Summary: After the war Hermione's happily ever after is rudely interrupted and on her intercontinental chase to find the culprit she meets up with the Winchester brothers, only to find there might be more left for her than she ever imagined.

Chapter 10:

There had only been one dirt road out of town in this direction and Dean had pulled as far to the side of the road as he could without putting his car in the ferns and shrubbery that lined the road.

The Winchesters followed Hermione, ducking under large branches and batting away the smaller ones. The ground was muddy and there were still large puddles scattered on the forest floor. A little over a mile into the woods Sam asked, "Are you sure that we only need candles and salt?"

"If this works method works, yes. Really the salt could have been paint, but I didn't think painting the forest or cave floor would work very well." Hermione shifted the paper bag to her other hip. It wasn't terribly heavy, but it was cumbersome.

Sam plucked the bag from her. "I'm still not sure how this circle thing is going to change it back to human."

"It's not." She stopped about ten feet outside the cave entrance. "I'm going to use a spell to change it back; the stuff we bought is just for containment."

She cast a magic detecting spell toward the caves and the area lit up in a bright red color. "This is it."

"Couldn't you just contain it with magic too?" asked Sam.

"We've never had to cast spells and use magic before to capture anything, not even demons, why do we have to use it now?" Dean grumbled petulantly.

Hermione looked at the brothers as if she couldn't figure out how they had ever managed life, that is to say she thought they were morons. "I'm going to assume you mean wizarding magic otherwise that's a really dumb question from both of you."

Dean shrugged. "Well, we've used hoo doo before and I know that's magic, but usually we take care of the monsters through bullets or more normal means."

It took her a moment but when it finally clicked Hermione couldn't help it, she broke down laughing. She choked out between giggles, "No one's ever told you?"

Sam passed being from politely confused to being annoyed, "Told us what?"

"That all those chants you say, devil's traps you draw, your hoo doo is all wizarding magic." Hermione used air quotes for the word wizarding for emphasis, though she detested the practice normally. She didn't know if muggle hunters in America didn't know or if whoever had taught them didn't mention it, but it was a pretty big oversight in her opinion.

Dean narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "You're telling me that wizards came up with all of that?"

"Quite a bit of it yes, some of it was developed on accident by muggles, but for the most part the stuff you use is early wizarding methods that don't require magic from the caster. It was mostly used before wands were common."

Sam's irritable expression was replaced by a more curious, academic one. "What do you mean by magic from the caster?"

"Well the power has to come from somewhere right? Just saying words in order doesn't do anything, you have to have intent and energy behind it. The energy can either come from you or from nature. No ifs, ands, or buts about it," she lectured.

"But-" started Dean.

Hermione cut him off, "No, magic is magic Dean and you're just going to have to accept that."

Dean leaned forward and crossed his arms. "I'm never going to just accept it or anyone with magic."

Sam looked as if Dean had slapped him and unconsciously took a step back.

Immediately, Dean looked horrified at the implications of his words. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, only to open it again to say, "Ah, shoot. Damnit Sammy, you're my brother stop looking at me that way, you know I didn't mean it like that."

When Hermione looked both offended and like she was about to start arguing with Dean again, Sam spoke up, "This isn't a good time to debate this, we are outside the den of a giant five-limbed creature who would love nothing more than to tear us apart."

Hermione huffed, "You're right. It really isn't a good time." She turned to Dean and uncrossed her arms. "I don't know if it eases your mind, but I'm merely doing a spell reversal, albeit a rather high powered one."

"There's no way to do it without your witchcraft?" asked Dean.

Hermione frowned, "First of all what I'm using is wizarding magic, witchcraft has been lost for a couple of centuries and either way all magic, except the stuff performed by demons is human magic and I don't know of any other way unless you want to look up demon rituals and then you are on your own, because I wouldn't mess with that."

"But you'll mess with this kind of magic?"

"You know the phrase, "you have to fight fire with fire?" That would apply here, only a wizard would have turned someone into a quintaped and therefore it needs a so-called wizarding reversal. Besides I've used magic for you before. I softened your beds and I did a silencing spell on you. Do you feel any different?" Hermione was as close to pleading as she would get, she didn't technically need their approval of her methods as she had the minister's and she could just stun them or send them away and have them forget her very name, but oh she wanted it. She wanted their approval, their trust, their friendship, and- oh boy was she in so much trouble.

Dean stared at her intently. Magic was against everything they'd ever been taught, except according to her it wasn't; it was what they had been taught to combat evil and their father had never saw fit to impart that knowledge to them. He didn't know if he believed her, but she hadn't ever done them any harm and had actually helped them in the few short days they had been together.

