A/N:

This fic was written for Fairest of the Rare's 'Before the Spring Snaps' 2019 fest. The fest theme was Disney and my prompt was 'Big bad wolf - Into the Woods'.
Huge thanks to Frumpologist and MidnightChardonnay, the admins of the group, for making this fest happen!
This is unbeta-ed so forgive me any SPAG errors please! I'm more than happy for errors to be pointed out.

Into the Woods - Chapter 1

The villagers called it 'big' and they called it 'bad'. Some called it 'the beast', others 'the monster', some the more long-winded 'creature of the full moon', others simply 'the wolf'.

Hermione Granger never called it any of those things.

Hermione called it the Butcher.

The village of Hogsmeade sat nestled between mountains to the north, farmlands to the east and a deep, dark wood to the west. And, if one took the less well-trodden path to the south, they would eventually find themselves at the wrought-iron gates of Hogwarts Castle. Although people rarely took this path, for reasons we will come to understand.

One hot, mid-summers day, Hermione had set out to visit her Granny Minnie. Minerva McGonagall wasn't Hermione's real Granny, of course, but she was as good as. She had been there when Hermione had been born, had cradled an infant Hermione to her chest, seeing her through illnesses by conjuring magical healing spells her no-magic parents could not perform, and had taught Hermione everything she knew, aside from that which her parents had passed on.

Granny Minnie lived a good league into the woods, beyond the dragon tamer's hut, just on the boundary of the Forbidden Forest. The border between the woods and forest was protected by wards the villagers had conjured many years ago, to attempt to protect them from the bloodlust of the Butcher, for it was suspected that it lived in the shadows of the forest.

Despite the sweltering heat, Hermione had still chosen to wear her red riding cloak. Granny Minnie had gifted her the cloak for Christmas of her eleventh year, explaining that it was enchanted with spells which meant she was protected from danger whenever she wore it. Indeed, Hermione could sense the magic rippling through the cloaks seams each time she donned it. It was what made her feel confident enough to venture so near the forest boundaries.

"Hermione! Little Red!" Hermione turned at the sound of her nickname. The villagers had coined the nickname 'Little Red Riding Hood' when Hermione had started to wear the cloak which, over the years, had been abbreviated to 'Little Red'. Ginny Weasley was running down the lane towards her.

"Are you going to visit Minerva?" Ginny asked once she'd caught up with Hermione. "Do you think you could stop by Charlie's and give him this?" Ginny held out a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, taking the package and putting it in her basket. It was the size of a book although felt a little heavier. This intrigued Hermione because she loved books but they were scarce in the village. Her favourite day of the month was market day, when she would go with her father to the nearest town, where Sheriff Dumbledore resided, and the aged wizard let her pick books to borrow from his small library.

"I - I can't - I don't know," Ginny stuttered, her apparent awkwardness increasing Hermione's curiosity about the packages contents. "But don't open it, or give it to anyone else - you must deliver it to Charlie yourself. My mother asked for me to do it but I won't have time."

Ginny and Hermione said their farewells and Hermione went on her way. By the time she'd reached the dragon tamer's hut, Hermione was sweltering. Her cheeks were burning with heat and sweat dripped down her back. She hesitated before knocking on the door, for she had not seen Charlie Weasley for many years. He had gone away when he was seventeen to be trained and had only returned six months ago. He would be twenty-four now. Hermione had been ten when he'd departed, and only vaguely remembered him. Hermione knocked on the door of the ramshackle, seemingly lopsided hut.

After a moment, the door swung open and a tall, broad, bare-chested man stood there, taking up nearly all of the doorframe. He looked Hermione up and down, unsure for a moment and then his face transformed into a wide, wolfish grin of recognition, his eyes twinkling in the sunlight.

"Hey, Little Red," he greeted warmly.

And for a moment, Hermione found it hard to talk. It was as if butterflies were fluttering their wings deep within her stomach at the sound of her nickname on his tongue. And then there was his skin.

Hermione was used to seeing men's bare chests. On hot summer days throughout the village, when wood needed to chopped and fields to be ploughed, decorum had to be done away with in order to keep cool.

But this. This was different.

For nearly every inch of Charlie's exposed skin was marked. Marked with burns and scars and ink. A black picture of a dragon was pierced into his upper left chest, near his shoulder, and another on the right side of his stomach, the tale of it disappearing out of sight under his trousers. And nearly everywhere else there was the red and white of a burn or a scar. Hermione had a desire to know the story behind every one of the marks, which didn't surprise her - she'd always been curious. But what was less familiar was the yearning she felt to run her fingers over each welt and ridge, along the hard edges of him...to maybe lick over the perimeter of the inked dragons...and to know how he would react if she did so -

"Hermione, are you okay?" Hermione abruptly pulled her eyes away from Charlie's chest, realising she'd been staring at it for quite some time.

"Yes - sorry," she tried not to sound too flustered. "Your mother asked Ginny - who asked me - to give you this." She held out the package to him.

Charlie looked at it and something unrecognisable flickered in his eyes, his brow furrowing briefly. He took the package hastily, "Thank you," he said, then appeared to study her for a moment. "You look boiling. Come in for a bit. Have a drink to cool you down. I've just pressed some apples."

The thought of cool apple juice was beyond tempting, so Hermione accepted and followed Charlie into his hut. She took off her cloak because she instinctively felt safe in Charlie's dwelling and she thought she may pass out with the heat if she didn't.

