THE FAMILY BUSINESS: THREE
Summary: Hermione's peaceful, yet boring life is disrupted when notorious hunter, Dean Winchester, walks into her book shop. Dean's life is completely changed when he meets, Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of her Age. But maybe that's just what they both needed. Mostly Dean's POV. Rated M for a reason.
Disclaimer: I do not own canon events and characters, they belong to J.K Rowling and the creators of Supernatural. I am not making a profit from writing and posting this fanfic.
Page count: 7
One Month Later...
A knock on the door startled Dean and he pulled his attention away from the crappy movie that was on TV and turned his eyes to the door. Hearing the knock again, he stood from his position lounging on the bed and made his way to the door, unlocking it and opening it far enough that he was able to peek around the edge and see who it was.
Amusement bubbled within him when he saw it was Hermione and she had a less than pleased look on her face. Opening the door wider, he stepped out from behind it and allowed his eyes to take in the scene in front of him, while also being aware of Crookshanks finding his way into his room and onto the bed.
Hermione stood before him wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around herself and it left little to the imagination. Her damp hair hung down her back, water droplets ran down her pale skin and his eyes followed one particular water droplet which disappeared into the cleavage of her breasts before he looked back to her face.
He didn't bother doing any of the tests to make sure she was who she was supposed to be; not only had Crookshanks been at her side, but no one but Hermione was able to express her annoyance in one single glance. Not a shape-shifter and certainly not a demon, which reminded him he had to convince her to get the anti-possession tattoo at some point, too.
"What's up?" He asked, barely containing his amusement.
Her annoyance seemed to double when she let out an angry huff and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Can I use your shower? Mine's bloody broken. I've called the front desk and they can't get anyone down here to fix it until tomorrow."
He stepped aside and gestured to the bathroom door with a tilt of his head. She gave him a look of relief and thanks as she stepped into the room and made her way to the bathroom, Dean noting that she left wet footprints behind in the hideous carpet.
For the first time since meeting her, he noticed several scars that he'd never seen before. One looking like claw marks on the back of her left calf, one looking like puncture marks on the back of her right shoulder and another close to her right ankle, looking like a burn. He wondered where she'd gotten them and if she had more that he was unable to see.
As the door closed behind Hermione, Dean made his way back over to his bed and got himself comfortable, barely registering when Crookshanks crawled over to him, rolled onto his back and offered up his stomach, and of course, Dean couldn't deny the ginger fur-ball anything and automatically lifted his hand to give the demanding familiar what he wanted before he received a telling off from the cat.
Hearing the shower running, Dean's thoughts fell to the little witch currently in his bathroom. Another month had passed since they'd been travelling together and in that time he'd been trying to get Hermione to see that he wanted a relationship with her. He didn't want to come out and outright say it to her in case it backfired, so he was trying to be subtle, but let's be honest, subtlety wasn't his strong suit. He wasn't sure if Hermione was ignoring his flirting and charming smiles on purpose or if she just didn't realise his intentions. He knew she wasn't blind when it came to other men flirting with her, but with him, it seemed she was.
He wasn't exactly sure how to proceed with his plan of 'wooing' her as she seemed to be immune to it all. She was one of the few people that didn't fall for his charming smiles or his good looks; she wasn't affected by it which just made it harder for him.
When the bathroom door opened his eyes moved to the doorway and Hermione stepped out with her damp hair hanging down her back and wearing a pair of cotton shorts and the matching tank top, which again, left little to the imagination. Unable to stop himself, his eyes trailed her frame and he noted a few other scars that littered her body.
She had another burn mark on her left shoulder, one close to her left knee and he noted the scar that ran across her throat and there were only one of two things that would cause that, but the most alarming scar was on her left forearm, the word 'mudblood' looking to have been carved into her by a child. And whilst he didn't know the meaning of the word, it didn't take a genius to understand it certainly wasn't a compliment.
"Why is your room nicer than mine?" Hermione asked and without thought, she hopped up onto the bed beside him and laid down, propping her head up with pillows and resting her clasped hands against her stomach as she turned her eyes to the TV.
"Is it?" He asked, his eyes watching her intently.
"Yes, much nicer. There's a stain on the floor and I don't even want to know what it is, the table's got a wobbly leg and the TV only has one channel that works. And I swear, I have the nosiest neighbours possible," she said, a grimace pulling at her face and he chuckled, catching on to her meaning.
"I swear, the way they're going it at I wouldn't be surprised if one of them is cheating on someone. I have no idea how I'm supposed to sleep through that."
"You wanna swap rooms?" He asked.
She turned her head to look at him, her eyes locking with his. "That's sweet of you to offer, but honestly, if you were able to sleep through the racket they're making, you wouldn't be able to sleep on the bed. Not only is it the most uncomfortable mattress in existence, but it's also broken, too. You can actually see where the slabs have broken beneath the mattress."
