Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Supernatural.

May 2009.

That night, Bobby woke Dean and Hermione up without saying a word, but with a grim expression on his face that could only mean one thing.

Hermione was silent as she followed Dean and her father down to the panic room. The door still seemed to be bolted, as evident by the fact that Dean had to twist the lock and push forcefully to get it to open.

For a moment, they observed it with silence. Dean was the one to break it.

"How the hell did he get out?"

"Maybe he had help," Bobby offered.

"All Devil's Traps are busted," Hermione observed.

"Demons?" Dean asked before the expression on his face turned even grimmer. "Ruby."

"That'd be my guess," Bobby replied.

"How did she even touch the door?" Dean asked, and Hermione had no trouble understanding what he meant by that.

Solid iron drenched in salt and engraved with every warding Bobby ever knew. Previously, Ruby mentioned just the proximity to the room was making her feel nauseous. How could she possibly break Sam out?

"You think she's got the mojo?" Bobby asked.

"I didn't think so," Dean said, sounding more and more desperate with every word that left his mouth. "I don't know, man."

"It doesn't matter," Hermione cut in. "How he got out doesn't matter. We need to focus on where he's gonna go now if we want to bring him back."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," Dean sighed. "At this point I hope he's with Ruby."

"Why?" Bobby asked.

"'Cause killing her's the next big item on my to-do list."

"I thought you're waiting on the Angels to page you," Hermione said.

"I'm on call," Dean said shortly. "In my car, on my way to murder the bitch."

He turned to leave, only to be stopped as Bobby called after him.

"One thing," he said.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Sam don't wanna be found," Bobby said, "which means he's gonna be damn near impossible to find."

"Yeah, we'll see," Dean dismissed, continuing upstairs.

Hermione and Bobby exchanged a worried glance before following him.

They spent the whole night making phone calls and scouring the internet to try and find where Sam might have gone. He hotwired one of the cars in Bobby's yard to drive in, and Bobby now spent a lot of time trying to find it as Hermione tried a different route.

They knew Sam's goal was to kill Lilith. Find her, and they'll find him.

Dean, meanwhile, was fixing some things in his car. Nothing major, just small things that built up during the past months and that he didn't want turning out to be problematic while going after Sam, Ruby or Lilith.

When Bobby finally reached a break through, in the early hours of morning, Hermione followed him out.

"Police found my car," he said as they arrived to Dean's car. "Abandoned in an alley in Jamestown, North Dakota."

"He's switching up," Dean said, wiping his hands from grease and turning to them. "Any other cars stolen in Jamestown?"

"Two," Hermione said. "First is a 1999 Honda Civic, blue. Nice and anonymous, just your style and just what Sam would go for."

"What was the other one?" Dean asked.

"White oh-five Escalade with custom rims," Bobby said, not even bothering to hide the judgement in his voice on the poor owner of the car. "It's a neon sign."

"You're right," Dean nodded. "He'd never take that. Which is exactly what he did."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked.

"I know that kid," was all the explanation Dean gave. "All right, I'll head in that direction. You stay here, ride the police databases. We gotta find him quick."

As Dean entered the car and drove away, Hermione couldn't shut down the feeling that they were making a mistake.

The day passed with radio-silence from Dean's direction, which didn't help with the nerves Hermione was now feeling.

It wasn't that she planned to completely lay off hunting now that she was held together again. She knew that she could never completely leave the life – no Hunter can. But she planned on easing back in with a simple salt-and-burn, a werewolf, maybe.

She didn't plan to dive headfirst into the Apocalypse the moment she was back.

She didn't delusion herself in thinking Bobby didn't notice what she was going through. He was her dad, he knew her better than anyone else, and he probably noticed the tension she was trying to hold in before she was even fully aware she was doing it.

But he was true to his promise. He stayed away, laid back, and waited for her to come to him.

Waited for her to feel ready.

By the time night began to fall again, Hermione knew she couldn't keep hiding her secret from him.

