Dark and Stormy Nights, a harry potter fanfic

Summary: SSHG, AU, EWE, Hermione Granger was never a Muggleborn witch, but she wasn't pureblood either. What she was was beyond the scope of most people who just considered her too different to fit in anywhere.

A/N: Rasmus and the tenebris cage comes from the creative past of DeepShadows2, and he is stolen (er, borrowed with her permission) to help make the world more insane (erm, interesting.)

Some dates were changed for the purpose of storytelling.

Beta Love: Deepshadows2 is too pleased with herself to do more than giggle. Or was that sleep delirium? Dragon and the Rose checked in after waking from her sleep coma. Dutchgirl01 ran by screaming on her way to over-work.

Trigger warnings: Child abuse (physical, not sexual)

Dark and Stormy Nights

"The fears we don't face become our limits."

-Robin Sharma

"Old friend, you are spoiling her."

"Of course, I am. She's my only daughter."

Ancient wings unfurled from the hulking shape of something primordial that seemed spawned in the darkness of nightmare. Some would call it batlike. Some dragon. Some both or neither, but few that ever met them on a field of battle lived to tell the tale.

"For a dragonbat, you have remarkably little room in which to wriggle when you talk about spoiling, Manfred."

The dragonbat snorted as he snuggled the child with his muzzle and she cooed and kicked her legs and put her chubby hands up his nostrils. He snorted a cloud of vapour at her, and she giggled and wriggled and babbled. He practically basted her with his tongue, and the child giggled all the more, delighted by his attention. "Not everyone can appreciate the supreme appeal of form and function, Rasmus," the dragonbat said, smiling— which for him was a show of dagger-like teeth and dripping venom.

The child patted his teeth and tongue, giggling happily, oblivious to his alien monstrousness.

Rasmus' lips pulled into a tight smile that only barely concealed the hint of inhuman teeth almost as if their body had forgotten what human looked like and made some added "improvements." Their platinum silver hair hung in a long ponytail across his back with a moonlight glow, but the face was not wizened or aged. Their hair was parted slightly off-centre to frame their head and shoulders with a bob-like cut, which seemed to contrast to the long hair they had pulled back into the ponytail.

They cradled the infant in his arms with a serene expression as they pulled out an ornately decorated box that seemed to seethe and rattle. They tilted their head and pressed their pointed nose to the box, sniffing in a savouring manner. Almost-jasper yellow eyes glinted, their pupils narrowing to slits as their eyelids closed slightly, their tongue just slightly flicking out as if to taste it.

They placed the box on the happy infant's belly and opened it, their hand catching "something" lightning-fast, one hand crushing a vague outline of a writhing, desperate almost-shape. Crystalline claws formed on tapered fingers as they squeezed, a look of anticipation on their face.

"Lunchtime, little love," Rasmus purred, dangling the writhing thing as one would a favourite candy.

The infant's eyes widened as her hands went out in a grabby gesture. She struggled to gain hold of it, her hands not quite gaining enough purchase to hold it alone, and her dutiful father helped guide it to her mouth.

She stuffed what might have been the head into her mouth and made satisfied and utterly unnerving sounds of savouring and consumption, her eyes taking on a golden yellow glow as her pupils narrowed into slits.

"Isn't it just a bit early to be feeding her the souls of the damned?" Manfred quipped with a sigh.

"Nonsense," Rasmus answered as the last of the condemned soul did not escape their daughter's hungry mouth. They wiped her lips with a cloth napkin, placed it on their shoulder and then lay her over it, patting her back gently with taloned hands until she burped satisfactorily. "It's not like I'm feeding her a centuries-old tortured soul of an immortal cursed into a Tenebris. The iambic pentameter is an acquired taste."

They smiled predatorily. "We'll work on small bites next month, won't we, love?" They rocked the infant in their arms as they pressed their face to her full belly and blew raspberries.

The infant babbled happily as Manfred shook his maned head. "You're an insufferable parent," Manfred said with a sniff.

"Takes one to know one," Rasmus rumbled, their face changing from that which was mostly human to something that might have crawled out the world's combined nightmares and then back, playing peek-a-boo with the infant with the change in appearance. "It takes a village," they added, giving the infant a soft plushie of a bulbous spherical fleshy mass with a giant eye and multiple eye-stalks.

She babbled happily, sticking one eyestalk into her mouth and sucking on it with enthusiasm.

"Alas," Rasmus said. "I have work to attend to. Mummy Manfred is going to have to watch over you for a little while," they cooed. They handed the babe off to the dragonbat with affection.

Manfred's muzzled expression softened as he cradled her in his wing before pressing her against himself.

"Do try not to have too much fun out there," Manfred said as he tucked the infant into the sling around his body to keep her safely hidden against his massive bulk. She snuggled into his heat, hands grasping his fur and promptly going to sleep.

Rasmus sniffed. "Killjoy."

They disappeared in a wisp of dark smoke.

Manfred snuggled the infant lovingly. "I think I'm going to teach you how to fly, sweetling."

Rasmus returned early in the morning to find their daughter hanging upside down from the bed canopy with her feet, Dark-vapour wings wrapped around her body, bat-like, and a long serpentine tail anchored itself on the bed frills. She clung onto her beholder plushie, still sucking on the eyestalk as she slept.

Rasmus sighed, plucking her off the bed like one would a peach off the tree. They cuddled her to them as her new wings and tail wrapped around them. After a few moments, she reverted back into a wingless and tailless form, smacked her lips together, and burrowing into their chest with a contented sigh. She kneaded their side like a kitten, and Rasmus chuckled. "Greedy thing. Just like your father."

They pulled out something squirming and wispy from one of their pockets and dangled it in front of her mouth. Within an instant, she had it in her mouth and was chewing on it fiercely, making hungry smacking noises. "Yes, most definitely like your father, pet."

They held her over their shoulder, patting her back gently until she let out a definitive burp, a wisp of dark vapour escaping her mouth.

"Good girl," they said, approving.

"Have you decided on a proper mortal name for her?" Manfred asked sleepily as he unfolded a wing and yawned from the perch on the ceiling. His body seemed to unfurl from the shadow into a shape that was anything but unintimidating. "I don't think Hsssrrkk'thith is going to go over particularly well in any polite social circles."

"We seem to do well enough," Rasmus said loftily as they touched noses with their daughter, cooing. "And I thought we agreed on no flying lessons until she could eat solid food?"

"Says the one who feeds her tortured souls of the damned," Manfred quipped.

"Tortured souls are far more tender and succulent," Rasmus retorted. "New souls are dreadfully chewy."

Manfred's eyes slid over to peer at them. "Mm-hm."

Rasmus shrugged, tickling their daughter's tiny chin with a sharp talon. She giggled and snuggled in tighter to their chest. "I don't quibble over your atrocious diet, Manfred. I've seen what kind of rubbish you eat."