He snorted at her. "You wanna stay in here tonight? You can take the bed and I'll take the floor."
"I'm not kicking you out of your bed, Dean," she replied, turning her attention back to the TV. Dean opened his mouth to reply, but she spoke before he could. "Are you hungry?"
He snorted. "No,"
She frowned. "Well, I am,"
"You ate a few hours ago," he replied amused.
"And yet I'm hungry," she shrugged.
He blinked in surprise when her wand seemed to appear out of nowhere and her magical bag of tricks soon appeared after it. She dug around inside and Dean was adamant he'd never get used to the sight of her hand disappearing, nor of the sounds of rattling and banging that came from inside the bag. When she pulled her hand back, he noted that she had several candy bars and some popcorn grasped in her hand. Turning her attention back to the TV, she absentmindedly ate her snacks while offering him some and he'd be an idiot not to accept food from her giving her dislike of sharing.
By the time the movie had finished and the credits were rolling, Dean looked over to Hermione realising she'd been quiet for a while and once he saw her, he realised why. She'd fallen asleep.
She'd shifted sometime during the movie and was now laying on her side, facing him with a hand cushioning her cheek, her legs bent at the knees and her breathing even and deep as Crookshanks slept in-between them, his head being cushioned on Hermione's stomach.
Dean realised he'd never seen Hermione so relaxed. She looked a lot younger when she was sleeping, like she'd easily be able to pass for a teenager. He could see her eyes moving beneath her eyelids and wondered what she was dreaming of.
Not wanting to wake her but knowing it was getting colder in the room, he reached for her magical bag and dug around inside until he found a blanket, pulled it out and draped it over her to protect her from the cold. Kicking off his shoes, he laid back down on the bed and quietly watched the next movie that began to play and before he knew it, he fell asleep.
~000~000~000~
Dean was woken when he felt the mattress shifting and an elbow nudging his stomach. His eyes opened to darkness and he looked over his shoulder at the alarm clock on the bedside table, seeing it being not long after three o'clock.
Feeling another jab in his ribs, he turned back to Hermione and was more than surprised to see that sometime during his slumber, both he and Hermione had moved. Now she was facing away from him and he was...Well, spooning her with his arms wrapped around her and holding her snugly against him and Crookshanks was curled up on the end of the bed by their feet.
Blinking in surprise he pulled back from her and pushed himself up onto his elbows, his eyes watching her carefully. As the seconds ticked by she grew more restless, her body twitching in her sleep before she rolled onto her back and her head started moving from side to side. Whispered words fell from her lips but he was unable to understand them. His eyes moved down to her hands, seeing them clenched into tight fists, he saw her chest rising and falling erratically and when he looked closer it was to see that sweat was forming on her forehead.
She was having a nightmare. He knew. Not only had he experienced a few himself, but Sam had suffered with them in his youth and with their father always being away, Dean had to learn how to calm his little brother. He knew from experience it was best not to wake someone from a nightmare, especially if they were a war veteran like Hermione. It'd be the same as waking a sleepwalker. Dangerous.
"No, please don't," she muttered, her mumbles becoming clearer and louder, allowing him to hear what she was saying, but if they were getting louder, then her nightmare was growing worse.
"We don't have it! It's just a fake, it's not real! Please don't!"
Dean felt his heartbreaking. He knew her past was traumatising and he knew there were things she was still keeping from him, and from what he was witnessing now, he guessed this was one of them.
"No! Please stop! I don't know! STOP!"
He had to help her and he did it the only way he knew how. Moving closer to her, he was careful to avoid her flailing limbs and he wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her, not only preventing her from being able to hit him with her fists and arms, but pulling her into him, too. Lowering his mouth to her ear, he softly whispered words of comfort and before he knew it, the lyrics of 'Hey Jude' were falling from his lips and he hummed the tune to her. It seemed to help and slowly her pleas and cries stopped and her tense body relaxed against him, yet he didn't stop his humming or the muttering of the lyrics, not even when he became aware of the change in her breathing and her eyes slowly opening.
"What happened?" She asked, her voice quiet, embarrassed he thought.
"Nightmare," he said softly, not releasing her from his hold, realising like he liked having her so close to him, he liked holding her against him. Her smaller frame fit against him perfectly and her scent of apples and caramel invaded his nose. It reminded him of pie. It was comforting and warm.
"How bad was it?"
"I'm not sure," he replied honestly. He assumed she had a scale nightmares would rank on, but he couldn't answer her question having this only been his first time witnessing one.
"Did I hurt you? Did I set the curtains on fire?"
"No to both, and you've done that before?"
"Yes," she replied quietly. "You must've calmed me before it had a chance to happen. How did you know what to do? The last time someone tried to help me, they woke me and I almost killed them."
