Out of the largest house in the village came a figure that filled half the doorframe.
Fenrir Greyback.
He wore a heavy leather vest whose original colour was long gone. Bare arms, crawling with scars that ran from pale pink to deep brown, not one patch of skin left whole.
The face matched. Claw marks and bite marks crossed over each other, deep and shallow, cutting the thing into something that hardly worked as a face.
Regulus studied him with interest.
This creature had made itself a predator, deliberately. Frame, nails, teeth, eyes, all of it growing that direction.
He'd stopped pretending to be human. He was moving toward the beast, and enjoying the trip.
Regulus laid his perception over him.
The density of Greyback's magic ran a full order of magnitude above the rest of the pack.
If ordinary werewolf magic was a bare, coarse churn, his was a compressed, tightly bound core of pure animal. The difference between a flicker and a bonfire.
Looking deeper, the animal in him wasn't mixed with the man.
In the others, human and beast were stirred together, each inside the other, which was exactly why they twisted and suffered.
Not Greyback. His animal sat on the outside, a thick layer of it, wrapped entirely around whatever lay within.
Was the human still in there, sealed under the beast? Or was there hardly any human left, and beneath that layer, nothing at all?
A first glance wouldn't settle it. Regulus reached no conclusion.
He kept his face still and went on watching. Passive observation only, no active probing.
No telling whether a thing like Greyback carried some animal instinct, whether he could smell it when someone was sizing him up.
Lucius hadn't finished his business. No sense complicating it.
Greyback caught sight of Lucius and snorted, contempt all through it, mouth pulling wide to show two rows of yellow teeth.
"Back again." His voice came out rough, sanded down by years of howling. "The Malfoy boy. What have you brought this time?"
He knew the Malfoys, knew the man came on the Dark Lord's behalf. It didn't stop him despising the sight.
Pretty clothes, an expensive cane, a pure-blood aristocrat who couldn't say a thing straight.
To Greyback, creatures like that were brittle. One bite through the neck. All that swagger propped up on a family name.
He hated the type. He wanted to tear one apart and swallow it, bones and all.
Then he noticed the one beside Lucius. Black hair, grey eyes, half a head shorter, wearing the same fine clothes.
A whelp.
Greyback's gaze went over him and back, the way it went over prey.
He took two steps forward, the bulk of him throwing a shadow that swallowed Regulus whole.
The smell came with him. Sharp, thick, blunt in the nose.
Regulus's brow drew together.
Blood, rot, the rank animal musk werewolves carried, and something bleeding off the man's magic besides, all of it churned together and pouring in.
Foul.
The nastiness in Greyback's expression deepened.
He'd seen it. The whelp couldn't stand his stink.
He liked that. That was the smell of a predator, and that was a wizard's fear.
Lucius moved half a step up and brought the cane across, level, blocking the space between Greyback and Regulus. No further.
"Greyback." His voice stayed measured, unhurried. "I'm here with the Dark Lord's word."
Greyback's head turned toward Lucius. The eyes didn't follow, still angled sideways at Regulus.
Then, slowly, they slid off the boy and onto Lucius's face, the challenge in them unmistakable.
Lucius let it pass and moved to the business.
"Your people have been far too active around Yorkshire lately." His bearing stayed stiff, his tone cool. "A string of attacks. A good many bitten, a whole crop of new werewolves made, and one of those incidents happened near a wizarding settlement."
The cane tapped the ground in front of him. "The Dangerous Creatures Control Division has already begun laying detection wards out there. The Dark Lord's position is..."
"Stop." Greyback turned his back, spat onto the open ground, and turned round again.
"I've heard enough." The yellow teeth showed, his tone vicious. "Pretty words. Every one of you, the moment you open your mouths, it's the Dark Lord's position, the Dark Lord's arrangements."
He leaned in, looking down, canines bared. "Why should I listen? I'm doing fine here. Who gets bitten and when, that's mine to decide."
Lucius frowned, distaste flickering through his eyes, but he held his ground and his posture.
"Why?" A smile pulled at his mouth with nothing kind in it. "Because the meat currently on your bones was a gift from the Dark Lord."
His gaze travelled from Greyback's rags to his dirty yellow nails, his tone leisurely. Nearly a foot of height separated them, and still he managed to look down.
Beside Greyback, Lucius was elegance itself. "Where were you six months ago?"
"Running the length of Britain with Aurors on your heels. Nowhere to see out the winter. That handful of wolves under you were hungry enough to gnaw on each other."
A low growl rolled up out of Greyback's throat. The words gave offence, because they were true.
Lucius didn't move.
"The Dark Lord gave you this village. Gave you supplies. Gave you ground nobody comes to police, so you could bite in comfort and grow your pack. You've had six months of it."
"Now." The cane struck the ground once. "He wants you to show some restraint. Not to drag the Ministry of Magic down on us. Is that so much to ask?"
"It is!" Greyback's teeth clenched. "Those useless things sitting in their offices, let them come!"
"And then?" The chill entered Lucius's voice. "You plan to bite an Auror? Bite one, and the Ministry of Magic declares all of Yorkshire a restricted zone. Restricted zones have no prey. Restricted zones have extermination sweeps. The more you bite, the harder they hunt. And then the thing the Dark Lord wants, a werewolf force he can deploy at the decisive moment, stops existing. Your value, Greyback, lies in still being useful. If a day comes when you're rather less useful..."
Greyback snorted, and the reek of his breath came out with it, close enough that Lucius felt the heat of it on his face.
