Author's Notes:

1) This fic is a canon-divergent AU for both verses. Some elements from the canon storylines will still have taken place/be present, others will not.

2) May contain themes such as, but not limited to, smut, violence, and possessive behavior.

3) Please understand updates to my fics are sporadic. This is because while, admittedly, I do have a lot of fanfictions, I am a published author irl & currently need to divide what time I am able to devote to writing between fanfictions & original fiction works.

4) Do not be wary of the number of new fics I'm starting. There is no intention of leaving any of my fics, or of any new fics interfering with already posted ones. However, as I am updating sporadically as it is, it's more fair to put the opening chapters of all waiting fics out for readers to sample, so that you can decide which stories merit the investment of waiting for updates, and which you simply are not interested in reading any further.

*Fenrir Greyback Fancast: Jason Momoa

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or Marvel Cinematic Universe, or any affiliated characters.

Chapter One

Misremembered

No one really knew what had happened to Hermione during her captivity following Voldemort's defeat. They knew the facts . . . .

Her broken wand had been discovered on the battlefield.

Fenrir Greyback had been glimpsed carrying an unconscious brunette away from the chaos, though no one had managed to catch him.

She was finally rescued from a tumbledown cabin in the woods four months later, seemingly dazed and covered in bruises, scratches, and bite marks not-quite deep enough to break her skin.

Fenrir Greyback was nowhere to be found.

Given these fleeting glimpses of reality, and how distraught she seemed when she came out of her apparent fugue state and asked for her captor, only to be informed he was missing, Ministry officials and Healers could only draw one conclusion. Hermione Granger was suffering from what Muggles referred to as Stockholm syndrome.

It was more than clear she'd been tortured, she was told, since the bites must've been intended to hurt her without turning her. The scratches and bruises were clearly from forced sexual encounters, they said.

She could not reconcile this with her memories of those four months.

She remembered things differently, didn't she? Yes, yes, of course she did. But the softer side she'd seen of the werewolf was an act, or the work of her own imagination. That had to be it. They had to be right. The change in dynamic between herself and her captor had been nothing more than her psychological need to survive her ordeal. Her friends would never want to lead her astray on something so important.

And she could not have harbored any true feelings for someone capable of such terrible crimes as he was. She didn't love him, she couldn't!

For the next two months, Hermione struggled with her memories, with incorporating into her recollections what she knew must be the truth of the situation.

Fenrir Greyback was many things, stupid not among them.

He'd wanted her, she'd known that since Malfoy Manor, so he'd jumped at the chance to make her his. He'd brought her somewhere secluded, where she was defenseless, so that she had no choice but to rely upon him—isolation. Convinced her he genuinely cared and manipulated her into seeing things between them the way he did—indoctrination.

She even fought the theories her friends forced on her about the truth of her captivity. The only thing missing was that she did not lash out against the authorities hunting Fenrir. She always understood that he was one of Wizarding Britain's Undesirables, and would be until he was captured or killed. She knew that no matter what had transpired between them in that cabin, they would always be on opposite sides of the law.

Perhaps that was why she struggled to make sense of these two disparate notions—the first being what she recalled, the second what she was told—of what had happened to her.

Harry and Ron no longer recognized their best friend. For days at a time, she would put herself into isolation, attempting to block out everything else as she forced her mind to accept the more sensible version of events. Each time, she felt she had gotten a little better . . . . until the dreamed recollection of some loving moment, or some steamy night, would surface and send her right back to square one.

Then came the day when she felt she'd finally conquered her fanciful, wayward memories. She'd, once more, put herself into isolation, though this time she did not reemerge until she could scarcely recall her version of events. Yet, it was still not quite enough. He'd held her hostage, repeatedly wounded her, forced himself on her. There would be no peace for her until she made him pay.

That was when she knew she had to find Fenrir Greyback. Find him, and put him six feet under before anyone else robbed her of the opportunity.

And, just like that, Hermione Granger's life had purpose in the wake of all that had happened to her.

Hermione frowned, lowering her wand as she stared out into the dense thicket of unfamiliar trees before her. She knew by now that Fenrir was aware she was after him. She'd tracked him to the woods of Upstate New York, and had lost him. Again.

Pursing her lips, the wild-haired witch emitted a surprisingly growl-like sound from the back of her throat—a habit she'd developed since her rescue, which no one had seemed able to break. Even reminding her that she sounded like a werewolf, herself, only earned Harry an angry, sidelong glance.

She sighed and shook her head. Perhaps it was best she'd slipped off to the States by herself. She needed to do this on her own, and she was concerned Harry would try to stay her hand, insisting they bring him back to stand trial for his crimes.

