Shadow Play

by corvusdraconis

[HG/SS] AU/AO: In this alternate timeline, Albus Dumbledore uses old research that he and Grindelwald came up with to craft the ultimate weapon to collect power and rid himself of enemies. His first two experiments failed him. His third did not—but what happens when it comes time to pay the piper? Who will rise, and who will fall? Not canon. NOPE! M to be safe. COMPLETE

1. A Meeting in the Dark

Summary: [HG/SS] AU/AO: In this alternate timeline, Albus Dumbledore uses old research that he and Grindelwald came up with to craft the ultimate weapon to collect power and rid himself of enemies. His first two experiments failed him. His third did not—but what happens when it comes time to pay the piper? Who will rise, and who will fall?

Not canon-compliant in the slightest. Not even trying.

A/N: Brain working overtime.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, and the Flyby Commander Shepard

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just playing in JKR's sandbox

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Shadow Play

Chapter One

He's got a stick so far up his arse you can see it when he yawns. - Lucifer

As I stood in the shadows of Dumbledore's office, I watched the elder wizard dismiss his staff as he always did. He always had that twinkle in his eyes and lemondrop breath. All of it was a ruse, as far I was concerned. The man who had saved me from the taunts of my fellow Gryffindors and trained me ever since my first year at Hogwarts and through multiple layered years had never been the most forthcoming man.

He taught me what I needed to know.

He had saved my life from a rampaging troll in my first year.

He'd also given me an offer I couldn't refuse: to never have to worry about being attacked again. I thought it had been about training—and it was—but it was also more.

I became more.

The first year it was shots every week. He said it was to condition my body to the changes. They did make me feel better, if a bit sleepy, but I never questioned it. By the end of the term, he gave me some sort of orangey syrup once a day for about a month. He said it was very special, and it would help me grow into what I needed to be.

I was twelve—sure, I was older than most of my class—but I was still only twelve. I had trusted my elders to know that they knew what it was I needed to be, even if I didn't.

He hadn't lied. He had saved my life, and I had been learning how to protect myself in all sorts of unique ways so that bullies and kidnappers would never have anything on me. Ever. But I wasn't exactly Hermione Granger anymore. I wasn't what my parents had given birth to, that is. Hell, I wasn't even a teenager anymore. I'd aged so much the trace had fallen off of me sometime in my fourth year.

Not that anyone knew what I really looked like—I looked like what I believed I should be. No, I looked like what I believed others believed I should be. I had collection of photos taken every few months so I could remember what I looked like when I could have been sixteen. Why? So I could adjust my face and body to match. Otherwise, I'd be a missing student, and there would be a search and drama and—well, Dumbledore didn't want that. Hell, I didn't want that.

Another why hung in the air there.

It was because I was a monster. Dumbledore's monster. I was his ace in the hole—and he was the only one that knew. I was his greater good.

This is for the greater good, Miss Granger, he would say.

To this day, I had no idea what that greater good really was. All I knew was that Dumbledore did, and I owed it to him to see things through. He had saved my life, after all. He could have left me helpless against the next troll or the next horrible thing that wanted to use me as a chew toy.

"Hermione," Albus said my name. Alone, he always used my name instead of Ms Granger or Miss Granger. Perhaps, it was because I was no longer a student, at least in his eyes. Perhaps I had been learning from him for so long that calling me anything but my first name would seem moot at best. I wasn't sure. At least he wasn't scowling at me or calling me "AAHHHHGGRGAAA!" like most of my hits.

Hits. Marks. Targets. Magical assassinations.

It was what I was—a magical assassin. I didn't kill my marks as much as I relieved them of their magic. Relieved sounds odd, as if I plucked keys out of their pocket or swiped an ornate hairpin from their hair. Pissing themselves as their magic leaked out of them was more appropriate—only I drank it up.

Magic is more palatable than urine. Don't ask me how I know.

"You require me?" I replied to Albus, bowing my head in instinctive deference.

"Yes, I need you to take care of a high risk threat," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the bowl of lemon sherbets on his desk.

I took one, sucking on it. I couldn't help myself. He had instilled this rather lemon-prone addiction upon me. They were also the only thing that cancelled out the taste of fear, bile, and soiled pants that clung in the air and my unfortunately heightened senses. Trust me when I tell you trying to keep up appearances in class when all you can taste is piss, fear, and shite on your tongue and the roof of your mouth does not end well. I had often wondered if some of my professors could smell the stench on me when I returned to class before having a proper shower. Albus never said anything, but then—he knew what I had done. Minerva McGonagall had pulled me aside, worried that I'd been pranked once too often by dung bombs and the like. I let her think so. It was easier that way.

Minerva had always shown genuine concern, but it wasn't like I could tell her my life story. Albus demanded secrecy—even to her, and I obeyed. He'd saved my life. I owed him that.

"Name and location?" I asked, my lips pulling back from my elongated teeth. I stepped out of the shadows, unfurling my wings that hung about my shoulders like a traveling cloak. I never bothered to alter my appearance when I met with him. It wasn't like HE didn't know what I was. Well, more as though he wasn't like he didn't know what I really looked like. I was pretty sure he didn't know what I truly was any more than I did, and I looked at myself in the mirror daily.

My long whiskers twitched, silvery strands of sensory tendrils that seemed like asian dragon whiskers more than feline ones. They writhed with a sort of sentience about my inhuman muzzle. One or two caressed my ears, moving them in position without my asking.

Dumbledore said that my "accident" with the Polyjuice my second year had reacted to the magical alteration of my body. For about a week, I looked like Bulstrode's cat, and then—I became something resembling hell-on-earth. I… evolved, or rather, I picked up the ability to shift into anything I was exposed to once. The only problem was, my natural shape wasn't anything remotely human anymore. I'd touched, inadvertently or not, anything from three-headed dogs, hippogriffs, thestrals, and a few bats that I'd had to catch in the girl's bath to stop their incessant hysterical screaming. There were other things too, but I'll confess that I stopped trying to figure it out. Hence the magical photos to remind me what I should look like at whatever age. It's funny, I don't recognise myself when I look in a mirror. Unless I'm the monster. I recognise that.

It's who I am. It's what I really am.

Dumbledore's magical assassin—the thing nightmares are made of.

"His name is Fenrir Greyback," Dumbledore said. "He's hiding out somewhere near Fishguard, Wales, near Pembrokeshire Coast National Park."

"Fenrir," I mouthed, a trickle of lemony saliva escaping my teeth and dripping to the floor. "Is he a wolf?"

"Werewolf," Albus said. "Worst there is. Bites young children and brainwashes them to hate wizards and all humans."

My lips curled back from my teeth. "Glorious." I hadn't heard of Fenrir before, but that was nothing new. I was trained to focus on my studies and not idle gossip. Albus never told me such things until he needed me to know them. I sometimes heard rumours and hearsay spread around the school, but I paid little heed to it. Dumbledore always told me what I needed to know. He'd also decided that I didn't need friends—or whatever it was I had with people other than him. People who only talked to me when they needed something. Like Polyjuice. I should never have made that...

Albus had removed me from the little trio that included me, Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley after the Polyjuice incident. He said it was too risky, after my transformation into a monster, that I'd forget to wear the right face in such casual, everyday relationships. I was "allowed" to assist them when they asked specifically for my help, but I was not permitted to seek them out on my own.

No casual relationships. Psh.

As if any relationship I had after transforming into… whatever it was I was was anything remotely "casual". Then again, maybe that was for the best. Gods only know what I'd turn into if exposed to Ronald Weasley woefully inadequate hygiene.

"When do you need me to take care of it?" I asked, straight to the point. I hated beating around the bush. Tell me what you want and when you want it by, then don't ask me how I'm going to go about it. That was the agreement. He hadn't trained me to be needy, after all. He'd trained me to get things the fuck done with as little fuss as possible.

Language, Hermione. Your parents would be appalled by your profane tongue.

They'd be appalled by my appearance too. I can't even remember what age I'm supposed to be.

Silence was my only mental answer. Good.

"Tonight," Albus said grimly. "we cannot afford to have him taking children."

"Taking his magic may not negate his lycanthropy," I replied.

"Then, you know what you must do," Albus answered.

"It shall be done," I answered automatically, moving out onto Dumbledore's balcony, unfurling my wings as my claws moved to scratch an itch where my wing spurs had hooked to each other to keep my wings caped back around my shoulders.

"Do not fail in this, Hermione," Dumbledore warned me, crunching his lemon sherbets between his teeth.

"I have not failed since my first year, Albus," I said, eyes narrowing as I looked back on him. He was, perhaps, the only person I knew that could turn their back on me and not feel unnerved. I think he did so on purpose to show me that he did not fear me like everyone else. He smelled sincere, however. He either didn't fear me in the slightest and I could take that as reassuring, or he he didn't fear me in the slightest, and I could take that as wanton arrogance.

After all these years, I tended to lean towards reassuring. Where would I be without him? A splat on a bathroom wall, victim of a troll's vicious club? I had my magic, and I had Albus. I had my purpose. When the war was done, I would worry about how to carve out an existence somewhere where I would have no easily frightened neighbours.

Or any neighbors who didn't have hooves, paws, or the tendency to spontaneously combust—I did have a rather soft spot for phoenixes. I blame Fawkes. He made a very comfortable flaming pillow on cold nights. Would Albus mind terribly if I absconded with his phoenix after the war? Only time would tell.

Albus grunted, waving his hand in the air dismissively. "Let's not make tonight the exception. Here is a photo of your Apparition Point." He held the photograph between his index and middle finger, waving it casually.

I sighed. I didn't need a photograph to Apparate to Wales. I knew at least fifty-two safe spots to arrive looking like a person and just as many looking like—well whatever I looked like. But, Albus liked to tell me where to go—literally—and I obeyed. I snatched the offensive photo with my tail and drew it towards me, plucking it with my talons. I memorised every landmark and nuance of the photo. If this is where Albus wanted me to go, there had to be a good reason. What it was—Merlin and Albus only knew.

I growled, my teeth bared in irritation, putting the photo down next to the privacy book, which promptly devoured it like a wolf with tasty venison steak. "I do not plan to," I said, flinging myself off his balcony and into the thermals, letting my wings snap out and carry me across the lake and the Dark Forest.

Crack.

The instant cold embrace of Apparition grasped me and flung me towards the coast.

---

The forest was strangely quiet, and I didn't care for it at all. A quiet forest invariably meant danger, and it often made me feel like a zebra trying to take a drink from the only watering hole available during the dry season. It wasn't that I wasn't able to protect myself; it was that things felt… off. It was like knowing the crocodile was there, but you were still unbearably thirsty.

My jaws parted as I tasted the wind in my mouth, sending the more delicate scents to the vomeronasal organ that was so much better at scenting than I ever could as a human. Vomeronasal what? I spent a lot of time in the library researching things like that in an attempt to get to know myself. I'm not sure how much I actually learned about myself and how much I simply gave myself a remarkably extended vocabulary. Mum and Dad would have been proud—as long as they didn't know just why I was learning such things.

As I rolled the scents around in my mouth, I detected human with a chaser of "other" that told me I was in the right place. Nothing fully human could taste so wrong on my tongue. I almost tore into one of the nicked lemon sherbets I'd been palming by the handful ever since my assignment from Albus. I didn't have pockets because I didn't have robes. Instead I had an enchanted beaded bag that hung from a belt that stayed with me regardless of form. Albus had taught me how to make an undetectable extension charm, and I'd learned how to sew a belt in Care of Magical Creatures, ironically, because belts were a lot like harness leathers for hippogriffs and Thestrals.

No one had to know that's how I'd learned it. I certainly wasn't telling.

As for it sticking to me regardless of form, I'd learned quite a few useful spells while studying in the restricted section. Dumbledore had given me a free and permanent pass to keep me out of trouble in between our lessons—or in trouble, depending on how you looked at it.

Did you know that you could cause someone to suffer from chronic erectile dysfunction while giving them some pretty strong desires that could never be satisfied? I didn't either. I do now, though. I will admit to having tested that particular hex on Cormac McLaggen, who seemed to think I would make a pretty adornment on his arm earlier this year. No thank you. Ever. I was way too old for him anyway, by at least a decade or more. Thank you ever so much, time-turning. There was also that little thing about my looking like I stepped out of H.P. Lovecraft's world of elder gods—or maybe his worst nightmares. I even had the tentacles to boot because you can't have good Lovecraftian nightmares without those.

What do Lovecraftian beasts have for nightmares?

Normality.

My ears perked as I heard tromping through the woods. It was the sound of "I care not who hears" mixed with familiar footsteps—the sound of those who knew this area and didn't care who knew it. It might have intimidated someone else, but not me. Not anymore.

I had left my vulnerability and fear behind with my first year and my humanity. I flapped my wings once to help me jump onto a high branch, and I peered down into the vegetation like a looming gargoyle on Notre Dame. My shadow stretched out into the forest, seeking for me what I desired to know: was that Fenrir down there, or was it simply his "people."

My shadow was like my feelers. If you've ever seen a raccoon feeling around in a stream for that pesky crayfish, well, that was like my shadow. It was, much like my whiskers, a sentient part of me. They aided me in literally feeling out an area without me having to move a muscle.

There was one tiny detail, though—one teensy little unfortunate side effect.

My shadow scared away other shadows. I couldn't exactly blame the other shadows, really. My shadow was damn scary. If it wasn't mine, I'd have been afraid of it, but it gave absolutely wondrous backrubs. Who knew? There had to be some perks for Dumbledore's monstrous right hand—right? Sentient shadow? Check. Excellent backrubs? Check. Monstrous mate to spend cool evenings with cuddled with by the fire? Fuck. Well, pobody's nerfect.

Language, Hermione.

Sigh.

I'm not sure when I developed such a potty mouth, truly. Maybe I've drained the magic of too many exceptionally rude Dark Wizards. Magic can be very, very personal, and Dark magic tends to have some rather interesting shared qualities. Their magic, much like their mindset, is tainted and leaning to the side at a very obtuse angle. That's my theory anyway. I just drink in the magic. I let other people wax the poetic and philosophise, usually. Part of me thinks that magic is magic. It's not black and white so much as grey—but there is the monster who drinks in magic, and I'll be the first to tell you that Dark magic tastes different. It's like—the arse end of a camel.

Okay, I'll confess that I have no idea what the arse end of a camel really tastes like, nor do I wish to, but if I were to imagine—

Blech.

Yeah.

This is why Merlin invented sherbet lemons. Or was that Honeydukes? Close enough. If you prefer, think of the best thing you've ever tasted, and then dump vinegar on it. Sure, maybe you like the taste of vinegar, but I tend to not like the flavour on my chocolate cake, thank you very much.

I stretched out one wing and then the other, my sense of hunger whetted as my shadow brought back news of a good feed. Oh, Dark magic may taste like arse, but the satisfaction of drinking in the magic of my marks—there are truly no words. That was the truth of it. Despise it as I did, I loved the feed. It was like welcoming home magic that belonged to me. It was as if all magic belonged to me. Most magic anyway. There were people I ran across I had no interest in or their magic. I had never been sure why that was. Perhaps, it was like how a lion preferred certain prey over another.

"I know you're a spy, Snape," a gravelly voice said. "Did you think I wouldn't smell Dumbledore's stench upon you?"

"Since you were so happy to miss the class, Greyback," a familiar drawl answered. "The Dark Lord has me spying on him. Or did you think I teach miserable wretches because I actually like teaching?"

Snape? Greyback? What was going on? Professor Snape was my Potions professor—technically. Unofficially, I'd learned all my potions credentials, taken my N.E.W.T.s and studied mastery in a few key areas Dumbledore believed I needed via Time-Turning and flooing to Masters Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe. Potions and Healing for their obvious benefits and Transfiguration in the hopes it would help me keep a human face longer—kind of a reverse Animagus. Homimagus?

Despite their horribly naming conventions (they believed it made a perfect Muggle name for a business, and after hearing their real Wizarding names, I realised Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe were the least of their naming problems) they were truly masters of the fields. I could brew Ditney in a Muggle soup can over a barrel fire under a bridge. I could keep my human face—well, whatever one I had at the time—even in my sleep, and I could patch together someone's ribs with a spell while diving under a closing gate. If you need to ask why I would need to do such a thing, well, I can't answer that. You just never know. One day, I would find myself in need of that skill and would say "Thank you, Master Cheatum, for being the oddest and most insightful Healing Master I've ever had." To be fair, he was the only Healing Master I'd ever had—but Dumbledore trusted him to train me and not blow me up, so that had to have meant something, right? He also trusted them with my rather monstrous secret—they obviously found out when I'd go to sleep human and wake up not so much—so either he was weaving them one hell of a cover story on why I ended up that way, or he told them about my condition.

Or they were simply blind. Half the time they called me Hugh, and when they pinned my mastery pins to my collar, they had instead embedded them into my collarbone.

Geniuses, all of them, but not terribly observant outside of their individual fields.

And not one of them compared to having trained under the scruffiest-looking malcontent ever, Alastor Moody. He had taken paranoia to a whole new extreme. He hated how his shadow disappeared around me. He was convinced my shadow was the devil. He drilled me every day, cursing Dumbledore every minute. Then, one day, when I could countercurse while diving under a closing door (What is it with doing things while diving under closing doors? Do chefs have to make a souffle while diving under a closing freezer door?) and literally turn five wizards at a time into plump Orkney voles at once, all the walls came down.

He had taken me drinking, confessing I was the best student he'd ever had, and if he could he'd have drafted me into the Aurors. He'd said I'd survive, unlike "Those other sodding idiots." He called me the daughter that he wished he had, and gave me his mother's opal ring, saying he had no one else to give it to. He wouldn't let me refuse, and I placed it on my ring finger.

"Ta'marrow I'll tell that fool Dumbledore you're fit for combat," Alastor had slurred drunkenly. I took it as compliment. Normally the man didn't let his guard down for nobody or no reason. "An' since ahm nae longer yer teacher, I'll tak' ye tae gie some real Scottish scran in ye, afair ye putter awa' intae naethin'. And I'll introduce ye to Amelia Bones. That woman ye can trust wit' yer kilt."

He'd grown on me, that one. I always known when he started diving into his lilt that he was closer to the truth than when he spoke "proper" English. He'd passed out in his fish and chips, and I had taken him home, tucked him in without his boots, placed his wand by the bed stand, and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. My shadow had even fluffed his pillow for him and pulled the duvet up to keep him from losing all his body heat. See? Shadows are useful!

"I look forward to it," I'd whispered, smiling. My shadow placed a kiss on his forehead, and for once, his shadow didn't flee in terror.

The next day, he didn't even know who I was. His mother's ring was solidly fused to my finger and wouldn't leave, but Alastor kicked me out of his house, saying he didn't need no apprentice and he wasn't taking offers. Dumbledore said that Alastor had been through a lot of trauma, and sometimes it manifested with memory loss. Maybe, one day, he would remember it again. That was what Albus told me, anyway.

I had tried not to let the disappointment show. He really had grown on me, the scruffy bastard.

Language, Hermione. Must you speak like a boor?

