Title: The Blood Countess
Author: Ryoushi
Category: General, Drama, eventual Romance. Pairings: HG x SS or DM
Rating: M
Warnings: Tons of characters die. Hermione is evil. This is post HBP.
Notes: This story idea really just popped into my head while in the middle of class. There really are not enough dark Hermione fictions out there. This is pretty much the prelude. If you are really eager to know where this is going Hermione will be a Death Eater hunting after whomever she chooses. The next chapter will explain why she went over to the dark side. There will probably be hints at a relationship with Snape and/or Draco. The Snape I got pegged, but to blossom this into a full romance, still need to hash out the annoying little details.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I wish I did.
The rain pelted down her skin, but short of actual piercing hail nothing would keep Hermione Granger inside tonight. Injuries only prevented doing work… finishing the mission. The rain suited her; after all, after tonight she would need it to clean away her sins. It was around one a.m. and she was lingering behind in an alley, waiting for her targets to appear.
The night was sleepless, restless almost. The air was saturated with moistness, not from the rain but from the mists that blew through the rain. The way the rain was falling, nothing looked wet and cold. Everything looked like it was moving and alive. The buildings were dancing in their solid foundations, and the street was a wild stream that looked like a brook after a spring thaw.
Hermione just stood there, still and waiting… patience is a virtue. She began to work through potion ingredients. Anything to keep herself awake and alert; her skin felt soaked through to the bones and all she really wanted was for the mission to be over. She could be home sleeping if only her targets would leave the safety of the muggle London pub. Hermione began to wonder if her body temperature dropped enough to make her susceptible to hypothermia. Standing in the middle of a frozen March rain was not her idea of proactive health.
How much longer would they be? How much Guinness could they wash drown their grimy throats? Being judgmental now would only make Hermione loose her focus. She would need her wits, her strength. Finally the couple that was targeted emerged from the stairs that led down to the slimy pub.
Harry was stumbling, holding onto Ginny so that he would not fall down and crack his scarred skull on the sidewalk curb. Ginny was giggling a slight drunken giggle. It never really ended. It was just there beneath her words, chiding Harry for drinking so much and loosing all their muggle money at the hoarse races earlier. Hermione began to wonder: how could they live with such stupid grins on their smug alive faces? How can they be happy when so many have died so they can drink and bet on birthdays? Is this what the sacrificed have died for?
It was time for an award winning performance. Hermione put her hood of her cloak up. She took out her wand. She pointed it at her own leg and whispered a sparks curse straight through her robes onto her calf. The robes burned, and her flesh would be scarred until she could rub some balms on it. The muscles glimmered and it looked like some fiery flesh eating virus was gnawing its way through her muscles and tendons. She began crying real tears. Physical pain is a small price to pay.
Hermione stumbled out of the ally. She fell down on purpose in the gutter. She began to weakly get up when she heard their drunken voices, "Oy you all right over there?" It was Harry. Even drunk he wanted to pretend he could save everyone in the world. Hermione clung to a lamp post to look weaker than she was. This time it was Ginny who piped up, "Did you break something in that tumble?" Good they were getting closer. They could hear Hermione's fake labored breathing. Deep gulps of shaky panting.
"I'm ok; you should go on your way." Hermione pulled herself from the gutter and began limping along. She got about three cars away, staggered, and feigned fainting. She heard steps sloshing near her through the river that was once a street.
"Ginny, I don't think this lady is ok." Harry reached out and touched the hooded figure. "Oh my god, her leg... her face…" He could see the blood mixing with the rain. A steady shadow of its dark color streaming beyond the cloak into the water. Blood is always black in the night. Never red, never colorful. Just black and slow moving, as if it was the life force leaving the body; in the cases Harry had seen blood at night, it always meant death. "She's bleeding Ginny, get over here."
Harry rolled Hermione over. At first he did not recognize her due to the mass of long brown hair covering her rain soaked face. The hair was so thick; he began brushing it away while elevating her head. He almost dropped Hermione when he realized it was her. "Ginny…" His voice was weak. Hermione took the opportune moment to flutter her eyes to a faked awakening. Hermione made a guttural sound, which was not faked. The hex was beginning to burn too much.