She knew he had her best interests at heart, but that didn't make his way right. And she also didn't need his constant hovering making her feel as though her ordeal had turned her into some shrinking violet who needed protection. She'd become versed in wandless magic as best she could since her captivity. But if she had to remind anyone, one more time, that she'd been the victim of her own psyche based on circumstances—a thing which could, literally, happen to anyone, it did not make her weak, or incapable—she thought she just might go a little bit mad.

Though, sometimes, she wondered if she was proving this to everyone else, or to herself.

Fenrir's trail disappeared into these woods. So often this happened that she sometimes wondered if he was simply good enough to keep evading her by chance, or if he was toying with her. If it was the latter, he'd be unpleasantly surprised to find that she would no longer ever be unarmed.

Shaking her head once more, she raised her wand, recasting her tracking spell. With any luck, she thought, a second go would pick up something the first had missed.

And it did, only . . . not quite what she hoped for.

She moved, almost mechanically, to follow the direction in which her magic pointed. There was an interruption in his energy . . . he'd encountered someone. Hermione focused, trying to read the information her spell gleaned.

An altercation seemed a more appropriate term than an encounter. A fight . . . that was why the energy broke off, Fenrir had cast a charm to block anyone from tracking him after that, so it wasn't only directed toward her.

But that meant whomever he'd tangled with was still here, and, if the register of energy from her spell was correct, he'd left them alive.

The full moon was a handful of nights away; the brightness of the last night of the waxing half-moon and stars unencumbered by the pollutions of the city, however, provided enough light that she could see . . . . Not incredibly well—on a cloudy night in an area like this, she knew she would not be able to see her hand in front of her face—but she did not want to draw undue attention to herself by casting Lumos.

She also wasn't completely convinced that Fenrir wouldn't use the opportunity to get the drop on her, making it seem he wanted to vanish and then circling back to catch her by surprise. He'd made no moves against her, no matter how close she'd gotten to catching up to him.

It made Hermione suspicious that he seemed to be waiting—for what? She hadn't the foggiest.

Her eyes adjusted, bit by bit, as she made her way through the trees, her wand at the ready. Though there was no easy way to pick up a foot path through the wild grass, she eventually came upon patches of earth peeking through the night-darkened greenery.

Frowning, she lowered to one knee and sifted her fingers through the soil. It was freshly overturned, and—now that she was closer—she could see spots in the grass that looked trampled. Heavy footfalls had not just come through here, they'd stomped, dragged, and kicked.

Hermione couldn't help but smirk. This felt like the closest she'd gotten in her months pursuing Fenrir. "Promising," she said, muttering the word under her breath.

At the very least, this person he'd scuffled with was close, and could probably tell her in which direction the werewolf had run off. She tried not to let herself get giddy with the thought of finally catching up to him.

That notion always disappointed her; she'd wait until she actually had him in her sights to feel any sort of joy.

Frowning, she turned her head toward the sound of . . . . Was that a fire crackling somewhere nearby? As she moved her head, she caught a glimpse of something on the ground, being lightly tousled through the grass by the faint gusts of wind blowing through the forest.

She moved toward the object, slow and cautious, before her fingers closed around the hard cloth and lifted it for inspection. Arching a brow, she turned the nondescript, dark-red baseball cap in her hand.

There was a chance this belonged to Fenrir's new playmate, as did the campfire she heard—and now smelled. She couldn't imagine anyone else was within earshot of this area and hadn't come to see what the commotion was about.

Then again, in the woods at night, perhaps coming to see what a commotion was about wasn't a bright idea. She was counting on the fact that most people ignored bright ideas in favor of sating curiosity.

Gripping her fingers into the cap, she rose to her feet and started for the crackling sound on careful, measured footfalls. Her wand at the ready, still, she made her way around and between trees before coming upon the simple campsite in the distance . . . .

Bare bones, even by Muggle standards—a hastily thrown together fire pit and a sleeping bag which had seen better days. Yet, even from where she stood, still a few meters off, she could see that it was empty.

A scowl pinched her features. She'd not heard the fire's crackling when she'd first been inspecting the combat zone . . . perhaps her mysterious camper had lit it and gone off to clean himself up from the fight? She had come across a stream nearby.

But no, she knew she didn't have that kind of luck. This was a trap.

Hermione spun on her heel, wand raised, cap still clutched in her free hand.

The Muggle stared back at her, dressed plain enough, yet his posture was tense. He did not assume a defensive stance, but he didn't need to. Something in the set of his broad shoulders told her the tension in him was not a response to her presence, per se, but that he always stood at the ready. A man of military training, perhaps?