She hid it from Sam, Dean, the Weasleys, even Gabriel – though the last one probably knew. She could never lie to her dad. Not for long, anyway.

She found him seated next to the kitchen table, a laptop open in front of him as he tried to find a direction to lead Dean towards. She didn't say anything at first, only making herself a cup of tea and sitting across from him.

The hot beverage in her hands kept her grounded. She needed to stay that way for what she was about to reveal.

For a couple of minutes, they sat like this, Bobby looking through police databases as Hermione silently drank from the mug she was holding. Eventually, Bobby pushed the laptop aside.

"Alright," he said, looking at his daughter questioningly. "I'll bite. What is it?"

"Alistair told me something."

She could see his entire demeanor changing at the mention of the Demon.

"When?"

"That night, at the warehouse," Hermione replied. "The night I… the night the Angels took me to torture him."

"Mya…" Bobby sighed. "Demons lie. It's the only consistent thing about them. They lie."

"Not about this," Hermione replied. "I… I have no way to prove it, because the only others who'd know would be other Demons or the Angels, and I don't trust one more than the other. But I know he didn't lie about this."

"What did he say?"

Although Bobby asked, he looked like there was nothing in the world he wanted less than to hear the answer.

Hermione replied anyway.

"There are over 600 Seals to break for the Apocalypse to start," she said. "We knew that already, and we knew Lilith only needed to break 66 for Lucifer to rise. But there is one that is a constant. The first Seal that has to be broken before the others could break."

She looked up, her voice steady as she poke the next words, though her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

"'And it is written that the first Seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell. As he breaks, so shall it break'," she quoted back the words Alistair spoke with such confidence all those months ago. "I looked it up a few weeks ago. The origin is obscure, but it's there."

"Okay, so the first Seal had to be broken in Hell," Bobby said, not understanding. "What does that have to do with you?"

"Because I'm it," Hermione replied, her voice cracking. "It's me. Apparently I'm righteous. Or, at least, I was. Until I started to Apocalypse."

"Mya…" Bobby sighed, standing up and moving closer to her. "Look at me," he said when she fixated her eyes on the table. "Mya, look at me."

The moment her eyes found her father's soft ones, Hermione couldn't keep the tears away any longer. She openly wept as he pulled her close, feeling more vulnerable than she had in years.

"Demons lie," he repeated.

"Not about this," Hermione cried. "He didn't lie about this. I know it, I know he didn't."

"None of this is your fault."

"Isn't it?" she questioned. "I sold my soul. I broke the first Seal. And now, we have a goddamn Apocalypse on our hands, with Sam addicted to Demon blood and Dean so hell bent on saving him from himself that the two of them will let the world burn."

"No, they won't," Bobby said. "Because we're gonna help Dean find Sam, we're gonna get him better, and then we'll sort all of this mess up."

As if summoned by his words, Bobby's computer rang as a result to the search that was running there finally came up. Bobby wiped the last tears from Hermione's face and kissed his forehead softly.

"This conversation ain't done," he told her. "We'll figure it out, together. But first, let's get those two idjits out of this mess."

Hermione laughed through the tears and moved to look at Bobby's computer, joining him in following up on the search results.

Minutes later, they had Dean on the line, his voice streaming out of the speaker of Bobby's phone.

"Cops found the Escalade in a ditch outside Elk River," Bobby told Dean.

"How far away am I?" Dean asked.

"A couple of hours," Hermione replied. "We pulled up a weather map, Dad made some calls. There's a town not far from there, Cold Spring. Lighting up with Demon signs."

"A good place to look."

There was silence for a moment before Bobby spoke again.

"Hey, listen," he started.

"What?"

"Us finding Sam?" Bobby asked. "It's gotta be about getting him back, not pushing him away."

"Right."

Hermione didn't think she heard Dean sound more unconvincing in their entire life, and that was saying a lot.