Get back to me when I'm allowed to drink the magic of someone with proper manners.

If they are polite and well mannered, you probably aren't going to have them as a mark.

Fine, be logical.

I'd have magic for miles, but I'd curse like a sailor. Such is life.

Speaking of cursing, my supposed Potions teacher was looking like he had to pass gas. He held his arms across his chest, pulling his robed closer to his extensive buttonline. His long, almost skeletal fingers ran down his buttons as if taking inventory. His lips curled into a distinctive and familiar sneer.

Damn, I'd thought he was only grumpy when teaching students. No, it seemed Professor Snape was equally grumpy when dealing with people—er, werewolves. Werewolves are people too, except when they try to tear you to shreds during the full moon.

Maybe, it was because Professor Snape was standing next to a known wanted werewolf criminal, or maybe he would rather have been back in his classroom getting paid to be grumpy. It was so hard to tell. A few of my whiskers were petting my ears as I decided what to do. If what Professor Snape had said was true, he was spying on Dumbledore for the "Dark Lord" and that made him enemy number one—even beyond my assigned mark, Fenrir Greyback. Then again, Mr Congeniality was hiding something, and if Fenrir was on the Dark Lord's side—what did that make Snape?

Dumbledore really doesn't ask you to overanalyze, Hermione.

Why, thank you, brain, but I pay you every day to do your thing by eating.

Silence.

Thank Merlin.

"What do you want, Greyback?" Snape asked with an utterly disgusted look on his face.

"I want what every one of you filthy humans want," Fenrir said. "I want what was promised me!"

"And what was that, exactly?" Snape drawled as Fenrir slammed him hard against a tree. Fenrir was getting all up in Professor Snape's face. I was still on the fence about him. Dumbledore had never sent me on a mission where I had adds I didn't already know about. Adds are possible complications. Witnesses are complications. Extra Death Eaters are complications. Stampeding hippogriffs are complications. Being caught being out after curfew when coming back from a job and scaring the pudding out of some poor prefect who ends up babbling nonsense about cheese and monsters for a week after was definitely a complication.

At least that stopped when I learned how to Disillusion myself. Sheesh.

Albus had taught me that promptly after I'd destroyed the minds of three prefects and the head girl.

At least it was… theoretically repairable with sufficient therapy?

I still scared people with my shadow. They ran in terror when they saw my shadow coming, and the only one who even came close to creating that level of fear was Professor Snape. It was sad, really. My shadow really did give great back massages. It was probably all the tentacles.

Dumbledore told the staff that some unforeseen side effects of an "unfortunate prank" was what had made my shadow rather startling because let's face it, when your shadow is the ONLY shadow left in the room because it's that damn scary, you kind of need a reason, right? A reason that didn't scream "Hi, I'll be your nightmarish Lovecraftian monster for the day" would be a great starting point. Yes? Yes.

What was amusing, at least to me, was that people kept seeing my shadow around the school where I wasn't, so it just made the rumours and stories an even scarier story to be shared at night by candlelight with blankets over your head.

Do try not to set your blankets on fire, kiddies.

My whiskers were poking me to pay attention, and I found myself thinking more about what to do than usual. This was usually a straightforward process. Find mark. Take out mark. Go back to Hogwarts and sleep. I suppose I could send a Patronus to Dumbledore and ask him what was up, but Patronuses were a bit hard to conceal. They glowed. This was a dark forest with a hypersensitive, mean werewolf with some anger management issues stuck really close to a Hogwarts professor that may or may not be evil.

Fuck.

Language, Hermione.

I slumped on the branch, wings drooping. I sent my shadow to go poke around Fenrir and see what was going on with its heightened senses, and it glided off with an almost audible cheer of happiness at having something to do. There were times I could honestly relate.

I sat up straight, whiskers twitching. As always, my shadow caused other shadows to flee in terror. You couldn't quite see a shadow in the half-gloom of almost-night-but-not-quite. Dusk and dawn were odd times with shadows. Yet, as I watched, there was my shadow, no shadow for Mr Werewolf, and a shadow for Professor Snape.

Now, that was interesting.

What was eve more interesting was that the moment my shadow touched his with a curious poke, Snape's head jerked up and he stared intently into the gloom.

Could he see me?

What a powerful wizard he would be if that proved to be the case.

My shadow rubbed along his shadow like a cat against a leg, and the moment it did so, a thrill of indescribable pleasure rushed down my spine and curled my toes. Judging by how Snape's body shuddered, he had the same reaction. Fenrir seemed to think it was Snape being fearful to his intimidation, and for a werewolf who should be able to smell such things, he was an utter failure at reading pheromones.

"Incarcerous!" Fenrir hissed as he snatched Snape's wand by hand.

Rude. You never man-handle some other bloke's wand. That was just terribly rude. You might as well just strip off the pants and fondle some other guys junk, and who wants to imagine that in the middle of an argument?

Dad would have said something involving "What happens in the mancave stays in the mancave." I'm not sure how daddy would handled wand-etiquette, but I'm pretty sure he would not have treated it as casually handling some other bloke's lager. Daddy was great for formal manners. He was a dentist, after all. I'm pretty sure his fellow dentist friends didn't go around fondling his dental instruments. Hell, mum didn't, and she was married to him.

It was getting dark enough that my shadow—well, any shadows—were no longer visible, but Fenris seemed to choose that time to become unnerved.

"You!" Fenris growled. "You're the shadow assassin!"

Snape gave Greyback the look that every first year—hell, every any year—had learned to fear. "If you haven't noticed, Greyback, nothing has a shadow right now." He was right. At that moment the gloom had devoured all of the shadows.

"That's what happened with Avery… he got his magic sucked right out of him!" Fenrir stabbed his wand into Snape's neck. "I'm going to turn you into the Dark Lord, and he will give me his greatest favour for finding the real traitor—if the wolf leaves you alive."

Fenrir began to chant an incantation that caused my ears to tingle. It was a jinx, the anti-Apparition jinx to be precise. No real problem for me, but putting two and two together as to why this would be a very bad thing™ for Professor Snape was pretty easy to formulate.

Full moon. Angry werewolf. Tied to a tree.

The answer did not include ice cream and a cuppa.

Now, Death Eaters and Dark Wizards tended to stick together like flies on shite, and Fenrir's reaction to Snape was not helping me to properly categorise him. True, Fenrir could be wrong, but Professor Snape was a teacher at Hogwarts. Sure, everyone hated the man, but that was because he was just so ridiculously cranky about everything being just so in his class. Okay, he also had a truly ghastly bedside manner, but if my learning from Masters Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe had drilled anything into my head—absolutely anything has the potential to explode. And you should make certain that things only explode on your terms. Doors for example. Exploding potions should only occur when you throw them at someone intentionally. Even that should be avoided to retain precious time and expensive ingredients. Words for life, really.

Yet, as Fenrir ripped open Snape's sleeve and drew his nails across a very distinctive tattoo, I was caught between taking out Fenrir AND Snape or just Fenrir. But to do the latter, I would have to save Snape from becoming a werewolf or a werewolf victim. Albus would most definitely be displeased with me if I allowed one of his teachers to die.

Save him, restrain him, and take him to Albus, maybe?

No, then I'd have to take him with the tree, and I'm pretty sure the man knew silent magic well enough to block a stupefy. No man who hated dunderheaded imbeciles as much as he did wouldn't not know stupefy and its counter backwards and forwards. He knew how to silently throw a shield over an exploding cauldron at the drop of a hat. The only thing he couldn't do was throw multiple shields over multiple screw-ups at the same time. I really didn't blame him for that. I knew Neville Longbottom, after all. You just couldn't prepare for him.

My eyes flicked over to to the horizon. The moon wasn't up yet, but hell if it wasn't going to be soon. I was fast running out of time, and I needed to make a decision that wouldn't get me dressed down by Albus or worse.

It wasn't like you could just pull a Potions Master out of your hat. "Oh, sorry, I seemed to have let your professor die due to a werewolf attack. The werewolf is dead, though!" Yeah, no.

Or your Potions Master is now a werewolf—yeah, THAT would go over really well.

"What were you thinking, Hermione?" I could hear Albus' condescending tone as he stared down his wizened nose at me.

I would say I was thinking about a lot of things and none of it was helping much, and then he would read me the riot act for the next hour after forcing me to eat a licorice snap from his "bowl of shame."

I hated those things.

Fine. Save the surly teacher. Better surly than dead.

I didn't want a surly ghost following me around, snarking at me every time I didn't brew something just so. He hated when I tinkered with recipes during class. No one had the skill level to cover for me if I fucked something up. Okay, he might have said that with considerably less profanity and more degradement of my hair and my teeth.

Look who's talking, buddy. You need to make an appointment with my mum and dad, maybe even both consecutively. How much coffee and tea do you drink? Do you bother to brew a cuppa or just suck on the tea bags all day? Gosh.

Mum would be standing there, giddy with excitement to try her new whitening solution on him. She'd always wanted to know if it could help a truly horrible case of yellow teeth. Dentists. I just hug them and tell them I love them. I hope they know that, despite my not being around much. Something about spending months and months away from home at a magical boarding school made for some rather awkward homecomings.

The kitchen timer went off, only it sounded like agonising screams of agony as Fenrir's body jerked and twisted violently with the beginning of his inevitable transformation. I stared, I must admit. There was something strangely fascinating at watching the human body become something decidedly inhuman. My changes were never painful. Why, then, was becoming a werewolf such a painful experience? If Animagi went through painful transformations, no one would ever want to become one. Was it because the change was against their will? No—Fenrir wanted it. So again, why?

Snapping out of my thoughts, I moved, dropping to the ground silently, using the man's screams to muffle my own movements, setting my shadow to work. It slithered silently across the ground, stretching out from me, its monstrous fingers extending impossibly as it reached out for him.

There was a strange snapping sensation, as if I'd just released the string of a bow, and my shadow was suddenly in the place of his shadow, his having long since vacated the premises. That left him vulnerable.

The moment my shadow sidled up to him, Fenrir froze instantly—in mid-transformation—unable to move, unable to speak, unable to continue his transformation. I padded towards him, lazily, knowing he wasn't going anywhere, my claws digging deeply into the earth as I walked. My shadow made me a lazy hunter—sometimes I would purposely hold it back so I could a little traditional playing with my food. Why should it have all the fun?

Fenrir wasn't an option for playing. He was too dangerous, and Professor Snape was tied to a tree nearby. I'd play with my food later. Drool dripped from my teeth as I suddenly remembered I was hungry. I stepped out of the shadows, looming over Fenrir as I unkinked myself from the slouching position I tended to favour when I was lurking. I wrapped my talons around his neck and face, the pads of my fingers sticking to his skin like a gecko on glass.

"Fenrir Greyback," I whispered, my voice but a growl that slid between my elongated teeth. "You have been a very bad man."

Greyback, frozen in place save for the beating of his heart and the breaths from his lungs, stared hatefully into space, unable to even look me in the face with his hatred. I could smell it though, wafting off his skin like a horrible perfume—the mix of animal and man twisted in a mockery of unnatural scents. A natural wolf was never one to kill for hate—save for those times when raised to by "help." Abuse-driven hate usually came from the hands of humans. What I saw in Fenrir Greyback, what I smelled on him, was pure spite. He hated all things human. He hated that he was human all but three days of a month. The only thing he loved was the hate—and the Dark magic that allowed him to hurt others.

The magic in him was writhing under his skin in visible rivulets, struggling to come to me. It wanted to join with me, if only I would set it free. I could see the veins of magic in him as one would sense the veins and arteries of blood through Muggle imaging technology. My shadow was trembling in anticipation.

Slowly and deliberately, I reached out to my shadow and took it back into myself, and Fenrir screamed silently in my head. It wasn't that I was doing anything painful, as I'd nabbed a few Death Eaters in their sleep and they didn't even bother to wake up, but that he knew what was happening. He knew what had happened to his "allies". I hadn't killed any of them, but waking up without magic surrounded by pureblood fanatics probably didn't "help" them afterwords. Albus would read about it in the Prophet the next day:

Death Eater Found Dead in Muggle London —Obliviator Teams Spurred Into Action!

Correction. Albus would read about it, and then he would read it to me as if daring me to say something about it. Hell, what was I going to say? Burp? Sorry, someone else murdered my mark after I was done and left him or her strewn haphazardly in a Muggle park and bleeding out of every orifice? I wasn't the monster leaving bloody corpses everywhere, thank you very much. I left my marks alive and abandoned by their magic. Read the alive part.

Besides, blood was a complete bitch to get out of my fur. I had to get my shadow to scrub my back for me—not that my shadow ever minded, but still. It's the principle of the thing. Thank Dumbledore for the private chambers and bath for those private moment when you have your shadow scrubbing bits of some wizard that exploded on you—not because of you so much as his fellow hitting him with the envicerate spell instead of the big scary monster. I still had to get back to the Gryffindor dorm and pretend to be a student, but at least I had a safe place for my photo albums, tomes I didn't want Ronald Weasley putting his bbq sauced hands on, and myself during certain times of the month when not looking like a Lovecraftian Elder God was harder than most.

As for Fenrir Greyback—he knew his time had finally come, and he proved it by loosing his bowels and emptying his bladder down his legs in terror. You can act just as macho as you want, buddy, but the bowels and bladder never lie.

"Tell me, Mr Greyback," I said, the tip of my claw running down his half-formed muzzle. "If your magic had a choice, would it stay with you? Is your transformation rooted in your own magic—cursed or blessed—or is it truly a contagion-like virus that hides in your nerve bundles waiting for the next outbreak like Herpes Simplex or, if you prefer, Herpes Zoster?"

I stared down his muzzle and into his eyes, knowing that what he'd see in my eyes would be the fathomless dark of the midnight sky. "Do you remain a werewolf when your magic is gone? Or do you remain trapped in that moment, neither man nor wolf?"

My lips pulled back from my teeth. "Perhaps, you become a real wolf, driven by instinct and not that pathetic semblance of humanity that corrupts your mind and makes you think converting children by savaging them is perfectly okay."

"Would you survive?" I purred. "As a real wolf?"

My tentacles were itching, so I unfurled them from my back, extending them out to slide along Fenrir's unmoving body. They snaked around my wings and poked Fenrir in multiple places, causing his magic to surge and struggle to be free. My tentacles were like my shadow. They had personality of their own and curiosity to spare, but their main concern was me. They stayed with me instead of doing reconnaissance. Honestly, I preferred it that way. Disembodied tentacles would be creepy.

Erm, creepier.

The tentacles slithered across Fenrir's paralysed body, hissing in both curiosity and annoyance. I didn't like him, so they didn't even pretend to like him either. They still wanted to know what made him tick—one piece at a time, like a kid in a candy store having to touch everything in the place. It was like having two dozen curious toddlers connected to you.

Curious, overprotective, homicidal toddlers.

Someone would argue that is just typical toddler behaviour, but the jury was out on that. I actually had to have spawn… er, toddlers, before I could truly compare the two, and who in the nine, er eight, worlds was going to find someone like ME attractive?

My whiskers were rubbing my ears as my tentacles poked the paralysed werewolf. I rest my case. If only mum could see me know. Scratch that. Please, no. Never that. My mum was a gloriously loving and accepting person, but she did not need to know what her baby girl looked like when she put her hair down or fur and tentacles out as the case may be.

"Mum, I'd like you meet tentacle number fifteen through thirty-three. One through fourteen are taking a nap. Oh, and this is my shadow. Shadow, mum. Mum, shadow."

Yeah, no. No and no.

My drool reminded me that dinner was still in front of me and my magical "stomach" was growling insistently. It wasn't audible, mind you, but it might as well have been. I gave my shadow free reign to do whatever it wanted to do, and my tentacles followed suit. I wrapped him in a cocoon of Lovecraftian love, and all of his magic came pouring out of him, sliding over my tentacles, wings, fur—everything. It was like dropping into a warm, perfect bath. His magic tasted strange—a mixture of human and a certain alien "something" that was hard to place. It came to me all the same, sending a rippling shiver down my spine and a purr through my body. As it passed into my body, I felt like a wolf brushed against me in passing.

Suddenly, I heard howls echoing throughout the forest, and my ears pinned back sharply. A few of my tentacles perked, and I could almost see the punctuation marks above their tips as a sort of tentacle emote, Muggle-style. Time was rapidly running out.

My shadow returned to me, seemingly sensing that feeding time was over and the terms of our hunt had changed. I counted howls. There were at least ten. My eyes flicked to Professor Snape's face and the man was wearing a rather ambiguous expression considering his current situation.

I stared at his arm—the Dark Mark starkly vivid and writhing on his skin, and then I looked into his eyes, a low growl rising in the back of my throat. He was one of Dumbledore's professors. He was an agent of the Dark Lord. Fenrir had called him a traitor. I stared him directly in the eyes, for the first time seeing the black of my own eyes mirrored in someone else's. My shadow rubbed against his shadow, and again I felt the shiver down my spine that went directly to my feet, curling my toes with a surge of ecstasy. His lips parted, pupils dilating, and I knew he felt it too.

My nostrils flared, and I decided to try communication before my instincts caused me to rub against him like a cat and smear my face all over his. What the fuck, Hermione? He's your—should be—well, he's Hermione the student's teacher!

You haven't been a student in years, Hermione, and you know it. Thank Dumbledore's time-turner for that.

Shut up. Shut up!

"Can I trust you?" I asked, sounding oh so stupid even in my own head.

"Yes," he said, his voice clearly expressing his uneasiness.

"Do I have to take you with this tree, or can I release you?"

"You can," he replied slowly, "release me. I will not attack you."

My nostrils flared as I pressed them to his skin and inhaled deeply, tasting his scent for a lie. I could feel his nose against my skin, taking in my scent as I was taking in his. He wasn't lying.

"I'm going to release you," I said, my voice but a whisper against his skin. My claws raked carefully against the ropes, snapping them one by one.

He took in a deep breath, wheezing as the ropes fell away. He looked me directly in the eyes. "May I retrieve my wand?"

The howls were quickly closing in.

"Get your wand," I said, deciding in that moment to trust him.

He winced, bending down to pick his wand off the ground. The moment it touched him, I saw the relief in his magic as it swirled back together, assimilating the wand back into the collective of his innate magic.

Fenrir's little anti-Apparition jinx was still in effect. I could feel its annoying vibration against my skin. I extended my—talons to Professor Snape. "I will take you away from here," I said. My ears flicked as I tried to pinpoint how close the werewolves were. There was a good chance my shadow would scare the piss out of them quite literally, but why take the chance. My mark was dealt with—

What the hell was I going to do with him? Leave him here and he would be torn apart by werewolves. Fitting, but messy. I loathed messy. Messy inevitably came back and bit me on the rump. If anything was going to bite me on the rump, it should at least take me out for dinner and a movie first.

I pulled out a small "stone" on a cord from my beaded bag, clacking my talons against the surface until it glowed bright blue. I pulled out small spool and traced a sigil on it, and it unfurled, spinning around Fenrir until he looked like he was going to undergo an insect metamorphosis—save for the cute little red bow on top. If you were going to tie someone up in a ribbon that could not be cut, you might as well humiliate them a bit at the same time, right?

