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Greyback’s Treat


Dumbledore stood at the foot of Tina Scamander's bed in the hospital wing, and he clutched his fingers 'round the metal frame of the bed as Poppy administered her healing powers to her. He looked over at Newt Scamander with questioning eyes. "Newt," he asked, "What happened to Tina?"

Newt looked up.... and he told the following story:




SOME TIME AGO...

The Great North Woods were silent in the night, the aurora flickering high above on the horizon. The temperature hovered just above freezing and something dark and terrible loomed among the trunks of the trees. Across the lake, lights from the small village reflected in the still water, the streets emptying quickly because after a certain time of night, dark things took over the village and none of the people wanted to be caught outside when he came.

The man was torn, his face and arms covered in scars, his anger reflecting off every one of the gashes in his skin. He had sharp, pointed teeth and a wicked habit of licking them, as though hungry or as though polishing them -- those pointed teeth, after all, were Fenrir Greyback’s most prized possession.

Shutters slammed and doors clicked shut and people scurried to hiding places, trembling in terror as his shadow passed them, his eyes burning.

Tonight, though, he had a very specific mission.

Fenrir Greyback withdrew his wand and blasted the gate off a small house whose windows were all completely dark, shutters closed in an attempt to hide… as though if the house was dark, Fenrir Greyback might pass them by… might forget what he was coming to do.

“Incendio,” he hissed, aiming his wand for the roof. A ball of fire flew through the air and struck the thatched roof, bursting, and the fire began to consume the wolf in a wild burst of heat and light. Fenrir walked forward, “Reducto,” he said, and a beam of sparks flew forward, shattering the front door of the house just as Fenrir reached it, the wood reduced to nothing but splinters. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sing-songed Fenrir lowly, his voice trembling with amusement and excitement.

Upstairs, in a closet, trembling, sat a woman, pressed to the corner of the walls, her arms around a small boy, whose arms clung to his mummy, his eyes closed as he shook. They both flinched at the sound of the door exploding, and he whimpered into her neck. Her tears lined her face, pouring over her jaw and into his hair. “Shh,” she breathed, “Shh.” She ran her fingers over his spine soothingly… though it would be impossible to calm him as her own veins were laced with the coldness of pure terror.

Fenrir Greyback moved through the house, waving his wand, destroying things as he went. The roof was consuming quickly in the flames, the smoke beginning to wend its way into the house, the smell of burning wood and ashes began to slowly infuse the air. Glass shattered, bursting around the floor with a musical sound. Family photos were slashed from the mantel and from the walls… china cups and plates popping from the cabinet… knick-knacks exploding… splinters of wood from tables, chairs, bookshelves, stair bannisters, and doors flew about in the air, mixed with bits of paper from books and papers, like a sinister confetti, mingling with the ash and smoke that was getting thicker and thicker…

Upstairs, the air was getting hotter from the fire as it began to consume the house, racing through the walls in the insulation and the wood and in that little closet, the woman reached up and touched the doorknob and could feel the heat beneath her palm. Searing. Her heart ached. They were going to die no matter what she did - if she stayed they would burn alive, if she ran then Fenrir Greyback would kill them both. She began to sob in earnest.

“Mummy ok?” pleaded the boy. “Mummy ok?”

“Shh,” she whispered, but her voice broke as he did it and it betrayed her -- mummy was not ok.

Fenrir Greyback was on the stairs, each step creaking beneath his weight, grinning and licking his teeth...

Part of the roof roared as it caved in the far end of the house and the noise it made was horribly loud, the beams crashing into the floor. The surprise of the sound terrified the little boy, clinging to his mummy in the dark, and he let out a loud shriek of fear.

“No, no, shhh,” the woman begged.

But out on the stair, Fenrir Greyback’s eyes flashed toward the door of the bedroom where they hid and he moved toward it, slinking along the hallway through the smoke, thick and slowly darkening the further… Stepping through the door of the room, he breathed deep and mixed with the smoke and ash, he could smell the blood. Fenrir knew he had to move quickly. There would be, unfortunately, no time to savor his prize properly here.

