First of all, I'm sorry to anyone who tried to read this yesterday and couldn't. It got weird looking and I don't know why. I think it's better now. Thank you for pointing it out to me.

ALSO: There is a slight TW in this chapter for implied cannibalism. That shouldn't surprise anyone because, hey, fairy tales are dark, but if cannibalism bothers you, you may want to not read this. Send me a pm and I'll give you a summary instead.

Disclaimer: I own a piano. I own a computer. I do not own Harry Potter.


"My lady," he spoke softly, and kneeled before the high backed chair, where she sat stiff-backed as regal as any queen.

"Rise," she hissed, her voice soft and sharp, beckoning him forward with one regal hand. "And show me what it is that you have brought."

He rose and took two brave steps toward his aunt, carefully keeping his eyes to the ornate carpet, and held the box out to her, the wand resting atop it.

She snatched the wand first, a caw of victory escaping her lips and echoing throughout the cavernous room, and for a moment, he feared that he was surrounded by an army of hers, all cackling, all pleased to have their wands back.

"Good," she cooed, "Yes, yes yes yes. You have done well, Draco," she breathed, hardly sparing a glance for his still-bowed form, "He will be most pleased by this. Most pleased that I can rejoin him now!" At that, as if brought to the memory of her anguish and mortification, Bellatrix's head snapped to the box that her nephew still held out to her.

She descended upon him, opening the box and cackling softly to herself, "Good, Draco. Very good. Did she cry, Draco?" Bellatrix's voice softened in dreamy pleasure as she reached out one thin finger to stroke the side of the cold liver tenderly, lovingly, "Did she scream for mummy and daddy and that muggle god they're always babbling on about?" She had adopted a high-pitched baby voice.

When Draco did not respond, "Did she scream, boy?!" She screeched, slamming the lid shut on the box and yanking the young man's head up toward hers by a fistful of his fair hair. "Answer me!"

His eyes narrowed in anger, flashing dangerously. "You would do well to unhand me, Aunt Bellatrix," he said evenly. His tone sounded bored almost, as though this entire conversation were beneath him, but Bellatrix withdrew her hand as though she had been burned.

The witch whirled around, her dark hair snapping behind her in a curtain. "Cissy!" she hissed through bared teeth, training her wand on the witch in the doorway.

"Do not touch my son, Bella," said the new witch, evenly, her tone a biting frost and her wand still trained on her sister.

Bellatrix snarled, "We were talking, Cissy. There was no need for you to-"

"Not. In. My. House." Narcissa cut in, her words snapping like twigs. Her eyes were chips of blue ice and her hair, as fair as her sister's was dark, fell to her waist, perfectly straight and not a hair out of place.

Bellatrix weighed her options, and lowered her wand. A smile curled up her gaunt and narrow face, "Fine, Cissy, have it your way, but Draco will join me for dinner. We will dine on our new trophies, the two of us," she glanced at her nephew and he dropped his eyes to the carpet before she could demand an answer of him, "As," Bellatrix licked her lips and slid her eyes back to her sister, who had not yet lowered her wand, her cold eyes glued to her sister's face, "A family." And, with that, Bellatrix pushed past Narcissa and out of the room.


Hermione could hear voices as if from far away and moving closer to her.

"Enervate," said a voice she faintly recognized, and Hermione sat up, gasping for air, fists flailing.

She felt her knuckles connect with something and the figure nearest to her rolled sideways with a muttered curse. The voice did not match the satin one of the man in the mask, and it was this thought that caused her to calm her breathing and try to take in exactly who was around her.

It was one of the red-haired men who was holding the side of his face and glaring at her, as a nearly identical red-haired man was rolling on the ground a few feet away, laughing so hard tears were rolling down his face.

"Oh," she mumbled, finding her voice, "Sorry. I-I thought you were someone else."

At this, the man she had hit broke into a wide grin, too. "Cor, Hermione," he laughed, "I'd hate to see the sorry bloke you were trying to wail on." He dropped his hand from his face to reveal a bright red, first-sized bump already rising just under his eye. She could already tell that it was going to bruise.

Hermione tried to look appropriately ashamed, but was rather proud of the hit. It made her feel capable, and she imagined fondly how just such a bruise would look on the man with the wolf mask. Her lips twitched.

She looked over one shoulder and then the other.

"Did you see him?" She asked the twins breathlessly, trying to collect herself. He couldn't have gone far. Surely she had not been unconscious for very long for the sun had hardly seemed to move in the sky, but the twins only shook their heads in unison.

