Two Halves of a Whole Soul
Pairing: Hermione/ Severus
Rating: M (for light smut/ aluding to sex acts)
Summary: Something is born into the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from nothing yet everything as a man denied happiness and comfort finds his equal. His Mate.
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognisable as J.K. Rowling's own words.
A/N: This story was inspired by Corvusdraconis' amazing stories even though it is not close to the lovely beasts created within those universes. I have no beta, so sorry for any mistakes I may have missed. Hope y'all enjoy!
It's waiting, waiting for you to open your eyes to look deep into it's soul. You open them to the abyss, and you see only yourself.
What's there to be scared of?
Everything.
Anything.
Nothing at all.
It's only yourself you have to see. Really see, and comprehend.
…
You couldn't see it, but it was definitely there. You can hear it begging, pleading to be let free.
Help me… please, don't leave me… stay… be my friend… hold me...
...Let me out!
But you are deaf and blind. You see it right in front of your face day in, day out. But you cannot truly see beyond the surface. It whimpers…
Please...
Watching. Waiting. Waiting for just the right moment to strike, and pin you down, and devour you. Bit by bit, piece by piece it will surface everything in yourself that you repressed for so long until it is confronted and stifled no longer. No longer caged in its unacknowledged prison. You might not even know it's there, but it is. It's every action you have held back, in every emotion or word unspoken. It's ready to be let loose.
Deep in the dungeons of Hogwarts, a man marked not good enough, not nice enough, not handsome enough, just not enough, moans painfully deep within his sleep. Tossing and turning restlessly the pale man murmurs, the dark filled with his velvet like whisper.
Acknowledge me. Please...
And the night is still, a stuttered heartbeat the only sound filling the cold room. A spider freezes in place on it's journey across the damp floor, a hare on a midnight hunt for berries scurries into it's little dirt burrow, and a curly haired girl high up in her tower twists onto her back as her maroon blanket falls to the floor when her pale skin is exposed to the moonlight.
The stillness only broken by the soft exhalation from the spurned man upon emerald sheets, and the sigh accompanies it with years, decades worth of repression along with it into the air. Unknowingly, he releases a being neither good nor bad into the school that also saw him as not enough. A being with no shape or form, nor sexuality, or coherent thought, only a sense for searching out others like it's own, and existence.
I'm free…
…
The first and only of it's victims was the girl who was looked upon with scorn by those who didn't know any better, and revered only for what she could give from her brain by those who did.
Hermione… the being's sultry voice penetrated the petite girl's dreams of smiling at a man with no face from across a crowded room, a long snake draped around her shoulders like a shawl. Although she could hear the being's voice, Hermione could not comprehend it. It was like a swath of silk being rubbed all over her individual nerve endings, the softness being something physical but insubstantial. Her small limbs stretching languidly to the sides of her bed in her bone deep relaxation, Crookshanks copying his mistress as he curls up next to her head blinking at the invisible creature, knowing he meant only help. The being stroked her unruly curls normally tamed by a braid in the daytime and thought…
Perfect…
… bestowing a kiss upon her slightly uptilted mouth and engulfing her body in a pleasant warmth, her body slightly spasmed with pleasure as the being became one with it's twin in the beginning of it's efforts to achieve it's ultimate goal. The petite girl's body rose from her bed as she dropped her clothing to the floor without sound. Eyes normally the shade of coffee were overtaken by that of the blackest night, her iris and sclera permanently stained as her lids blinked sleepily around the dormitory inhabited by several other deeply sleeping girls.
The Gods smiled upon them this night of their birth, for once on their side when all others had failed them. Crookshanks yawned sleepily, knowing his mistress was safe now, even as she walked into the cold night of the Scotland air.
…
Hermione awoke to the dull gray sunlight of early dawn surrounding her and a coldness along the fullness of her back, although her front was laid upon a bed that was curiously warm and seemingly alive. As the slender fingers of her left hand twitched awake along the graininess that they were immersed within, her eyes opened sluggishly in an attempt to stave off her lingering sleepiness. Even as she was completely content to stay right where she was, she knew that something was out of the norm as she felt a new band of warmth come around her waist and wrap around her hip.
Finally adjusting to the new brightness of the world around her, her mind was startled to find that she was surrounded by trees and dirt even as her body stayed as relaxed as it was previously in sleep. Listening carefully for any sign of life outside of herself, she found her head rising of it's own accord once she realized one very important piece of information.
The heart beating calmly beneath her ear was not her own…
Her black eyes matched their twin in the face of a pale man with wild black hair filled with leaves and twigs, a full beard gracing his face that seemed to have grown in the days since she last saw him. Along with these attributes, he seemed to have sprouted thick magnificent curling horns at the temples of his forehead that curled around his ears.
Seeing these new additions to Severus Snape's face gave Hermione a particular warmth spreading throughout her body, especially when he spoke and a flash of sharp white fang revealed itself to her.
"Mine?" The dark eyes pleaded with her terribly, a vulnerability so deeply imbedded into the man's soul that it had changed him forever, and reached out to her along with the pale hand on her cheek.
Mimicking his own gesture towards his dirt covered one, she glanced down his ridged ivory horns tenderly, and the girl smiled to reveal her own canines before slanting her red lips over his as a frenzy began deep in her heart and soul. A frenzy that ate up the entirety of the loneliness they had both felt even when in a room of people who said they cared but glanced away from the pain so clearly written across their eyes.
"Mine."
...
"Hermione," the girl's voice was far away from her still waking brain, "Hermione," the shaking of her shoulder was becoming annoying, waking the girl further from the warmth of her dreams and the phantom hand stroking her curls that offered comfort she hadn't had since she was a child. "Hermione!"