She had passed all the tests they had and honestly, though he would never say it out loud, he liked her. They had had enough heart to hearts within the last few days that he was confident she was not trying to trick them, although other women in the past had tried to trick them, no one had succeeded in a long time. From what he had seen of her she was a strong and honest woman, who was trying to do the right thing. So Dean shrugged his shoulders. "Alright, we can do it your way. I'm still not thrilled, but okay."

She let out a small smile. "Thanks, afterwards I can explain more about magic if you would like."

Sam rolled his eyes at the two of them. Really, he had no problem with Hermione or her magic use and the other day Dean had been the one telling him that she was a good witch. It seemed that Dean would never get over his knee-jerk reaction of hating anything supernatural or riling up dangerous women. Sam frowned, remembering part of the conversation from earlier. "What makes you think it was a wizard? And what are we going to do if we reverse the transformation and it's not a witch or a wizard who did this?"

She explained, "I'm fairly certain a wizard or witch did this, because we're really the only people who know about them. It's fairly common knowledge in the wizarding world since a Quintaped is the symbol for the number five in our runic alphabet."

Hermione took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And if this isn't the witch or wizard then we need to find them and stop them before they hurt any more people. I hope that that's not the case though; otherwise we might be in trouble if they come."

"Why would we be in trouble, we could just shoot'em?" asked Dean.

"I'm not sure you'd have time to shoot them and dark wizards are dangerous. They are particularly insane and as such, shoot first and never ask questions later. A couple of deaths, especially muggle deaths, aren't going to faze them"

"So what are we supposed to do then?" asked Sam.

Her mouth turned down at the corners and she gave them the most serious look they had seen from her, "You help me take them down, but I don't care what you're doing if you see bright green spell fire, you move. I can fix almost anything else, but not that. It's the killing curse and if it hits you, you're dead."

Dean let out a low whistle.

Sam knew he shouldn't be surprised, but he was. Magic was capable of so many things and although he was initially weary of Hermione in the beginning his distrust had faded into the back of his mind and he had forgotten to be suspicious of what magic could do. Hearing that there was a curse that just killed instantly though reminded him that it was dangerous and that just because, he liked Hermione didn't mean that all witches and wizards were nice people. They had power and had let it go to their head just like any other monster they had hunted. He felt steely determination to finish this take over him.

"Can we help you draw the containment circle?" asked Sam.

At Hermione's nod, Sam made a large circle in the wet dirt with the toe of his shoe and began mapping out where the other symbols Hermione had shown them.

Without being asked Dean grabbed the four white candles from the paper sack and set one of them at each of the cardinal compass points, lighting them as he went. Hermione followed after him to cast a spell on the candles so they couldn't be knocked over or extinguished. It wouldn't do to have the entire thing compromised due to something silly like the wind blowing out a candle.

When they were done they stood around the circle looking at each other expectantly. When it looked like nobody would speak up, Dean broke the silence, "So how are we getting that big ugly thing from its cave to out here?"

Both Sam and Hermione shared a glance.

"Oh, no," said Dean as he raised his hands and backed away from them. "I'm not going in there. That thing is freakier than a giant spider." He shuddered.

"Dean," Sam said slowly as if he was talking to someone exceptionally dull, "Hermione has to be out here to do the spell."

"So you do it Sam," he said as he backed up another step.

"You're a faster runner."

"Well you're taller and I'm sure this Quinta-whatever likes its steaks tall and lean," he said with a careless wave of his hand.

"If you don't decide, I'm going to send the both of you in there," she growled with her wand clenched tightly in her hand.

They stared at each other for a tense minute when Sam decided to bring out the puppy eyes. It only took two more seconds for Dean to slump his shoulders and sigh. "Damn it, alright I'll go. I hate it when you pull that manipulative little brother crap."

Dean walked with reluctant steps toward the cave entrance. While the rocks the cave was made of were light in color, possibly granite, the inside looked dark and ominous even from the outside. He pulled out his flashlight and cautiously shined it ahead of him.

He walked into the cave, one hand against the wall for support and the other using the flashlight to scan the area for any sign of the monster. The walls of the cave were chilly and a shiver worked its way up his spine, disrupting the beam of his flashlight.

The cave smelled musty, like his old gym shorts from high school. He held back a quiet snort; he might tell Sammy that, but there was no way he was going to say that in front of Hermione.

The path was fairly wide, but there was a left turn in the path and as Dean approached it he hugged the wall and peaked around the corner. Dean scrunched up his nose, the cave smelled even more pungent down here and he could see why. Around the corner were scattered bones with strips of flesh dangling off them.

"That's just gross," he muttered to himself.

