Fenrir Valter Greyback. Fenrir, in Norse Mythology, was a monstrous wolf. Valter is an Old Germanic word for “warrior”. The Greyback family were a half-blood family, his mother being pureblood and his father being a muggleborn, both of whom were of German descent and moved to England when Greyback was two years old. They were not very well known, and after Greyback was turned into a werewolf, it was assumed that the line would die with him.
Name: Fenrir Valter Greyback
Date of Birth: 18th November 1943
Birth Place: Cologne, Germany
Current Location: London, England
Blood Status: Half-Blood, Werewolf
Eyes: Brown/Yellow depending on the time of month
Hair: Long, brown and matted
Scars: All over, everywhere
Tattoos: Upper arms, chest and back
**Important** Fenrir’s face is not very well known by the public, and only those who interrogated him when he was dragged into the Ministry in front of many wizards, including Lyall Lupin, are able to recognise him. He often wears disguises if he needs to venture out in public. He becomes more recognisable towards the end of the first war.
Affiliation: Death Eater. Fenrir is a follower of the Dark Lord for his personal gain, rather than his belief in what the Dark Lord represents. He is siding with those he believes will give him and his pack the better chance at thriving.
Employment: Fenrir is unemployed in the tradition sense of the word. He was outed as a werewolf in 1965 when he sought revenge on Lyall Lupin and bit his five year old son, and before that worked in a dodgy bar that even those who enjoyed browsing Knockturn Alley would not dare to enter. He still spends time there.
After that act of revenge, he allied himself with the Dark Lord and though many of his pack have some sort of job, usually within the muggle world where their werewolf natures remain undetected, he is only hired for protection or murder by pureblood elders who don’t wish to get their hands dirty.
grating ― irritating ― frustrating ― boring ― confusing at best ― awkward ― unreasonable ― psychotic ― disturbing ― interesting ― engaging ― affectionate ― aggressive ― ambitious ― anxious ― artistic ― bad tempered ― bossy ― charismatic ― appealing ― unappealing ― resilient ― creative ― courageous ― determined ― dependable ― unreliable ― unpredictable ― predictable ― devious ― dim ― extroverted ― introverted ― egotistical ― gregarious ― calculating ― impulsive ―intelligent ― sympathetic ― manipulative ― up beat ― violent ― calming ― badass ― flexible
Character Associations/Aesthetics
Fenrir is the howling wind that rushes past your ears, moments before the storm rolls in. He is the low rumble of thunder that sends shivers up your spine. He is the creaking floorboards in the dark old house, that everyone tells themselves they are imagining. Fenrir is broken glass, shattered decoratively and dangerously on the ground. He is dark green and earthy brown, like the forest where he roams. He is the pale, silvery glow of the moon that shines bright against a near black sky. He is a thousand half read books and unfinished scribbling. He is a leader of those that are more than men. He is sharp teeth against flesh and blood that drips menacingly. He is the haunted house that parents warned their children not to play around. He is the rain that falls hard, drenching clothes through to skin, dragging people down. He is loyalty that flows like the magic in his blood. He is the bitter taste of black coffee that few can stomach so early in the morning. He is the strength of the old oak tree that has stood, unmoving, through every storm since it’s birth. He is the pain of a hundred knife blades piercing through skin and feels it more than he would admit. Fenrir is the nightmare that can never be completely shaken off when morning comes.
Fenrir Greyback and his family originated in Germany, however, Fenrir only spent the first two years of his life there and has very little memory of the time. Born in 1943, at the height of both a wizarding war and a muggle war, things were not easy for Greyback’s mother and father. His mother was a pureblood married to a muggleborn wizard, and they were both dragged into the different wars by their families. In 1945, having had enough of the fighting and fear, they fled Germany for the safety of England. Fenrir’s mother was heavily pregnant at the time. Several months later they would realise that they needn’t have fled to England, as the wars came to an end. However, they never moved back.
How Fenrir became a werewolf is a mystery that only he knows, as the rest of his family have perished. He was a student at Hogwarts for the first four years, having been sorted into Slytherin for his ruthlessness and cunning. However, he never returned for his fifth year. The summer between his fourth and fifth year changed his life forever. Waking up late one night and spotting his nearly twelve year old sister sneaking out of the house, he climbed out of bed and followed her to drag her back inside. He followed her into the shallow woods at the end of their garden, but before he had a chance to persuade her to come back inside, a twig snapped in the distance and a werewolf appeared.