They clicked their tongue and pulled a velvety cloak off of the nursery wall and wrapped it around their daughter. The "cloak" moved and shifted, tucking itself around her snugly.

Hsssrrkk'thith yawned and pull-tugged at the cloak and adjusted under it, making happy, burbling sounds.

"The Master of Beasts would be horrified that you would wrap a child in a Lethifold, Rasmus," Manfred said with a chuckle.

"They're perfectly suited and naturally temperature regulating," Rasmus retorted.

"And carnivorous."

"To mortals, perhaps," Rasmus said. "Besides, she loves Walter, and Walter loves her back."

"Walter the Lethifold?"

"Don't judge," Rasmus said. "He's quite happy to have a name and a home and to be out of that sweltering jungle climate."

"I suppose even Lethifolds need a hug now and then," Manfred conceded. "Maybe that is why they are so cranky in the wild."

Rasmus shrugged again. "Walter was quite wild until he met her." They watched with amusement as the Lethifold protectively and possessively wrapped itself around the infant. "She tamed him with a snuggle."

"I rest my case," Manfred said. "You still have to give her a human name so they can slip it into the magical book at Hogwarts. She may not know why, but a human education will help her understand the world we live both in and outside of."

Rasmus rolled their head around, their neck making disturbing crunching and popping sounds. They picked a book off the nearby bookshelf and flipped through it with one finger. They settled on one page, finger tapping.

"Hermione," Rasmus said.

"You're naming her after Leonte's wife?"

"She was the daughter of the Emperor of Russia," Rasmus said. "Seems fitting."

"Since when are you the Emperor of Russia?"

"I scared him countless times as a child," Rasmus said, tongue flicking across their teeth in a savouring manner. "His fear was delicious."

"And what does a young would-be emperor fear?"

Rasmus placed a kiss on Hermione's forehead as his face twisted and reshaped into combined nightmares that seemed to shift and alter like ripples on a pond. "Everything."

Time passes…

"Daddy look!" Hermione said, running up to them with her hands cupped around something.

"Oh ho!" Rasmus exclaimed. "What do you have there?"

Hermione opened her hands to expose a golden locket with a shimmering gemmed stylised "S" on the front. "It keeps moving around, but I keep finding it. I think someone wanted to hide it, but they keep changing their mind. First it was behind a stone in the fountain, then it was in a hollow of the really big tree in the arboretum, then it inside a sealed book in the library with this big parchment map inside! Is it treasure, daddy? Can I eat it?"

Rasmus' head tilted as their eyes narrowed slightly. They plucked the chain of the locket up as they stared intently at the jewelry. "We must not eat things we are not sure where the soul came from, love," they said, even as they put a taloned hand on her hair and ruffled. "You did very well in bringing it to me."

"But it smells so good!" Hermione protested.

"You are not wrong, my love," Rasmus said, comforting her. "I tell you what. In exchange for this, I will let you have a piece of a very special Tenebris for dinner."

"A piece of a real Tenebris! I really real one?"

Rasmus nodded. "A really real one."

Hermione brightened significantly and then her voice went down to a whisper. "But daddy doesn't like to share his really old Tenebris'," she said suspiciously.

Rasmus ran his claws through her hair. "This time, I shall. I promise. I'll even let you eat it in front of Manfred."

"I heard that, you overgrown Nalusa Falaya!" Manfred's rumbling screech echoed through the caverns.

Rasmus smiled conspiratorily. "Do we have a deal, love?"

Hermione shook her head up and down. "Yes, Daddy!"

Rasmus pressed their forehead to hers, and for a moment their forms seemed to flicker and become shadow and nightmare before returning to the human shape. "Do you still have this parchment?"

Hermione nodded affirmative, tugging on Walter. The Lethifold obligingly let her rummage through its "pockets" and pull out a parchment map. "It's a coastline."

Her father's brows knit together. "I must speak with Manfred for a while, pet. Go play for a while."

"May I scare the Department of Redundancy Department?" Hermione asked, bouncing on her heels.

Rasmus' fangs flashed a second as he ruffled her curls. "Of course."

"Yay!" Hermione cheered. "Come on, Walter! Let's go scare some adults!"

The Lethifold billowed behind her as she scampered off.

Rasmus' relaxed expression turned dour as their lips pulled back from their teeth. "Someone is being—naughty." They tapped the locket with one claw. "Where there is smoke—"

Rasmus disappeared in a blur of shadow, deeper into the caverns they called home.

"It's a Horcrux," Manfred said as he itched one funnel ear with this wing claws. "Fairly fresh, I might add."

"The schisms are less fractured in the piece," Rasmus said, running a talon across the parchment map. "It is one of a series, I think. Not the first—more like the fourth fracture."

"A fourth?" The younger woman's brows seemed torn between launch and uniting together in a common wall. "How many times can someone fracture their own soul and survive?"

"Technically? As many as there are murders, but—" Manfred sniffed thoughtfully. "I think about a certain amount, say six, that the soul would be so fragile that it could shatter at a moment's notice and, if the main anchoring piece of the original soul would be a seventh and most important magically capstone piece—"

"Fracture it more than that," Rasmus said, "and the next splits become weaknesses— vital to the origin's existence but ultimately unstable and fragile."

"Wilhelmina," Rasmus said, his voice a rumble. "A storm is likely coming. The one who made this is capable of murder and such selfishness that they would use it to preserve their life."

The Minister for Magic shook her head. "I am unsure how to set in motion what needs to be done. I cannot arrest the possible future. I cannot contain a future crime. Without knowing who made these—"

"It is likely that whoever did has left the Ministry," Manfred said. "Either thinking their Horcrux safe for now or frantically attempting to find what has been lost. Either would be dangerous."

"Or making new ones," Rasmus said.

The Minister for Magic shuddered, pulling her shawl around herself. "I will do some thinking on this. What must be done is complicated."

Manfred huffed a cloud of glowing vapour. "Be careful now of all times, Wilhelmina," he said. "Be cautious. Do not let down your guard. Eat or drink nothing you have not tested first."

"A bit extreme, don't you think, Manfred?" Wilhelmina asked.

"A person who creates a Horcrux must murder," Manfred said. "And a wise person who needs to murder someone anyway would pick someone they needed dead in order to make it. Be careful."

The Minister for Magic sighed and nodded. "I will." She sighed and seemed to change gears. "What of your daughter, Rasmus? When will she be ready for schooling in the Wizarding World?"

"Childhood and time are fickle things— but she should be of the visual age mortals consider ready in a few decades."

"That long?"

"What is time for the immortal?" Rasmus asked with a shrug. "She will be ready to age when she is ready. That is how it is with those such as us. Who am I to deny her that precious childhood that only comes once in a very long lifetime?"

"Immortals are such complicated creatures," Wilhelmina tutted.

