A/N: Written for assignment 10, Religious Education, Task #9: Write about reaping the benefits or rewards of something.

Thank you, Amber, for beta'ing :)

Warnings: Non-graphic descriptions of injury

He is born on the night of a full moon, the first one of the year. It is a moon for fresh starts, new beginnings. For the light to rise above the darkness.

His mother takes this as a good sign, even as he comes tearing out of her body, causing her near unbearable agony. Even as she bleeds so much that the Healers can provide no aid. Even as she feels herself fade. She knows her child is meant for great things.

And so, she names the babe after the moon. The Ice Moon, the Snow Moon, the Wolf Moon. She names him Fenrir, after the Norse god so cruelly tricked.

There would be no trickery for her child, she vows. There would be none able to harm him. But he would rise up like Fenrir; he would overpower his obstacles like Fenrir. And no chains would ever bind him.

.oOo.

Ripping, tearing, biting.

Pain, pain, pain.

That is all he knows. All he is.

He is brought into a world of pain, and the pain becomes his entire world.

Until it isn't, and he knows no more.

.oOo.

Fenrir does not remember his mother, although he likes to pretend that he does. He imagines that she was kind, that she was loving, and that she would put him before all others.

He has no photos of her, but he imagines her to be incredibly beautiful, like one of the film stars in the black and white movies he likes to watch on TV. He'd wait until his grandmother was asleep, and then he would sneak out the front door and hurry down the street to the house on the corner. The man living there always fell asleep in front of his TV, so Fenrir would crouch below his living room window, peering over the ledge, and watch until the screen went fuzzy.

The lack of volume doesn't bother him; Fenrir prefers being able to make up his own stories, anyway.

Tonight, Fenrir pauses to watch the full moon. These nights are his favourite; one of the few things he knew about his mother was that she had followed the moons, and he likes that feeling of closeness with her, that genuine connection that he can't often get. It is one of the few things that is truly his.

But the lure of television pulls him away; if he leaves it too long the TV will go to stand-by mode before he can even get to it, and then he'll have to sneak back in after another wasted night.

So he settles down in the flowerbeds of the corner house, his knees digging into the earth, and watches the show. A woman in a long gown flits across the screen, her expression an oddly blank concern. And he lets the stories play through his head; stories of excitement and adventure and rescue, stories where mothers never leave their little boys alone with only an elderly grandmother to care for them.

He wakes up curled in a ball in the flowerbeds. It's not the first time this has happened, but it still sends his heart racing in his chest as his adrenaline spikes, and he hurries into a low crouch until he's reached the pavement.

His grandmother won't even have noticed he was missing.

.oOo.

Cracking, breaking, splintering.

His bones pushing out of his skin, changing form, growing and reshaping. Until he is left panting and sweating in a heap on the ground.

Sticks and rocks dig into his underbelly, but he does not wish to move. He cannot bring himself to move.

The pain, it is still too much, too raw, too recent.

He curls up, waiting for sunrise. Waiting for this to end.

.oOo.

Fenrir is too old now to sneak out just to watch the neighbour's TVs. He needs some excitement in his life, some daring, and, yes, some mischief.

He would not call the group of boys his friends, Fenrir doesn't have any friends, but he does hang out with them on nights like these where the walls of their own homes are far too small, too constraining, and they all just need to escape. These particular boys all go to the local school, the one Fenrir's grandmother had refused to send him to because he would be attending some sort of private school with a funny name when he is a few years older.

But Fenrir is not particularly interested in school. He would much rather be able to sleep late into the afternoon, to go outside and explore in the early evening and not return until the quiet hours of the morning. Sometimes, if he has gone far enough and he is tired enough, he will sleep under the stars, but Fenrir doesn't think tonight is going to be one of those nights.

For one, it is raining. And even Fenrir draws the line at camping out in the rain.

Mainly, though, it is because Fenrir does not particularly like tonight's group of boys. They are too loud, too rowdy. They scare away the badgers and foxes and rabbits Fenrir likes to watch. The birds flit away before Fenrir can even hazard a guess as to what species they are. And the rain is just making his already sour mood worse.