She could see his eyes narrowing as he assessed her similarly—he had to be, there was no other way to describe the manner in which he scrutinized her. Though both arms appeared to hang limp at his sides, she noted the glimmer of a blade's metal in his right hand.

He stood at, what? Six foot, by American measurements, if she was guessing correctly, and had dark hair that fell past his chin, shielding much of his expression, though it didn't hide that he was in dire need of a good shave. There was a chance he counted on his imposing and unkempt appearance to frighten her off, because he did not advance.

She thought . . . no. He wasn't trying to scare her off, he was waiting for her to attack.

Whoever this man was, he had no intention of fighting her unless she initiated.

Hermione lowered her wand, her gaze on his all the while. Though in her periphery, she noticed the minute easing of that tension in his form.

"So . . ." he said, his voice tumbling out, rough and gravelly, as he gave her a quick once-over. "You're not like the other one, then?"

Her brows shot up. Yes! This was exactly what she'd hoped for! But she couldn't jump ahead. This man had fought Fenrir Greyback, yet looked no worse for wear.

She needed to find out all she could.

"The other one?" she echoed, watching with intentionally visible wariness as he bent to slip his knife into the ankle of his boot.

Standing straight, he dropped his own gaze to the wand—lowered, but still clutched in her fingers—and nodded toward it. "The other one running around these woods carrying a magic fucking wand."

Hermione couldn't help but snicker at the disbelief in his tone. Clearly he knew they worked, he just couldn't make sense of the notion. Not a wholly unusual response from Muggles when it came to witnessing magic for the first time. Yet, he didn't sound nearly as surprised by the circumstances he'd found himself in as she expected one in his position would be.

"No," she said, conviction in her voice, which brought his gaze back to hers. "I'm not like him, I'm hunting him." She noted his gaze had flickered over his cap before he'd met her eyes, just now.

Dropping her attention to her hand, she watched her own movement as she lifted it and held it out toward him. "You can have this back."

He tipped his chin back a little, again with that assessing look, observing her from behind the mussed strands of dark hair hanging in his face.

When he seemed reluctant to draw near, Hermione sighed, her small shoulders drooping. Putting away her wand, finally, she waved the cap at him.

The man moved toward her at such a measured pace, she could swear she noticed the grass growing in the time between his steps.

Exasperated, she said, "Good Lord, it's not as though I'm going to bite you."

His eyes flashed wide and he halted.

A heartbeat passed before Hermione understood. "Oh—oh, God! He bit you?" Fenrir had actually not bitten anyone he'd crossed paths with as he'd fled from her all this time, leaving her a bit shocked that he'd done so now, but then it typically wasn't difficult for a werewolf to overpower the average, non-magical, someone and be on his way.

This soldier must've really put up a fight.

He set his jaw as he tensed, once more. "Tell me, again, that you're not like him."

She swallowed hard, nodding as she repeated, "I'm not like him."

The man lifted his left hand—which she could now see was gloved, though his right was not, and she wondered if he'd lost the right glove in the altercation—and pushed up the sleeve of his jacket on his right forearm. There, the crescent shaped beading of blood, the crimson drops streaking his skin, gleamed in the illumination from the night sky.

She tried to control a gasp, but still a sharp spurt of air sounded as she inhaled. "What—what's your name?"

He frowned, as he tugged his sleeve back down. "Bucky. Can I hope that you're going to be able to make sense out of this for me?"

Again, she nodded, but she could tell that the sudden sadness in her expression did not go unnoticed by him. "Bucky? My name is Hermione, and I'm—I'm sorry, there's no other way to tell you this . . . . That man was a werewolf."

Even with the wands, and the bite, and whatever else had happened during Bucky's fight with Fenrir, Hermione expected his disbelief. She expected him to laugh at her and call her crazy, and demand she leave his campsite.

Instead, those broad shoulders drooped and he tipped back his head to eye the stars peeking at them through the open patches in the forest canopy. "Bitten by a werewolf. Why the fuck not?" he asked no one in particular with a sigh and a short, quiet chuckle.

When he lowered his head, he nearly laughed again at the perplexed expression the petite English girl before him wore.

"You're . . . not going to go on and on about how werewolves don't exist and I'm clearly a mad woman?"

His brows shot up and he pursed his lips a moment before he responded. "We'll just leave it at 'I've seen a lot.' You said you're hunting him, right?"

Hermione nodded. Blue . . . his eyes were blue, now that he was close enough, she could make out their color in the sparse illumination.

Finally he took his cap from her fingers as he nodded back. "Then I'm going with you."

She only stared up at him for several heartbeats. This . . . this hadn't at all gone as she'd thought it would, yet somehow, she found herself nodding one last time as she said, "Okay."