Hermione wasn't an idiot. She had spent seven years in school, working towards defeating a dark wizard. She'd also spent six years living with other teen aged girls, and had learned quickly that you either fit in with the group, or you didn't. She hadn't been invited on the dress shopping outing Fred and Cordy went on, nor had she been extended tickets from her 'team'. That didn't mean she wouldn't be there, looking as best she could. After Lavender and Parvati's forceful use of charms at the Yule Ball, she'd picked up enough to make sure she could make a damned entrance.
A friend of hers from New York happened to be attending, and wanted to introduce Hermione to her latest attempt at a third husband. Martha was a dear, genuine person, and Hermione had done her best to live up to whatever had been said about her. She kept up polite conversation with the couple, trying not to let her alarm show. But she knew something was very wrong.
She caught sight of the Angel Investigations crew as soon as they walked in. She ignored the trip in her heart at Wesley in a tux, and kept an eye on the lot of them. They didn't pick up on the dark magic oozing from the entire building. At least the vampire and the sorcerer should have. She'd felt it four blocks away, and in a minicab to boot. It was making her skin prickly.
She let herself be drawn down to the main level, and accepted the glass of champagne offered her by Martha's date. It took Cordelia less than a minute to find her, identify the woman she was with, and move in. Martha was an actress, and Hermione knew the aspiring thespian would want to be introduced. That wasn't going to happen. Not with how jilted Hermione felt at being left out of this whole excursion. She took a small amount of pleasure in noticing the second, and then third looks that all three men gave her.
"Hermione! We didn't know you'd be here," Cordy chirped.
"I didn't know that you would," she returned flatly. "My invitation was extended two months ago. Who's watching the baby?"
They all looked confused. "Well, I gave him to Lorne," Angel said. "We thought-"
"You thought you'd all go out for the evening, and Lorne and I'd just take care of what you didn't feel like handling. Nice. Did you even think about inviting him along? Or the fact that I haven't been in the building for a week. Did you think anything about that?"
"You haven't… what?"
She resisted the urge to tug at her hair. It'd taken an hour to charm it into the provocatively messy up do it was in, no use ruining it now. This evening was bound to get worse. "Martha, Clifford, please excuse me for just a moment while I speak with my colleagues. I'll join you before the curtain rises, I promise."
As Martha took the hint and tugged her date away, Hermione turned to the group. "I am not an employee of Angel Investigations. That has been made abundantly clear. I'm not 'one of you'," this was accompanied by aggravated finger quotes, "but as such, I am by no means under your control. The fact that you haven't even noticed I that I've not been to the hotel in a week underlines that."
A member of the dance troupe wandered by, muttering to himself in Russian. She watched him go, frowning. While trying to work out what he meant in her head, she didn't see the guilty looks being exchanged from the rest of the team. She did, however, notice when the man disappeared through a wall.
Shuffling from Angel focused her attention. "You know what? Hell with it. You're all a bunch of juvenile dunderheads, and you aren't worth the mental capacity I've afforded you. Bugger off."
She turned and strode towards the stairs to the private box she was sharing. In the corner of her mind, she congratulated herself that even in a dark blue laced up evening gown and with messy curls, she could still stalk the halls and berate idiots with the best of them. She could do Severus proud.
And she would do. Within seconds of seating herself, she honed in on the dark wizard sitting in a booth nearest the stage. As the ballet began, she was at once fascinated and disgusted. It was an elegant performance, and the mastery of the illusion was genius. But it was also perverted black arts. The creatures dancing so beautifully couldn't even be called ghosts. They were shades, and they were trapped souls.
She debated what to do until just before intermission. She could wait, and try to warn the vampire's crew, or she could try to take care of it alone. The very fact that she was internally distancing herself from them made her choice easy. They'd never really trusted her. And with their immature courtship dances muddling their minds, she didn't trust them. They were so busy with their hormones, they'd just get in her way. Years of dealing with her own unfulfilled wants left her with a much clearer head.
She made quiet noises to her mates about a loo run, and slipped out of the box. She didn't need her wand to guide her towards the darkest part of the building. A quick confundus charm made easy work of the security guard, and she found herself in an unending hallway. Looking either way, long lengths of darkness pressing on her from either side, she finally allowed herself a moment to reflect.
It had been just like this, at school. Her terrifying trip back from the library to the Gryffindor common room, the trip she didn't complete. She'd been all alone, scared, and hoping against hope that she was wrong. That the next turn wouldn't bring her to face a basilisk. That she could make it back to Harry, to tell him he wasn't losing his mind, there really was a monster only he could hear. If she could just make it to him, they could fix it. Even Penelope Clearwater's presence hadn't consoled her.
It wasn't like that this time. Harry wasn't here, no one was, and this was her job alone. She squared her shoulders, pulled her wand, and whispered, "Severus, help me." She then strode down the hallway.
It seemed to go on for miles and miles. She picked up on the repeating pattern immediately, and waited for a flaw to show. It took what seemed like an age to find the faint glimmer that masked a door. Even the fact that it led down instead of out couldn't curb her relief of being anywhere but in that damned hallway. She wasn't thrilled at having to move further underground, but the signature was almost throbbing from the basement level.
There, at the center of the building, was a box. It was about a foot all the way round, and made from the heart of an ash. It was one of the most exquisite things she'd ever seen. And it hurt, because she knew she'd have to destroy it. She dispelled the wards around it, and knelt down. Passing her hands over the outside, she could feel the souls entrapped. A tear rolled down her cheek as she spoke the words to free them. The gratitude that swept through her from the entrapped elevated and bolstered her conviction. They were free of the box, but still trapped in the building. She'd have to destroy the final illusion to free them entirely.