He reached the door of the closet and wrenched it open.

The woman and the boy looked up and the boy screamed in fear as the monster reached down for him and yanked him up roughly with one strong arm and grabbed a hold of his mother with the other and -- with a twisting, horrible feeling that seemed to compress the boy and turn him inside out and then right side out again -- he found him and his mother and the terrible monster-man were somewhere else altogether, somewhere among the trees of the forest. The boy trembled as Fenrir Greyback shoved his mother down to the ground and she lay there, crying loudly, scrambling to her knees before the monster.

“Please, don’t hurt my son,” begged the woman.

Greyback grinned. “You should be worrying about yourself, poppet,” he whispered, “I’m going to enjoy every last nip of you, whereas he ain’t goin’ to suffer….. Much.” And with that, Greyback looked the woman right in the eyes, his irises twinkling, and he pulled the boy roughly in front of him, grinning at the woman, and he bent low to the boy’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of the child’s skin, savoring the anticipation as the boy tried to wrench away in fear and there was no amount of struggle that the ickle thing could do to get away, Greyback being far too strong. “This is where I’ll bite him… tomorrow, under the full moon… right here… I’ll tear his flesh away and taste his blood…” he stared into the eyes of the mother. “I’ll turn him and his bones will crack and his skin will boil and his face explode into a snout… and your son will be a werewolf and he’ll help me to consume all of the village in the name of the Dark Lord.”

The woman sobbed hysterically.

“For now…” Fenrir shoved the boy to the ground and he waved his wand and gold strands burst from it, snaking their way around the boy in a sort of cage of glowing light that encapsulated him.

“Mummy!” screamed the boy, terrified. She grappled to her knees, crawling over and trying to wrench open the cage but the strands burned her hands and she screamed as they seared lines across her palms, though she didn’t stop even as the strands burned her flesh - determined to save her son - but there was nothing she could do.

“Now…” Fenrir Greyback’s eyes glinted as he stepped forward, grabbed the woman’s arm, wrenching her back, away from her boy, shoving her to the bracken so that she lay on her back, the sleeve of her dress torn. She stared up at him in fear and he grinned, “Time to enjoy my treat…” and Greyback lunged toward her.




“NEWT!”

Tina Scamander’s voice rang through the darkness.

“NEWT!!!”

His head popped out from ‘round the canvas material he’d strung up to create the walls of the habitat for the moon calves. Pale lavender light back lit his auburn hair and he stared at her, clutching the edge of the tenting, his eyes flashing. A moon calf stuck his head out from ‘round the canvas, too just below Newt’s, imitating the way he leaned ‘round and stared. Newt reached down and shoved the little head back into the habitat. “Teeny?” he called.

“One of the Prewett brothers is here. I’ve let him in the case, he’s in the lab.” She stood, hugging herself against the cold of the winter habitat she stood near.

The persistant moon calf stuck his head back ‘round the canvas wall. “Coming,” Newt said, and he pushed the little head back in once again. “Just feeding the creatures.”

“Yes, well, that could take all night Newt, and Gideon’s only got a few minutes. Come inside and talk to him and after I’ll help you feed the creatures.”

He looked hesitant, as though this offer was somehow wronging him, but then he nodded, “Yes… I’ll, uh, I’ll be there. Just a minute.” And he ducked back into the habitat. She could hear the buzzing of the excited calves and she rubbed her arms and hurried back to the laboratory.

Gideon Prewett was sitting on a stool and Ned Veigler had made tea for them, and when she came in, he offered her a cup. “He’s coming,” Tina said. “We’ve interrupted creature feeding time, though, so he may be a bit short…”

Gideon, who was not at all used to the idea of having crawled down a ladder through a briefcase and into a whole new world, looked at her over his tea cup, “How many creatures does he have?”