"It's not your fault," he told her softly. "Sammy used to get nightmares as a kid, with my dad being gone I had to look after him, I soon learned what he needed."
"I'm sorry, Dean," she said shamefully and she turned her eyes away from him.
"It's not your fault, Poppins," he replied. She disentangled her arms from his and smacked at his shoulder, pulling a chuckle from him. "You've suffered more than most and you were very young at the time. Suffering with nightmares is a normal thing for what you've gone through. I get nightmares sometimes and I haven't seen or been forced to do half the things you have, especially at such a young age. You shouldn't be ashamed. You survived. Alright?"
Slowly she nodded and she shifted to get more comfortable and he noted that she didn't pull away from him or ask him to release her from his hold, in fact, she shifted closer to him. Whether she knew she'd done it or not was unknown to him.
"Do you wanna talk about it? Sometimes it helps," he asked.
She fell silent and her eyes darted to the ceiling, staring at an unknown stain. "I've told you there's so much that's happened in my past that I haven't told you because I don't like to talk about it, I don't like to be reminded that it really did happen to me, and my nightmare, it's caused by one of those things," she said quietly.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Hermione."
She continued as if he hadn't spoken and he felt touched that she was willing to share a secret of hers with him, especially one that seemed to scare her.
"Not many people know, in fact, I can count on one hand the number of people that do, but during the war, when Harry, Ron and I were fugitives and searching for a way to kill Voldemort, we were captured."
Dean's arms automatically tightened around her protectively and his breath hitched. He'd heard of the things Voldemort and his followers had done, of the things they were capable of. They had no morals, no code and secretly he thought of them as demons with souls- black, tainted souls, but souls all the same. He knew there was a special place in hell reserved for those type of people. Learning that she'd been captured, it didn't paint pretty images in his mind, rather the opposite and he felt himslef growing angry and protective and worried.
"I did what I could to hide Harry's identity and he and Ron were taken to the holding cells in the dungeon, and as I'm a Muggleborn, an abomination and expendable, they interrogated me. I was tortured."
Dean was unable to stop the animalistic growl that rumbled in his chest. He felt anger course through him and the need for revenge, for punishment was strong.
"The Cruciatus is unlike anything you've ever felt. Think of all possible forms of torture and roll them into one and it still doesn't come close to the pain it causes. It's been known to break a person, to send you into madness and leave you a shell of a human being that can barely function. I don't know how long it lasted, it could've only been a few minutes but it felt like an eternity. I don't know how but I was able to tell the truth without giving away any information that would harm The Order, yet they didn't stop. When they got everything they could from me, they still continued as if I were their little plaything. It's a blur and I can't remember much of what happened, not after this..." She trailed off and lifted her arm, despite the darkness he could just make out the lettering he'd seen earlier.
"They carved this into me with a cursed blade that means it will never truly heal, and I can only cover it with sleeves. It's a derogatory name for someone of my status, for a Muggleborn. It literally means we're filth, an abomination and that we don't deserve our magic or our lives. I passed out as she was carving the last letter into my arm. When I woke Harry and Ron had escaped the dungeons and come to rescue me. I was held at knifepoint," she said and his eyes darted to the scar on her throat, so his assumptions had been right. "With the help of a truly brave house-elf known as Dobby, we escaped and he sacrificed his life so we could defeat Voldemort."
Dean's hands had clenched into fists and a vein in his head looked about ready to pop. Feeling a gentle touch on his forehead, he pulled his eyes back to Hermione, seeing her reaching up with her hand and softly trailing her fingers over it.
"I want a name, Hermione," he said, his voice low and dark, his eyes filled with promises of pain and death.
"Bellatrix, Bellatrix Lestrange," she whispered. "But you can't kill her."
"I'd like to see you stop me."
"You can't kill her; she's already dead."
Shit! Well, that's just ruined his plans. He knew the crazy bitch was in hell and he hoped she was suffering.
"Did it hurt?"
"Probably not," she answered. "Molly Weasley killed her during the Final Battle. Not only had she lost Fred not long before, but Bellatrix targeted Ginny, her only daughter and youngest child. In her rage and anguish, she overpowered Bellatrix and she was blown into thousands of pieces as if she'd stepped on a bomb. There was nothing left of her to bury."
"Good," he said darkly. "I'm pissed she didn't suffer, but I'm glad she's dead."
"You and the rest of the world. She was bat-shit crazy, and I don't use that term lightly. She was a true psychopath, the bloody Queen in fact."
He snorted at her and his tightly fisted hands loosened and they moved to rest gently against her back.
"You know I won't let anyone hurt you, right?" He muttered.
She let out a sigh. "I know," she confirmed softly and he would swear his heart melted when she tilted her head and pressed it against his chest, falling back to sleep minutes later.
Dean knew that he was in far deeper than he'd previously realised.
