A Revised History of Fenrir Greyback, the Most Powerful Werewolf Ever

My favorite ever post, many of you will know, is called "A Revised History of Ekrizdis, The Evilest Wizard Ever". I had to debate whether to try to summon that old magic again or leave it alone. Go big or go home, I guess. If this goes well and all of you guys enjoy it, I will probably talk about some more underappreciated and mysterious characters. Without further ado, let's talk about the Wolf-Man himself, Fenrir Greyback.

While all the highlights of the adult life of Fenrir Greyback are fairly well documented, it is almost impossible to find any information on his childhood, which just leaves more for me to speculate about. So while I will go over his adult life briefly near the end, it is his childhood I will be covering in for the majority of this post. 

His story actually starts before his birthdate, which is sometime prior to 1960. I cannot actually find the article, but one person speculated about how Greyback got his name. They speculate about how he got such an appropriate name: Fenrir. As I mentioned in my previous post on 5 characters similar to Greyback, he is actually named after Fenris Wolf from Norse Mythology. 

J.K. Rowling really likes giving us little hints about the characters through their names, and she has a fairly simple way to explain this: their parents visited a Naming Seer. These people are payed to look into the future of children and name them appropriately. Other notable people who were named by one of these seers include the likes of Xenophilius Lovegood, whose name comes from the Latin words "xeno" and "phile" meaning "Strange" and "Love", Minerva McGonagall (named after Minerva, the Roman wisdom goddess) and fellow werewolf Remus Lupin, who was named after the brother of Rome's founder, Remus, because of his unfortunate life and early death. 

Little Fenris was born in a household very similar to Snape's, which explains him turning evil, and was bitten very young. There are two main things that point to this. Firstly, he was fairly young in the Harry Potter series, probably about 30-50 (a wizard's life span generally being around 150-200). However, even by this point he was already very far from being a man even when it wasn't full moon, and he had also built up a very big following. The second reason is that he preferred young victims, which was likely an unconscious traumatic response to his early capture. 

He is shown not to have learned much magic, manners or social skills, and is also unregistered werewolf, which points to how he was treated much like Ariana Dumbledore: hidden away and unloved. He later chose to continue to be an unregistered werewolf, but originally his parents must have chosen to hide him. This is part of the reason why he is so bitter and can only do limited magic. 

As I will discuss in the third part of this series, the wizarding world treats Muggles as adults generally treat young children: cute, oblivious and lesser despite being of the same species (I remember that condescension vividly). And other magical creatures and even part-humans such as werewolves or centaurs experience much worse than arrogance. They are victims of violence and discrimination beyond belief. His family was also likely not very respectable unlike Remus Lupin. This was also hugely influential in causing him to go rogue. 

Another big question about Fenrir is the question of why he looked so wolf-y. In my eyes it was the combination of two factors, both caused by him "embracing" being a werewolf. The first, and most simple, is that he did not make use of the potion remedy like other werewolves. As I said, his family was quite lower-class and they couldn't afford to buy the potion and didn't know how to make it. They likely just locked him up. 

Many people online explain that the potion likely had minor side-effects that helped you look and act more naturally most of the time. For example, taking away problems like forehead hair and a lust for blood. This locking up likely means that he later escaped his bonds during the full moon and killed his parents, before going into hiding. 

The second reason he looked so wolf-y was simply because he embraced it. He wanted to look like a wolf. I haven't seen this online, but it seems simple to me. He grew his fingernails out and sharpened them. He let hair take over his face and body. He may have even sharpened his teeth to help him look menacing and to help in his capture of victims. These all seem like extremities only a psycho like Greyback would go to. If he couldn't be accepted as an equal, he would be feared as an enemy. 

So he ran away, likely travelling the world looking for other werewolves to join him. At this point in time, he only attacked to kill. However, as he grew older he started attacking people, particularly young children, who he would later help escape with him and his growing group when the time was right. He was likely responsible for having bitten the werewolf Lockhart allegedly fought, the Waga Waga Werewolf in Australia, or he may even have been the Waga Waga Werewolf, and the other ones his followers. The real name of this werewolf was never actually mentioned.  

However, it was in Britain where his battle lay. On these travels he likely heard about the upraising of a wizard known as Voldemort. He went to offer his allegiance to the Dark Lord, but, as we all know, his actual intentions were to help Voldemort get to the top before seizing power for himself, a bit like Stalin seizing the USSR from Lenin actually. This is why Voldemort didn't entrust him with the dark mark and the status that went with it. 

He fought with You-Know-Who against those who had shunned him, but had to go into hiding when Voldemort was defeated by none other than The Boy Who Lived. He rejoined Voldemort when he regained his body and his following. Most believe that he was caught like most of You-Know-Who's followers after the war, but I find this unconfirmed belief hard to agree with. 

Greyback had a huge loyal following, so unless he was killed during the actual war he likely had enough of a defense to stop Aurors before he returned to hiding, maybe intending to return again with the next dark wizard that came around or attempting to build an army big enough to fight against the Wizards who shunned him alone. After all, he still had up to about 150 years of life left to live.

So that is my revised history of Fenrir Greyback. I hope you all enjoyed, and if you did please do me a favor and share my blog with anybody who may be interested. Part 3 should come out within the next week, so please remember to follow me on social media to find out when that happens. Until next time, I will see you guys later. Noah ᕙ(▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿) ᕗ