I muttered the paralysis spell that all Aurors knew and only they could break. Thanks, Moody-dad. Fenrir went stiff as a board with only the little red bow waving in the wind above his rather large arse.

I leaned in to whisper to the glowing stone. "A clean shirt'll do ye," I said in my best Alastor Moody lilt.

Fenrir Greyback disappeared with a fwoop as the portkey whisked him away to Alastor Moody's desk at the DMLE. You're welcome, you cantankerous old malcontent.

That was one of my favourite lessons from Alastor: the Portkey to Alastor's desk trick. Normally, this was used to port important evidence to a safe spot at a moment's notice, but I had a feeling that the night-shift Aurors would be sending Alastor an extremely baffled Patronus message very, very soon. One thing he'd given me attunement for was to port things directly to his desk at the DMLE, the containment cell they had for emergencies, and the front green. He'd forgotten who I was, but he'd also forgotten that he'd gotten me authorisation and had painstakingly taught me how to craft official Portkeys on an as-needed basis. One day, I'd have to thank him for that. For now, my thanks came in the form of a trussed up possibly-ex-werewolf on his desk at work.

I extended my arm to the Potions master. "I will fly us somewhere safe." I said, my ears swiveling as my nostrils flared. "Where we can," I said awkwardly. "Talk."

Snape was silent as a graveyard, but he looped his arm with mine. I pulled him against me and sprung into the air, unfurling my wings as I carried us both into the air and away. We could see the werewolves snuffling around where we had been, and they howled for their pack leader that would never answer them again.

I was unaccustomed to carrying a—passenger with me. It wasn't to say I wasn't used to carrying extra weight because I was. I'd hunted enough oversized game to more than cover any weight one underweight Potions master might be, but I didn't want to accidently drop the man either. Saving the man from werewolf attack to drop him on some moor in Wales—probably not a great way to win Albus' favour.

My tentacles seemed to realise that some sort of safety maneuver was required, and they swirled around his body and locked around him. I pulled my will together, envisioned where I wanted to be—

CRACK!

---

"Do you wish me to find religion?" Snape asked me rather dryly as I released him from my embrace. He peered down over the sleeping city of Paris with one finely tuned and arched eyebrow.

"Intruder!" a voice growled.

"Hold!" another voice said.

"No, I would know this one anywhere," another voice spoke up calmly. "Hermione."

"Bastion," I greeted, rubbing my head against his in an accustomed greeting, my whiskers tickled his stone-like skin in a caress.

"Who do you bring us?" the old gargoyle asked, scratching his ear with his rear leg.

"I am not sure," I confessed, my attempts to decipher Professor Snape's true allegiance having fallen back in favour of a werewolf attack escape plan.

"Hermione!" That was all the warning I got before a young gargoyle pup slammed into my chest and threw me to the ground.

"Oof!" I managed to say. "Sabine, you are such a menace!"

"Hermione! Hermione!" The young gargoyle smothered me as best she could. "You promised me we could fly over Paris together! You promised!"

I gave Bastion a look, and he had that familiar twinkle I'd come to associate with advanced age. It flashed in his eyes, and I knew I wouldn't be getting any help from him. I tickled Sabine mercilessly using my tentacles until she howled with pleasure, and she clung to my chest like a baby monkey. I wasn't getting rid of her any time soon. "Shouldn't you be with your mum?" I asked lamely.

Sabine crinkled her nose, flattening her ears. "Mum is guarding the Basilica du Sacré-Coeur. She said to bother her later."

"Poor wretch!" I teased. "Whatever shall you do?"

"Pounce you!" Sabine giggled, thumping into me again.

"Oi!" I complained. "Let me tend to business before pleasure, scoundrel."

Sabine slumped and visibly drooped from nose to tail. "Okay," she said, sounding thoroughly dejected.

Bastion plucked the pup off me, causing her to wriggle helplessly. "Go stalk your uncle. Adult business will utterly bore you."

Sabine slinked off, skulking, obviously not convinced.

"And who are you?" Bastion asked Professor Snape.

The tall wizard looked decidedly uneasy. "I am Severus Snape," he said quietly, bowing his head slightly in deference. He looked at me and then away quickly. He had heard my name. He probably connected the dots. There were not that many Hermiones out there.

The gargoyle elder tilted his head, staring. "I am Bastion, one elder of many here at Notre-Dame de Paris. Hermione brings you before us, so either she believes the weight of your sins are too cloudy to evaluate on her own or she believes you are… complicated."

Bastion narrowed his eyes, nose working. "You and she both are—equally complicated. But you know this, don't you?"

Snape's skin managed to become even more pale. "Yes," he said.

"But you did not tell her," Bastion said. "Why?"

"It's," Snape started to say, "complicated."

Complicated. That was the story of my life. The truth was, I wasn't sure what to make of Professor Snape, so I brought him to those who had about a few thousand more years of experience in judging character: les gargouilles de Notre-Dame. If anyone could stare into your soul and find value, it was them. They were one of the few I trusted. They'd taken me in when I crash landed into their rookery due to a bad stress-Apparition during one of my first missions. I had meant to hide in the old cathedral my parents had taken me to as a child. I remembered feeling safe there, staring at the flying buttresses, clerestories, and triforiums. I'd forgotten to specify geography, and bam, I showed up arse over teakettle in the middle of a gargoyle rookery with about a dozen newly hatched gargoyle pups staring at me with fascination.

"Mère?" they had gasped at once, all of them projecting the kind of love people would kill for just to feel it from their kids.

That was were Bastion and his fellows had found me: covered in snuggling gargoyle pups in the middle of his shared rookery. I couldn't escape their grasp, those tiny bundles of gargoyle pups had me wrapped around their little paws and wings before I could make my exit. And, because of contact with them, I had spouted a "proper" set of gargoyle wings to wrap around "my pups" and keep them warm—and I knew how to speak gargoyle-French. None of this helped me convince them I wasn't their mère. I was more their mum thanks to my body's assimilation of their genetic imprint than I had been when I landed, and I had this irrepressible desire to bathe each one and brood them under my wings.

It had taken a few hours to sort out introductions, soul-evaluations, and all the things you'd expect a few thousand years of magical gargoyle society to do when they found you brooding their newly hatched pups in their supposedly hidden rookery. The Wizengamot had nothing on gargoyles; gargoyles looked right into the core of you. It took another few hours to convince the little ones that no, I wasn't their mère, but this fine looking (and suspicious-looking) gargoyle over here was actually their mère. Fortunately, gargoyle society was very communal, so having multiple mums was apparently okay. They accepted their real mums as mum number two, and I was inadvertently adopted into the les gargouilles de Notre-Dame family. I had the love-bites of about a dozen-some gargoyle pups to prove it. I mean that, literally. Gargoyle pups leave a magical mark on their very first broodmates (and the lucky brooder) so they always have a connection through life. I couldn't escape them if I wanted to. Not that I wanted to. They kinda… grew on me.

However, my bond with the gargoyles wasn't helping Professor Snape survive Bastion's scrutiny, nor the five or so other gargoyle elders that were not guarding something on this particular night. All of them were peering at Snape with disturbingly hungry looks, and while I knew Professor Snape had his wand, I think both he and I knew that his fate depended on words than spell-flinging skill. I think he also knew that if he lifted one finger against the gargoyles, I'd be fighting him and sending a Patronus to Dumbledore in the same breath. Win or lose, he would lose in the end.

"I was told I was failure," Snape told Bastion. "There would be no others. He knew what the Mark would do to me. He knew it would cover up his failure."

The Mark. It was a grotesque thing upon his arm. It was both magical and not. It was unnatural more than anything. But, as I looked closer, I realised Snape was not lying. It was suppressing the wizard in some way. Dark fingers of magic dug into his normal magical pathways, perverting them as it connected him to the man would be the Dark Lord.

Everyone knew that the Dark Lord marked only his trusted inner circle. Death Eaters, his finest Knights of Walpurgis. To be Marked was death sentence, one way or another. Be caught by an Auror and you were sent to Azkaban. Step out of line from the Dark Lord, and he would see you dead. The only one who won was the Dark Lord.

"What were you doing out in Wales with a werewolf?" I asked. Albus had given me the mark. He was usually very meticulous about giving marks that would be alone.

Snape's arm twitched, and his face twisted in pain. "I cannot—" he hissed.

That's when I saw it—the tendrils of a vow wrapped around his arm like a mummy's bandages. "He's vowed," I said to Bastion. "Answering the questions will kill him."

The gargoyles whispered amongst themselves. Bastion sighed and looked over to me. "It would behoove you to remove the magic from this wizard's arm."

Snape turned white as a sheet, and I didn't blame him. What magical being would choose to be without their magic? Many, just like Snape, would rather live a cursed, painful life with magic and any life without it. I saw him pondering Disapparation right then and there, caught between the rock and the hard place.

If he disapparated, I'd tell Dumbledore about his spy.

If he stayed, he risked losing his magic, or at the very least getting in a brawl with me, which would lead to me telling Dumbledore about his spy.

If he engaged me in combat and somehow managed to kill me before I could send a Patronus, the entire population of gargoyles would probably do their damndest to rip him to pieces and scatter his guts across the top of the cathedral. What a wonderful thought.

"Just the arm, Hermione," Bastion said. "The part that curses him."

I frowned. "I've never—"

"You can," the gargoyle said. "Consider it supping on only the caviar and leaving the cracker."

What a horrible analogy. Leave it to French gargoyles to give me comparisons that somehow relate to caviar.

The truth was, once I began to feed it was really hard to stop. I had before—to elongate the discourse between myself and my mark to get information out of them—but I had never just stopped and withdrawn completely. With marks, it didn't matter if you didn't stop. Eventually, they were to be drained completely anyway. Professor Snape was not a mark. If I fucked it up, he could be a squib forever.

"Do you wish to be—free?" I asked my Potions professor. I eyed his Mark and the writhing magic.

Snape twitched, his face twisted in anguish. "Yes," he whispered.

I swallowed hard. "Will you… trust me, Professor?"

He stared into my eyes—his eyes were black, black like mine. I knew he'd seen horrible things, and he'd lived with them.

"You were never just a student, were you?" he said.

"I was once," I answered truthfully. "A long time ago."

"Hidden," he said, wincing. "Right under my nose. What an idiot I am."

"I'm sorry," I found myself saying. "For being such a pain in your arse in class."

"You know what you were doing all along," he accused.

"To be fair, my first year I was just as oblivious as Neville," I replied.

"No one is as oblivious as Longbottom," Snape growled.

"You may be right," I agreed.

"How do you counter adding too much moondew in a night vision potion?" he asked.

I smiled, my fangs glinting. "You don't. Moondew you can add all day and it never makes a difference."

"How do you extract the juice from a Sopophorous bean?"

"Common knowledge says to slice them," I answered, watching his face carefully. He scowled at me. "But that is rubbish. If you use the flat of the blade, you can crush the bean to get the juice."

I leaned into him, my lips pulling back from my teeth as my whiskers trembled in anticipation. "But what fewer still know, if you whisper to them kindly and promise to put their remains in the ground, they will give you their juice willingly and give you a new plant in the spring." Thank you, Masters Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe.

I saw something pass across Snape's face—something I'd never thought to see on his face at any period of time under any condition: respect.

His black eyes stared into me. "Do it then." He closed his eyes, perhaps not wanting to see whatever it was I'd do to him—as he'd already had front row seats to what I'd done to Fenrir Greyback.

I looked up to Bastion, and he nodded to me.

My shadow moved away from me, brushing against his, and I felt the thrill of ecstasy as I did so. Snape's eyes opened wide as I lay him back against my arm, cradling him like the Pietà. "I will try very hard not to hurt you, Professor," I said quietly.

"Severus," he said hoarsely.

"Severus," I said, rolling the sound of his name over my tongue. His eyes fluttered at the sound of his name passing my lips. My shadow was embracing his shadow, but unlike with Fenrir, there was no hunger for his magic, only the Dark parasite that was digging into his magic and the unnatural Unbreakable Vow's ribbon-like tendrils: a leash by any other name.

As my claws passed over his arm, the magic of the vow tried to evade me, sliding around my claws like a minnow desperate to escape the net, but I was no net. I was a pike. My net was replaced by dagger-long teeth. My tentacles wriggled along my back, elongating and hissing to each other. To me, it sounded like wind chimes—their hissing was like soft music on the wind. They wrapped around his body, holding him still, allowing my talons to go where they would. I breathed in the scent of the Vow's magic and stopped.

Albus.

I knew the feel of his magic as clear as I knew mine, perhaps even better. My magic evolved with every feed. His remained distinct and unchanging—solid as a rock and just as hard to erode. Not impossible, but not easy. Somehow, Severus had been bound by Albus, not by loyalty or promise in words, but a sworn oath bound to his magical life-force. Why? Why require such a thing?

I drew my claws down his arm, and Snape convulsed as his magic—no his interloping magic—writhed and tried to escape my touch. I knew it would affect his mind and make him see me as demons incarnate, and perhaps it wouldn't be so wrong.

I smiled, breathing across his arm with my fog-like breath, and that magic that was not Snape's froze in place, entranced by the siren call of my magic calling to it. Now, instead of running away, it rushed back to my talons, crawling over my skin, and burrowing into my body—anything, ANYTHING to join with the lure of the pool of magic that called so sweetly to it. It wanted to. It needed to.

"Hrrrsssss," I growled, as darkness spread over my skin, every scale, every hair, every tentacle, and then the pool of magic that grew with every feed rushed out to assimilate the invaders and there was a rush of warm of pure power and pleasure that novaed outward. My eyes rolled back, but I opened them soon after, seeing colours I never knew existed.

His shadow was pressing against mine. They rubbed against each other like two cats, and his—transformed.

Dark tendrils sprouted from his shadow as a fanged maw elongated. Spiny wings emerged from his shadow, followed by tendrils of membrane that stretched to cover the span between the spines. A long, sinuous tail whipped up from the base of his shadow's spine and lashed back and forth, the end splitting into multiples.

It was then our shadows seemed to take a dive into each other. There was a roar in my ears, and I fell into Professor Snape as though the darkness was swallowing me whole.

---

"You're an unnatural freak like your mother," a voice slurred loudly in the dark.

SMACK!

Blood trickled down the pale-boy's cheek and hand as he wiped his face.

"Fucking her was the worst mistake of my life."

A large hand choked the boy and shoved him against the wall. "Having you was the second."

---

The boy was sitting in the dimness of a corner, hugging his knees to him as a fight was going on in a nearby room.

"You think you can sneak buying that shite for that worthless wretch? You think I wouldn't notice that I didn't have enough to buy four cases of beer instead of three? Well I noticed, didn't I?"

SMACK!

"DIDN'T I!?"

SMACK!

"Y—yes, Tobias, you noticed."

"You are a freak and an stupid bint!"

Gurgling noises came through the wall, and the boy grabbed his ears, rocking himself back and forth.

"Say it!"

Gurgle.

"SAY. IT!"

"I'm a freak and a stupid bint!"

THUD.

"Good. Now fetch me a beer before I get angry."

"Yes, Tobias."

"Just be glad I broke that stupid stick of yours instead of your neck."

The boy rocked himself back and forth, back and forth. "When I have magic, mum, I'll make him sorry. He'll wait on you. He'll wait on you."

---

"This is your Gringott's account, Severus," the woman said, her face haggard and weary. "I've transferred everything you'll need to get through school and pay for your supplies."

"But, mummy, you'll be there to get my supplies with me!" Severus clung to her sleeve.

The weary woman brushed his hair away from his face. "I'll always be right here, Severus," she said, tapping his chest. "I promise. Mummy just had to talk to some people to make sure you got through school. To make sure you were provided for."

"You're going to be okay?" Severus asked, clinging to her sleeve. People at the bank were staring—they in their robes and funny clothes staring at him and his oversized hand-me-downs and his Muggle-looking mum.

"As long as you are at school and doing well, I'll be fine, love," she replied. "You promise you'll work hard, right? You'll make me proud?"

"I promise," Severus replied. He tugged on her sleeve. "What House were you in mummy? I want to be in what House you were in."

"That was a long time ago, love," his mother admonished. "Houses don't matter. People matter."

"Please, mum!"

She ruffled his hair. "Slytherin, my dear. That was my House."

Severus straightened. "I'm going to be Slytherin too!"

---

Severus sat in the mud, soaked to the bone.

"Look, Snivellus is all dirty!"

"He'll get used to it. All the Slytherin are, aren't they, Sirius?"

"Yeah, James, what a wanker. Look, he's going to cry! Mr Slytherin is better is going to cry!"

The boys shoved Severus, dropping his books in a puddle.

---

A single pristine lily bloomed from the end of a wand, glistening with perfect pearls of dew.

"Get away from me, Sev!" a flaming red-head yelled, using her hand to smack the flower away. The flower and wand went flying away, clattering to the ground. "I don't want your apologies. I don't want your excuses, and I don't want your gifts.

"Lily, I'm so sorry," Severus said, falling to his knees contritely. "Please. Please! I didn't mean it. I never meant it!"

The flame-haired witch just scoffed at him. She curled her lip at him. "You don't ever change, Sev. You grovel to me, and then you go right back to Avery and Mulciber and suck up to your little Death Eater buddies. That's what you really want, isn't it? To be a powerful Dark wizard that no one can deny. You want your revenge on your childhood? Is that—"

"Lily!" Severus said hoarsely. "I'm sorry!"

"Save it, Sev," Lily said with a scowl, her boot stomping onto the flower and then deliberately crushing it under her heel. "Don't ever try and talk to me again."

She stormed by him, pushing him away and knocking him off kelter and into the mud. He remained there, unmoving, hands trembling.

Others brushed by him—Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew. They all stepped on his lily adorned wand, laughing like hyenas.

Crack.

CRACK!

Magic sputtered and died as Severus' wand crunched under their heels.

Severus stared down at his broken wand, tears streaming down his face. His face was no long that of a young boy, but the emotion on his face was raw and clear for all to see.

"You tell him, Lily!" a dirty brown-haired boy snickered. Pettigrew groveled around Lily, preening her ego, encouraging her anger—as long as it wasn't directed at him.

They swept away with Lily, leaving Severus alone in the mud with his broken wand.

Long, wizened fingers picked up the broken wand from the mud. "Tell me, young Mr Snape," Dumbledore's voice said as he tapped the broken wand with his. The wand pulled itself together with a snap. He handed it to Severus. "How would you like to help me with a problem I have? In exchange, I can guarantee no one will ever look at you the same again."

The young Snape stared up at the headmaster, his eyes full of pain and hate. "What do you want from me, Headmaster?"

"A little time, a little obedience, and someone willing to do what needs to be done," Dumbledore said, putting out his hand to help Snape up.

Snape stared at the hand for a while and finally clasped it, pulling himself up. He glared spitefully in the direction the gang of Gryffindor left. "Just tell me what I have to do."

"Excellent."