Rasmus' lips twitched as Manfred let out a large, toothy yawn.

"It is the balance," Manfred said.

Wilhelmina shook her head. "I hope this is an individual whose goals do not start a war within Britain. We have only just settled in peace as it is."

Rasmus' eyes seemed to glow slightly. "Any mortal willing to murder in order to obtain immortality is unlikely to stop there. It is a great irony that those who often seek immortality cannot relinquish the frenzy of their once finite mortality."

Hermione dutifully set the table, pushing the plates around until they were just right, following her notes as to where the silverware went. She carried the bundle of mangoes to the table and stacked them up neatly on one plate, and then she opened one of the cabinets to stare at a bunch of wooden boxes.

"Dad, do you want the 1927 Noble Born Calamity soul or would you prefer a 1947 Convicted Dark Wizard?"

"Whatever you choose will be fine, love," Rasmus called from the next room.

"Okay!" Hermione peered into the soul cabinet with consternation, her lips puckered slightly in concentration. After a few minutes, she pulled out a dusty box with silver chains wrapped snugly around it. She dusted it off and peered at the faded script on the bit of aged parchment that read: 1558 Royal Dark Witch. She sniffed the edges of the box experimentally, shaking it slightly.

The muffled sound of screaming came from within.

Hermione brightened significantly. "Perfect!"

She took one of the newer-looking boxes and sniffed experimentally. "Daddy, can I have the 1873 Female Serial Killer for dinner tonight?"

"If you promise to eat it all and don't waste anything!" came the answer.

"I promise," Hermione called back.

"That's fine, love."

Hermione beamed with delight, taking the two boxes to the table and placed the 1558 Royal Dark Witch in front of her father's seat and thumped the 1873 Female Serial Killer in front of her own.

She piled a cushion on her dining chair and sat on it experimentally. Frowning, she hopped off it and narrowed her eyes at it. She wandered into the next room and dragged back a bigger, velvet-upholstered cushion, replacing it and sat on the chair again. Her hands thumped on the ancient table's surface. She nodded in approval.

Her eyes grew wide as her head tilted. Realising she'd forgotten a dinner guest, she had a moment of panic.

Who was that talking with her father and her mum?

Would they appreciate a tasty soul? Did they like fruit? What if they were a ghoul and needed fresh meat? Did she have any fresh meat?

She rushed over to the other cabinet marked "For Guests" and opened the door. Multiple meals held in stasis sat on the shelves. "Cajun American?" She shook her head. "French?" She shook her head again. "Vegetarian."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Ew."

She poked through the various prepared dishes and found one marked "Monkfish Curry." That seemed normal enough, right? There was one labelled "English Quail and Truffle Pie with Buttered Kohlrabi" too. Hermione pondered again and pulled out a "Pan-Fried Sea Bass with White Crab Salad" that looked edible.

She put all three on the table for the guest hoping they liked one or the other.

She moved back to her seat and sat on it checking her note cards to make sure everything was in order.

Gah! The drinks!

Hermione scurried off to start the kettle and wrestle down the crystal drinkware for wine.

Ew, wine.

Hermione eyed the bottles of wine with consternation. She personally preferred grape juice or the sparkling grape juice so it tickled her tongue. Wine was—

Well, it was wine.

She eyed the labels, tapping her index claw against her chin. She pulled out her note cards again and shuffled through them. "Wines suitable for lean and flakey fish."

She peered at the wines.

She pulled out one bottle and read it. "Pinot Gris." She checked her note card. "That should work with bass—"

But what about the roasted bird?

She wrinkled her nose, shuffling through the cards.

She pulled out a bottle marked Shiraz Cabernet and took that and the Pinot Gris hoping that between the two the wines would be acceptable. Then to be on the safe side, she chose a bottle of champagne labelled Nectar Impérial as well.

Her arms couldn't quite juggle so many bottles at once, so she scowled slightly.

Walter, ever dutiful, scooped them up in his folds and carried them into the next room.

"Thanks, Walter!" she praised the helpful Lethifold.

She opened up one of the back cupboards and dragged out a sizable smoked leg of something she wasn't quite sure what it was, closing the door before dragging it out to the dining room.

"Don't forget to eat too, Walter!" she called, and the Lethifold promptly descended upon it in a swirl, making happy crunching noises as both flesh and bone disappeared quickly under Walter's hungry attentions.

By the time her father, mummy-Manfred, and the guest came to the table, Walter had already finished his meal, settling around her back and shoulders with an almost undetectable burp.

As they all settled around the table, her father's talons scritched her head affectionately before he sat down in his seat, and Hermione sighed with relief at her success in not making an awful mess of dinner.

Growing up was a lot of work. She wasn't quite sure if she was ready to face attending school with others.

Time passes...

Manfred's ear flicked as he heard the sounds of furious organisation going on in Hermione's room. "Dare I ask?"

Rasmus shrugged. "I believe she got in a bit of a row with the humanity tutor."

"Poor Mrs Cartwright," Manfred said. "I admire her for attempting to teach our various spawns how to at least appear human, but sometimes I think she forgets that human is not the natural state of being down here. What exactly did they row about?"

"She told her that humans did not wear carnivorous cloaks."

"I'm sure that went well."

"I think she argued 'Well they should'!"

"Mrs Cartwright couldn't come up with a good answer to that, could she?"

Rasmus smiled, a glint of pointed teeth peeking out from his lips. "Few can withstand the scrutiny of our daughter."

Manfred peeled the skin of the mango he had in front of him, worked the fruit in his mouth and spit out the pristine pit into the pile next to him.

Rasmus pulled out a silver cage with a naked rat in it. The rat, utterly furless, had a disturbing tattoo of a very badly inked bat.

"Didn't try very hard anchoring that Tenebris, did they?" Manfred said, setting himself on another Mango. "It's the thought that counts when anchoring a cursed undead soul of an immortal criminal, vampire or otherwise."

"Messy work that," Manfred added. "The entire Tenebris cage. Create one and everyone knows you did, so you paint this huge target on your head that says 'Tenebris me' and then whoever does that—"

Rasmus smiled. "They are delicious." He opened the cage and his talons poked the tattoo and seemed to pull strands of something that was squirming, struggling, and screeching out of the rat. With a flash of movement, his hand crushed the escaping Tenebris, and he pet it fondly just before biting into it and chewing savouringly.

The Tenebris screeched and screamed in rhyme and verse as it was eaten "alive" down to the last wisp of iambic pentameter.

Manfred's ears were plastered to his head with annoyance. "Must you eat them at the dinner table?"

"Where else would I eat dinner?"

"Far from the dinner table."

"How barbaric," Rasmus said, licking his lips. "I do not quibble over your choice in frugivory delights."

"My delights do not scream when eaten."

Rasmus tilted his head, his platinum hair falling about his face. "Pity."

Time passes...