"I know you're mad, Dean," Bobby said. "We both do, and we understand. You got a right to be, but I'm just saying… be good to him anyway. You gotta get through to him."

The silence that followed Bobby's words lasted just a bit too long before Hermione realized Dean hung up, and she sighed as she sat back down.

"Do you think he'll listen?" Bobby asked.

"I think…" What did she think? Hermione wasn't sure any longer, but she was sure of one thing. "I think he's very similar to John. Too similar to John. And I think he's hurting so much right now that he might not be able to think clearly."

"Yeah," Bobby sighed, opening himself a bottle of beer. "That's just what I'm afraid of."

Of course, rather than being rational and reasonable, Dean did the one thing Bobby and Hermione warned him not to do – he pushed Sam further away.

It took Hermione hours to even get what happened after he met Sam at the motel out of him. As soon as she did, though, Bobby started telling Dean he needed to be the bigger an here, swallow his pride and apologize.

Dean only stood silently, staring out the window without saying a word.

"Dean?" Bobby finally snapped. "Dean! You listen to a word I said?"

"Yeah, I heard you," Dean said, not looking away from the window. "I'm not calling him."

"Don't make me get my gun, boy."

"We are damn near kickoff for Armageddon," Dean said, turning to look at Bobby and very pointedly avoiding Hermione's eyes, "don't you think we got bigger fish at the moment?"

"I know you're pissed," Bobby replied. "And I'm not making apologies for what he's done, but he's your –"

"Blood?" Dean cut him off. "He's my blood, is that what you were gonna say?"

Hermione put her hand on Dean's arm. In a moment, all of the fighting spirit left him.

He never looked more similar to the young boy she met all those years ago than at that moment.

"He's your brother," she corrected. "And he's drowning."

"I tried to help him, I did," Dean replied. "Look what happened."

"So try again," Hermione offered.

"It's too late."

"There's no such thing."

"No, damnit!" Dean pulled his arm out of Hermione's grasp, making her pull her hand as though she touched fire or hot coals, rather than human flesh. "No," he said again, sounding something between furious and broken. "I gotta face the facts. Sam never wanted a part of this family. He hated this life growing up. Ran away to Stanford first chance he got. Now it's like déjà vu all over again." He sat down, looking defeated, more than anything else. "Well, I am sick and tired of chasing him. Screw him, he can do what he wants."

"You don't mean that," Hermione said quietly.

"Yes I do," Dean insisted. "Sam's gone. He's gone. I'm not even sure if he's still my brother anymore… if he ever was."

Bobby let out an angry breath, turning away from Dean and towards the table he was previously leaning on. Hermione opened her mouth to say something – anything – only to be cut off as her father let out an angry yell, sweeping his hands over the table and sending all of the papers and books on it flying to the floor before turning back to Dean, who stood up.

"You stupid, stupid son of a bitch!" he yelled. "Well, boo hoo, I am so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess! Are you under the impression that family's supposed to make you feel good?!" he asked. "Bake you an apple pie, maybe? They're supposed to make you miserable! That's why they're family!

"I told him, 'you walk out that door, don't come back'," Dean said, "and he walked out anyway! That was his choice!"

"You sound like a whiny brat," Bobby mocked.

"No," Hermione corrected angrily, "you sound like John."

"Well, let me tell you something," Bobby took off from where Hermione stopped. "Your dad was a coward."

"My dad was a lot of things, Bobby, but a coward?"

"He'd rather push Sam away than reach out to him," Bobby replied. "Well, that don't strike me as brave. You are a better man than your daddy ever was," Bobby added, ignoring Dean's scoff at his words. "So you do all of us a favor. Don't be him."

Dean looked between them for a second, shaking his head before turning to the window. Hermione took a step forward, ready to force Dean to pull out his phone that very instance and call Sam, only for him to disappear before her eyes.

She looked at Bobby, knowing from the shocked expression on his face that no, she wasn't imagining it and Dean really did just vaporized into thin air.

"Balls."