---

"I'm a fucking MONSTER!" Severus hissed, towering over Dumbledore as he stood in the headmaster's office.

Dumbledore waved his wand over Severus, using his magic to alter his change back into that of a relatively ordinary man. "Once you are Marked, that magic will keep you from changing. You'll be normal again and in the perfect position to keep an eye on him."

"I could have done that without looking like THIS!" Severus growled, his tail lashing outward wildly, knocking over a globe, a tea service, and about a dozen scrolls off Albus' desk.

"Alas, Severus, you just change enough. You were supposed to be able to siphon the magic from your victims, but instead you merely siphon their physical energy. While that is indeed a great thing, if I wanted you to isolate someone and render them unconscious, that does not help us. Not in the way we would truly need. What is best now is for you to be put into play so I can keep updated with what is going on in Tom's organisation, yes?"

"You want me to be his spy as I am your spy," Severus growled, even as his body fought the forcible change back into a human shape.

"This would be much easier if you would will yourself back into a human shape, Severus," Albus said, ignoring his growls.

"That requires me to not be completely brassed off," Severus snarled.

Albus simply shrugged. "I realise my experiment has failed, Severus, but once you are in place, you won't have to worry about the transformations any more. We both will get what we want."

Severus growled as his muzzle shrank back into a human face. "A slave."

"Tut, tut, Severus," Albus said. "I did pay for your education, after all."

---

Hermione screamed, running into the arms of the elder wizard, crying.

"There, there, little Miss Granger," Albus comforted. "The troll is quite dead now."

Hermione just whimpered, trying to bury herself in the wizard's robes.

"Hey, chin up," the Headmaster said. "You did very well blinding him with that spell, but no one would have expected you to take on the likes of him all on your own."

Hermione sniffled, wiping her face with her sleeve.

"Tell you what, hrm?" the elder wizard said softly. "What if I teach you how to be special? How does that sound? What if I could make it so you never have to fear nasty, smelling trolls like that one ever again? Would you like that?"

Hermione nodded, sniffling a little less. "Yes, but what can I do?"

"A little time, a little obedience, and someone willing to do what needs to be done," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eyes. "Will you help me?"

Hermione stared down at the troll. "I never want to be helpless again," she said.

"Excellent," Dumbledore said, gently wiping her tears away. "We'll start tonight right after curfew. I will come for you, so you needn't worry."

"Okay, Headmaster Dumbledore," Hermione said with a nod, taking a big breath of air and squaring her shoulders resolutely.

---

"I'm a monster!" Hermione screeched in horror, her grossly oversized wings knocking over Albus' meticulous stack of scrolls as her tail snapped, sending his globe flying across the office.

"There, there, my dear," Albus placated, touching her shoulder and rubbing it gently. "There was no way you could have known that the Polyjuice would react that way in combination with our magical regimen!"

"I should never have made it!" Hermione cried. "I should never have helped them!"

"I asked you to help, Hermione," Dumbledore soothed. "Please, I'm sure that if you manage to relax, you'll be able to reverse some of the more significant physical changes. Perhaps there was some sort of contamination in the potion. You did say you were brewing it in a girl's lavatory—the one haunted by a ghost named Myrtle."

Hermione tried to sit down in the nearby chair, but it broke under her more massive, bestial form. She snarled, tentacles popping out of her back one by one until a dozen or more writhed off her back like the snakes that crowned the head of Medusa.

"Deep breaths, Hermione, you trust me, now, don't you?" Dumbledore brushed his hands over hers, rubbing the back of her hands with his thumbs.

Slowly, Hermione began to revert, all of her bestial traits fading until she looked more or less human again.

"There now, you see?" Dumbledore said, nodding in approval. "You are capable of anything, my dear."

Hermione threw her arms around Dumbledore's waist and clung to him tightly. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Albus patted her hair tenderly. "It'll all be okay, my dear, I promise." He gently traced a finger on her back with his free hand—a series of glowing runes appearing down her back briefly before fading and then disappearing.

Hermione took in a deep breath and sat up straight. "What do you require of me, Albus?"

"I have some masters I re quire you to meet and work with," Albus said. "They will train and prepare you for the next step."

Hermione stood up, no trace of emotion hampering her any longer. "I am ready."

---

Her claws curved around Rookwood's neck as she snarled directly into the Death Eater's face. Her shadow pinned his against the brick wall. Around them, Muggles walked around them—all oblivious, save for one young child.

"Mummy, that shadow looks like a monster!"

"Just a trick of the light, love," the woman said bracingly, hoisting the boy onto her shoulder and quickly carrying him away.

None of the passersby seemed to notice that their own shadows had disappeared completely. None of them noticed the monster pinning a terrified man against the wall.

"Hello," Hermione breathed lowly into Rookwood's face, "Death Eater."

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about!" he wheezed, but his bowels and bladder had already betrayed him.

"I'm sure your arm just wandered off to get tattooed all on its own," Hermione purred, her claws tearing away the cloth over his arm, exposing the writhing skull and serpent beneath.

"I was forced to take it!" Rookwood wheezed. "Please, my entire family will die if I don't do what he says."

Hermione's grip on the man loosened slightly, and she slowly put his feet back on the ground. "Tell me of your family."

"I—I have a son. He's only ten," Rookwood sputtered. "His mother wanted to send him to Durmstrang, but we didn't have the money to sent him to a school so far away. Durmstrang isn't like Hogwarts. They want money and all of it upfront. The Dark Lord paid the fees. All I have to do is tell him what's going on at the Ministry. I swear, that's all I do!"

Hermione pulled away from the man, pacing.

"Please, I just want to go home to my family," the wizard pleaded.

Hermione closed her eyes a moment, thinking, her tail lashing in her frustration to decide what to do.

"Avada Kedavra!" A bright green beam careened toward Hermione and hit her straight in the face.

Hermione's eyes opened and saw a secondary wand in Rookwood's hand. He was pointing it at her in full expectation of the usual, very final outcome, but as her lips pulled back sharply from her teeth, Rookwood abruptly realised he had made a very big error in judgment. Hermione's fur stood on end as the magical blast connected his magic and will to her. Her muzzle elongated, teeth sharpening. Her tongue slithered out a little longer and slimier. A green glow passed across her black, black eyes and rippled over her body. One glowing, new tentacle sprouted from her back, lashing back and forth angrily. The other tentacles rubbed up against it immediately, and the glow faded as a new, black tentacle took its place on her back.

Her tail whipped out and snaked around his ankles as her tentacles struck, sending her shadow to pin him once more. Her claws wrapped around his neck, and she breathed on him, calling to his magic. And it came in a rush of magical heat, spewing from his body as though she were pulling a copy of himself away. His magic flooded over her—every inch of her monstrous body—and then seeped into her.

She stepped away, teeth bared in menace. Her shadow returned to her, and his went fleeing into the night to escape hers. "May you live in interesting times, Rookwood," Hermione growled.

Rookwood still had his wand in his hand, and he thrust it outward. "Crucio! Incarcerous!" He shook his wand madly, slapping it against his palm as if to wake it up. "Imperio!"

Hermione pulled her wand out from her beaded bag and pointed it at Rookwood. "Obliviate."

Rookwood went stumbling backwards from the force of the magical blast, falling into a trash can. When he opened his eyes and looked around, holding the strange stick in his hand and looking at it with a puzzled expression, Hermione was gone.

---

"You must not let their lies dissuade you from your task, Hermione," Dumbledore said as he watched her polish off about five lemon sherbets at once, even running one across her tongue like a scraper.

Hermione growled as her bestial form slowly reverted into something more human. "It will not happen again."

Dumbledore nodded and handed her an album.

"What is this?" she asked, flipping it open.

"Portraits of you as you would appear as you age," Albus said. "So you appear the correct age in your classes."

Hermione stared at the portraits and flipped through the album. "Why be in classes at all? I have more than enough to keep me busy as it is."

"Hermione Granger must not disappear suddenly or change in a strange manner, Hermione," Albus chided me. "Everyone must think you are a perfectly normal student here, and you must be there for Harry, Ron, and Ginevra as they require it."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "As you wish," she said. She looked out the window to the rising moon. "Why do you even need them? Is my service not satisfactory?"

"Hermione," Dumbledore said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I simply have a different series of tasks for them. What you are doing is highly essential so that their tasks have a much better chance of succeeding."

Hermione sighed and nodded, plucking another lemon sherbert out of the bowl and rolling it around on her tongue again. "I just wish your missions didn't taste quite so horrible."

---

-Severus-

I found myself under a very familiar willow tree from my childhood—my bastion from my abusive father and rotton home. It had been for so many years. Yet, all of that had changed after my sixth year. That was the year my boot went directly into my mouth and never left. It was the year I called Lily a Mudblood and then every dream I had ever had of having at least one lifelong friend had been burned away forever.

Yet, even with all that had happened, this memory remained calm and peaceful in a strange sort of always-spring. It was always springtime here under this tree inside my mind. It was always… peaceful.

I looked down at my hands, and they were human. I was wearing an old, highly-abused ELO t-shirt that my father had hated, which was why I had loved it so much. I was also sporting a very battered and frayed pair of Muggle denims, typical of my childhood when most of what I wore was from whatever charity shop my mother managed to sneak me out to when my drunken father was supposedly working. My shoes had literally come off a truck bed—some bloke was selling things out of the back of his truck to make enough money to get enough petrol to make it to family somewhere out near Wales.

The scenery was still peaceful, but my wardrobe memories of the time were still horrendous reminders of all the things I hated about growing up dirt poor in Cokesworth.

Once we came to Hogwarts, Lily always said that she felt like she had left her past behind her. Her parents saved up extra hard to support her, and sometimes I wondered if the reason she and Petunia were always in a row was because Lily was the prized, perfect princess who did everything right and Petunia was left with the scraps—of what Lily didn't want.

Petunia had grown up to be a horribly selfish, hateful woman.

Lily grew up to hate me, but was well-loved by "everyone else."

Yet, I always seemed to think back on her as the perpetual what-if. What if I hadn't opened my big fat mouth that day? What if I hadn't been so very determined to join Slytherin, to be just like my mum? What if I hadn't been so driven to prove I was better than my abusive, drunken wastrel of a father? What if Lily had condescended to forgive me?

"It's so beautiful here," Hermione said dreamily, appearing at the shore of my memory just as plain as day. She was wearing, rather ironically, an ELO t-shirt (in much better condition than mine) and an immaculate pair of fitted jeans. She had on a forest green headband to pull her hair back from her face just enough to let her bushy curls floof out around her head but not look like she had stuck her finger in an electric outlet. "Where are we?"

"You mean other than being stuck inside my memory?" I asked, my lips curving with my instinctive, defensive sarcasm.

Hermione turned to regard me, her eyebrow arched into her hair. "I would like to think I'd remember where we were if it was my memory."

"Cokeworth," I replied after a while. "This was perhaps the only part of it that didn't stink of the factories and look like grey death."

"Not the Black Death, then?" Hermione said dryly. "Some hope then."

It was then I realised that Hermione was definitely not the hand-waving swot that just loved to get up in my grill in class. Her voice was pitched lower and more soft—less grating—and she was older. She was, if I were to hazard a guess, in her late twenties or early thirties, but it was her eyes that gave it away. She remembered everything that had been done to her and by her, and she remembered who had done it.

"Such cheek, Miss Granger," I answered automatically, but I found the normal venom I had for all things breathing lessened somehow.

"It's Hermione," she said quietly, her voice unhindered by the sprawl of her accustomed dagger-like teeth. I saw her running her tongue across her dull, human teeth curiously, seemingly puzzled by them. She stared at her human skin, dull, useless nails, padless fingertips, and furless exterior. There was almost a strange panic in her eyes as she soundlessly felt for where her ears "should" have been on the top of her head, the long whiskers, muzzle, and even her writhing tentacles, who—if they were anything like mine had been—offered a sort of comfort in their strangeness with their soft hisses, whispers, and caresses.

She looked at me with a little distress. "Is it bad that I miss them?" she asked.

I shook my head. I looked to my arm where the Dark Mark typically sat, at least in the waking world, and I met her gaze. "When I first took the Mark, is suppressed the change, just as Albus had intended. As much as the change horrified me, I missed the whispers—the comfort. I didn't realise how much I would until I couldn't."

I was spilling my gut as though I'd never been a spy. A part of me was appalled by it, yet another part of me was relieved, so relieved to be able to. I hadn't spoken to anyone about my feelings since—Lily before our falling out.

Nuclear fallout as it was.

I knew, in my heart, that even if Lily and I had been on speaking terms before, if she saw what I had become, she wouldn't have been on speaking terms with me after. Then again—had she not spurned me so avidly, I may not have given myself to Albus for his use so freely. There are those who study time that say there are some things—fixed points—that cannot be changed no matter what we may try to do otherwise to fix it. Whether our falling out had been one of those moments fixed in time, I would never know.

"I don't know what my real face should look like," Hermione admitted. She looked into her reflection in the pond. "Is this what I should look like?"

"How long were you Time-Turning?" I asked.

"Since I was twelve," she said. "Once a day to learn what normal students learn. Once a day to learn from Albus. Once to learn from my masters, and then, twice to sleep. Except the weekends—those he left me for myself."

Merlin—that wasn't a childhood at all. Mine was crap, but at least I'd had one. And yet, she had sat in my classes, to all appearances a know-it-all swot—annoying the shite out of everyone—but she hadn't really been that at all. How… had I not noticed? Albus had trained me too. He had carved me into the agent of his use—but Hermione.

Gods. Hermione he had molded since she was twelve. He had transformed her himself into the perfect magical assassin. Totally loyal to him until one mark went wrong and he had sent her to run into me—his previous mistake.

I clenched my fists. I was angry. I was so, so angry. I wasn't even sure what I was angry about. I'd long since stopped being angry at Albus for using MY weaknesses against me—I had at least made the choice, faulty as it was, on my own power. But Hermione had been a child. She couldn't have known. She wouldn't have known.

"What do you eat?" she asked.

The question seemed so innocent, but I knew what she meant. "Energy—physical strength," I replied. "Albus considered me a failure. I could leave someone unconscious, but they would still have their magic."

"Hrmph," she said, shaking her head. "I suppose he would think anything that could wake up again would be 'a problem'."

My shadow was pushing me closer to her. It looked human—but it was definitely pushing me like the bloke that has to push his automobile because he ran out of petrol. I, like the rusted, cantankerous, stubborn bastard that I was, resisted because that is what I was used to doing. Resisting. EVERYTHING.

I could see Hermione's shadow doing the same to her, and unlike me, her shadow was making no effort to appear human. She was resisting too, but her shadow seemed to have more clout than mine did over me—she trusted hers, while I had never truly embraced mine. That was probably why mine was cursing at me in shadow-ese.

I could thank the Dark Mark for suppressing the transformation and thus hampering my acceptance of it—including my shadowy counterpart. Hermione had years to hone her relationship with her "true" self and all that entailed. I had run from mine directly into the Mark of the Dark Lord, like the idiot I'd been on multiple occasions.

Suddenly, I had an armful of Hermione, and her eyes went wide as our shadows touched again, this time, there was no mistaking the shiver of pleasure that curled my toes. It was like homecoming on a whole new level. Acceptance. Compatibility—and so much more.

Like rusted gears straining to move, my hand every so slowly reached to brush the hair from her face, my fingers spidering across her skin, and I knew. I knew she was my salvation and my doom. I would find everything I wanted in just one small touch, and I would do anything to keep it. She leaned into my touch with a cry of wonder—and I knew it was the same for her. We had never been touched by another in such a way. We'd never been allowed such intimacy.

Once, there had been a time when Lily would loop her arm in mine and walk with me. She would hold my hand as children did—innocent of social boundaries. There was even a time when she would kiss my cheek and call me silly—but it was never like this. I had wondered as a teen, if Lily would ever be "mine" and the answer was always a bitter no. It didn't stop my head from obsessively thinking about it. Hell, even now I was thinking of it, and I didn't want to at all.

But as my fingers wove into Hermione's riotous curls, I felt a keen, intense, painful pleasure of sensory overload. I pressed my nose into her hair and inhaled her scent—a deep musk mixed with the scent of earth and the forest. She was as aether—all the elements combined together into purity—and I wanted to bathe in her, roll against her, and take her into myself forever.

Part of me was screaming that this was not appropriate behaviour for a first meeting, but the other part of me was telling that part to shut the hell up. I rubbed her scalp with my fingers, stirring up the strength of her scent as I breathed it in, and she purred against me, rubbing her face against mine.

Willingly.

Eagerly.

Professor Snape isn't here right now. If you would like to leave a message—

I growled, my mouth sought the skin of her neck as I affixed myself, leech style, to her smooth skin. She whimpered against me, her hands clawing at my back. Gods, it made every fibre of my being scream for her.

I pulled away from her neck, and she stared at me, wide-eyed with a sort of keen worship.

Why was I hesitating?

Were we not consenting adults?

Student! My mind hissed at me

She was NEVER my student, not really! She was of age pretending to be my student because of Albus!

Okay, well maybe she was my student when she was eleven, but she was hardly that frizzy haired child now. Besides, you've been teaching since you were twenty, and if you treated every grown witch as the child you knew them as when they were eleven, how would that go over?

Too much thinking.

She took my hesitation as about any witch would when someone just stops moving in the middle of something glorious: rejection. I saw her shadow trying to convince her otherwise, but she withdrew—mentally and physically. Despite it being this pseudo-mindscape, it was real. She was real. What I wanted was more than real.

I quickly moved to close the gap, covering her mouth with mine in a desperate bid to win back her favour, and I crushed her against my body, wrapping my arms around her so she couldn't escape. Her arms slithered under mine, clawing at my back as our tongues enthusiastically greeted each other in a few different languages I no idea they knew.

There was an encroaching brightness all around. The trees and water were fading around us, and the ground gave way.

We were falling, and all I could hear was roaring in my ears.

---

I woke with a press of warmth against me and the soft inhales and exhales of the she-beast as she sprawled across my chest. Her talons were curved ever so slightly against my breast, twitching slightly in sleep. My wings were wrapped around her body, entangled in hers, and our tentacles were woven together like an exercise in basket weaving. Our tails were corkscrewed tightly together, my multiple tailtips had managed to do a good Celtic knot impression around hers.

Purrr. PurrrrrRRrrrRRRRrr.

Wriggling against me revealed about a dozen gargoyle pups snuggled against the she-beast and myself, all of them seeking the warmth of her wings and body. They were willing to settle for mine too, since we seemed to be rather entangled quite literally.

I felt eyes on me. Many, many, eyes.

Bastion and the other gargoyles were staring at us, smug smiles tugging on their monstrous muzzles.

"Hrm," Bastion said. "Find something you like?"

"Humans never recognise their lifemates unless they have help," a grizzled old gargoyle said. One of the pups was chewing on his wing spur, making insufferably cute growling noises.

"They do now, hrm?" An elder female peered at me. "He seems healthy enough. Nice wings. Good tail. No broken teeth."

Why was I blushing? Merlin. I was being evaluated for studliness by a female gargoyle.