Severus remained where he was, hidden behind the bedroom door. He trembled a little, unhappy with his body's instinct reaction to his father's raised voice.

Get a grip, he told himself. Don't cry like a baby.

Severus had woken to his father yelling again. It had become so frequent that he could almost set his watch to it— if he'd been able to afford one. He could hear his mum trying to placate him as always, and just as predictably Tobias would blame her for all of their problems.

He wondered why she didn't just leave and take him to the Wizarding World instead of just taking the daily accusations and blame from a man that obviously didn't care for her let alone love her.

Each day that went by, his mum seemed to get weaker and weaker against his father's demands, and he hated it.

She was magical—

She should be able to stand up to him!

But no, she always tucked him in bed and then took the brunt of his father's attentions, however bad, and she never used magic.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't right!

What was the use of having magic if you couldn't use it? Why did she hide away in the Muggle world when she could take him and leave?

Leave Tobias.

Leave Cokeworth.

Just leave.

He wrapped himself in his arms, shivering partly from the cold and partly from his inability to do anything that he would have wanted to do. He saw shadows moving under the bed, and the part of him that was never allowed to deal with his fear of the dark due to the over encompassing fear of his father tried to decide what was scarier.

He didn't have a wand, yet. If he was older he could make Tobias leave them alone. He could—

He heard stomping as his father stormed up the creaky staircase.

"That freak son did it, didn't he? Put his hand in the jar and took that fiver set aside for my beer!"

"No, Tobias, no!" he heard his mum's voice cry.

"I'll wring his bloody neck!" he heard his father yell, and Severus quickly ran into the corner and tried to make himself disappear.

His door flew open, kicked by his father's boot. Mud from his shoes flew in all directions, some of it dripped from the ghost of his boot sole imprinted on the door.

Severus cringed as his father approached.

His mother tried to put a hand on Tobias' shoulder to pull him back, and he backhanded her, sending her flying into the wall with a crack.

Severus tried to escape, but he was already against the wall. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

"I'll teach you to steal from me, boy—" Tobias snarled, foam flecks flew from his mouth as he yelled. He felt hands around his neck—

Severus choked, his legs kicking as his father pinned him to the wall.

He was going to die.

He couldn't breathe—

He was going to die!

He couldn't see through the tears—

And suddenly, the hands around his throat were gone, and Severus was choking, gasping, clutching his throat—

His vision was blurred with tears.

Yet, as he looked, blinked, and tried to focus, he saw shadows moving in the dark of the room. Shadows churned, writhed, seethed.

There was a young girl, his age perhaps, standing in a living pool of darkness. Her hair was all brown and curls, but those curls moved like serpents on the head of Medusa. Her eyes were black where the whites should have been, and while they first looked brown, they changed to an ice-like grey-blue. Her hand— so small and petite— tapered into talons as her fingers crushed into Tobias' throat.

She looked at Severus, her gaze raking over him and then to the fallen form of his mum. A dark cloak whipped around her as if by wind, yet there was none since his window was closed.

Her lips pulled back from teeth so white they seemed to glow. "You do not belong here," her voice was quiet, barely a whisper. She stared into Tobias' wrathful and yet fearful face.

He was choking as Severus had once been choking.

Gasping.

Struggling.

Her eyes glowed in the dark of the room, and a strange blackness seemed to emerge from Tobias' mouth and nose. It seemed to writhe and slither, lingering as if it were tied to his father's body. It was not mist or anything Severus knew—

It was alive, somehow.

It was alien.

Shapeless—

Suddenly, the young girl dropped her hand from Tobias' throat and snatched the dark, writhing "thing" that seemed to defy shape and recognition. She sniffed, drawing her nose close to it even as her fingers clenched. "Gotcha."

The thing screeched and snapped, struggling like a captured stoat, even as Tobias fell backwards, unconscious.

The girl turned to Severus, her jaw clenched in anger. "Such parasites feed on the goodness of a person, leaving them with only the bad, the hate, the vices, and the spite. When he wakes, he will be free."

She blinked at him. "And so will you." She turned her head to where his mum was crumpled. "And her."

The darkness swirled around her as it rose up to consume her, her body seemed to fade out.

"Wait!" Severus called. "Who are you? Thank you. For saving me."

The girl seemed puzzled by him. She stared at the thing in her hand and then at him. "Hermione," she said.

Severus bit his lip, conflicted. He should have been afraid, but she had just saved him from his father's wrath— and if what she said was true, saved them all. "I'm Severus. Will I see you again?"

Her brows furrowed as she seemed to think about it. She looked down and then up at him. "You want to?"

She looked at herself and then the thing in her hand as if it explained all the reasons he should say no.

Severus nodded instead. "I would."

Hermione seemed to think again. "Okay."

And then she was gone.

"Eileen?" Tobias groaned, holding his head. "What happened? Eileen!"

His father scrambled to his mum's side, cradling her. "Eileen, what happened? Come out of it. Come on now!"

And then the moment Severus would never forget bowled him flat over as his father's hands glowed with healing magic, and his mum took a sharp breath as her eyes opened.

"T-tobias?"

"I thought you were dead," Tobias said, voice full of emotion. "I thought you were dead."

His mum reached her hands out to touch Tobias' face. "It's you— you're back!"

"Back? Whatever do you mean?"

"Da?" Severus blurted.

Tobias' head snapped around to stare. "W— what?"

His mum touched his jaw and drew it around, tears in her eyes. "Tobias, this is our son. Severus."

His father's mouth worked soundlessly. "Severus? I have a son? We have— I'm a father?"

Eileen nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Tobias looked from Severus to Eileen and back again. "I have a son! We have a SON!" He crushed Severus' mum to his chest and sobbed as he murmured. "We survived. We survived. We survived." He rocked Severus' mother in his arms, eyes closed even as his mum wept.

Severus could only stare with wide eyes and wonder, Survive what?

"So, he's not trying to hurt you, now?" Hermione asked, leaning against the dark of the tree.

Severus shook his head. "No," he said, dipping his feet in the pond water. The summer heat was far too high to resist the cooler temperature of the water. "It's so strange. All my life, he's called me a freak— a mistake. But he's not like that now. He's sad that he missed out on my growing up. He's polite. He's— magical. He loves my mum. You can tell. You can actually tell."

Hermione tilted her head, regarding him as one would evaluate something unexpected.

Severus stared at his toes, wiggling them as tadpoles nipped at them experimentally. The tadpoles scattered, not expecting that particular response. "You didn't have to save me, save my family. Why did you?"

Hermione blinked slowly, her brows furrowing. "It was a parasite. A created thing. It was no longer of the natural or supernatural world. It existed only as a function, not to survive, and it was a captured soul. Twisted so it no longer remembered form or function."

Severus looked at her strangely.

"It also smelled good, and I was hungry."