She tucked the box into her beaded bag, and made her way back up the stairs. The next step would be confronting the wizard himself. Knowing he was sitting there, in that comfortable boxed seat, while the rest of those poor souls clung together in a tiny box needled her. She started gathering what anger she could in preparation for their duel.
Once in the vast hallway again, she turned at the sound of metal on fabric. Wesley was walking towards her, dragging a sword limply in his hand. She immediately went to him.
"Are you all right? What happened? "She asked, darting forwards to catch him as he stumbled.
He fell to his knees, dropping the sword. Her attempt to stop his downward progress threw her on her ass. As she tried to recover some of her dignity, he suddenly growled, "You dance for ME!" He then knocked her rest of the way down, taking her mouth in a brutal kiss.
She could feel the edges of a shade in her personal shields, trying to get in. She forced it back out, and shifted slightly in the grip of the man on top of her. There was no yield, and she gave it no second thought when she responded to his demanding lips. She knew what was happening. The spirits in the building were taking their chances at a flesh encounter. The one opportunity she had at feeling and tasting the man she wanted was now, and she wasn't going to waste it, even if he was possessed. Her self-taught Slytherin skills told her that much over her Gryffindor pride.
His hips pinned hers down, and the only move she could make was a slight arch into his chest. He moaned lowly, and fisted his hands in her gown. When he moved his mouth to her neck, she did what she didn't want to, and whispered his name, releasing him from the dark spell he'd been under.
He froze. She knew the moment he was himself again, and he raised his head to look at her. They were still entwined on the carpet, chest to chest, his arms banded around her. She could feel the apology burbling up from her heart, ready to come out, when he brought his mouth back down to hers. She welcomed him immediately, and brought her hands up to tangle in his hair. This time when he moved against her, she didn't hesitate to respond, especially when he said her name so sweetly.
"We have to stop," he managed to say.
"I know. I've- oh gods - neutralized the main component in the basement," She trailed the last off on a moan.
"How is your dress managing to stay in place under duress?" He followed the question with a hand moving up the thigh that had managed to wrap around his hip. His lips were travelling right along her cleavage, to which she attributed the slightly muted sound of the question.
"Charms!" She shouted.
His head came up. "I'm sorry?"
"Charms. On my dress. And on the building, don't you see?"
He looked very confused. She would have expected it, except she'd never been in this scenario before. She took the opportunity to roll them over, and push herself slightly, her hands on either side of his head.
"Surely by now you've realized that the building is under dark magic."
"Yes, there's a wizard trying to control the prima ballerina."
"Yeah, figured that out a while ago. I've spent the last don't know how long cancelling out his magic and releasing the rest of the cast. That's them, swirling all around, possessing people."
A wounded look crossed his face, but she continued her speech before he could object. "That's them, there. They can't get anywhere near me, with my wards. It's also what cast out the man that created the spell, not long after you were possessed."
She leaned down slightly. "This IS you, isn't it, Wesley? Not a dark wizard? Not a shadow?"
She brushed his lips with hers, "This is you here, isn't it? I'll forgive you if you say it's not. That's all you have to do, and it's all forgotten."
He lunged up to meet her, a hand at the back of her neck. His other hand was on the back of her hip, keeping her in place. "This is me, Hermione. And it's you here, isn't it. No simple ghost could ever take you over."
Resisting the very strong urge to grind her hips down, she answered against his lips, "It's me, I'm not possessed. We have to finish this, though." She both groaned and grinned at the accompanying thrust and restrained moan she received. "Not that, we can figure that out later, though I am tempted. We have to find everyone else and fix this whole mess. I've freed the trapped souls from their chamber, but we have to destroy whatever it is that keeps them here. It'll be a power center. And I think I know what it is."
"We have to get back to Fred and Gunn, he's been hurt."
"Why didn't you say mmph-"she started, before he twisted her back under him, and stole another kiss. After a thorough snog, they finally helped each other to their feet. Hermione nicked the sword from him with only a slight objection.
"I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities to get another one, and these are pants, anyway. They're bloody FOILS. Next time, I'll make sure to have proper swords in my bag when I go out. I trained in Italy, you know, I'm pretty sure I could take on a legion, if they made me mad enough."
She liked the look he gave her at that. It wasn't the usual 'Oh, that's Hermione, she'll figure out our charms homework for us,' or 'there's our witch, she'll make some bruise salve for this.'
It was more than that. There was respect in his eyes, and no small amount of pride. And there was lust there, she could tell from the way he tried not to glance at her chest or her legs. It was a look she'd never noticed before.
She held out her hand. "Right. Let's go save our idiots, and mangle up this moron's plan. I'm good at doing that."
He wrapped his hand in hers without pause. "I have no doubt that you are."
It wasn't until later that it came apart. She'd let Angel defeat the wizard and free the spirits with only an eye roll, and a comment. 'Destroy his power center. It's kind of obvious. If you don't, I will, and that'll make you look silly.'
She fought with the rest of them to defeat the puppets. She'd taken a sword blade to the shoulder, and a stab to the thigh. She easily gave way to Gunn's stomach wound when it came to treatment. His was by far the worse off. She sat by the entrance to the office, waiting for her turn, when she saw it. The same look he always gave.
After almost a year to catalog to looks that Wesley had, she recognized the longing, yearning look he always gave when it came to Fred. When the new couple left the office, she saw the want, plainly spoken, on his face.
She steeled herself against what was to come. A man with an erection was easily swayed. That was all it was. He was possessed, and having her throw herself at him wasn't exactly cricket. Of course he'd responded to her.
He responded to her slight questions with perfunctory responses. She ignored the blood dripping down her dress. And they both pretended to ignore the scroll in the corner. The one she could see was bleeding black magic, and he saw as the future.