"No missing fur or scales," another gargoyle noted, poking me with his tail. "Good start for a fine mating—if they ever get to it."

"Maybe he should bring her a food offering," another female said. "Good for the eggs."

The other gargoyles nodded in agreement.

"They need a good fly together," one of the other elders said, causing all of the gargoyle pups to perk up immediately.

"Fly?"

"Fly?"

"Fly!"

They all wriggled under Hermione's wings and nipped her excitedly.

"Hermione!"

"Hermione!"

"Take us for a fly!"

"Fly!"

A pup was gnawing on my wing, and I eyed it suspiciously. He seemed to notice he was spotted and crawled down.

"Consider it practice," a mottled gargoyle said. "Practice before you lay your own eggs in the rookery."

Merciful Merlin. What?!

An elder female poked the mottled one. "Hush, you have him thinking he gets to lay the eggs."

"Well, that would put a spin on gender roles," Bastion chuckled.

The gargoyles were chuckling amongst themselves.

"So, Severus," a beaky male with long snout said. He scratched behind his ear with one foot. "What gifts do you give your lifemates?"

A yellowish gargoyle with wing-membranes under his arms sidled up to the redder, beaky male. "Shiny things? Human tools? Portable screens with moving pictures the humans carry?"

"Ack, leave the lad alone," the grizzled gargoyle muttered, shooing the red and yellow gargoyle away. "Let them take the pups out for a fly." He glared at them. "Unless YOU want to."

The other gargoyles hurried away, making excuses.

Sabine placed her head on Hermione's chest and stared into her face. "Hermioneeeeee!" she pleaded, wriggling against her "mum."

Hermione opened one eye, quickly taking note of the lack of gargoyle elders around. Clever witch. She grabbed Sabine in her talons and snuggled her mercilessly, causing the pup to squirm, squeak, and growl happily.

"Fly?" Sabine pleaded, begging shamelessly. She wrapped her tail around Hermione's wrist and widened her eyes in a cute, insufferably adorable expression.

Suddenly, all of Hermione's tentacles shot up, and she leaped into the air, somehow having disentangled herself from me with the skill of Houdini. She crowed, roaring as she flung herself off the side of the cathedral, and the pups and ran around in circles in confusion before they realised where she had gone. Sabine shot out after her like a bolt, while the others wobbled a little in flight.

I found myself alone, and for once, I didn't like it one bit. I leapt off the side of the building myself, spreading my unwieldy wings to catch the air thermals. She was already far ahead, the pups circling around her as she glided lazily on the wind—her ease on the wind betrayed how comfortable she had become with being a beast.

The Dark Lord had taught me how to "fly" as a reward for betraying Dumbledore by giving him the prophecy, but it was nothing like this. Flying with wings was a wholly new experience, different in every way from magical propulsion. Once I had thought broom flying was truly amazing, then I sprouted real wings and was so busy freaking out on how much of a monster I was, I never got to enjoy them. Then, the Mark prevented any transformation, so the Dark Lord's gift of learning how to fly was all I had.

None of it was as beautiful as this—chasing the she-beast across the skies as she played with over a dozen gargoyle pups in attendance. She lured them high and low, teaching them to corkscrew and barrel through the air. She let them alight on her to catch their breath, and she would have them them chase her. All of this was happening ahead of me—agonisingly out of reach due to my own nubile flying skill.

Thump.

A gargoyle pup was using me a perch, clinging to my back tentacles as he hitched a ride. My tentacles obligingly curved around him like a safety harness. I wondered if any Muggles below were looking up at the sky at just that moment, wondering if they were hallucinating. Or, did the French take such things in style having a better grasp of acceptance as Muggles than ever the magical born did for Muggles?

Hermione glided down over the river we were passing over—the great and expansive Seine that held Paris within its embrace before weaving its way back towards the sea. She skimmed the water with her talons as she flew by.

SNAP.

A fish!

A huge fish wriggled in her claws, but she released it, seemingly encouraging the pups to try it for themselves. The pups struggled to imitate, ending up with river weed, Muggle trash, and, at last, fish. She led them down the river, keeping to the shadows, and the pups stayed with her, seemingly knowing that to separated from their elders was tantamount to death. Or, perhaps it was something more, some bond that I was not aware of. For as surely as she was their true mother, they followed her like a line of baby geese, with only the tired one hitching a ride on me like an afterthought or second best.

Well, I was done with being an afterthought.

I pumped my wings to gain more speed, doing what the little pups were doing—testing everything. I wanted to see exactly what I could do, what I could get away with, and what would probably send me careening into the Bassin Seine face first. The pup on my back seemed to realise this was his time to shine, and he flew around me, showing off his moves and demonstrating each one, waiting for me to follow him. The part of me that desperately wanted to believe I was an adult and should be the one teaching wisely remained quiet. I ate my humble pie and let the little gargoyle pup teach me what it knew as it barreled and cartwheeled through the sky with the skill of hummingbird on concentrated sugar water. Within an hour, I was flying less like a drunken hovercraft that dreamed of becoming a helicopter and more like a member of one of the larger avian species. Most of all, I really didn't want to throw up. That would've been terribly embarrassing.

The pup rrrred at me and seemed to approve of me taking my lessons, and he zoomed off to join his brothers and sisters with Hermione. Feeling less of a horrible example of a flying creature, I chased the pup, using my talons to snatch him up in mid flight and send him tumbling. He squealed and growled, cartwheeling in the air before flying back, ruffling my back tentacles, and then shooting off like a rocket. Cheeky little devil.

Finally, even though my wings ached with all the abuse I had put them through, I caught up with the she-beast at last. Hermione glided effortlessly, even with a collection of tired pups clinging like burrs to her back, seemingly ignoring me. I flew, wingtip to wingtip, the claw of one spur brushing against her velvet wing. The moment we touched, there was the exquisite agony of pleasure—connection, belonging, and home. Never before had such a thing even crossed my mind, not until I had met her. Rather, until I had met the real Hermione, I had not though such a thing possible.

The she-beast in her dark, magnificent, moonlit glory. She who spread her wings across the skies and blotted out the very moon—her teeth like gleaming white daggers, glistening in the dark. How could such a sight be so terrible and yet so beautiful? How could such a sight make me reconsider my own existence as being anything but a relentlessly twisting path that I could eventually meet her, the only other like me in existence?

Oh, Lily. Gladly I would suffer your agonising rejection if it meant I would one day meet her. For without you, I would never have given myself to Albus and become what I am. I would not be here, flying wing to wing with this glorious she-beast.

Merlin.

Was this the reason my life had been such a nightmare from the start? Was it to balance that which I would experience now? Here, in this moment of absolute, crystalline clarity? Just the brush of her wing, the very touch of her shadow proved that pleasure and pain were undeniably close.

There was not a single mistake in any of Dumbledore's movements. Every detail was so meticulously planned. He had sent her here out there for Fenrir, but he had also sent me. He told neither of us of the other's existence. He knew both of us were trained to ruthlessly take out any and all potential threats to our cover.

He knew. He had created us both.

He had trained us both to distrust anyone but him, and even if I hadn't trusted him, who else would I have gone to? Who else would ever trust what I had become?

As the moon came out from behind a cloud, it cast its radiance down upon us, every bit as bright as the sun. That was when I saw it: the glistening of magical runes spreading across Hermione's skin, spanning across her back where they were not easily seen by her. But to me, they were as obvious as a torch in the dark.

"Hermione," I said, breaking the silence of our flight.

Her ear perked in my direction, swivelling to listen. "There is something you must see."

Hermione said nothing, but she gave a low keen, calling the pups to her, and she banked back towards the cathedral. As she shot past me, her tail wrapped around my wrist and caressed my skin, saying what words could not. I followed, not because she was holding something over me or had some power over me that bewitched my mind, no. I followed because I wanted to.

---

"How many of them are there?" Hermione asked. She attempted to look at her back, but huffed in exasperation. "It's no good. I turn to look and they instantly disappear."

"Look on mine," I said, turning my back to her. "Perhaps you are not the only one with them."

"May I—" she looked away awkwardly. "Touch you?"

I smiled a little, even though I was turned away from her. "You may touch me whenever you wish."

Her velvet pads brushed delicately against my skin, and I shivered with pleasure.

"They are everywhere, fading in and out across your skin and every curve of your body," she said.

"It is the same on your skin," I said, turning back to her. "Perhaps, what he did on me, he perfected on you. I see hundreds of runes, chains, checks and balances. They are hardly random. All together they look like the scrawlings of a madman, but if you break them up, they are twisted, yet brilliant."

"How long do you think he has been using them to control us?"

"For me," I replied, "I didn't agree to his 'help' until I was sixteen. The change happened to me about a year after and was suppressed by my Mark soon after that." I frowned, remembering something. "Did he ever give you something strange to drink?

Hermione snorted. "Everything he gave me to drink was strange."

I blinked. "Touché."

"Yes, he did, more during my first year with him, not so much after." Hermione scratched her wings with the opposing wing. "At the end of my first year, he started shaving some sort of odd stone into a drink and making me drink it. He said it would stabilise my magic. The next year, I mucked it up by taking Polyjuice to help Harry, and it triggered my transformation."

I frowned at this. "I gave Albus the antidote for that. He requested it even."

Hermione shook her head at me. "My transformation started because of that potion. Because of my mistake. Exposure to Polyjuice before my body was stable—"

"Hermione," I said, my tail moving to corkscrew around hers in a reassuring manner—or what I hoped was a reassuring manner. "You studied for your potions mastery. Think of what happens when you add something to the Polyjuice matrix. The change occurs when a hair, a fibre, or anything else is added to the mutable potion—think, Granger. Think."

She jolted, her tentacles standing up on end. I could almost see the exclamation marks over their tips as they hissed and poked each other. That had been Professor Snape's voice, and she reacted with a sort of instinctual mental convulsion. Whether it was because she had conditioned herself to react that way due to having to pretend to be a student for so long or if it had been ingrained long before her Time-Turning, monster-mutating transformation, I didn't know. The effect was the same.

"The stability matrix solidifies upon the addition of a genetic donation," she said, her voice sounding almost mechanical in nature. "Preventing the alteration of the ingredients in any way. Magical interaction is impossible once the donation is added. Mammal and reptilian genetic donations will bind to the stability matrix. Bacterial, viral, and disease vectors will not."

That's my Hermione. Now, put it all together.

"If any mutagenic vectors exist previous to addition of the potion—" Hermione's head jerked up. All of her tentacles were now standing straight at attention. "The potion neutralises and fails."

Good girl. Now what can we determine from all this?

Hermione growled lowly, her lips pulling back from her teeth. "HE triggered my transformation after he 'cured' me, making me think all these years that it was all MY fault!"

She slammed her claws into the stone of the cathedral and scraped gouges into it that would have frightened any stonemason until the end of his days. "And I BELIEVED him!"

She snarled. "I'm going to rip out his still-beating HEART and EAT IT!" She looked ready to spring off the cathedral and do just that, but my shadow and my body were quicker. I wrapped my tail around hers tighter, my arms around her body, and my wings around hers, pinning her against me with all my might.

She was far more used to her bestial body and I was, and I was praying that my own strength would be enough to contain her—that my touch could calm her instant, knee-jerk, highly Gryffindor desire to charge back to Hogwarts and murder the headmaster while children watched as she ate his heart in the middle of the Great Hall.

She struggled fiercely against me.

"Let me go!"

"I can't!"

"Let go of me, Severus!" she screamed.

Don't touch me, Sev! Lily screamed in my face.

No, I wouldn't let her ruin her life and have that twinkling old goat win. NO! I held onto her tightly, dodging her blows, taking others directly to the face, taking a few more to my groin in a manner I truly never wished a repeat of, and I entangled all of my tentacles with hers—hoping that my lesser number of them would still keep her from ripping them off and doing what she really, really, really wanted to do.

Suddenly, her flailing against me stopped, and she sagged against me completely, her body trembling as she sobbed into my body. Her hands, which had been beating on me mercilessly only moments before, clung to my fur. Her wings wrapped around my back as she sobbed, beating her head against my chest as she crumpled into me. I wrapped her in my wings, pulling her tail against mine as my tentacles purred to hers. They rubbed against each other, almost as if to apologise for trying to beat the shite out of each other moments before. Our shadows slinked back from where they had apparently been hiding, perhaps worried that she would have forced a battle between us.

"Why would he do that?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "He saved me. I would have—he could have just asked. He could have told me! I may have helped him just the same!"

I knew that Hermione didn't really want answers, so I just held her, combing my talons through her almost-sentient curls. I wanted to ask her what had Albus done to save her life. What had been so significant that she'd have submitted to becoming a monster by her own free will to pay up the debt? Life debts were strange creatures. If she truly had one, she would be compelled to make it right—to even the score as it were. She might have even allowed herself to be changed because of it. I know—because I had one with James sodding Potter after her saved my life from Sirius' Black's werewolf 'prank'. He'd used it to keep me from casting truly harmful spells at him after that day. Not that he realised what it was—but I had. When he finally realised what was keeping me from cursing him, he did what any bloke would do when faced with a life debt from his most hated enemy: he called me up on it and bound me to never talk to Lily or himself ever again.

The night of October 31st—the night when everything went to hell—I'd put myself into a coma trying to defy the debt and send a Patronus to warn Lily when I realised Albus hadn't taken my warning seriously enough. I woke up in St. Mungo's with the Prophet on my bedside table. A part of me wonders to this day, that if I hadn't taken the Mark, would I have been able to save her, or would I have ended up dead too?

Fixed events in time—immutable, unchangeable.

There were other issues, though. Like why had Potter decided staying in the UK was such a good idea. If they really wanted to hide, why not hide somewhere less obvious. Move to the States. Move to Canada, Australia, or sodding South Africa. Something. ANYTHING but the land of Voldemort. I'm sure Tom would have tried searching everywhere too, but at least they would have had a fighting chance—well, more of a fighting chance. A chance.

Albus had heard the prophecy. He could have told the best candidates to beat it and stay in hiding until hell froze over or Voldemort was dead. Take your pick. If even Horace sodding Slughorn could manage to stay off the radar of the Death Eaters, then two bloody Aurors and the supposedly great James Potter could have bleached their hair, or taken Polyjuice, or had Muggle plastic surgery and hidden themselves away somewhere. They could have hidden away somewhere surrounded by Lethifolds and had their own first-rate security system.

It didn't matter now. What happened could not be undone. Me pondering my own stupidity and what I saw as stupidity in others wasn't going to change anything. I had to focus on the now, and now—well, now was currently in my arms weeping inconsolably as though someone had killed her puppy by drowning it right in front of her. Damn everything else, I wanted to be there for her. She was the one that mattered, and there was a part of me that was scared to death that I felt that way so soon after meeting someone.

Not that she was just anyone. Not that she could ever be just anyone to me after knowing her secret. Our shared secret.

I had to wonder, even though Hermione and I were very literally monsters, at least outwardly, if Albus was actually the monster in our messed up relationship. Sure, he didn't have fur, tentacles, and a propensity to want to eat things we didn't like, but—we were monsters. What was his excuse?

Hermione was still whimpering softly against me, and I felt such an overwhelmingly protective surge come over me like nothing I'd ever wanted or needed to protect before. They say Slytherins are all about saving themselves, but all I wanted in that that moment was to save her—shelter her—from the kind of bitter pain I knew all too well: betrayal.

"I'm here," I whispered against her ear, pressing my nose into her mane of curls.

She pulled tighter against me, her ragged breaths finally evening out as she stroked my fur with her talons. "Severus?"

"Hrm?"

"How good are you at reversing Obliviates?"

"How conscious will they be at the time?"

---

"I don't know how ya found me, lass, but I'm not takin' some fledgling on to become the next Auror."

"I'm not here for a job," Hermione said.

"I'm not for hire."

"I'm not here to ask you to investigate anyone either," Hermione huffed.

"I can't help you."

"I know you can," Hermione insisted.

"Lass, I don't know you from Joe over there," Moody sighed. "Actually, I know Joe better. I cannot help you."

I could tell Hermione was getting frustrated. She'd gone through all the polite ways to get his help, and none of them worked. As it was, I was getting a vicious arsecramp from sitting behind the opened Prophet, and the waitress hadn't refilled my coffee in about three passes. I was considering tripping her up on her next round, but then everyone's attention would be on me, and the last thing Alastor Moody needed was to catch sight of my face until we had some way of checking his likely knee-jerk reaction to kill me on sight.

I had my wand pressed between the pages of the Prophet as I pretended to mutter it aloud, so very carefully casting the memory unbinding spell counter charm to shake free some of the forcibly blanked memories. It was the best I could do in a pinch without being in front of him, and Hermione was doing her best to keep him within my range.

I had already woven in a rather intricately triggered Muffliato spell to engage if anything Moody said went over the level of polite conversation because I had a feeling that when his memories did come back, his voice would attempt to start the next earthquake or at least attract Rita Skeeter. That was something no one wanted. Ever.

I just hoped the counter charm kicked in soon, because my arms were getting tired, and Hermione's patience was clearly starting to frazzle. Her next step would be truly beastly, and I meant that literally. If she unraveled and went to beast, I'd unravel and go to beast, and there would be two of us being hunted down by a team of very angry Aurors.

"Fifteen," Hermione hissed at Moody, causing him to stop yelling and stare at her in confusion.

"You have fifteen pressure tiles in your house that have to be pressed in a certain order or it triggers a stunner on the floor that takes out anyone who passes by the last tile," Hermione said, crossing her arms in front of her.

Really? Fifteen? Damn, that man was paranoid.

Moody was listening now, his jaw working in disbelief. "How would you be knowin' that, lassie?"

"You. Taught. Me," Hermione answered succinctly. "Your favourite drink is actually sarsaparilla, but put it in your drinking flask so everyone thinks you're drinking Firewhisky all the time. You use it to listen to what people are saying around you."

Moody's eye twitched. Gears were turning, and I could almost hear them.

"You sing Auld Lang Syne when you're in the shower," Hermione said, "and you like blueberry pancakes on Tuesdays because your mam made them every Tuesday morning so you'd do well at school. She used to owl you them every Tuesday morning while you were at Hogwarts."

"I don't know what you're trying to pull—" Moody hissed.

"Your first partner was an old codger named Cupboard who got his name for getting locked in one on his first assignment," Hermione said. "He hated your guts and made you carry all the notebooks for three months before he trusted you to question anyone. He called you 'Notie' for a year before you saved him from being run over by a Muggle car while you were chasing Dickery Todd down the main street of London. You pretended you were all actors late to a show carrying your 'drunk' friend away before the Muggle police showed. He still calls you Carma to this day. Everyone else gets punched in the solar plexus."

Moody had an utterly perplexed look on his face. I hoped that meant the counter-charm was finally working.

Hermione leaned toward Moody. "The last memento from your mam was her opal ring. She hoped you would marry and give it to the woman in your life, but the one woman you truly loved married your childhood friend, and you didn't have the heart to break their happiness, even for a moment. She said it wasn't magical, but you knew better. You know when it found the one your mam would approve of, it would stick to them—just as it had for her."