"Gone, Hermione," said one.

"Long gone," agreed the other.

"Cast that and apparated right out, most like," said the first, and pointed up at the sky. Hermione's eyes followed his finger and she could just make out the faint glowing of green stars against the afternoon light.

"We thought you were dead," said the second twin, "when we saw that."

"Glad you weren't, of course," said the first, "Mum would have a fit if she found out you were dead."

"Anyway, what are you doing out here?" Asked the second, and they both looked at her with appraising blue eyes.

Hermione felt shame heat her cheeks and knew that she had been very foolish to try to leave alone on foot. "I was trying to go home," she mumbled into her skirts, bunching the fabric in her hands.

The twins exchanged looks that contained an entire conversation in a language Hermione could never understand. "We don't think that's such a good idea right now," said one of them eventually, his voice slow and even.

Dread settled like a stone in Hermione's stomach. "Why?" She croaked, sure she already knew the answer.

"We're not at liberty to talk about that, but mum'll explain everything once we get back, alright?"

Hermione did not want to go back. Hermione wanted to go home to her mother and her father and Astoria. She wanted everything to work out fine and nothing to be wrong and for things like witches and wizards to only exist in fairy stories.

But Hermione was a clever girl, and she knew that fear only made the wolf look larger, and so she swallowed down the lump in her throat, and rose to her feet, dusting her skirts and travelling cloak as best as she could.

Something pressed itself against her legs, and she looked down to see Crookshanks circling her ankles protectively, and she felt braver and stood taller. "Right, then. Let's go."

When they reached the borough, the front door flew open and Harry and Ron, closely followed by Madame Weasley and a troupe of her children.

"Are you alright?" Asked Harry, reaching them first.

"Is she ok?" Asked Ron, looking over Harry's shoulder anxiously.

"I'm fine," she said bracingly, looking from one to the other with a tired smile. "Really."

"Where did you go?" Asked Harry.

Hermione was too ashamed to answer, but luckily, just then Madame Weasley reached them and addressed her own sons first.

"Who was it?" Asked the matron, her face tight with worry.

"Hermione," said the twin without the bruise on his cheek.

"No," Hissed Madame Weasley softly, "Who was the mark for?"

The twins shrugged again. "No one was dead, mum. The only person near it was Hermione, and she was just stunned."

"We were lucky, then, that the attack wasn't worse" Madame Weasley said sharply, and her shoulders sagged visibly in relief.

"We think whoever attached her did use the imperius curse on her," said one of the twins, "Tell them what you told us, Hermione. About the bloke with the wand and how you had to do whatever he said."

Hermione had half a mind to say that she hadn't exactly been attacked. It was more like she had been bothered by a smug-voiced overgrown toddler for about an hour or so, and then had been knocked out. It was hardly the most traumatic thing that had happened to her so far. And yet, the memory of acrid fear on her tongue, of the sureness of her own death, stilled her voice before she could speak up to defend the man in the wolf mask.

"Were you harmed?" Madame Weasley was asking her, and so she shook her head.

"No, I don't think I am, but I did hit him," she motioned to the twin with the bruise sheepishly, "I didn't mean to," she added quickly as Madame Weasley turned to survey the as yet unnoticed damage done to her own child. "I was waking up and I thought- I thought-"

Her voice trailed off, but that was alright, since Madame Weasley had seized the twin by the jaw and was turning his face this way and that way to see the bruise from all angles. "Oh," she said finally, smiling reassuringly at Hermione, "I've got some paste in the kitchen that'll clear that right up no problem. Nothing to worry about."

With that, Madame Weasley began ushering the entire group back into the kitchen but Hermione hung back.

"Madame Weasley," she said softly.

"What is it, dear," said the witch kindly, slowing her pace to walk beside Hermione.

"Why can't I go home?" She asked before her courage could leave her.

The smile dropped from Madame Weasley's face and a look of pity replaced it.

"Just wait until Arthur gets back, Dearie. We'll explain everything then, but perhaps some dinner first. There's a lot to talk about, and no need to do it all at once, is there?"

Hermione wanted to protest, but she knew that it would be in vain, as the witch was already shuffling ahead and into the loud kitchen.


Dinner was a tasteless affair, but indeed, Arthur Weasley tromped out of the fireplace just as a pink stain was spreading across the horizon and the sun was dipping low and orange in the sky. Madame Weasley and her husband spoke in hushed tones by the fireplace, and Hermione knew that they were talking about her, for they would throw glances her way from time to time.