He didn't argue the point, because the point couldn't be argued. That didn't mean he accepted a wizard speaking to him this way, with threats in it.
His eyes narrowed, the yellow slits widening, fixed on Lucius, and the look turned dangerous, one breath from claws and teeth and a torn throat.
Lucius moved half a step forward instead, cold running under the composure. "Greyback, what do you imagine you are? You think three or four dozen wolves puts you in a position to negotiate with the Dark Lord?"
"One word from him and you and your pups have no possibility of remaining alive."
Then he stepped back to where he'd been, his tone recovering, that particular Malfoy elegance returning. "Perhaps you'd like to test it?"
Greyback's face darkened. He stared. Lucius stared back. Man and wolf held it, and every werewolf around them fell quiet.
Greyback was no fool. A beast, but not a mad one.
He knew the thing in the fine clothes was telling the truth.
What the Dark Lord gave, the Dark Lord could take. He feared him still.
"...You want restraint." The words came out through his teeth. "Fine. But the supplies go up. I've got a lot of mouths here. What you brought before doesn't cover it."
"It's here." Lucius shook the little leather pouch. "The quantity was set by the Dark Lord. Not a portion more, not a portion less."
Greyback growled. "Not enough."
"Then go hungry." Lucius tossed the pouch on the ground. "Hungry and restrained. The two aren't in conflict."
Greyback stared at the pouch, then at Lucius, and the air locked up.
Lucius gave nothing further. The message had been delivered and the ground had been held, and still the animal wouldn't give him a clean nod, trading on his small usefulness, dragging out the haggling.
Lucius understood the pattern. With a thing like this, the more reasonably you argued, the further up your face it climbed.
But he couldn't tear the relationship open either. The werewolves had to be kept in reserve. This was the Dark Lord's errand, and botching it wasn't something he could absorb.
He could push Greyback hard. He could not push him into swinging. The line had to be held to the inch.
The difficulty in these trips was never the message. The difficulty was standing in front of something unreasonable that also had to be humoured, holding his breath, and getting every word where it belonged.
He started again from a different angle. The Dark Lord's larger plan. Bite whoever you like once the thing is done. Ruin it, and death will be the kindest outcome available to you.
One line after another, orders into promises into threats, soft and hard both.
Greyback listened, baring teeth now and then, snorting, turning his back and turning round again, refusing to take any of it up.
The whole thing stalled. Lucius talked at length and the wolf didn't shift an inch.
What he needed was a clear nod. Greyback wouldn't hand one over, stalling, wearing him down, expressing his refusal to submit in that particular animal way.
Pointless, and Lucius had to wear it out with him.
His brow drew tighter, patience thinning. The stink had soaked into his robe. He'd burn it the moment he got home.
The cursing had begun internally. Filthy. Base. Savage. Animal.
Greyback had lost patience too. He knew he'd agree eventually, knew he'd give the wretched wizard what he came for. He only didn't want to give it cleanly.
Tired of the noise, he rolled those eyes sideways onto the whelp.
Two steps forward. He bent down and put his face close, a forearm's length from Regulus's.
He drew a long breath in, scenting.
Nostrils working, a low rumble in his throat, a beast smelling something unfamiliar, from the hair down to the shoulder, from the shoulder to the collar.
His eyes stayed on Regulus, teeth showing, looming.
He wouldn't attack a wizard who'd arrived with Malfoy, whelp or not. That was buying trouble.
But he could frighten one. He liked that.
He liked watching soft-skinned wizards tremble in front of him, sickened, afraid. Liked watching them want to run and not dare, and then feeling his jaws close.
He'd bitten a great many. Every one turned into a thing like him, spat out by society, cast off by family, and then either died or came crawling to him.
He never tired of it. Spreading it around like seed.
He believed he controlled it all. Their fear. The rest of their lives.
And this whelp in front of him, black hair, grey eyes, brow furrowed, face full of disgust.
What a fine piece of prey.
He leaned nearer, nose almost touching, the inhale loud and heavy.
His mouth stretched nearly to his ears, a full set of stinking yellow teeth on display, malice pouring off him. "Who's the whelp? A present, Malfoy? Weaned yet?"
Regulus was still frowning. Greyback's words were worth less than a dog's barking, but the smell was genuinely hard to stand.
Watching from the side, Lucius's expression changed.
He wasn't worried about Regulus coming off badly. Greyback could put every tooth in his head against the boy and not touch a hair.
What worried him was the reverse. That Regulus might slip and kill the thing.
That would be a problem. The Dark Lord still needed the werewolves.
Regulus was young and enormously strong, and striking back at a provocation would hold up anywhere.
Even if he flattened Greyback outright, the Dark Lord likely wouldn't lay it at his door.
A thirteen-year-old wizard, provoked to his face by a grown werewolf, kills it in return. Who calls that wrong?
But a failed errand needs someone to blame. And who would that be?
Malfoy business. The blame could only land on him.
Or, worse, if Regulus took even the smallest injury. A scraped knuckle. A werewolf so much as brushing his robe...
Then the Blacks and the Malfoys could forget cooperation and courtship. It would be a blood feud on the spot.
Orion Black would let no werewolf present walk away, Greyback included. But before that, he'd deal with the man who'd brought his son to a place like this.
Neither outcome was one Lucius could carry.
He was about to speak, already stepping forward, the cane switched to his left hand and his wand grip closed in his right.
Regulus turned his head and looked at him. "How much does the Dark Lord value him?"