Hermione put her hand down on the table, the opal ring glistening on her ring finger.

Moody had given Hermione his mam's ring?

"Hermione?" Moody whispered.

"Come on, you cantankerous old tankard," Hermione hissed. "Heid doon arse up!"

Hrm, apparently Moody had also taught Hermione some particularly choice Scottish sayings. That would certainly explain the Portkey trigger word.

"Ya don't have to get rude wi' me, lass!" Moody barked. "What are ya doin' 'ere? I hav'na seen ya in ages."

Emotional Moody's accent just got thicker and thicker.

"You remember me?" Hermione asked.

"Remember ye? You're me damn daughter! Did ya get your head clobbered by a stunner?"

Hermione grabbed Moody in her arms and hugged him tight. "Thank Merlin!"

"Ach!" Moody tsked gruffly. "What was that for? And why do I feel like I've a herd of hippogriffs stampeding in my head?"

Hermione sighed in great relief. "Can we go somewhere a bit less… conspicuous?"

"Sure, and ya can tell me what's been going on that you don't even visit," Alastor muttered.

"I'll do better than that," Hermione promised.

"All right, you know the place then," Alastor said with a quirk of his lip. "Bring your fishin' pole."

Hermione smiled. "See you there."

---

I probably should have been used to it, but I had a wand to my neck as I arrived with Hermione to what looked like a very peaceful fishing cottage in the middle of nowhere.

"Snape," Moody snarled, jabbing his wand into my carotid.

"No!" Hermione said pulling the Auror's wand arm down. "He needs to be here."

"Why would I want a Death Eater here?" Moody yelled angrily.

"You trust me, right?" Hermione pleaded.

Moody looked torn. His hatred for me went way back. "He's a ruddy Death Eater, Hermione!"

"No, he's not."

"You can't just decide to not be a Death Eater anymore!" Moody yelled, jerking up my sleeve and sending my buttons flying. The fabric ripped as he yanked it up to expose my left forearm. "Snape's a sodding Death Eater. Look here at his—his—"

Moody dropped his wand arm and took a step back. "I need tea. Don't either of you talk to me until I've made some." He turned and stormed back into the cottage.

"I feel I should thank you for saving my life," I said, rubbing my arm.

Hermione smiled a little. "He's really nice once you get past his gruff exterior," she said.

"Is there any room for nice under all that gruff?" I asked dryly.

Hermione made a face. "There was room for nice under YOUR dour exterior," she pointed out fairly.

I crossed my arms in front of me and scowled. "He owes me new buttons."

Hermione shook her head, using her wand with a silent Accio to present me with a handful of buttons. Some were mine and some were definitely not mine, but they looked like they would make some antique collector very happy.

"He's forgiven," I muttered grumpily.

She placed her palm to my cheek and smiled, and I shuddered in pleasure. I'd forgive him again and again, as long as she continued to do that. I might even be civil.

Where had all my well-honed rancor gone?

Her willingness to touch me, however, was breaking down every hardened wall I had built to protect and hide my emotions. The touch and that look—the genuine, unselfish compassion that I couldn't deny. I couldn't throw it back in her face and call her a liar.

I couldn't break her heart, knowing she knew all about my past and I knew hers too. She still touched me. She still wanted to be touched… by me.

I just hoped that the infamous Alastor Moody and I could come to some sort of accord and not end up dueling each other on the shore in front of Hermione. I had a feeling if either of us ended up hurt, she would curse whoever was left and then cry herself to sleep for the rest of her life.

Sucking in a deep breath, I followed Hermione to the shore. She handed me a fishing pole and a bucket of bait she had seemingly pulled out of thin air, plopping herself down on the edge of the worn pier. I stared at the hook on the end of the line stupidly, having no idea what to do with it. Oh sure. I knew the general concept, but I didn't know how to attach bait to a hook to save my soul, and knowing how to catch a fish? Hah!

Hermione, seeming to realise I had an issue, silently attached the bait to the hook and went back to fishing.

She caught a few flounder, a bass, one cod, and an eel.

I caught seaweed, a soda can plastic, and a large, tangled up lobster.

Hermione glared at me. "Only you would accidentally catch a bloody lobster."

"Language, Granger," I muttered.

"You and my inner voice can have lunch," Hermione muttered, pulling out a cod that wriggled and smacked me in the face.

"And the purpose of the abuse of my face with sea fish?" I groused. "My nose is beaky enough without the impromptu bludgeoning experience."

"Peace offerings for Alastor, so he doesn't go for his wand and kill us both during the processing phase."

I handed my hook back to her. "Bait, please."

She silently rebaited my hook for me.

We were going to need more lobster. Might as well make myself useful.

After my fifth lobster tangled in my line mixed with seaweed and someone's lost golden necklace, Hermione shoved me off the pier and continued fishing.

I bargained my way back onto the pier with an armful of oysters, and she dried me off with a drying and warming charm. She also stole my oysters. Psh. Females.

As I sat next to her with a harrumph, the barely noticeable warmth of her tail sneaked over from under her robes, slithered under mine, wrapping around my waist and leaving a pleasant warmth that made me forget about everything else—even if she did smack me in the face again with a pollock.

By the time Moody had finished brooding himself and his tea, he came out to join us on the pier. He didn't say anything, but he set down Muggle insulated mugs out with hot tea in them, one for each of us. He peered into the live net that Hermione was using to store the spoils of our fishing efforts, and grunted in what might have been in approval. He wrapped his arm around Hermione's shoulder and squeezed her solidly before casting his own line into the water.

He said nothing, just fished with us until the sun started to sink under the horizon. By the time it was dark, I helped him lug the full haul back to the cottage, and he taught me my very first fish-scaling and degutting spells. Hermione busied herself making a seaweed and seafood salad, Moody did some sort of culinary magic on the fish, and I was told to "fix the lobsters and don't ruin 'em." An hour or so later, we all sat down around a worn and apparently well-loved table, eating by candlelight—again saying not a word between us. I kept expecting him to explode and start yelling at me, but it never came.

Alastor got the sea fisherman's fare and the king's bounty with three giant lobsters for himself, but I figured that was my toll in the hopes he wouldn't kill me and Hermione's penance for bringing a "Death Eater home" like someone might bring home a stray dog with the mange AND rabies. She had caught enough fish to feed a small army for a week or at least one family of Weasleys for a night, and by the heavenly smoked smell coming from the second hearth, I had a feeling that therapy was all in the smells.

By the time we had finished eating, cleaning up the table and kitchen, and tending the smoking fire, I was tired enough to think curling up in a ball on the floor was a great idea, and my tired, confined, and cranky tentacles were protesting (albeit silently as to not alert Moody) that their snuggle buddies were over there with Hermione. Every so often, one would sneak a peek under and over my collar like a periscope searching for the Cold War submarine of the enemy and then dart back under cover. It was, I'll admit, a little disconcerting for me. I hadn't had years to get use to them. Even more importantly, they had hadn't really been that active with me before until they'd discovered Hermione—and now they were like incessantly curious children wanting to be "over there" "socialising." Unfortunately they were connected to me, so they weren't going anywhere without me. They were stuck with me, the poor wretches. Fortunately for them, I was learning fast due to Hermione being around. She had done all the hard research, as she was a excellent life study.

As the fire crackle and popped in both hearths, the cottage was a pleasantly warm place, bar far better than what I had become used to in the dungeons of Hogwarts. Even with magical warmth and elf-tended fires there was a chill about the dungeons that never seemed to leave. It was great for storing potions ingredients, but it wasn't so great for storing people that wanted to move around without feeling like old, creaky rocking chair every morning and evening.

Moody plunked a polished stone basin in front of us and pulled out a series of empty vials on a wooden rack. It reminded me of my mum's old spice rack she had until the day my father hocked it with a friend for money for his next beers. "Just put what you know in the vials and I'll go through them," Alastor said grimly, staring into the shifting pseudo-water of his Pensieve. "I'll go through them as you sleep.

Quilts and a pillow slammed into my face, and judging by the oof Hermione made, she was not exempt from the general lack of manners. Strangely, it was almost reassuring that he wasn't bothering with formal manners. He had other things on his mind. The empty vials were as close to an invitation to parlay and a window in which to prove to him what I'd wanted him to know all along: I wasn't what he thought I was.

Don't get me wrong, I had been.

I had been on the train of vengeance against my father and all things Muggle for a long, long time. I'd swallowed the propaganda as well as any of the purebloods had. I'd even—almost—followed them into the damning pits of hell all on my own. Instead, I'd fallen out with Lily and questioned every single action I'd ever made. Then, when I'd finally pulled myself out of the gutter of power-hunger, Albus Dumbledore had offered me a hand and a push right back into what I'd only just narrowly avoided.

He'd also turned me into a creature crafted to suck the magic out of his enemies, only something had gone wrong. I hadn't realised until I'd seen Hermione in all her terrible, monstrous glory what Albus had been trying to do with me. He had wanted me to be like her—and endless reservoir of magic that called to other magic like a Greek siren to the sailors. She called others' magic to her, and it came running to abase itself upon her.

Me? I fed on energy of a different sort, leaving my victims drained of all desire and ability to move—but they could recover. They could remember. And that was not what Albus wanted. He did not want a temporary solution. Though, I did wonder, now that I had seen what Hermione was capable of, what I was truly capable of, had I truly embraced what I was.

Hermione and I set about filling the bottles with memories, starting with young, stupid life choices to the present. I'm sure Hermione's had less in the manner of my stupid life choices, but she had a hefty helping of naive life decisions made as a young, impressionable child and equally manipulated teenager and adult. If any of her "student personna" had a touch of truth to it, she would hold herself guilty as sure as I did for mine.

I didn't envy Moody his future jaunt into memory lane. Hermione and I had done it without the Pensieve, but it had been expansive and exhausting all the same. Moody at least had the ability to pull his head out and have a cuppa in between vials. He'd also have the abridged version— Hermione and I had practically lived each other's entire lives in the span of a few hours. It may not have been a courtship, per se, but I'm almost positive that Lucius never learned that much about Narcissa in all the years he'd known and lived with her. More importantly, would he have married her had he known all the gruesome details of life Narcissa had experienced from the time she first began teething?

Then again—Lucius never had to watch his mate devour the magic off of a werewolf and in the same night teach an entire litter of gargoyle pups how to fish in the Seine. I knew, then and now, that Hermione was capable of being both the most ruthless of magical assassins and the most compassionate, patient mother. It did not matter what she looked like, and who was I to judge such things? I wasn't exactly gracing the cover of Playwitch, that was for certain. Despite what she was capable of, she was a caring and compassionate soul.

She finished before me, filling all her vials as one would decant wine into glasses, yawning with a flash of her inhuman teeth. She was getting tired, and appearing human was exhausting. She leaned on me sleepily, resting her head against my shoulder as she snuffled my robes.

The scent of her— the touch of her simply leaning against me— it all curled around me, tightening like tendrils around my battered, rusted heart. "Her" couch was over there, but Hermione didn't seem inclined to move. I could feel Moody's eyes upon me, but he also seemed to notice that Hermione was pulling closer to me and entirely of her own volition. Unlike so many times before, he was truly watching me without the white, or rather black elephant in the room: Death Eater.

Fortunately, Moody had already charmed the couch to be wider for our sleeping comfort, so when I used my foot to remove my boots and pull my legs up, moving Hermione against me was no trial of Hercules. She murmured into my chest, pulling my arm around her like a favourite blanket.

I was completely undone.

Never once had anyone used me as comfort. I'd never had to be there for someone in such a capacity. I'd let Lily beat on me for frustration. I'd let her use me as something to lean on while we studied. I'd even let her sprawl on me to sleep off her drunken stupor, once upon a time. But she had never been so casually tender. She had never even allowed me to entertain the notion that I had no right to think I had any word to say with regard to our combined future.

Yet— Hermione said very little, so unlike her swotty student self. She let her actions do the bulk of her talking for her. Had I been even a bit less angry with her for her incessant "tinkering" in Potions class, I would have realised there was so much more to her than she ever let on. I would have seen the delicate touches of a master doing exactly what masters did: tinker, adjust, and improve. But I had been blind to it all, just as Albus had intended, and she had been blind to me as anything but a very curmudgeonly bastard that wanted all of his students to do everything just the way I said.

I pressed my nose into her curls, breathing in the scent of smoking fish, sea air, and her own delicate, earthy scent. I pondered how such a creature could exist, and if she would disappear like smoke with the rising of the morning sun. Would she evaporate like mist off the morning waves? Would I wake only to realise I was trapped in yet another lie?

Please, don't let it be a lie. Don't let this feeling of her pressed against me— willingly— be nothing more than a dream.

One lone tear trailed down my nose, falling on Hermione's face, and I realised Moody was staring at me. I used my sleeve to hurriedly wipe it away, having enough problems in my life than having Moody insult my manhood on top of everything else. But Alastor Moody surprised me yet again by using his wand to transfer the pillows and quilt from the other couch over to us.

Maybe there really was something to Hermione's earlier comment that Moody wasn't as horrible as most people thought. He and I were both trying to figure out the other. We were both struggling to make sense of a world we'd thought was a tree, only to discover it was actually a whale. Up was down, and our enemies were not our enemies anymore.

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of sand dragging them down.

Please, please, let her be there in the morning.

---

-Alastor Moody-

My beast-daughter had returned to me—my bonnie child I had always wanted. I suppose I'd never dreamed my daughter would be quite so ferocious, but when I thought about it, anything else wouldn't have been her.

I knew what she was ever since the very first night she slept under this roof, my sane-place, my refuge from the world. This was where I trained her. This was where I knew she truly trusted me, for in her sleep she transformed into something both terrifying and beautiful to behold. I had teased her about her shadow all the time, calling it "the devil," but I knew the truth. I knew she was something special.

One night, in her sleep, she grasped my hand in her talons— wicked curving claws the length of daggers— and she held my hand as delicately one would their grandmother's doily. She had pressed her monstrous muzzle to my skin and sighed with relief, falling even more deeply into sleep. I never said a thing. She was as close as daughter to me, but I never admitted it to her until she could fling curses and perform counter-curses while diving under furniture and closing grates.

She made me so proud.

I had wanted to show her the world, and on the day she'd passed all of my tests with flying colours, I had planned to take her. But I woke up the next day with her on my doorstep and I didn't remember who she was. I didn't remember how she hummed to herself as she listened to my old Muggle record player that spouted out Scottish folk songs. I didn't remember how she spent hours in the kitchen perfecting the recipe for my mam's blueberry pancakes and made the most perfectly crispy bacon in all of Scotland alongside it. Instead, I had thrown her out on her bum and cursed at her.

I remembered her shocked tears and my thinking her some madwoman. She had left, and I had dismissed it as some ridiculously transparent ploy to fish some story out of old Mad-Eye Moody. I had assumed she had been some agent of that trashy excuse for a newspaper, the Prophet, something along the lines of bloody Rita Skeeter who paid off sources to get just the right dirt and information to stick the knife in deeper.

Somehow, I'd forgotten her.

And as I watched the pair sleep on my old, battered couch, I knew they were one and the same. My bonnie beast curled in the winged embrace of another who seemed to be carved right out of the very same stone. Their wings and tails were entwined together as their slithering tentacles purred and rubbed up against each other, like old friends greeting each other with the customary cheek-kisses. Their talons twitched in sleep, breaths coming in deep intakes and outward sighs. Their shadows, content to be entwined together in the firelight, curled up like hounds near the fire.

They were absolutely terrifying and yet incredibly beautiful at the same time.

I lifted the vials of memories, having gone through all of them over the course of hours, and knew I had been betrayed and deceived. I'd been told that through quite a few Auror conversations that Severus Snape was a Death Eater through and through. James Potter and Sirius Black had both had ample things to say about him and none of it had been good. But after seeing those memories, I saw the other side, now. While they had both taken after each other with hexes and curses, Snape had been an army of one— against a gang.

And at the end of his rope, Albus Dumbledore had conveniently been right there, extending his hand in friendship, offering up his mentorship. And he had been there for Hermione, too, just in time to save her from a rampaging troll. He had bound Severus tightly to him with an Unbreakable Vow and Hermione with a child's blind, selfless devotion. He had molded them both into what he needed: a spy and an assassin.

He had been so very careful, too. He had always directed Hermione to drain her mark and then leave— leaving the killing to simple happenstance. Hermione never had to feel the pain of having her soul shattered, lest that tip her off to the fact that what she was doing was anything less than what had to be done.

Oh, what a sneaky, old manipulative bastard.

Were there others out there? Were these two the only ones he'd tampered with both in mind and body?

Somehow, these two had beaten the odds. Dumbledore had sent them to the same place, knowing that each of them would do everything they could to preserve their cover, only something had gone wrong. Before they could tear each other to pieces, their shadows had touched, and Hermione and Severus had connected in exactly the way the old man didn't want.

They found a home in each other. Hermione had broken Severus' shackles, devoured the twisted magic that bound him to Voldemort, drank in his Vow, and set him free. And his wee bonnie beast-daughter had found something even greater in doing so: someone who understood her.

Someone who could love her.

While I was no expert on love, I could read people pretty well when I wasn't blinding myself with ingrained prejudices. I saw the look on his face when she touched him and the raw emotion he could barely contain. The curve of his wings around her as he pressed his muzzle against hers— even in sleep they remained entwined.

A soft rustling caught my attention, and the little cargo-stowaway that had crawled out of Hermione's beaded bag snatched a fish from the hearth and dragged it back into the furry pileup. A young gargoyle pup wriggled between the two sleeping adults, yawned, munched on his prize a little, stretched his little wings just so, and went fast asleep. I had to hand it to the little guy, he knew how to pick safe places and times to come out and explore. At least here he wouldn't have wizards or witches trying to catch him and raise him to guard their stuff.

I wondered how long Snape and Hermione would be safe. There was no doubt that Dumbledore had set something in motion hoping that either or both of them would take each other out, but was that the true plan? If so, what did he have planned once they were dead? Would he craft another? And what of Potter, Weasley times two? They were out trying to save the world with just three heads between them probably bickering like a three headed dog over which way to go and how to go about it.

I'd seen those three at the Order Meetings— or rather I'd seen them skulking around listening in on the Order Meetings during the holidays. I'd also had to mop up the mess they caused on a number of occasions. The death of Sirius Black was perhaps the hardest on Potter and the most significant cock-up that had happened. The boy had a vision of his godfather's death and had rushed off to save him— only it hadn't gone remotely well.

The boy had apparently assembled what had become known as "Dumbledore's Army" to train each other the spells that Madam Umbridge would not. That loyal crew joined him on invading the Department of Mysteries to "save Sirius," only Sirius hadn't been there. Sirius had been back at 12 Grimmauld Place, giving his hippogriff a bath. Thanks to one botch after another, not only did quite a few people end up permanent residents of St Mungo's, but Sirius Black was blasted into the Veil-gate.

And now they were off saving the world with toothpicks and licorice whips for all I knew. No one knew— not the Weasleys. Molly was practically at Death's door with worry for her "baby girl" that just had to go be a hero with her brother and Potter. They had left in the night, having cleared the pantry of all the food and leaving no forwarding address.