Eventually, Arthur tromp, tromp, tromped up to her and sat heavily opposite her at the scrubbed wooden table. The seven young men were outside, flying about in the evening sun on broomsticks. Hermione could hear their shouts of triumph and frustration through the little window.

"You're, uh, from the same town as Madame Greengrass, aren't you?" Began Arthur Weasley, and he scratched the back of one ear and glanced to his wife.

"Yes," Hermione responded promptly.

"There was an attack, you know, when the boys-"

"An attack?" Hermione cut in, but her voice was soft, as if saying the words out loud would make them all the more real.

"Uh, well, yes," Arthur Weasley continued.

"Was anyone injured?" Hermione asked, breathless with fear. The faces of her friends flashed before her eyes. Of Astoria and her wide, pale eyes. Of her parents.

She was on her feet before she knew what she was doing, pacing back and forth across the small kitchen. "I want to see it," was all she said.

Madame Weasley stepped forward, "Dear," she said gently, "I don't think-"

Hermione turned her flushed face to the older witch. "No," she said and her voice shook. "No," she repeated, and her voice was strong. "I want to- I have to see what happened. It was- is- it is my home and I want to see it. Now."

"But dear, there are no-"

"Molly," said Arthur, glancing up at his wife, "look at her. She'll just leave again if we don't take her, and this way...this way we'll at least be there for her when she...when she sees. I'll tell you now, though, miss, it isn't a pleasant sight and you don't have to go. You're welcome to stay here as long as you want. If you're half as clever as Molly says you are, you belong in our world, anyway."

Hermione shook her head, not trusting her voice.

Arthur rose heavily from the table. "Perhaps we should wait till morning, after a good sleep, this may all seem-"

"No," Hermione choked out, "No. I want to see now. It...it will be worse, not knowing." Hermione hated not knowing something more than almost anything else in the whole world. Even horror was better when you knew that it was truth. In her heart, she hoped, prayed, and believed that her parents were still alive, that this was a whole, large misunderstanding. It had only been a bit more than a day since she had left her home. The damage could not logically be as severe as this family was making it seem.

"If you're sure." Arthur Weasley held a hand out to her. "You're going to have to side-along apparate if we want to get there before tomorrow morning, so just hold on to my hand, alright? On the count of three. One, two-"

And Hermione felt as though invisible bands were tightening around her chest, forcing her into a tunnel which was much too small for her person, like a badger in a rabbit warren. She could not breathe. She was drowning. Yet, just when she was sure that she would break under the pressure and that she would surely die, the pressure was gone and the bands had vanished. She was still gripping Arthur Weasley's hand much too tightly, but the smell of the black forest on the edge of town was filling her nose. She was in a copse of trees at the edge of the woods and she could just see the light of the setting sun bathing the fields that stood between the woods and the village in golden light. She was home.

And yet.

There was something smoky and metallic in the air and, as if in a trance, she dropped Arthur Weasley's hand and strode out of the wood. He may have told her to stay covered, and he shouted a spell after her. It hit her, of course, and she felt as though cool water were sliding over her body. When she glanced down at her hand, there was only a faint shimmer. She dropped her hand and strode onward, toward town.

She walked the dirt roads of her hometown, looking in dark windows for a sign of a familiar face, but there was nothing. Not a footprint, not a sigh from a horse or a cry from a baby. It was dead, shadowed in the fading light and suspended between reality and dream in the way only ghost towns can be. She sped up, her feet crunching quickly as she turned down one street and then another until she came to the home that she shared with her parents and Astoria.

She turned the knob of the door and it swung open silently.

There was nothing. There was no sign of a struggle. No sign of death. Two sets of dishes were laid out for dinner and there were bones in a little heap on the floor, left over from the meal that the two had shared. She walked into the dark little house, her feet creaking on the worn floorboards.

She went to her parents' room, first. There was nothing out of place there, no valuables missing, no blood on the walls, but there was a faint smell of something sinister, almost like rot, that tickled Hermione's nose and told her that something wicked had happened here. Next, she went to the room that she shared with Astoria and, again, nothing was out of place.

There was, however, a little roll of parchment on the pillow of Hermione's bed. With trembling hands, she reached out and unfurled it, her nut-brown eyes scanning quickly across Astoria's handwriting.

Hermione-

I don't know what's happening here. Men in masks came into town early today and people are eating each other. Parents are killing their children and eating them. Then they're eating each other. I'm frightened, Hermione, very frightened. Please find me. Please save me before they get me, too.

That was all the note said, and the writing was splotched and smeared in places where Astoria had not let the ink dry before swiping her hand over it.