She was wearing a plain cotton summer dress underneath and realised that sweat had made it stick to her in the most awkward of places. As Charlie eyed her taking off her cloak, she suddenly felt very aware of her body - of the shapes and curves of it - in ways she never had before.

"Why are you wearing such a garment on a day like today?" Charlie asked as he placed the package down on the side and started to pull tankards down from a shelf.

"It has magical protection," Hermione explained simply.

Charlie looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded imperceptibly. "That's important, in these woods."

There was a pause as Hermione tried to subtly wipe her face with a cloth she'd found in her pocket. Gosh, she must look a fright. Then Charlie spoke again. "The beast - it hasn't killed since I was last in the village?"

"No. The last time the Butcher attacked was when it assailed your brother." Seven years previously, only weeks before Charlie had departed the village, the wolf had attacked Bill Weasley. Fortunately, Bill had survived with only some gashes to his face. He hadn't died and he hadn't been turned. Charlie had paused in his drink preparations and was eyeing her thoughtfully.

"Why do you call it the Butcher, Hermione?" he asked gently.

Hermione chose her words carefully, because explaining this still caused her some upset. For six months before the Butcher had attacked Bill, it had slain her younger sister, Allegra, when she was just seven years old.

"When they brought Allegra's body back, and laid it on the ground outside our cottage, my mother didn't want me to see it, but I insisted," Hermione explained quietly, looking at the floor, at a loose thread on Charlie's rug. "And I remember thinking when I saw it: that's not Allegra. At least, it didn't look like her. Because her skin was ripped back from her bones, one of her eyes had been gouged out, her left side was a mass of tissue and blood. It all made her quite unrecognisable. And it reminded me of the carcasses of animals I'd seen hanging in the butchers. So I've called it the Butcher ever since. Because of the way it butchered her body."

Charlie looked at her quietly for several moments. "I'm sorry," he said eventually.

But Hermione did not want, or need, his pity. For since her sister's death a desire for vengeance, quiet as a spider, had spun its web in the shadowy places of her heart.

"I'm going to kill it," she stated with cold, quiet conviction, raising her eyes and meeting Charlie's, her face hard and determined. "One day, I will take it's life as it took my sister's."

Usually, when she made this claim to the villagers, they laughed her off - Little Red Riding Hood, thinking she could slay the werewolf! The villagers had lived in fear of the monster for two generations, after all. But Charlie did not laugh at her. Something flickered across his features again - something like wariness - as he continued to hold her gaze, his face serious.

He reached out a hand and brushed a stray curl back from her face. Hermione's breath caught as she felt his fingers against her cheek, her skin tingling where he'd touched it.

"Little Red," he said, his face soft but grave. "Not so little anymore..."

Hermione took her drink and went to sit in one of the chairs by the hearth.

"Why did you decide to live here Charlie? Won't you get lonely?" she asked, in an attempt to change the subject.

"Well, the caves and quarries nearby are perfect for the dragons, you see."

"But it's only a quarter of a league from the village. You could live there and walk in each day?"

Charlie smiled ruefully. "This quiet solitude is best for me...this way I get to escape the village drama...and the gossip. And I have visitors to stave off the loneliness. You'll come and visit me again, won't you Little Red?"

"Oh yes, certainly," Hermione replied, because she thought she'd like that very much.

On her way back to the village that day, Hermione was forced off the path by a group of five horseman that came cantering down the lane at the meeting of the woods' path and the lane to Hogwarts Castle.

As they galloped past Hermione, she heard a man on a white horse let out a bellowing cry and the whole party came to a precarious halt fifty yards or so from where Hermione was standing. As she looked, the white steed rider turned his horse, cantered back to her and dismounted gracefully.

The man's dark hair fell in a wave over his forehead and his eyes were such a dark brown they were almost black. Hermione supposed that some may have said he was handsome, but his eyes wandered up and down Hermione's body in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

"Forgive us," the man said. "I fear the liveliness of our party may have thrown you from the path." Insincerity wove through the man's words, making Hermione instantly wary.

"I grant you my forgiveness, sir. Now, I must be on my way," Hermione said hurriedly, and turned to go.

"Why such haste, Miss...?"

Hermione stopped, for it would have been far too rude not to, and turned back to face the stranger. "Miss Granger. Hermione Granger."

The man smiled. "Miss Granger," His eyes danced around her figure again, as if appraising her. His scrutinising gaze was beginning to irritate her. "You have quite a wild mane," he commented, eyeing her hair as if he were evaluating a prize mare.

"I am not a horse!" Hermione could not help but reply indignantly. Then instantly regretted it because he did not seem the kind of man it would be sensible to anger.

To her surprise, the stranger chuckled. "Sharp-tongued too..." He advanced slowly towards her, causing Hermione to take a step backwards, only to find her back coming up against the hedge that lined the path. "Maybe not a horse, but a wild one nonetheless...what would it take to tame you, I wonder?" he asked quietly.

He leaned towards her, inches from her face, causing Hermione to flinch back instinctively. The thought of the man touching her made her stomach churn. She did not respond to him; it had seemed a rhetorical kind of question. He stared at her for some moments longer, a half smile playing on his face, as if the effect he had on her amused him. Then he abruptly pulled back, walked towards his horse and mounted it elegantly.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Granger," he called down to her. "But I didn't introduce myself, did I? How rude of me - I am Lord Riddle...but if you're a good girl, I may allow you to call me Tom."

And he gave her another sickening grin before turning his horse and riding away.