He heads into the woods without a word to the other boys. They won't notice he's gone, and he prefers to be alone anyway.

The moon shines bright and full overhead, peeking through the heavy rain clouds, and Fenrir tips his face towards the sky, heedless of the rain, as he walks deeper into the woods.

.oOo.

He becomes himself with a scream, with a growl, with a howl to the full moon. Letting out all his anger and hate and pain with the sound.

Animals skitter away from him, fearing him, but he does not care.

Stretching out long, muscled limbs, he thinks this time. This time he is ready.

.oOo.

They call him names when they think he can't hear — 'loner,' and, 'loser,' and, 'unwanted' — but Fenrir doesn't care. He has no interest in impressing the other boys in this small town, nor the girls, for that matter.

Next year, his grandmother will be sending him away to a school far from here. Fenrir doesn't want to go. He'd miss his woods too much, even though his grandmother says there is a forest at the school. It won't be the same.

As soon as he steps through the tree line into his forest, he relaxes as if a great weight has been lifted off his narrow shoulders. The air here is cooler, crisper, easier to breath. And Fenrir never wants to leave it.

He follows a trail left by a small animal — a fox, maybe — deeper into the woods, not worrying about getting lost. Fenrir has never gotten lost in these trees. They know him too well.

Even the animals no longer fear him, though they still keep a wary distance.

If Fenrir could live in these woods, amongst these trees, he would.

.oOo.

The pain is just as intense every time, but he is able to breath through it. To scream through it. To growl and howl and snarl through it.

He lets the pain take over, lets it shroud his entire body without a fight. He becomes the pain, twists it, uses it.

It is his and he is its.

.oOo.

Tomorrow. She's making him leave everything he has ever known tomorrow.

Blood rushes to his face, and he storms through his woods with none of his usual care. A fox flees its den at his loud approach, and it is the sight of the creature's bushy tail disappearing through the trees more than anything else that causes Fenrir to take a deep breath. Count to three. And sit on a fallen tree.

He needs to fix this. He needs to find some way to stay. He doesn't want to go to school, where they will try to keep him inside all day, making him read and write and learn things he doesn't need to know. He wants to stay in his woods. Forever.

A howl punctuates the air, emerging from deep within the trees. It's a comforting sound to Fenrir, who loves nothing more than to sit and listen to the creatures going about their everyday lives, to the creak of the trees as the wind brushes past their boughs, the crunch of leaves and snap of twigs on the ground.

The howl draws nearer, accompanied by the sound of padded feet hitting the earth.

Fenrir frowns. The sound is familiar but wrong. Too big, too loud, it doesn't quite belong in his woods.

He rises slowly, careful not to make a sound. The full moon provides enough light for him to see by, but the trees mean he can't see more than a few feet in any direction. Swallowing quickly, Fenrir ducks into a low crouch, taking a deep breath and trying to detect any unfamiliar scents.

He only gets the crisp, clear smell of the woods, the smell of the earth and the leaves, nearby animals, and … wet dog?

A low growl comes from his left, and Fenrir spins quickly, ready for an attack. He's never felt any fear in his woods before, and it unnerves him, throws him off. Causes him to lose his footing, his ankle twisting underneath him as his foot gets caught in a rabbit hole, and he goes sprawling across the ground.

The attack doesn't come. But still, the experience has rattled Fenrir.

.oOo.

Even as his bones are breaking and resetting, as his teeth are lengthening into fangs and his senses improving, he smells it.

Another. Another creature like him. In his woods.

He growls, low in his throat, his hackles rising, and makes ready to stalk his prey.

.oOo.

The barrage of questions from his grandmother upon his return from school had been impossible to keep up with. Not that Fenrir had tried. He'd snuck away at the first opportunity, and was now sitting in his woods.

He hasn't been back since that night, when he'd felt true fear for possibly the first time in his life, but Fenrir isn't afraid anymore. He'd been trapped at that school for three months, and all he wanted was to wander through his welcoming woods.