Her hands trembled so violently that the parchment fell back to the bed. Hermione was not crying, was not feeling much of anything in particular, but that was because of the pounding of blood in her ears. She was aware that she was breathing and that her heart was beating and there was no room for anything else. She walked slowly back down the stairs and found Arthur Weasley scanning the darkening kitchen with the light from his wand.

Lumos, she thought absently. That's the name of the spell.

He looked in her direction when he heard her feet on the stairs, and muttered a spell to make her visible again.

"They were eating each other." She said flatly in a voice that did not sound like her own.

"They were under the imperius curse, the lot of them," Arthur corrected gently, "They were muggles. They didn't know- couldn't know."

"They were cannibals," Hermione felt as though someone had scooped out her organs and left only her hollow shell behind.

"They were cursed," corrected Arthur sternly, "They were not themselves when this happened."

"Astoria," began Hermione, looking around the little kitchen that had seemed so safe only moments before and her eyes landed on the little pile of bones under the table, brown from cooking and black from shadow. Realization dawned on Hermione then, and her hand flew to her mouth and her legs buckled underneath her, sending her to the floor. "Oh my god," she gasped and crawled towards the bones.

"Oh my god," she repeated as she sank under the table beside the little pile. The bones were not as little as she had first supposed them to be, longer than those of a rabbit, yet still finer than those of a cow. With trembling fingers, she pulled what looked like it had once been a femur from the pile, her eyes tracing the scrapes of a knife along the bone, the scraps of meat still stuck near the top where the diner had not been able to pick the bone clean.

"They killed themselves, you know. When the curse was lifted. We had a few at- at the hospital- but even those who made it, who survived, are all dead now."

Hermione registered the words without any reaction. "I want to bury," Hermione said and then her voice died in her throat and she choked.

"Sorry?" Said Arthur, kneeling down to get a better few of her under the table. When he saw the bone that she was cradling to her chest like a baby, he gasped and swore. "Ah. We missed one, then."

"Astoria," Hermione barked, and then clarified. "It's not 'one'. It's Astoria." Hermione's voice cracked and a dry sob shook her body, but her eyes were still dry, glowing with fury and anguish. Her lips were white as ash. White as snow. "I will bury her." She said, and, gathering the bones into a neat little pile, she stood and marched back up the stairs to retrieve something to transport them all in, for there were too many for just her two hands alone to carry.


She wrapped the bones in Astoria's favorite scarf. It was muslin, a gift from a boy two summers ago who spoke of far off Spain and France. It seemed fitting, somehow, for the dark smudges that were once Astoria Greengrass were tucked into the earth with this gossamer thing. She did not let Arthur Weasley help to dig the hole nor to cover it again, and after she had patted the last bit of dirt into place and bade her friend a good rest, she stood, and looked up at the tree. It was a Juniper tree, and Hermione had chosen this spot because Astoria had loved this tree the most of all of the trees in the yard.

If this had been a fairy tale, this was the point when the magical bird would fly out of the earth and right all of the wrongs that had happened thus far. If this were a fairy story, Hermione would be whisked back to her mother and father and Astoria by a handsome prince on a white horse, but this was not a fairy story. No, this was not the world of fairy stories and childhood. Not any more. This was a world in which witches and wizards made parents eat their own children, and then moved on like a plague to infect some other town. There was no fairy tale ending to be wrung out of this. There was no getting blood from a stone.

"You said it was the imperius curse?" She asked.

"Yes," replied Arthur Weasley, surprise evident in his tone.

"That's the same curse the man in the mask used on me today," she said, although she wasn't sure why this was important to say.

Arthur Weasley nodded and in the bruise-blue of twilight, she could just see the motion. "Death Eaters like that one. We call it one of the unforgivable curses. A horrible thing, really, but you were lucky this morning. Whoever attacked you could have done much worse." He gestured with his chin at the town around them.

Hermione turned with steel in her eyes to Arthur Weasley, "I want to fight them," she said with cold resolve, "I want to make sure this never happens to any other town." She linked her arm in his, and waited while he counted to three. When the invisible bands tightened around her chest, she wondered if that's how they felt- everyone she had ever loved- when hopelessness fell upon them in human shapes behind masks. She wondered if that is what death felt like.

She was given her own room that night, and Arthur Weasley's assurance that he would retrieve her clothes and books the next day. She was on the third floor, and was assured that the banging she was hearing was only the ghoul in the attic. She sobbed herself to sleep with only that mythical, unseen noisemaker to hear it.