The werewolf chased both the children, and as his sister was slowest it looked as though she would be caught. Fenrir stopped and let her run ahead of him, sacrificing himself to the wolf to give her a a better chance at surviving. Hearing his children’s screams and the werewolf’s howling, their father ran out of the house with his wand and a shot gun but it was too late. The werewolf was shot but Fenrir had been all but mauled by the creature. Despite having saved his sister’s life and having it be his sister’s fault that they had been out there to begin with, once his mother had cleaned his wounds, they had kicked him out of their house and told him never to come back. He was a monster to them.
When Fenrir was fourteen and alone on the streets, he fended for himself pretty well. He couldn’t go back to Hogwarts and since opinions against werewolves were that they deserved nothing more than to be destroyed, he couldn’t share details of his affliction. It wasn’t until he had been alone and taking care of himself, breaking into homes and stealing to survive for a year, that he was found by Loren. Loren was a monstrous werewolf who hated all wizards and collected abandoned werewolves like some muggles collected stamps. He was taken into the pack, fed, clothed and taught that he was the superior species. Every werewolf in the pack had been abandoned or hunted, and all of them were violent and angry. Fenrir, quickly influenced by his new family, acted the same.
Fenrir was a fast learner and with steady meals and grooming, became twice the size, and had twice the strength and agility of any other werewolf his age. His instincts kicked in. He was able to tap into his primal werewolf urges even when the full moon had disappeared from sight for another month and soon became one of Loren’s top soldiers and most brutal murderers. He learned everything from Loren, but after many years of watching as Loren preached violence and an uprising that would put them on top and have wizards bowing at their feet, he saw nothing come of it and lost his faith in him as a leader. As he shared his thoughts, he found that some of the others felt the same. At the age of nineteen, in 1962, Fenrir and his conspirators took control of the pack and Fenrir killed Loren to become Alpha.
He allied himself with the Dark Lord when he was approached to do so. He had heard of him by this time, they all had heard of him and the darkness that had begun to descend upon Britain, but he had not expected that the Dark Lord himself would wish to engage Fenrir’s special skill set. He was not deluded in his thinking; he knew that the Dark Lord had no love for werewolves but after having decided that more numbers would be needed to help their cause, the Dark Lord made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He and his pack began working for him. While hunters still attempted to take out members of his pack, his wolves grew ambitious, daring and added steadily to their ranks with every job that was thrown their way.
In 1965, when he was twenty two, he found himself dragged into the Ministry of Magic, luckily disguised as a tramp and without his wand on him. Two muggle children had been murdered and they were questioning anyone they could find. This was the day he met Lyall Lupin, an authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions who had the look of hatred and fear in his eyes when he looked at him. Fenrir knew the man suspected his true nature, where others did not, since they did not know his face at this time and he was not registered as a werewolf with the Ministry. Acting bewildered and horrified at the talk of dead children, he fooled all but Lupin who called werewolves “soulless, evil, and deserving of nothing but death”. When Lupin was ordered to leave for his comment and Greyback was apologised to, he overpowered the man who attempted to wipe his memory, released three of his incarcerated pack members and fled the Ministry. Shortly before Lyall Lupin’s son turned five, Fenrir attacked him in a revenge attempt against the man who had told him he deserved death, the man who had reminded him of his father. He laughed later on that either he would kill his son or raise a son who he hated and feared. Whether this came to pass, he never knew, but he knew that the boy survived.
By 1978 his pack had tripled in size and his name had become a terrified whisper that few parents dared to utter. However, by this time Fenrir was a father of sorts himself, caring for his pack as a family and taking in many werewolves as Loren once had. He works for the Dark Lord and his pack work for him. He still does odd protection and assassination jobs where he can and lives out in a cabin the a large forest where very few people dare to tread, due to the rumors of vicious wolves and mysterious disappearances. His violent tendencies have not subsided with age, though having been taught well, he controls them well and keeps himself hidden. He is only seen if he wants to be seen. Though his name is well known, since he attacks as a werewolf, his human human is not as easily recognised and he keeps it that way, also using basic magic to alter his features from time to time.