Severus looked up at the willow branches. "I didn't know, I mean— I didn't think you could eat something like that."

"I didn't think you could eat something that smells like feet, either," Hermione said, her eyes flicking to the remains of Severus' Limburger cheese and onion on rye sandwich.

Both children eyed each other for a moment before bursting out in giggles. They calmed after a while, and Severus reached over to cover Hermione's clawed hand as they looked up at the sky through the willow branches together.

"I'm glad you did," he confessed, his fingers squeezing hers.

Hermione seemed startled at first, but then she smiled at him genuinely as she touched shoulders with him and settled in to enjoy his company.

Severus realised that for the first time, he was at peace— both at home and outside it. It was something he'd never had before, never thought possible.

He had a future, a family.

He looked at Hermione in a shared smile.

A friend.

"Sev! Sev, where are you?" a voice pierced the quiet camaraderie of the summer day. "Tuni is angry at me again! Sev!"

Severus startled, looked torn, but when he looked to where Hermione had been, she was gone like mist disappearing over the pond in the morning.

When Lily came trompsing over the hill towards him, the disquiet grew in his stomach again, but it was not the Limburger cheese sandwich his mum had lovingly made him that made it so.

"I'm not ready."

"You— aren't ready?"

"My baby isn't ready to go to— to— human school."

Manfred slumped, shaking his head. "You're the bloody Boogeyman, Rasmus. You can handle our daughter going off to school."

Rasmus shook their head. "It's only been four decades. She's not ready yet."

"She's more than ready," Manfred reassured.

"She needs a few more decades." Rasmus glared at the offending Hogwarts letter. "Maybe five or even six more."

"She's a child, not an infant, Rasmus."

Rasmus sat at the table, a fuzzy blanket over their head as they cradled a steaming cup of hot cocoa in their talons.

"You're pouting."

"She's not ready."

"She's ready, trust me."

"She's only a little over forty," Rasmus reasoned.

"Rasmus, you said before that she'd start growing up when she was ready. She's ready. She looks like a typical eleven-year-old human child. You can't expect her to stay looking small and precocious forever."

"Can too," Rasmus huffed adamantly.

A clamour of footsteps caused both Manfred and Rasmus to swiftly jerk their heads up.

"Daddy, mum, look!" Hermione cried, spinning around in her new school robes. "Minister Jenkins took me to get my robes! Aren't they wonderful!"

Manfred looked at Rasmus. "Point made."

Rasmus stormed out of the room and into the darker parts of the caves.

Hermione frowned.

"Don't worry about him, sweetling," Manfred said warmly, giving her a hug. "You look ready to take on the world."

"Daddy didn't like my uniform," Hermione said, slumping.

"Oh, that's not it at all, love." Manfred snuggled her. "Your father is just having a hard time accepting the fact that you'll be going off to school."

Hermione pressed her face into Manfred's warm fur. "I thought he'd be proud of me."

"He is, love," Manfred said soothingly. "He's just going to need some time to accept you're ready. You're starting to grow up."

"How long did it take you to grow up, mum?"

Manfred shrugged his wings expressively. "Some would say I'm still doing it."

Hermione giggled, snuggled into his warm wings. "I promise, I'm going to make you proud, mummy."

"I already am, love," Manfred crooned.

"This vehicle seems rather unnatural," Hermione said, looking a little nervous. She sat on the seat directly across from Severus with a copy of Hogwarts: a History in her lap.

"It's a tradition," Severus said, pointing to the book in her lap.

"It's an odd tradition in a world where people can easily fly or Apparate or take a Floo."

Severus snorted. "You can't Apparate until you're older and have training."

Hermione crossed her arms across her chest in disagreement.

"You're hardly a typical person," he said. "Besides, I'm not even sure if what you do even qualifies as Apparition."

Hermione shrugged. "It works."

The compartment door opened, and a pretty girl with long red hair pushed her way in with a large bag of assorted treats. "I got us some treats from the trolley, Sev!" she announced, her face puckering in displeasure when she noticed Hermione. She plopped down by Severus, budging him over so she could sit right next to him. She smiled brightly as she gave him half the spoils, filling his lap with a great pile of sweets.

Hermione put her book back in her bag and pulled out a small lacquered box. She opened it to expose a number of small crystalline-looking nuggets inside. She took one and put it in her mouth, closing the box and putting it away.

As the sugary coating melted, Hermione seemed to gain a satisfied grin as the faint sound of an impotent scream seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Lily made a strange sound as she pulled closer to Severus. "What is that, Sev!?"

"It's her father's special homemade rock candy."

"No, I mean what was THAT?!" she cried.

Severus shrugged, picked up a sweet from the pile in his lap and unwrapped it, popping it into his mouth. "I see no difference."

If Lily noticed Hermione's small twitch of lips turning into a smile, she didn't say anything— she was far too busy screwing her eyes shut and trying to forget the horrible sound of soul-tearing screams.

The Sorting did not go well for Severus, for while he was Sorted into Slytherin, both Lily and Hermione were Sorted into Gryffindor. And while Lily was surrounded by people that seemed very happy to welcome her, Hermione looked uncomfortable around such boisterous people.

Her Sorting had not gone particularly well, either.

The hat couldn't seem to decide on where to put her, and it had started to smoke on top of her head. The Headmaster had made the decision for it, stating that he could see she was very brave to wait so patiently—

It seemed like a bit of a dodge to him. The Headmaster seemed far more interested in getting people to the food—

Slytherin was excited to get him, knowing that his father was the renowned, lost Healer who had created the Triae de Maledicto potion, which would have exposed members of the Prince family as the parties behind certain wizards inexplicably becoming squibs along with any children born of their line. .

His mother had fallen in love with Tobias, and they had secretly worked on a way to expose what was done to curse victims— any who had been felled by curse. It was a potion that Aurors couldn't wait to get their hands on, and it offered both a way to trace a curse on a victim and a way to condemn those that cast it.

To discourage his mum from marrying such a grave threat to their family, they had squib-cursed him to make him seem worthless. But—

Unbeknownst to the Princes, his mum had already wed Tobias in secret and was pregnant in a magically sealed marriage.

It was why she couldn't leave him— even when Tobias had turned into a drunken, foul sort without his magic, twisted and cruel.

The Squib-curse was one of the most vicious magicks a person could inflict on another magical, short of the Killing Curse. Torture even seemed less significant in the face of losing one's magic completely. The potion had offered an end to the Squib-curse— because if someone could be found guilty of casting it, they would be treated as worse than a criminal.

Azkaban for life at the best.

The Dementor's Kiss at the worst.

To attack someone with magic was, at its best, a perfectly natural thing for those who were magical. To attack another's innate magic, however, was to attack the very root of all magic— forbidden by even the oldest of wizarding families.

If magic left your family line, it was a shame no proud pureblood family could live with, often quite literally.