The full moon lights his way as he follows a path, or what passes for a path in his woods. It's more a trail, really, left behind by animals who have picked out the easiest route through the trees. Fenrir has created a few of these paths himself, but this isn't one of his.

It's new, for one. Created whilst he was away. And the thought that his woods have been changing without him causes his chest to tighten with sorrow. Fenrir thinks he might hate his grandmother, just a little, for dragging him away from these trees.

There is the howl he remembers from so many months ago, but this time it does not bring about fear. He is confident now that nothing in these woods means him harm; that these woods are looking out for him.

Ducking underneath a low hanging branch, Fenrir can sense the eyes watching him as he continues deeper into the woods. Large, yellow eyes that glow eerily in the moonlight.

Fenrir pays them no mind. He knows that if he leaves the creatures in the woods be, they will usually extend the same courtesy to him.

He wanders deeper into the woods.

.oOo.

He is all awkward human limbs and canine jaws, wolf eyes and human ears. His brain still in that foggy, fuzzy place where he is not quite beast but definitely not human.

But he knows enough to know that this creature should not be here.

This is his forest. His.

And even as he recognises the scent, even as it registers that this is the creature who bestowed such a wonderful gift upon him, he sinks fangs into the soft skin of its still human neck.

He wraps his still too human fingers around its throat, holding it down, as he rips and tears and shreds until the creature falls still.

.oOo.

He is sitting, waiting, a part of him looking for trouble. But Fenrir is not yet brave enough to go actively seeking it out.

The Christmas holidays are ending far too quickly, and Fenrir does not want to go back to school. It doesn't hold the same wonder that the other children view it with. It doesn't hold the magic and mystery they all see. It cannot compare to the brilliance of his woods.

He hurls a pebble, listening to it crash through the trees, the noise continuing long after he has lost sight of it.

But the sound continues far longer than it should, coming from too far away for it to have been solely caused by his stone.

Something is coming. Something big.

Fenrir braces himself for whatever creature he has angered, braces himself for the danger he has brought upon himself.

But even as the beast leaps from the shadows of the trees, even as it knocks him to the ground as claws leave deep gouges in his skin, as teeth sink into the soft flesh of his shoulder, there is a part of him that is relieved. A part of him that thinks, 'at least I won't have to go back to school'.

Staring up at the full moon, thinking, 'at least I will die in my woods'.

It is all he has ever wanted, to be able to stay here forever.

.oOo.

Each transformation gets easier. The pain doesn't stop, never stops, even as he fully turns into the creature that is already so much a part of him.

But that doesn't matter.

He likes pain. He can use pain.

It makes everything sharper in a way it would never be otherwise, and it allows him to keep a part of himself, always. Or perhaps he is keeping a part of the wolf, perhaps it is following him after the sun has risen and this gift is taken away from him for yet another month.

The wolf, Fenrir, Fenrir-the-Wolf, tips his head back and howls.

Howls for the joy of it, the happiness that this gift has brought him.

Howls for the simple pleasure of being him.

.oOo.

Fenrir awakes, slowly and then all at once.

He is in the woods, his woods, again. But the sun is beating down on him, shining brightly through the gaps in the trees above.

The bite mark on his shoulder itches deep underneath his skin, and he reaches a hand up to touch it only to find that it has fully healed, thick scar-tissue meeting his fingers instead of the gaping wound magic had not been able to close.

It has been an entire month since he'd received it. Since his grandmother had taken him to St Mungos in a panic, since the school had sent an angrily polite letter asking him to please not return, to continue his education at home.

He is naked, he realises distantly, the twigs and stones of the forest floor digging into the soft skin of his back.

But he tips back his head and laughs, screams for joy. Howls up at the sky.

For Fenrir knows, without a doubt, that this is his wood's way of telling him that he is wanted. Needed. That he is just as much a part of these trees as they are a part of him.

This is his gift from these woods, and he will treasure it. Always.