“Currently we’re caring for seventeen different creatures, though he tends to mend and release, so there’s been a variety of others that come and go. There’s fifteen that live here permanently,” Tina replied. And, as though to demonstrate this, suddenly the Niffler appeared, spinning and crawling its way up Gideon’s leg to his lap. The Niffler stared up at Gideon with her beady little eyes.

“Hullo,” Gideon said, staring down at the Niffler.

The Niffler’s nose twitched as she sniffed him and Gideon shook his watch under his shirt sleeve and held the fabric to protect it from the glistening eyes of the Niffler.

Ned chuckled. “I’d watch the buttons on your coat, too, mate, she’ll settle for brass when she can’t get silver or gold.”

Gideon brought his other arm up over his buttons.

“Alright, you little pest,” Tina reached out and scooped the Niffler up, holding it in her arms against her chest like she might a teddy bear and the Niffler scrambled, trying to get away, her claws grappling desperately against Tina’s arm, but Tina had too good a hold on her and it was fruitless to struggle, so the Niffler gave up with a huff of frustration and dangled there instead, resting her bill on her palm in frustration. “Sorry, she’s a bit moody.”

Gideon laughed. “Funny little thing isn’t she?”

“Bit of a bugger, really,” Newt said, coming in the door as Gideon asked it. He was quite the sight to behold, in knee-high wellies and red suspenders that stood out against his otherwise neutrally coloured wardrobe. Tina had given him the suspenders ages and ages ago - the shop had sent the wrong colour when she ordered them for a Christmas gift for Newt, and though he thought it odd she’d ordered him red instead of brown or black, he’d worn them merrily and they’d been his favorites because they’d come from her. His bowtie was untied, hanging limply about his neck and he was positively soaked, hair streaming water over his forehead. “So sorry,” he added when he saw Tina look at him, appalled by his frumpled, crumpled, soaking state. “The, uh, the calves, they, uh, they didn’t care much for the - the interruption to their feeding and they’ve pushed me in their little pond… jealous little whips they are…”

Gideon laughed, “I’ve never met one. Kettleburn had lost his when I was in school the term we learned about them.”

Newt’s eyes glowed with excitement, “I could show you all my creatures if you like, they’re quite --”

Tina cleared her throat to interrupt Newt. The excitement on his face at the suggestion had clearly said that he would be wandering off into the habitats for hours and hours if left unchecked and Gideon did look quite interested, which meant it could be next day before they got to the Very Important Business which had brought Gideon Prewett to them to begin with.

“Oh… oh yes, sorry - so sorry,” Newt cleared his throat, “You’re here on business. About the, uh, the Time Thief?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gideon answered, and he reached into his pocket, producing a pocket watch with a smashed face, several cogs and springs sticking out from the edges. It was utterly destroyed. “We got this from a man in Cork. Fabian’s following a lead we had for one in Kent as well.”

“Spiffing!” said Newt as Ned Veigler put down his cup of tea to inspect the pocket watch with interest. “Any other suspicious, uh, deaths, that - that you’ve heard wind of at the, uh, the ministry? We, uh, we didn’t find anything with that, uh, the witch in Surrey.”

“Well there was one report of a muggle woman and her son, not confirmed to be dead yet,” Gideon replied. “House burned to the ground, completely destroyed, nothing but ash remained. A neighbor claims he saw something he called Walking Death enter her home before it started… Preleminary investigations by muggle detectives have shown no explanation for what started the fire, and there have been no bodies found yet.”

Tina looked concerned. “Odd, but… how does it connect to the Time Thief?”

“The woman’s husband was the only clockmaker for nearly a hundred miles around. Additionally, the report said that all of the people that had been spoken to about it claimed that Walking Death had been after the family for sometime for reasons they did not know… Furthermore, the village is directly across the lake from the Great North Woods, where Dumbledore tells us Greyback’s army has been taking refuge.”

Newt Scamander’s eyes flashed.

Ned Veigler stood up straighter, looking at Tina and Newt with wide eyes.

“Not good,” muttered Newt. “Oh very, very not good.” He rubbed his palms together, “Yes, I - I think we shall investigate this very, very quickly. Yes.”