For those born to magic who lost it by such a curse found themselves transformed into bitter, cruel folk whose magicless body manifested the very worst traits possible, its forcible withdrawal from what should have been there all along.

But while Severus now knew the reason why his parents had been driven into hiding and had even come to terms with his father not being the horrible person he'd always believed him to be, he still wasn't quite sure what to make of their rather drastic change in status.

Not being dirt poor.

Not living in a magic-less house.

Not hearing his parents scream and fight every night—

It had been what he'd desperately wished for so many nights, never once dreaming that it could one day become reality.

He had a chance to make of himself the best he could be. He could make both his parents proud. He could have goals other than wanting to get out of his shite life—

So, when he saw Hermione sitting on the end of the Gryffindor table some seemingly eight furlongs away from everyone else, pointedly isolated and ostracised, he decided he would take a stand for her as she had done for him. He beckoned her over, budging over so she could sit down with them at the Slytherin table.

Her eyes went wide as she looked to the other faces beside him.

Some of the Slytherin around him seemed to frown, but when he put up his chin and said, "She's my friend, and they aren't treating her right," they made way for her.

Hermione, strangely shy in the face of social interaction with other people, sat a bit closer to him than strictly necessary in the awkwardness of both the Slytherin children asking her lots of questions and the Gryffindor children sending her disapproving glares.

Out of the corner of his eye, Severus noted the frown on the Headmaster's face, and he prickled. He hadn't let the hat actually Sort Hermione, so getting upset that Slytherin was treating her with common decency was hardly fair.

It was then that a seemingly kind-faced elderly witch in red and white robes walked up to Hermione and gave her a tight smile.

"True neutrality is a rare trait," she said not unkindly. "How would you like to apprentice with me in healing, Miss Granger?"

Severus blinked at the last name. Granger seemed like such a Muggle name. Knowing who— or rather what Hermione most definitely wasn't— he found the name a little strange.

The Slytherin at the table whispered that this was Madam Pomfrey, the school's mediwitch— to apprentice with her would indeed be something to write home about!

He nudged Hermione out of her gaping. "Go on!"

Hermione jerked her head up. "I would love to."

Madam Pomfrey's smile was tight but genuine. "Come with me, Miss Granger. The bond is something to be done in the quiet space between Chaos and Order."

Hermione looked at him apprehensively, but Severus gave her an encouraging nod. She smiled shyly and stood up, following the mediwitch out of the Great Hall.

As Hermione left, there were slaps on his back and cheers. He'd made a friend with the first apprentice in years. Not even one day in, he was the pride of Slytherin.

He felt eyes on his back and he looked toward Gryffindor's table to see Lily eyeing him with a very scrunched expression. Whether it was because of how he had invited Hermione to the table or some other reasoning, Severus wasn't sure. He frowned back at her.

She should be happy for him. It wasn't like she wasn't making fast friends with far too many people at her table.

Severus sighed. Why did it always have to be a drama?

He'd had enough of that to last a lifetime.

As she settled in, Hermione started the year off in the Gryffindor Tower while she waited for the renovations to be made in the infirmary to accommodate both Pomfrey and her new apprentice together. Since she started off (albeit proclaimed by Dumbledore) a Gryffindor, they didn't really have much ground to complain, but instead of being proud that one of "theirs" was chosen to be an apprentice, Hermione experienced the cold shoulder of not fitting in even more harshly than before.

And there were pranksters afoot that seemed to get no small amount of pleasure in hazing the firstie witches with everything from toad rains to spider infestations. Each event seemed to drive all the first-year witches (and quite a few non first-years, screaming to their Head of House.

Yet, when Minerva McGonagall came to set things right, she found Hermione curled up in bed, blissfully oblivious to all the screams and drama, the toads covering the floor and desks, and the unhappy exotic purple-spotted bouncing spiders cluttered around Hermione's sleeping form as they tried to avoid being eaten by the toads.

Madam Pomfrey marched in some time later, summoned by Minerva's cat Patronus, and helped her sleepy apprentice gather up the purple-spotted bouncing spiders. They were, she was happy to report, important providers of a special venom used in several potent healing tonics, provided the spider was not man-handled and squeezed.

Severus found it fascinating almost immediately because everything he had read about bouncing spider juice required the squishing of spiders down into juice. He couldn't wait to ask Hermione about it when next they studied together.

So, when next he found his friend, Hermione was surrounded in hyperactive, overly happy, bouncing spiders, all waiting to to make their venomous contributions to the cause if only Hermione would give them a cuddle and rub their abdomens and if she would please be so kind, give them a nice plump fly or cricket to eat.

"You may help, if you wish," Madam Pomfrey said. "Hermione, dear, if you would please show him how?"

"Yes, Master," Hermione answered with a smile, sharing the bowl of insects, pipettes, and half the rampaging horde of jumping spiders.

The spiders, once they realised he was also a provider of belly rubs and insects, happily thunked their fangs onto the pipette for science.

Hermione giggled as a few enthusiastic spiders silk-wove his hair into intricate war braids.

Severus sighed as she leaned into him with a happy sigh, and he realised that just that one act made her so much greater than Lily's ever-jealous 'no-touch unless she wanted something' affection.

"You want to go study under the tree later?" Severus asked.

"Sure, when all Madam Pomfrey's tasks are done."

"You may go study after you are done with this, Hermione," Pomfrey said from across the room.

"Thank you, Master!" Hermione said, pleased.

One of the spiders on Severus' head pounced on another, jealous over one of the juicy insects.

Hermione and Severus giggled together and finished their chores.

Hermione found her things pushed out of the room and the door blocked as well as locked.

She frowned, one tip of her claws tracing around the door handle as her jaw set.

"She's a freak, a freak!" she heard the faint whispers from the other side. "Quiet, she'll know we're here— shh!"

Her nose wrinkled as she caught the scent of their sickly sweet perfumes and body sprays.

Tch, she wouldn't have been able to concentrate let alone sleep.

She cast a Wingardium Leviosa on her trunk and took it with her. "I hope you didn't steal anything from my trunk," she said. "You shouldn't steal what isn't yours."

Hermione shook her head and continued down the stairs. She ignored the furtive whispers from the people in the common room who would rather talk behind her back than to her face.

Bravery, my arse, Hermione thought to herself. This tower is full of cowards.

Hermione smiled at them genuinely.

They had no idea what fear really was.

"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, but as there is no evidence of this, and what you brought with you wasn't exactly on the school supply list, we cannot simply take your word that they stole a bag of sweets from you," Dumbledore said as he sucked on a lemon drop. "Perhaps, in the haste of the prank—"

"Shoving my apprentice's belongings out the door and not letting her into her dormitory is not a prank, Albus. It was a cruel, entirely intentional ostracisation!"

Dumbledore raised his hand, quieting Poppy's protest.