"What?" Hermione woke fully to see Lavender fully dressed for the day standing beside her open curtains.
"You're going to be late for breakfast," the irritating girl walked to the vanity to brush her hair, the still relaxed witch not wanting to leave behind the warmth of her bed groaned and stood up to face the coldness of the Scotland winter for the second time that day. Vaguely she saw Lavender blanch from the corner of her eye as she stretched her arms above her head, feeling her nipples peak from the cold but not registering the lack of clothing through her light bliss as she gathered her clothes to put on. "Hermione, what happened to you?"
"Hm?" she hummed, distracted by what had occured under cover of darkness and early morning and looked down to her chest, not bothering to cover anything as she saw she indeed was still naked and covered in dirt and leaves from her foray into the forest, "Guess I was sleepwalking last night."
Lavender and Pavarti, who had seen the entire exchange from her own vanity, exchanged bewildered looks. After all the years they had spent as roommates, neither girl had seen the other sleepwalk before. Hermione Granger was not at all looking or acting like Hermione Granger, the girl never having been seen in such a state before. Especially when she left her mane down to make up it's own mind for the day, and dressed in a simple dress sans bra. All the meanwhile, each of the girls froze in place once they glimpsed a pair of dainty onyx horns curled on either side of Hermione's head out of the corners of their eyes that disappeared once they each cranked their necks back to look towards the girl.
…
Hermione's distraction lasted the whole day, but she felt better than she had in a long time even with Harry and Ron having repeatedly pulled her away from walking into walls every five minutes.
"Are you okay, Hermione?" Harry asked her as they sat down at dinner, Ron settling between Seamus and Lavender beside them, muttering about women as the blond girl began whispering in Ron's ear.
She looked up to him from where her attention had been on Professor Snape entering from the heavy oak door behind the headmaster. Ruffling Harry's eternally untamable hair much like her own in a rare form of affection, she smiled, "Of course I am. Why do you ask?"
He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a houself appearing between him and the girl with a bloody piece of meat that was then plopped in front of Hermione.
"For the Missus," the green eyed elf said to her.
Hermione's eyes lit up as she grabbed the small creature in a quick hug and placed a kiss on it's blushing cheek, "Oh, thank you, darling!"
The elf smiled brightly and popped back to the kitchens with a small sound.
Harry's jaw fell open as he watched his friend pick up the rare piece of meat, heedless of the stares she was garnering, and sink strangely sharp teeth into it. Blood running down her chin, her black eyes flashed to up where Severus sat staring at her across the hall. Making sure she had swallowed her own first bite of meat, her mate then copied her actions albeit less conspicuously with a knife and fork. Both now satisfied, Hermione took another bloody bite before she became aware of the attention she had grabbed from those around her.
Glancing to Harry with a caramel colored gaze, she cocked her head to the side in confusion with blood drying on her chin, "What?"
The dark haired boy shook his head jerkily as he laughed uneasily, "Have you been turned into a werewolf, Hermione?"
Brows furrowed as she turned back to her dinner, she said, "Of course I haven't, Harry."
Her teeth then promptly sunk back into her meat, finishing the rather large slab before exiting the Great Hall to follow her mate once he was finished with his own meal, leaving behind whispers that echoed her name.
...
Hermione's behavior continued in the same manner throughout the school year as her classmates began to give her a wide berth at mealtimes as each breakfast, lunch, and dinner came with an enthusiastically devoured meal of bloody meat for the girl. While Harry continuously dropped hints and subtle questions to Hermione as to how she had come to have such a love for rare meat, each time she cocked her head to the side in confusion as if he were asking a very dumb and obvious question such as "Is the sky blue?" Other than this change in behavior, all other aspects of the girl's personality remained the same, with the exception of more frequent absences where no one could find her within the castle.
No person seemed to connect the sounds of twin howls and low growls coming from deep within the forbidden forest during these times, nor the disappearance of the dark man who lived within the dungeons of the castle.
This connection of two lonely and depressed people only came to light within the climax of the war as Voldemort went missing from his throne at Malfoy Manor, and Death Eaters began dropping like flies all around Great Britain.
Within the confines of Grimmauld Place, two creatures of both the light and dark made immortal by that of soul magic were discovered. Coupling in the middle of a dark room lit by several wands, a wave of dark magic swirled in the air around them.
"Hermione," Harry's voice was barely heard over the moans and growls of the horned and clawed creatures writhing on the floor.
"Severus," Minerva whispered as well, stepping into the room with a metallic clink. As she looked towards her feet, her wand illuminated several Hogwarts Founder's sacred objects laying blackened and broken around the couple.
Hermione's growl echoed about the room, causing each man and woman to take a step back as their hair stood on end, all except Harry who had been caught within her black eyed gaze. Standing frozen with hands trying to pull the unresponsive boy back, he suddenly fell to his knees clutching the scar upon his forehead.
At the peak of their pleasure, Hermione and Severus both screamed along with the boy- who- lived, Hermione's clawed fingers bloodying Severus' back adorned with a simple black stone ring on her left hand, Severus' forearm writhing along with the snake adorned skull that graced the majority of it.
The darkness of the foul soul magic having been fractured too long within the various objects and boy, it finally sighed in relief at being whole again and enveloped Hermione's womb never to be torn apart again.
...
Years later…
A dark forest was filled with giggles of small horned children whose heads also sported curly black hair in perfect imitation of both of their parents as they chased an orange colored Kneazle. The beast lay content inside each of the couple's once human souls as it reflected it's gaze onto twin eyes the color of the night sky, finally basking in the fact that they would never be alone again.
A/N: Please review!