They had vanished.

Perhaps, I should have suspected something when Dumbledore seemed so calm about the matter. Then again, Albus was calm all the time. Unnaturally so. But if Hermione's memories— and Snape's for that matter— were to be believed, then the reason Potter and company were having any chance at all was because Hermione was picking the Death Eaters off one by one and Snape was spying on the Dark Lord from within.

He was— not anymore.

There was no way he was going back into that viper's nest without the Mark, and I don't think he'd want to leave Hermione alone if a hundred wizards had him at wand point. He's already experienced traumatising loss once, and he had far more to lose now. You could see it in his eyes. You could see it in how they slept curved around each other like monstrous kittens sharing the same basket.

Monstrous magic-luring, energy-sucking beast-kittens.

I fingered the vials of memories, contemplating what to do with them. There was a really good chance that these memories would be vital for the evidence if it ever came up in a trial. That depending on being able to actually apprehend Dumbledore— the man who was notoriously hard to catch. He could smell trouble coming his way like no other.

I shrank all the bottles and put them in a case, filled the case with hardening foam thanks to a charm picked up from the shipping department, and closed the lid, using magic to seal the box so there was no seam at all. I pulled a stone away from the floor, placed the box in, moved the stone back, patched the crack up with my wand, and threw a rug over it. There— at least that was dealt with, and it was far easier than figuring out what to do with one trussed up werewolf that had shown up hog-tied on my work desk.

It had taken us hours to figure out it was really Fenrir Greyback— because it was a full moon night and he wasn't furry and slavering. It had taken us a few more to realise that Greyback didn't have a lick of magic left in him. Not a bit. Not even the curse that made him a werewolf. It was all gone. Oh we'd found others without magic before him—Death Eaters and Dark magicusers all— but he had been the first werewolf. He had been the first ex-werewolf in all history, as far as I knew. Amelia might know better, she and her Unspeakables, but bringing her in would require consent on Hermione and Snape's part due to the inevitable questions.

There were other things that were going to have to happen before any big reveals were done— evacuating Hermione's Muggle parents to a safe place was one, and determining if Snape had any relatives anyone could use against him was another. It was essential, or Dumbledore and Voldemort would have a way to force them into doing what they wanted. The last thing we needed was to give Dumbledore or Voldemort something else to use.

Rage simmered in my gut— the kind that would get old Mad-eye in trouble if he wasn't careful. I had to dance on eggshells as it was. People thought I was a paranoid and overly bull-dog as it was. It didn't matter if I was right. My wrath could wait. If anyone had the right to rip someone apart tendon by tendon it was the two on my couch, and they were ahead of me in the line by a good mile and then some. Still, Dumbledore had messed with MY family as well as me, and I had quite a few unkind things to say about it.

Squish.

I looked down. A gargoyle pup had put half a smoked fish on my toe and looked up at me. He nosed it, clearly offering it up to me, cocking his head to the side like the Nipper, the dog who listened to his master's voice over the gramophone. I knew gargoyles were far more intelligent than most gave them credit for, but at that moment he looked so much like an eager to please canine pup that I had to laugh.

"Come on up then," I invited, patting my lap.

He eagerly crawled up into my lap and snuggled up against me. I looked over to the couch pileup, and realised that this was not the same pup.

"Two stowaways, hrm?" I asked, rubbing its ears. He tugged the afghan up over my lap and burrowed between my arm and chest, yawning into my face with a soft whining squeak. All my plans to plot the next steps went sliding away into the night as the soft, cuddling warmth of the gargoyle pup dragged my consciousness under.

---

I woke the smell of my mam's pancakes and opened my eyes seeing Hermione tending a large batter bowl as three gargoyle pups watched attentively as they perched on the side of the kitchen counter. Three? Where had the third one come from? How many gargoyle pups were in that bag of hers?

Pop.

Another gargoyle pup appeared, hovering over the grill, and a large, black wing moved it over to perch with the others. Severus gave them a low, warning growl, and they all lined up and straightened up at attention. Hermione leaned over his shoulder, wrapping her wings around his waist and snuffling his neck, and the larger male beast froze in place, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. He shook it off after a while, flipping the pancakes into a pile on a platter.

"You knew," Hermione said quietly, passing a platter over to the pups. "Take this to your elder," she said. "Allez!"

The pups scrambled to hold the platter and they pumped their wings together to bring the platter of pancakes, fruit, and coffee over to me, plunking it down over my lap as they growled and squeaked at each other in what sounded like some sort of French.

One pup seemed to win the argument and wedged her head under my arm and snuggled into my side as she stared up at me, paws batting at my arm to show off her exposed belly. I tried to resist the compulsion, but it was too late. I was scratching her belly within seconds, and she growled happily, wriggling against me.

"Now you've done it," Hermione chuckled. "You get to explain to Bastion why she's sneaking off to get her belly rubbed and refuses to leave. I refuse to get involved."

I sighed, knowing from the memories that that particular conversation was going to be 'fun'." "Aye, lassie, I knew," I confessed, changing the subject.

"How long?"

"Since you first fell asleep here," I recalled.

Hermione was quiet, allowing the sounds of sizzling bacon and pancakes to fill the silence. I took that moment to nibble on the bacon, and my eyes widened. It was smoked maple bacon with a hint of pepper. Good gods, and it was perfectly crispy. Where had she found that?

Severus filled a line of small plates with pancakes, bacon, and eggs, and made sure each pup had one, grunting as they licked his face before flying off to guard their prize like tiny dragons on their hoard. Each found a different place to perch and devour their spoils.

"How did they find you?" I asked, trying not to talk with my mouth full, but damn it it wasn't hard.

"They Marked me when I crashed into the rookery," Hermione said. "They alway know where I am because I'm their "mum". They can always find each other too. Their rookery brothers and sisters share the same bond. Bastion says it ensures they they can rely on each other as they grow up. It lasts a lifetime."

I swallowed hard. "You're their mam?"

Hermione grinned toothily, her fangs glinting. "Right time, right place— I was the first big, winged, warm female they saw, and they infected me with this irresistible desire to brood over them and keep them under my wings for hours before the real gargoyle parents found me. That was an interesting evening."

"You don't do anything normal, do you, lass?" I mused.

"I'm not sure I'd know what normal was," Hermione replied. "This is my normal," she said, wrapping her tail around Severus' like a corkscrew. "I like it, at least now that I have a better idea of who I can trust."

Severus stiffened over the grill, pancake flipper still, and Hermione leaned into him, her tentacles hissing and rubbing against his.

"That means you," Hermione said gently, seeming to understand that his opinion of himself was helpfully molded into paranoia thanks to people like me— that had called him unredeemable and corrupt for years upon years.

Severus relaxed into her, eyes losing the strangely terrified look.

It was odd how clearly I saw such things now— when only a day before I would have been putting my wand to this throat and dragging him to Azkaban for even looking at me— or at her. Now, however, my memory of this place would be imprinted with the image of my beast-daughter and her equally beastly suitor and a handful of eager gargoyle pups guarding their bacon, eggs, and pancakes. My memories of the two fishing out on the pier as they gave me "space" to sort things out in my head were warm and positive. I'd watched him pull up trash and lobsters, and her pull up fish after fish. She had shoved him into the water for his luck, and he had come back with arms full of oysters to placate her. She'd accepted him back into her graces and under her wing, and they had continued to fish until I decided to get over it and join them. That's when I'd realised that everything I'd been told about Severus Snape were half-truths and blatant lies.

The truth was, I'd had a rebellious phase at Hogwarts. I'd been the trouble-maker that my teachers often had to owl home about. Sometimes there was proof, and sometimes there wasn't, but Dumbledore always suspected I was the one transfiguring other people's stuff into goblets and then swapping them around, causing people to accuse others of stealing their stuff.

Headmaster Dippet thought I was destined to be in Azkaban straight out of Hogwarts… until a gang of real Dark wizards cornered me in Knockturn Alley and tortured me as they stripped me of every arrogant thought I'd ever had about being a badass. I'd refocused my efforts, changed my studies, and passed every N.E.W.T. with O or better— all to become an Auror. My tormentors had graduated to become bonafide Dark wizards and witches, and I sent them to Azkaban (may they rot there until their bones adorn the floors) catching them doing to someone else what they had done to me.

When I thought about it, I realised that my fate could have easily gone the other way. I could have turned all that anger into something Dark and dangerous. The thing was, Snape could have easily been a terrifying Dark Wizard, but he pulled himself back from the brink— only to have Albus Dumbledore take him by the hand, turn him into a monster, and then throw him back in with the bloody Death Eaters.

It was no wonder he drank in the smile of Hermione like it was the wellspring of Life itself. I could easily see why Hermione saw so much in him—he had the potential to be her sworn enemy, but he had the will and the strength to keep himself together while corruption ran rampant all around him. Power dangled at the end of a branch, taunting him at every step, but did not take it.

I wondered why Snape was piling up more pancakes and eggs when a half-dozen more gargoyle pups popped out of nothingness and landed on the counter, their little wings beating frantically as they scrambled to hold on. Hermione snuffled each one, perhaps to make sure who each one was, and gave each a plate of their own. The pups squealed and growled happily, flying off with their breakfast, but not before they cooed and rubbed up against both Hermione and Severus and every single tentacle they had between them. Now that was manners.

My cottage was infested with gargoyle pups. I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. Some wizards would put themselves in the poorhouse just to get their hands on one gargoyle of any age. I knew that many would sell their children for a young one. And here I was with a cottage full of them as they munched on my mam's famous blueberry pancakes.

Maybe it was the pancakes. Thanks, mam.

To my surprise, each pup brought their plates back to the sink, carefully placing it into the soapy water. The magical scrubber sprang to life— one of the few things I paid through the teeth for the spell— and dutifully cleaned each plate off and nudged it into the drying rack. That clever bit of magic had been custom-crafted by a rather famous witch who had wanted to make kitchen chores less time-consuming for the everyday family. It had come in a set with spells to sharpen knives, clean the counters, walls, and windows in case something "bad" happened during the cooking, and a custom scaling and gutting spell for people like me that liked to fish, cook fish, and eat fish but not scale and gut fish. Just about every house had at least one of her spells enchanting their kitchen, and she had retired early to French Guiana. Her spells were now standard fare in culinary witch and wizard curriculums worldwide, but what only the people like me who paid through the teeth for them back in the day, she would often owl custom spell adjustments and tweaks as she improved on her original spells completely free of charge— while she made the rest of the world pay through the teeth for them.

Maybe Severus could figure out how to sell his method for pier-fishing lobsters— something I was pretty sure no one had figured out yet— and make himself a pretty pile of galleons. Accio'ing seafood was severely frowned on after one Amnesio Funderkins attempted to do that with sea urchins and bled to death under a ton of not-so-harmless spiked echinoderms. It probably wouldn't have been fatal if he hadn't been knocked out by the rain of sea-dwelling hedgehogs, but the laws went into effect soon after the tale of his humiliating death went global.

I heard that some idiot had tried to Accio his riding broom and wasn't specific enough. He ended up impaled by about thousand brooms, magical, non-magical, modern, and not so much. This should be a lesson to people— don't ever casually Accio anything.

Only after everyone had been fed did Hermione and Severus take their own plates and sit down on the couch to eat. Hermione sent out a Patronus, saying that Bastion probably knew what his little monsters were up to, but she'd rather be safe than sorry. All of the gargoyles disappearing from Notre Dame was not a story anyone wanted to see on the front pages of the Parisian tabloids.

The pancakes disappeared quickly, as I knew they would, and it seemed as though Hermione's tentacles were happily stuffing pieces of them into Severus' maw while his were dutifully feeding Hermione pieces of fruit. It was so terribly innocent and yet surreal considering they looked like Lovecraftian nightmares that I had to chuckle a little.

As soon as "their elders" were done eating, all the pups came crawling up to snuggle, making me wonder what my mam would have thought of the image if she could only have seen

"Well, I know that our first priority once the pups return home is to secure your parents somewhere safe," I said. "Do you have any family you need to move, Severus?"

Severus' muzzle wrinkled as his lips pulled back from his teeth. "My father took his rage out on my mother one too many times," he said grimly. "She did not survive it. My bastard of a father, however, lived to remarry. I hear they truly deserve each other."

"I—" I struggled for words. "I'm sorry, Severus."

The "larger" beast shook his head. "Don't be. I've had many years to come to terms with my mother's passing. She did what she thought best to ensure I finished my education, and I am glad she never had to learn the truth of what her bargain with Albus truly meant."

I couldn't help but feel many of us had unwittingly "helped" to push Severus to the edge. Some things were also setting off my mental alarm bells. Albus had arranged for Severus' entire education, which mean he had been just waiting for him to make one horrible mistake after another. He was just one step ahead of everyone. Well, that meant we had to make a detour to the Department of Mysteries A.S.A.P. With all this paranoia and the need to move out Hermione's biological parents without drawing any unwanted attention, we were going to need to see Amelia Bones.

"How do you feel about ferrets?" I said after some silence.

Two beastly eyebrows lifted in synchronisation as about a dozen gargoyle pups cocked their heads and said, "Rrrrr?"

---

As I stepped off the elevator into the DoM, a gryphon peered at me as stepped up. There were four doors one could possibly go through, but there was also the "un-door" that only a few knew about that was at the back of the gryphon's nest. The gryphon had been a new arrival after Potter broke into the DoM, got his godfather murdered, sent about twenty-some kids to Mungo's, broke into a tank of dangerous brains, and a host of other things that no one had ever thought anyone could do, let alone a bunch of kids.

Amelia and I had been trying to tell the ruddy blowhards that made the decisions at the Ministry that there needed to be more and better security down here that didn't rely solely on people. Why? People could be bribed or threatened. People did have to use the restroom and sleep eventually. People were habitual creatures. The list went on.

Gryphons and the like, however, slept with both ears open and one eye open. Dragons could sense any and everything within the length of a Quidditch pitch or so from where they were, even in their sleep. They were both the kind of creatures that made their lives guarding things. Amelia had wanted to hire in some gargoyles, but the higher-ups had said it was too much effort to set up. Gargoyles needed living areas, family areas, a rookery, and more space. That and the greater sentient-gargoyles did not appreciate being treated like trainable beasts. They needed things to guard, they preferred tasty food over gruel, and they actually rather enjoyed reading. Amelia and I thought it was an excellent idea, but no one took us up on it. Then, Potter happened—

Now we had a gryphon guarding the main path in, but it was a bandage if anything. Gryphons and dragons didn't care about evil intent or Dark magic as much as they guarded everything from everyone. Gargoyles were proficient at sensing both evil intent and Dark magic. Again… it seemed bloody obvious to Amelia and myself why getting a nice family of gargoyles to move in would be a really great idea™.

The guard gryphon stared at me. There was a very distinct line mosiac that clearly demarcated where said gryphon would tear off your face if you passed it. No blood stains today. That was an improvement.

I placed my hand on the orb just before the "line of imminent doom."

"Oh, hello there, Alastor," Amelia's voice said cheerily. "What's that in your hands, dear?"

I held up the cage where two highly disgruntled-looking black ferrets stared out through the bars.

"Alastor, have you been a bad boy again?" she sighed. A scan of magic went over us. "Oh my. This had better be good!"

"Better than good," I promised.

"Veruca, let them through," Amelia said, and the clearly annoyed gryphon laid her head down on her paws and continued to glower.

I walked over the line and past the gryphon, into the lair, and straight to the door in the back. I placed my hand on the door, sang the first verse of Bluebells of Scotland, and pushed in the door.

Amelia was waiting on the other side of the door with a bemused expression. "Sorry about that, love. You know how it is. One child breaks into the DoM and gets people killed, and suddenly we have a gryphon guarding the front entrance. If Umbridge had her way, we wouldn't have anyone guarding the front entrance because 'It's not like you people actually do anything worthwhile anyway'."

My eyebrow twitched.

"Come, come," Amelia said. "The debriefing room is free, and I made fresh tea. Samuel even brought out fresh biccies, including those shortbread biscuits you like so much."

Good man, that Samuel. By the way, you still owe me for saving your arse from that Peruvian Vanishing Flu. Good thing my mam knew how to counter every kind of oddball disease a wizard could possibly get. I swear it was so I couldn't say I didn't want to go to school on a given day because I had a disease.

"Alastor, you do not have the South African Whooping Wizard Pox."

"But, mam! I have the pink polkadots and everything!"

"Drink your orange juice, wash your face, and get ready for school."

To be fair, Poppy Pomfrey didn't believe me either.

We walked into the debriefing room and closed the door. Amelia hit the "You had better be dying if you dare come in here without knocking first" button, and a panel flipped on the outside of the door to read pretty much the same thing. She sat down in the comfy chair at the head of the table, folding her hands in a way that made me think of Madam Pince watching and waiting for me to touch something I wasn't supposed to. I undid the latch on the cage, and Hermione and Severus didn't move.

I stared.

They stared back.

I waited.

They still didn't move.

I picked up the cage and shook them out, muttering, "Merlin help me that I don't curse you right here in front of God and everyone, young lady."

Well, at least their expressions had changed from disgruntled to what passed for ferret-amusement. I waved my wand over them, and they unfolded like the great demon-beast from the Muggle movie Fantasia. Their wings touched the sides of the room, crumpling as they struggled to fit. Their tentacles hissed in relief as they unkinked themselves from their tangled mass. Elongated snouts opened wide to expose glistening, dagger teeth.

Severus set down a tray of cinnamon rolls as Hermione set down a tray of fruit tarts.

"We brought snacks!" Hermione said cheerily.

Amelia, bless her, shakily poured herself some coffee from the nearby carafe, drank it black, set the cup down, and took a few deep breaths.

"I'm going to need more tea," she said after a long silence. "And a Pensieve."

"Oh good," I said, pulling out the box of filed memories. "I have just the thing."

---

"Amazing!"

"Amazing!"

Hermione beat her head against Severus as the Unspeakables examined them from head to toe. Severus' multiple tails tried to throttle the wizard poking Hermione over and over, and Hermione's tentacles were hissing in annoyance as someone tried to figure out how one of them ticked. A witch was measuring the wings, touching the fur, peering at the scales, and even measuring the claws.

It was all I could do to keep my daughter from rampaging the examination room— or worse, having Snape do it on her behalf— by giving her her favourite white chocolate bar with toffee chips in it. She munched on it dutifully, even sharing a little with Severus, trying to keep her body under control. It wasn't quite working, as some of her integrated parts were sentient on their own, so they did what they wanted— like paralysing some poor bloke as the shadows inspected him instead. One tentacle apparently got so brassed off that it mutated, formed into an eel-like mouth and bite one wizard on the nose.

I really tried not to laugh.

Amelia was beginning to grow on them due to their ability to make a stunning café latte, and the shadows melted her with what was apparently the "best goddamned backrub of her life." It must have been great. Amelia wasn't one to curse, otherwise.