"My father is very protective of my things, Headmaster," Hermione said. "He would be very displeased to find out that something of mine was spread out between those I did not give permis—"

"Miss Granger, we do take theft at Hogwarts very seriously, but unlike with things that have a definite history, are identifiable— sweets are very hard to track. While this is unfortunate that you lost them, we cannot assume that your housemates stole them."

Hermione's expression darkened, and for a moment, her brown eyes seemed not very brown at all.

A trick of the light that made her eyes seemed like ice and shadow, perhaps, if it weren't for the slitted pupils. No, Dumbledore thought. Definitely a trick of the light.

"They will not appreciate the flavour," Hermione said. Her lip twitched, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

Dumbledore scratched his beard as emergency renovations had to be made to accommodate almost half of Gryffindor Tower in the Infirmary Wing. All of them were suffering from severe gastric pain and vivid hallucinations. Many of them were screaming about monsters as if they were trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

He was slightly annoyed by the fact that Poppy seemed quite amused by it all, almost as if she were mocking him for not listening to her apprentice when they had tried to tell him that the other students had not only kicked her out of the dormitory but also stolen some of her food.

Pranks happened all the time at Hogwarts. There was no real harm in it.

But this—

The students were screaming and attacking things that weren't even there so much so that they had to be restrained and heavily sedated. Mind healers were coming over from Mungos to help assess the problem.

And people were whispering about the Chamber of Secrets opening somewhere in the school.

But hadn't Miss Granger warned him?

Surely a child was not capable of creating such a curse that could affect her entire first-year class?

Dumbledore frowned. He was going to have to speak to her parents.

There was something very off about Mr Granger, and Albus couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The man's gaze was terribly predatory— not in the way that he suspected pedophilia or perverseness, but like a tiger sizing up a wild boar. He wore glasses on his nose, but they did not conceal his almost unnatural cat-like gaze. It made him think that perhaps the man had spent too much time in an Animagus form and never quite left the predator behind.

"Let me get this straight, Headmaster," Rasmus said, their fingers brushing their chin in a stroking gesture. "Some fool children stole my daughter's things and you think she is somehow to blame for their writhings?"

"I think that perhaps she may have cursed the items—"

"Of course she didn't curse her things," Rasmus scoffed. "I did. To punish thieves."

"You—"

"To covet is such a natural thing. To steal— is completely unacceptable. Had she given it of her own free will, nothing would have happened."

"They are writhing in my Infirmary claiming that death is coming for them!"

"Hardly, that one has other places to be," Rasmus said, tapping one unnervingly talon-like nail on their teeth.

"I will please request that you remove this curse from the children, Mr Granger," Albus said. "This is a school. They should be safe here."

"As my child's things were safe? As she was safe? Kicked out from her own dormitory after being taken into a very prodigious apprenticeship? Please tell me what you mean by— safe, Headmaster?"

"It is not appropriate to curse a child, Mr Granger."

"It is not appropriate to lie and steal either," Rasmus said grimly. "Both of which must have happened for the curse to have triggered."

Dumbledore's eyes widened slightly. "There were conditions?"

"There are always conditions." Rasmus curled his lip, unamused. "First they stole, then they lied. What happened after that— they asked for."

"They are children, they hardly asked for that," Albus argued.

"Tell me, Headmaster," Rasmus said, their chin lifting slightly. "Have you ever done something overly stupid as a child after being clearly told not to? Have you ever in life let a spell slip in anger or the moment and hurt someone? Does your guilt after make it any better as to the result? We simply have rules. Boundaries. I have protected my child's things as is my right in the old laws. Nothing was killed. And there is an escape clause, of course. Her mum insisted, after all."

Dumbledore looked uncomfortable under Rasmus' gaze but unsure as to why he was feeling so specifically. "And what is this escape clause, Mr Granger?"

Rasmus smiled malevolently. "A truthful, detailed, confession."

"Oh."

Meanwhile, back at the shared cavern of Rasmus and Manfred, Manfred had the severe compulsion to stress-cook a pile of food fit to feed an army of hundreds.

Hermione stood over each of Pomfrey's patients with a glowing gem wrapped in silver wire. It dangled on a chain that she held between her talons, her claws unsheathing as she adjusted the chain to set the gem in movement.

It was a ritual she had done many times before since she was able to use her hands to open Mummy Manfred's locked cabinets to get to the most interesting picture books. Feeding yourself and preserving food for later was, after all, the most basic of needs.

She cracked her neck as she passed by, drawing on her power to draw the extra soul out of squatting with the living, pulling it back into the gem for later. Annoyed that they had taken the pleasure of eating her father's favourite crystal soul-candy, at least the souls were not going to go to waste.

Maybe she could make a pie and add some soul nutrition into it later—

Or a cheesecake.

Mmm, soulful cheesecake.

She could make half a soul side and half normal so Severus could share it with her. He liked cheesecake, too.

Licking her lips in anticipation, she pulled the errant (albeit devoured) corrupt and aged-souls from their unintentional hiding spot and locked them in the gem one by one until every one of the "victims" were relieved of their extra soul baggage.

The gem glowed brightly for a moment as the pleasant sound of impotent screams died down. Corrupt souls were always so— whiny. Delicious, but whiny.

By the time she made her way back to her apprentice room, the victims settled into a less tortured but no less uneasy sleep— no, relief would not come to them until her father's curse clause had been met.

That was on them.

Summer after their first year came quickly despite the infamous Gryffindor Curse that had the school thinking they were seriously glad they weren't Gryffindors. When the truth finally came out, a number of revelations were revealed regarding those in Gryffindor that did not help their reputations among the other houses one iota.

Hermione settled in with her role as apprentice with Madam Pomfrey, and Severus learned he really had a knack for potions as well as a love for the art. The days passed swiftly, and summer hols were there before they knew it.

Hermione and her father helped Severus' parents move into a new place in Hogsmeade: a small healer's clinic and apothecary for those ailments that did not require the work of a full team of Mungos' healers to fix.

Hermione had said that her mum sent his best regards but would be unable to make it for moving day.

After the official meeting of the parents, Severus and Hermione spent almost every day together, getting well ahead in their studies, learning from Tobias about the healing arts and potions, and curse-breaking from Eileen. Poppy Pomfrey would come by every week to give specialised lessons for Hermione to work on, knowing full well that her mind would NOT be resting during the summer.

Sometimes, Tobias, Poppy, and Eileen would talk about healing way into the night, and Severus and Hermione would fall asleep trying to keep listening but ultimately failing.

Lily sent letters almost every week, mostly to complain about "Tuni," and Severus would struggle with the guilt of not being there to comfort her as he always had been and being relieved that he wasn't there to hear her simultaneously complain about Tuni and yet make her life seem like it was so much better than his.

Even knowing that Severus' situation had changed didn't change Lily much, he told Hermione.

