quite suddenly as the flashlight flickered. She hadn’t noticed how black it was away from streetlights. Looking up as she tapped the torch automatically against the wall to joggle it back into working order, she noted clouds had obscured the gibbous moon. Hunting lycanthropes, you paid a lot of attention to the phases of the moon. It was waxing.

The flashlight was standard issue strictly for the look of it. She didn’t have any spare batteries. Hermione edged her wand out of her sleeve as her ears found sounds to alarm her. Night birds, insects and the low howl of the wind seemed ominous. It wouldn’t take her team long to pick her up. She kept that thought firmly in her mind. Her hand tightened on her wand.

“Lumos.” She said quietly. Hermione turned off the flashlight but kept it in her lap in case Mr Hutchins charged out to warn her off his property. Returning to her notes, she considered the significance of the farm itself. It was old. They’d done some surveying to locate any possible magically concealed boltholes in the general area but reconciling ordinance maps with MoM charts was a huge task. It didn’t help that GPS went odd in intensely magical places.

There could be a network of caves. The local geography boasted a fair few, many with interesting hominid fossils. That would account for the difficulty they were having confirming werewolf activity. Hermione added a note to contact any spelunking clubs in the area in case they’d noticed anything. Suspiciously new ‘fossils’ would be an obvious clue. She chuckled to herself then stopped abruptly as she heard someone approach from the direction of the farmhouse.

Hermione turned around quickly, sliding her wand up her sleeve to conceal it from casual sight. It wasn’t Hutchins. She saw that much in the instant as the dark figure leapt for her. She got her wand out fast enough but her spell ended in a rush of breath as the werewolf slammed into her and she landed hard on the ground beneath him.

All the wind had been knocked out of her but she didn’t have time to gasp. She had to fight! Hermione brought her knee up as hard as she could and rolled out from under him before he had a chance to recover. She staggered upright, dropping a shoulder to slide her rifle free. Pain blossomed in her back as she moved. Must have cracked a rib or badly bruised something when she landed. It took her breath away anew.

“Petrificus Totalus!” Hermione wheezed, lashing out with a curse. It was dark but she could see the werewolf was huge, black furred with lighter hackles. He dodged the body-bind with a low growl that was almost a laugh. Her eyes went wide as she recognised him. Fenrir Greyback, it had to be, though she almost didn’t believe it. She thought the Ministry still had him. They had been very hush-hush about it.

There would be no taking him alive. She couldn’t risk herself. Hermione sucked in a deep breath despite the pain, edging away as he tried to herd her against the wall. He’d leap at her soon. She could see him tensing. He was toying with her. Well damn him! No quarter.

“Avada Kedavra!” Hermione hissed just as the big werewolf, the nightmare of a generation of wizarding children, threw himself at her. There was a flash of green light and a red bloom of pain...