Hunter and Prey

Flying on a broomstick in icy near-winter wind over Kilmartin gave a severe battering to her joie de vivre. Hermione held onto Delhousey as he did a tight spin over the standing stones and nearly left her dinner behind.

“Overfly Ormaig again. I got trace.” She shouted to be heard over the wind. Delhousey nodded but did not shout back; Hermione would not have heard him as his face was swathed in a heavy Ramsay tartan scarf. He turned the broom, keeping as low to the ground as safety allowed. Hermione’s boots brushed the tree tops as she swept her wand back and forth. Her other hand held tight onto the grip mounted behind the bicycle seat fastened to the haft of the broom.

The tandem arrangements could have been done with sticking charms but Scotia team preferred the mechanical way. There were a great many stray magical eddies in the Highlands that made using magical devices tricky. But it was probably just bad luck that Hermione tapped Delhousey on the back and pointed with her wand as a sudden gust of wind knocked the unwieldy besom.

Delhousey twisted sharply to keep them aloft. Hermione overbalanced and slid from her perch, missing the bristles and crashing down through the bare branches. She was quick enough with a cushioning charm and landed safely if inelegantly on her backside. Hermione signalled to Delhousey to stay aloft. It was too blustery to risk climbing. She would walk out of the woods to rejoin him or find a suitable clearing.

Hermione swept her wand above her head. The detection charm told her there was a lycanthrope in midrange. She shrugged off her rifle, loaded it and slung it across her front where it would be more accessible. Wand ready, she headed briskly back to the ruins. Eventually the trees thwarted her view of Delhousey and she was particularly wary after that. When she heard a twig snap, the witch put her back to a trunk and scanned again.

Her wand pulsed three times in her hand. The trace was very close. The SMS was developing a heads-up targeting display for increased efficiency but it was not ready for field testing yet. So the information the detecting charm gave her was only near and to her right but she could not see anything yet.

Then there was a noise to make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Hermione recognised the throaty growl instantly and tapped the send button on her mobile phone. It was strapped to the underside of her right wrist because of the impossibility of fishing something out of your pocket when flying at 160 kph. She palmed an aconite dart carefully as she waited, heart thudding.

“I can see you, bitch!” The hateful, menacing snarl cut through the clamour of the wind in the trees. Hermione did not move. She was not going to run though the wood like a frightened doe even if she could have made her suddenly leaden legs move. “I can see your flat, barren belly!”

“Two sons and a daughter!” Hermione shouted back, knowing if Fenrir thought she had aborted his litter she was as good as eviscerated. “All healthy and all mine!”

That flushed him out. He charged towards her fast as fury. Hermione got off a spell but not at him. Bright orange dots like tiny suns sped up through the forest canopy. Orange penetrated haze better than red and three dots meant grave danger. Fenrir hit her hard, shoving her against the tree. He was so angry he barely noticed the prick of the dart but he howled as the wolfsbane flooded into his bloodstream.

Hermione kneed him and scrambled away. She hit him with a Stunning curse but it did not drop him. Her wand was still weak against him even after she had been assured it was fixed. In hybrid form he was incredibly tough. The field teams had to hurry!

“Tell me their names.” Fenrir growled, stalking towards her as clumsy as a drunk. Aconite was only a secondary paralytic. It functioned first and best on the heart causing tachycardia and therefore symptoms of asphyxia. Hermione shot him again as she backed away, her hands moving instinctively to reload.

He staggered, tried to leap at her but fell to the ground. He writhed and ended up on his back fighting for air. His body contorted, she could hear his bones grating, as he returned to human seeming.

“Alexander, Rosalind and Jonas.” Hermione said quietly from about five metres away. She was not going to go any closer until he had stopped moving. She was not going to chance anything. He could not have been more dangerous if he had been rabid. “I named them after Muggle scientists.”

“Weak names.” He huffed, his skin paling to blue-white. His hands clawed the ground as he tried to push himself upright. Inside his chest his heart skipped and shuddered like a scared child.

She should kill him. She could. No one would question her. The temptation was so alluring Hermione could almost hear the devil on her shoulder whispering to her. She bit her lip to stop herself. Not in cold blood. That was the difference between here and the dreaming world. Asleep, she could think what she liked but in the flesh there were consequences. There would be no airing dark urges from her subconscious.

“They changed with the full moon.” She wanted to distract him, to keep him talking rather than trying to attack. He would be sensate until the end, a cruelty of the tincture Neville had not been able to overcome. “It was no trouble for them.” Hermione licked dry lips. Her mouth felt arid. Adrenalin thrummed in her veins. Fenrir let out a wheezing gasp then another. She stared at him, astonished he was laughing.

“My litter.” He panted, baring his teeth in an exultant grin. Hermione watched as his breathing slowed and his eyes rolled back. Perhaps he was unconscious. Perhaps he was dying. She stood where she was, rifle in hand and waited until he was still. Then Hermione approached to manacle him and shift him onto his side into the recovery position. She let her breath out in a long, shaky sigh.

It was over.