"Am I dead?" Hermione's voice sounded even more weak and distant than she had intended it to be. She looked up into Harry's green eyes. How could she have even gotten this close? Harry you stupid boy. The scared undertone to her voice had worked.
"No Hermione, you're not dead." Harry buried his head in her shoulder. "Ginny, call for an ambulance or something."
Ginny was frozen in her tracks a few steps from Harry cuddling his long lost child hood friend. She was silent. Afraid and Shocked. She looked so distrusting. Hermione silently yelled, how could you not be anxious to see me after three years you ungrateful little wench? "No, we should call an Auror."
Harry just gaped at Ginny. He could not believe he was hearing his wife correctly. "Ginny, she's on the run. Look at her. They've torn her to shreds." Hermione did look pretty bad. She had taken a potion that deliberately looked like she had been married to an abusive alcoholic for the last six months. The blackened eye and scar tissue running down the nape of the neck is what probably made Harry's heart explode. That and the alcohol. If only he had been sober, he would have had a clearer mind. Ginny did.
"The Aurors deal with death eaters Harry. We need to call them." Hermione still had her wand in her hand. Harry never even saw the movement. All he heard was the words.
"Accio wands." Both Harry and Ginny's wands zoomed from their pockets. Too drunk to even manage the simple silent counter spell Hermione tsked. She stood up on her own violation. "Harry don't you know every good man has a woman behind him." He stared at Hermione in shock like he had never seen her, or worse like she had grown a third eye. The look was beginning to look like one of horror as he realized what was happening. "Will you ever be a good man again Harry?" Hermione snapped the wands with one hand, and raised her wand hand towards Ginny who was smart enough to attempt to run.
"AVADA KADVRA." The green light shot out from Hermione's wand. The light enveloped and attacked Ginny, and before her body splashed into the gutter she was long dead. Hermione felt the after shock of the curse. The killing curse always hurt the witch or wizard a little. It required raw power to completely stop the life force of any being. But when you have killed as many people as Hermione Granger had in the last three years, power was something that almost needed to be shed.
Harry dropped to the water. He did not run towards Ginny. Shock does that. It keeps your body from moving, it keeps time from ticking, everything stops in that muted moment right before the body shuts down. For Harry though, the shock was common. Even seeing his wife knocked down by the killing curse was not so exceptional. Only Hermione had dodged the curse, everyone else the boy knew and loved had died by the same curse. Parents, friends, teachers, and now wife. "What have you done Hermione?"
The voice was vacant, almost as vacant as the dull green eyes that looked up at her. Less than a few minutes ago he had been a cheerfully happy drunken twenty five year old celebrating Ginny's birthday. Now Harry Potter had transformed into a living ghoul. His skin had changed textures and colors; it looked like the flesh of the animated dead, completely gray under the street light. His hair clung to his face in wet knots, and the eyes were empty. It was like Harry finally realized that he could only bring death to everyone he knew. "I've fulfilled one of many promises Harry."
Hermione began to slosh back to the alley; she needed some place dark to apparate. She already killed in public with a spell; although, most drunk muggles would not remember the facts tomorrow morning anyways, no memory charms needed for the good old fashioned hangover. Still unnecessary risks where unnecessary. Harry groaned, "Aren't you going to kill me too?"
Hermione's brown eyes had turned charcoal black some months past after a poor encounter with a dark magic relic. She tilted her ebony eyes down towards Harry, "You are not allowed to die Harry. You have to feel this pain. You have to know what it is like to walk the world alone. It's your karmic fate for killing Ron. You left me lost, and now I return the favor. Remember that Voldermort's presence means no one is safe." She felt a flicker of pain. The memories of her past quickly flashed between her eyes into her brain. She blinked them away, focus. The mission is complete. "Harry, I wish you were stronger. The world will be safer when you kill me." With that, Hermione disappeared into the alley leaving behind the boy who lived a life no one wanted to live.