And sitting on top of a nest of bones and dead leaves was the Quintaped. Dean ducked behind the corner again trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. When he didn't hear any movement he peaked his head out from the corner again. It was black or maybe dark brown in color and a good four feet tall with its legs folded underneath it. It luckily only had two eyes, but the things mouth was freaking ginormous in comparison to the rest of its body. Thankfully, it appeared to be asleep or at least assessing him from the distance before it decided to eat him.

Dear god was that thing ugly and way worse than a spider. What kind of freak of nature had an odd number of legs? Oh, that's right the kind that is made by fucking magic. He couldn't believe he let Sammy manipulate him into doing this with his damned watery puppy eyes.

He picked up a couple of smooth stones from the ground and stepped out from the corner. He took a deep breath and then let a stone fly.

It hit. The creature shifted on one of its legs before settling back down.

He drew back his arm further and threw the second stone with more force than the first stone. The monster shifted again and sleepily opened one eye before closing it.

Dean took a moment to appreciate the fact that the monster was apparently nocturnal and therefore making his life very stressful at the moment. He'd let Hermione know, so she could add it to her notes if he managed to get out of here without ending up as parts for its nest. Both she and Sam would probably start a nerdfest over that tidbit.

Dean exhaled and chucked his last stone at the beast as hard as he could. "Hey! You ugly son of a bitch, wake up! Breakfast is here!"

It startled wide awake at that and fixed its hungry gaze right at him.

Dean took off running back towards the entrance. Behind him he could here gravel spraying as the creature chased after him. He was halfway there and it was now close enough for him to hear it open its giant maw wide.

He swore and pushed himself to run faster. His heart was thudding in his chest and his leg muscles were burning, but he was determined not to get eaten today. Finally he crossed the threshold of the cave. He had to squint as the sunlight shined in his face. Fortunately the containment circle was so very close, because he could now smell that things terrible rotten breath behind him.

He ran as straight as he could toward the circle and continued on a good fifteen feet after he passed it even though he couldn't hear or smell the creature immediately behind him anymore. He bent and put his hands on his knees as he panted uncontrollably. Taking it as a good sign that he wasn't being eaten he finally chanced turning around to see if it was caught.

"Oh thank god, the mother Mary, and Hooters."

Hermione turned her head to look at him with a raised brow. He shrugged and she turned back toward the circle. Dean also noted that now that the creature was caught and the danger was minimal Sam had dragged himself out of the woodwork and was busy looking over the creature like it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. Clearly he needed a new brother.

His parents should have let him return Sam when he was a baby. Lord knows he had tried at least twice to tell the doctor that this one was defective.

Hermione stared shrewdly at the creature as it kept throwing itself into the invisible barriers of the circle. Just to make sure she tossed a simple Finite Incantatem at the beast. It didn't work but, she hadn't expected it to.

She felt Sam's eyes on her as she drew herself up to her full height. She raised her wand and with an inhale she traced a complicated pattern in the air. For nearly five minutes she waved her wand and muttered a string of Latin. She felt sweat at the nape of her neck and a drop run down the side of her face and jawline to drip off her chin.

Sam watched Hermione preform the reversal spell. It was longer than he expected it to be and by the end of it her curly hair had frizzed up adorably and was standing out from her head. He also had watched fine beads of sweat on her skin roll down her pretty face as she concentrated. It was an entirely inappropriate moment to admire how cute she looked as she vanquished a monster that had previously tried to kill her. It shouldn't have been attractive to him, but he found that it was. He didn't go for perfect Barbie looking girls like his brother. Oh, he liked them pretty alright, but what really got his flag flying and his blood racing was intelligence. And Hermione had both qualities in spades, not to mention she was an adorable academic and she already knew about the supernatural.

As Hermione dropped her wand arm to her side the creature's limbs contorted and the black hair that covered its body receded to the top of a decidedly more human looking head. The rest happened so quickly that Sam had no time to catalogue the process.

In place of the giant monster that had been there only a minute before was a perfectly normal looking teenage boy of maybe seventeen or eighteen lying prostrate on the ground.

Sam glanced at Hermione again. He tensed at her strained features. She looked like she wanted to do nothing more than curse loudly and profusely.

"We have a problem."

A/N I'm wicked sorry this is later than I intended. I wrote the beginning part of this chapter three or four times and I'm still not completely satisfied with it. It's a bit hard to mesh the two worlds in a way that makes complete sense without skewing any of the details. As recompense though this chapter is a little longer =)

I have one more chapter planned for this season. This story isn't finished, but this arc is nearly done. Next chapter is probably going to be a little longer, so the more you encourage me (hint review) the faster I'll be able to get it up.

If you have suggestions or things you want to see happen in the season three arc of this story please either review or pm me. Thanks again for reading!

Please review!

BlushinRosie