After hours of poking, prodding, measuring, collecting of samples, photos, anatomical drawings, random appendage drawings, fur samples, slime samples, tentacle scrapings, tentacle bites, and a myriad of other tests, Amelia handed them their very own magical identification collar. A fine band of goblin silver contained a complicated laundry list of identification enchantments that declared their status as the newest members of the Unspeakables, Magical Creatures Division XXXXXX. Any more Xs and they would have to change the size of their logo.

They were classified as extremely dangerous and had enough clearance that even the Minister For Magic wouldn't know they existed save for whatever cover story they made up for them. Deep cover agents and the like that served anywhere in Wizarding society or Muggle— watching the watchers. I was, technically, Amelia's watcher in the Auror Department. I was officially a grumpy malcontent with five big helpings of paranoia thrown in. Thing was, I was a grumpy malcontent with five big helpings of paranoid thrown in, but I was also one of Amelia's agents. I wasn't in the Magical Creatures Division, thanks to be human (thank you!), but I was under deep cover in the double zero agents.

Some drunken idiot had found out about us— at least in name— and thought it would make a great spy movie in the Muggle world and sodding retired so rich, even his house-elves had house-elves. On the bright side, everyone though we were fictitious, which only helped our cover. Who knew?

We also had a bloke down in inventions that looked suspiciously like Agent Q and had a personality to match. Amelia, of course, was Agent M with a feminine flair, and I'm not even going into what my double 0 number was. That was the human-side of the DoM, however. Hermione and Severus were now unofficially "dead" and officially on the payroll. What did that mean?

Hermione's parents got a free evacuation from England, a name change, and free moving help to Australia under the cover names Wendell and Monica Wilkins. I told Amelia that she needed to fire the idiot that came up with those names. They had to live with themselves, after all. Who wants to wake up in the morning calling themselves Wendell and Monica Wilkins? Her reply was, if they didn't like their name, neither would the Death Eaters and Dumbledore.

Death Eaters and Dumbledore. Now there was something I never thought I'd hear in the same sentence.

Hermione and Severus got their customary Level XXXXXX dna-bound situational glamour potion— the highest level of top-secret potionwork in the world. What did all that mumbo-gumbo mean? They could walk into a Muggle supermarket and look ordinary. They could sit in a flock of penguins and look like penguins. Wherever they were, they would blend in. They would look so mundane and ordinary that no one would remember them being there or be able to tell them what they looked like. So even on a bad-tentacle day, Hermione and Severus wouldn't be sending the Muggle world on fire with tabloids about radioactive monsters terrorising Tokyo and downtown London. They, could, as always, actually make a physical shift, but the potion was standard for all the Magical Creature XXXXXX levels clearances. It just wasn't worth the risk to be caught without it.

Hermione and Severus were agents 42 and 47 (43 through 46 actually belonged to the same agent who had four heads, and the original 42 had given up his number because he believed it was cursed to make him a target for alien abductions) respectively, and all the others were out on assignment. We had a thunderbird patrolling the west coast of British Columbia, kitsune agents in Japan, a few leviathans that patrolled the deep seas and guarded the area Muggles knew as "the Bermuda Triangle," and the list went on. Some of them were magical-creature Animagi, that officially "weren't possible" according to normal Wizarding knowledge, and some were products of experimentation or accidents. Agent McBride was our only kelpie agent— who had been unfortunately to be caught in a very bad duel between two wizards, their horses, and some potion that was supposed to help re-stock the local pond. He wasn't sure what happened— and the wizards responsible were in no condition to tell anyone what was in the cauldron, as they had been transformed into schools of pond fish. By the time anyone realised what had happened, they'd already disappeared into the vast lake.

Well, their dream of restocking the pond had come to fruition, but it probably wasn't quite the way they had intended, though I did wonder if they were slowly eaten by the local populace of that little town…

This is why there are Aurors, ladies and gentleman. Sure, we mainly go after Dark wizards and witches, but they are more likely to turn someone into a school of fish on purpose. That being said, we also realise that some common, everyday wizards and witches can do some really scary shite to each other. It's also why we put traces on minors because if anyone was going to accidently do something horrible with magic tied to their emotional instability, it was going to be a kid. Personally, I'd rather deal with a Dark wizard trying their best to kill me than a room full of hot-headed, hormonal teenagers with wands. I don't get paid enough to deal with kids.

Amelia looked relieved that everything was on paper, filed, recorded, and official. If and when anything would involve Dumbledore in the future, everything had to be just right. The man ran the equivalent to his own Country at Hogwarts, and bringing him under suspicion would be just as hard as trying to to get any accusation to stick on him. The vials of memories would help, but he might claim they were tampered with, and getting them redrawn and rechecked would buy him time to do whatever he needed to do to wriggle free. There was also the matter of what his ultimate goal was. No one knew but Dumbledore himself. Severus and Hermione had been kept carefully ignorant of each other's existence for years, and they were trained to notice everything else.

Whatever influence the man had— it was more far-reaching than most. We had to be careful to not underestimate him. He had purposefully set out to craft magical assassins out of mere children, students whose lives had been entrusted to his care. If that didn't paint a grim enough picture of the man, then nothing would. The problem was making anyone believe he actually did it.

Some of Hermione's tentacles were burbling in their own mug of coffee, apparently trying to caffeinate themselves via osmosis. It was probably a good thing that we were set to move her parents, but first Hermione had the hard job of informing her parents that their lives were in grave danger.

Hermione had completely curled up in Severus' lap, burrowing under his wings to shut out the world. He growled softly, sending the few remaining wizards scrambling to vacate, leaving the room blissfully quiet. First things first. Those two had to decide what kind of living arrangements they needed inside the DoM: separate quarters or shared.

---

-Severus-

I'd never had a warm place to live, save in the summer when it was insufferably hot. Even when I was at Hogwarts, I was in the Slytherin dorms, under the lake where it was damp and cold often, and even the elf-tended fires didn't take the fact we were underground and underwater away.

Now, deep in the bowels of the DoM, I had my first living quarters that was pleasantly warm. Amelia had assigned us shared lodging, which gave us a shared livingroom and kitchen, study, and two baths as well as two separate bedrooms. It was the standard for married couples and permanent partners, which was our lot. Like it or not, we were two peas in a pod. Thanks to Hermione's long list of masteries as well as my own, we scored ourselves a potions laboratory and a spell crafting workshop, which was another word for "place to create and fling spells without having to worry about blowing up your living space."

Our front door lead out into a vast underground arboretum and underground spring, and when you looked out the window it actually looked over it. It seemed extremely vast, far larger than I would've expected. Then again, as I understood it, few knew this place existed. It was a secret world trapped in a secret world.

Arbormancers had carved a full, natural ecosystem underground. The air was fresh if not fresher than we had above ground, and the water was teeming with life. Far above, crevices opened their mouths to the underground forest, and I knew that each one contained one of the few dragon-agents of the Magical Creature XXXXXX division. This entire place was created as a safe haven for those who made up the high tiers of the Department of Mysteries, and many of them never left due to safety concerns.

Many of the jobs require the utmost in security, and that meant being isolated from the very world they worked to keep safe. Case in point was one Dolores Umbridge and Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge. While the elected officials came and went as per usual, the DoM continued on, their work too important for electoral drama and power plays. Some of the people here had been "killed" during the war and had retreated to live here permanently— one of which was Amelia Bones herself. When she and her family had been attacked and left for dead, they had used the opportunity to flee underground.

Truth be told, this "little" residence was much larger than Spinner's End, and far more well kept. It had a magical vibration, much like Hogwarts, but it felt natural. Each residence had their own house-elf or cave-elf as it were, and food and supply orders came in weekly. The entire place was under a hundred or more complex wardings, and the only things that could come and go were the authorised and those creatures who innately defied such things.

Pop.

Gargoyle pups, for instance. And house-elves.

Sabine was leading the other pups around the new place, sniffing and examining everything. And— something I had no idea they did— memorised where everything was. Hermione said it was a gargoyle thing. You can't protect what you don't know is out of place, so they did their best to know where everything was.

Even at their young age, their guarding instincts were already in high gear. They wanted to know what everything did, where everything was, and if they were on the pre-approved list.

Alastor was buried under a dozen sleepy pups, his arms spread-eagle as he sank into the sofa. The rest were still exploring, and I had a feeling they'd know the place better than me in far shorter a time frame. Amelia had done a little celebratory dance upon discovering the pups, or, rather, as she was discovered by them. To prevent a DoM panic, all of them were given identification collars so if they ported in looking for Hermione and Severus, no one would think that security had been breached and put the place on lockdown.

Amelia was privately very smug that at long last the DoM had resident gargoyles. She was hoping, none too privately, that they would proceed to make themselves very much at home and guard the entire place as they grew older. Only time would tell. I made the mistake of mentioning that they would probably stick around as long as Hermione did, and Amelia got a sly, Slytherin cunning expression on her face.

I realised with some awkwardness that I really didn't have anything left at Hogwarts or Spinner's End that was irreplaceable, but the official story was they had found me wandering the forests of Wales bereft of my magic and had to Obliviate me and send me to some foreign country as a Muggle. That made me second to useless for both Voldemort and Dumbledore, and it gave the Aurors an excuse to liberate my stuff from Hogwarts and Spinner's End— all of which had shown up in shrunken boxes in the middle of our shared quarters. There was one slight difference.

All the stuff had been lovingly restored to mint condition with the kind of detail I had only wished I had the time and money to restore back in the day. I had to admit that it was good to see some of it again after I had convinced myself I didn't need to. Human reasoning is quirky like that.

Bastion and a few of the other gargoyle elders had shown up to check out how "safe" the pups were, but I had the feeling they were checking to make sure Hermione was handling her rather tenacious bond with the pups okay rather than making sure she was a "safe mum." I don't think anyone who saw how patient and nurturing she was with her adopted brood could ever believe her anything less than an outstanding mum material. I wondered which of her parents she took after or if she had become that way from her own experience.

Hermione, of course, blamed it on the magical bond, but I think it was all a part of her right from the start. If anything, it gave her an outlet for all of that compassion. It was amazing to feel how genuine it was and how seemingly endless. Even despite what she had been created for, she had warmth to spare. How could I not admire that?

Hermione's items arrived after Aurors "investigated a student disappearance" that they had been "tipped off" about. Dumbledore had, they reported, seemed extremely irritated and completely dismissive of their concerns, claiming that she had most likely decided to "join her friends" Potter, Weasel, and the Weaselette. He didn't use those terms exactly, but the gist was pretty much the same.

Judging by the deeply concerned look Minerva had given the Aurors (or so they had said) when she had heard Albus' reasoning, there was at least one person at Hogwarts who was harbouring growing suspicions about one Albus Dumbledore. They had gathered all of Hermione's things to record them, examine them, and then filter them back to the family, closing the door on Dumbledore's desire to get any of it back. If he truly wanted to, it was hard to say for certain.

According to the official interviews with the student body, everyone agreed on one thing: Hermione had no friends that weren't teachers. She notoriously gave in when Harry, Ron, and Ginny whined that they needed homework help, but it was very clear that she was never a part of their group. She was most emphatically not welcome as anything more than a source of good grades.

Hell, even I was welcome at the sodding Death Eater meetings as part of the group. Not that I really wanted to be there, ever.

I was stricken, again, at how compassionate she was despite not being welcome amongst her supposed peers. First, it had probably been true social awkwardness, but later it had been because she was an adult trapped in the role of a teenager. While I had had the lion's share of schoolyard bullying, she had had the dragon's share of cold ostracisation. Yet, she retained such a well of compassion inside her; she even had warmth for me. How was that even possible?

A part of my mind was screaming at me not to sabotage the great gift I was being given. It implored me not to hurt her, push her away, or anything else I would typically do if someone— anyone— tried to get close to me before. This was not before. That was no longer… me.

This— having a job where they actually took care of me, having a partner I knew I could trust with my life, and having a nice place to call my own. This was terribly new, foreign, and painfully wondrous. I hadn't believed I would ever be able to trust someone with my most jealously guarded secret: my true self. I had once thought I would have been possible with Lily, my friend since childhood, but it had become clear that while she knew more than most about me and my homelife, she hadn't really known me. Then again, maybe I hadn't really known her either. I had thought if she could forgive someone like James Potter for everything he had done both to her and to me, then surely she could have forgiven me.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

"Severus!" Hermione cried from nearby. "Did you see this?"

I shook off my heavy nostalgia and rushed forward, expecting a broken dish or a dead mouse or anything that would equal tragedy in a new home.

"Our library has been fully stocked!" Hermione practically squealed, bouncing up on the pads of her paws. Her wings were trembling with sheer excitement, and every tentacle she had was hissing with delight. "It's amazing!" she twirled one of the gargoyle pups around, spinning with joy. It squeaked and growled, spouting something excitedly in what might have been French.

Hermione kissed the pup on the nose and set him down , ruffling his wings. "I think I'm really going to like it here." She rushed up to me, grinning from ear-to-ear. She pressed a book into my arms. "This is my absolute favourite!"

"Complex Acid-Base Balance in Advanced Potions Preservation?"

Hermione stared at him and then the book. "Oops, sorry, that was the book I was reading. This one!" She swapped the books out— both had the same bright blue leather binding.

"From Sweet Stories of Faerie-Folk to the Tabernacle of Terror: A Compendium of Wizarding Tales for Children of All Ages! Dragons, Gargoyles, and Mermaids, Oh My?" I peered curiously at the book and then back at Hermione.

"What?" Hermione said, pouting. "I liked reading before bed."

Her shadow had its arms crossed, and her tentacles were sulking with a distinctive droop. Mine manifested a mouth and bit me for the offence, and I felt as though my actions were being weighed by the Feather of Maat. I brushed her chin with my fingers, feeling the almost magnetic pull to touch her. The velvet smoothness of her fur was softer than any fabric I'd ever known. Her eyes shimmered as a tangible warmth flowed through my fingertips.

Her bestial shape melted away, leaving Hermione's lush mane of curls and chocolate brown eyes that held flecks of amber as amber itself held inclusions of insects. Her tentacles looks a little confused as they dove into her hair to hide. No matter how human we might appear at times, there were a few tiny things that were every bit as hard to explain as they were to hide. At least we both had sufficient hair to hide them— as well as high collars and conveniently roomy robes.

I took a step forward awkwardly as my bestial shape fell away. As odd as it sounded in my head, walking bipedally on paws felt strangely more balanced than on human feet now. I hovered close to her face, my nose brushing against hers. Would she allow me? Here in the real world? This was no dreamscape. Would she still want me tomorrow, next week, next year, fifty years from now? If some handsomer, silkier, smooth talking, magically blessed—

"May I kiss you?" Hermione asked softly, causing my brain to derail itself in a grand crash complete with explosive conflagration.

My mouth worked silently, a small tremor in my jaw. Did she? "Yes," I heard myself say, and her lips met mine as a ghost of her breath passed my lips. And in that moment nothing mattered but drinking her in, savouring her taste that had a hint of her favourite tea lingering on her tongue. It was better than I remembered in that dreamscape. She was my ambrosia of the gods. She was— my amortentia.

"Sev, what did yours smell like? Tell me!"

"It doesn't matter."

"Sev, come on! You can tell me! I told you mine. Freaking broom polish, chocolate frogs, and some kind of strong musky scent, like that nasty thick cologne that is all the rage among the Gryffindor boys."

"Warm spice, like fur, clean earth, and scent of tea with a hint of peach," I had replied, slamming by book closed because I wasn't getting anything done anyway.

"So, you're going to have to find someone that has a cat, enjoys the outdoors, and likes peach tea?" Lily mused.

I scowled at her. "It's nothing but a bunch of rubbish, anyway."

I pulled away from Hermione a little breathless, realising that even so many years ago, my Amortentia had given me a firm hint of my future.

"Ooooooo!" the gathering of gargoyle pups cooed from around the room. "Lifemates! Lifemates!" They wriggled their ears and wagged their tails back and forth, wings pumping as though they were applauding.

Hermione flushed a little, but she gave me a shy, pink smile.

"You may kiss me whenever you wish," I said, brushing her hair back from her face as I memorised the look she had there. The nagging doubt in the back of my head warned me that I was assuming much. Give her time, and she would surely find someone far more suitable than me.

She pressed her lips to my nose and gave a few of my tentacles a soothing caress, causing them to purr in approval, and I wasn't far behind. "I won't, you know," she said, moving to shelve a book on the shelf. She plucked Sabine off the nearby chair and cuddle-carried her out of the library.

"Won't what?" I asked, feeling oblivious and dim-witted. Potions Master, my arse. All your brains went leaking out your ears with that one kiss.

Stop thinking about that!

"Find some bigger, brawnier, somehow better-looking specimen of bestial prowess who sports studlier wings and a face that charms the spots off a leopard," she said with a shake of her head. "And even if I did, it wouldn't work anyway."

"Work?" I muttered lamely.

"That someone wouldn't be you," she said with a matter of fact expression.

She said it in the same tone that oozed the unsaid "obviously." She said it like it would be the most logical thing in the world, and it would silly of me to think otherwise. What was even more earth-shattering was that I… believed her.

"Cést l'heure de dormir?" all the pups chimed together as they trailed behind Hermione.

"Où dormir?"

"Je veux dormir!"

"Oui!"

Hermione smiled at the pups. "Oui, ma petite enfants!" she cooed to them. "Allez!"

The excited pups ran circle around her legs and trailed her into the one bedroom we had managed to unpack.

A large, blue gargoyle pup ran in between my feet and pressed his head against the back of my legs to push me towards the bedroom.

"Dépêchez-toi!" the pup said, pushing me forward with no regard whatsoever for personal space.

"Do I even get a say in this?" I muttered lowly to the pup.

Multiple gargoyle pup heads poked out from the bedroom. "Non!"

Well, then. Bonne nuit to you too.

I will confess that about five minutes later, I was blissfully entangled in warm wings and a down duvet that had its innards plucked from the wings of Abraxans and the cover sewn with the finest Acromantula silk. All the pups were curled around us, and Hermione's face was pressed snugly into the curve of my neck. The world faded around me as I gratefully, enthusiastically, and willingly surrendered into the oblivion of sleep.

"Mrrowl."

Plunk. Pad. Knead. Knead. Purrrrrrr.

"Crookshanks!" Hermione murmured sleepily. "You're such a clever boy! You found us!"

Warm tuna breath was her only answer.

The half-kneazle beast curled up between us with a smugness of which only felines were capable.

"You're such a good puss," Hermione cooed.

A twang of jealousy gnawed sharply at my stomach just before her tail entwined with mine and she snuggled against me with a happy sigh. "Now everything is totally perfect," she whispered into my ear as she fully relaxed into me.

A tug of a smile tugged at my lips, and I then closed my eyes again. For now, everything was perfect. Merlin willing, might it always be so.

---

A/N: Okay so, I'd intended this to be a one-shot, but it mutated into a monster. Sorry, so sorry. Hope you enjoyed the extra-long chapter of long-iness. Did you like the gargoyle pups? I think they are adorable, then again... I think monsters are beautiful so... Count on Crookshanks to get in the last word, er, paw. Kneazles. Sheesh.