"Don't you— want to spend time with her?" Hermione asked. "You knew her before—"

She looked up at the clouds dancing across the sky. "Before you met me."

"She didn't offer to help me move," Severus said as if it explained everything. "You did."

Hermione tilted her head. "Do you think she was mad you were moving?"

Severus' eyebrows knit together. "I don't really know."

Hermione sighed. "I can take you there— to see her if you want to visit. I need to find a meal, anyway. Cokeworth has a lot of food."

"How do you tell the difference between a natural and unnatural soul?" he asked.

"You know how your mum pounds the steak with a mallet?"

Severus nodded. "Yeah."

"A natural soul is whole. Life can dull the finish or polish it, but it remains flexible. An unnatural soul is broken and hammered down. Certain things make them fragile, crack, even have pieces break off from the whole. The more horrible the things— the less they connect to the natural world. The more unnatural they are— the more they are food."

Severus seemed to ponder it quite a bit. "You ate my neighbour, didn't you? The one who used to kill the neighbourhood dogs and cats. They found him in a coma. All this evidence. Mum took the paper away, but I saw it. He had a woman locked in a hidden room. Almost dead. She said— he was going to kill her."

Hermione looked at him. "Does this frighten you?"

Severus frowned. "A little."

Hermione closed her eyes.

"But— you're like a lion, right? You have to eat other things to survive. You pick off the sick and the weak." Severus looked at her. "You're still my friend."

Hermione opened her eyes and looked at him. "I'm probably not the best example of a normal friend you could have."

Severus shook his head. "You're still my friend. That's all that matters."

Hermione smiled.

Fifth Year

Mysterious Murders Across Britain

Insidious murders have spread across Britain not long after the Ministry's happier announcement that the golden cup of Helga Hufflepuff had been found and restored to a place of honour in the Wizarding Museum along with found Hogwarts relics such as the locket of Salazar Slytherin, the broom of Godric Gryffindor, and the jeweled music box of Rowena Ravenclaw.

The murders, which have ranged from Muggles to magical, seem to display a disturbing lack of planning on the part of the killer or killers, and Aurors seem to think that it could be a new spree killer the likes of which we have not seen since Credence Barebone in the magical world.

Citizens are warned to ward their homes and not invite in unknown strangers to their homes no matter how innocuous they may seem. Please report any suspicious activity to Aurors immediately without engaging the party in question.

"I knew you would be picked!" Hermione said with a huge smile on her face. "You're so good at potions, it was only a matter of time!"

Severus looked down at his parchment with disbelief. "You don't think it's just because my da is a healer?"

Hermione shook her head. "You've always been such a natural at potions," she said. "Maybe certain things do run in the family, but you still have to do the learning on your own. That's what Mum always says. A talent withers without practice."

Severus brightened, his hair falling about his face as the wind jostled it free from the tie had used to pull it back. "With you studying healing and me with potions, we could work at mum and da's clinic and apothecary."

Hermione smiled but then frowned a little. "It's a nice dream, but I'm sure they'd want to keep it in the family."

Severus looked about ready to say something when rustling broke the peace of the late afternoon.

There was nothing around them, but the rustling had been distinct enough to alert them of something being off.

Suddenly, a giant brown rat climbed up Hermione's robes, diving up her sleeve, and then popping out of her cleavage as it lunged toward her face.

Hermione's hand moved quicker than the eye could see as crystalline claws lengthened from her fingertips and her fingers clamped around the rodent like a vise. Her eyes flashed with an eerie blue fire and ice, and her fingers dug deep into the rat's body, immobilising it completely to the point where it made faint sq-sq-squeaks as its body could only twitch.

She narrowed her eyes at the rat, her nostrils flaring. "You were not invited to this party."

"Vulnus et Adolebit!" came a familiar male voice, the spell slicing through Hermione's robes and causing her to crumple. Dark stains spread rapidly over her red and white apprentice robes— blood. She staggered as her robes burst into flames, and she screamed.

Potter had his wand out, clearly ready to cast another spell, and Black was a blur of motion as he transformed into a great black dog and leapt at Hermione's arm, savaging it viciously as if to release what was in her hand.

Severus had his wand out in an instant, and he quickly cast a spell, paralysing the "dog" and sending it careening into the nearby Whomping Willow (which gleefully pummelled it into a battered and bloody fleshbag before flinging him straight through the Headmaster's open balcony door.)

Severus looked to Hermione, his eyes wide with fear as he saw her blood seeping everywhere. Every moment with her seemed to play back in his mind, paralysing his thoughts as he staggered to her side. "Hermione!"

"Facti Anguis!" Potter snarled at Severus, and the spell hit him straight to the chest.

Severus cried out in agony as his body thrashed violently on the ground, elongating, ripping out of his robes, thrashing on the ground as a low hiss escaped his throat. Fangs jutted out of his top gum, venom dripping, even as a distinct cobra hood unfurled around his head in place of his hair. Shimmering scales spread across his rapidly elongating body as his lower half became that of a giant snake.

Potter seemed to realise that was not quite the effect he had been hoping for, and he quickly hit Severus' tortured body with another spell, "Flagellum Cruenta!"

Cruel slashes formed over Severus' newly scaled body, as blood seeped from the wounds, but Severus rose up on his serpentine tail, his pale human torso naked and whipped bloody. The wounds healed as Potter watched in horror, and the newly created naga hissed at him, fangs bared in fury. His tail whipped out at Potter and coiled around him, his body no longer awkward and gangly. The serpent half was pure muscle and unholy wrath.

His coils crushed Potter's body until the bones crunched.

Suddenly, Potter's body twisted and reformed, taking Severus off guard just enough to loosen his coils, and a stag bound-staggered away, seemed to rethink it, and then charged at him, antlers lowered in deadly intent.

"Immobulus!" came Dumbledore's yell as a gaggle of teaching staff came running with him. He looked with horror at Hermione's burnt and bleeding body even as Severus was frozen in place, his serpentine tail curled around her protectively as he was poised to take the blow of the charging stag's antlers.

Dumbledore cast a series of spells in a low grunt, and the stag turned into James Potter, the rat clutched in Hermione's hand turned back into Peter Pettigrew, and as for Severus—

His body remained exactly as it was— half man, half snake: a naga.

Unsure as to who to he should restrain and who not to, Dumbledore simply bound them all before releasing his Immobulus.

"Miss Granger needs the infirmary at once!" Dumbledore snapped.

"We need to take her to the Hogsmeade clinic!" Minerva gasped, panting as she caught up. "Poppy has been badly hurt via the master and apprentice bond. Whatever hit Miss Granger injured Poppy too!"

Dumbledore's face scrunched as he eyed the other students, visibly conflicted.

Minerva and Pomona scooped up Hermione and carried her outside the Hogwarts gates in order to Apparate, and a grim-faced Flitwick gathered the wands of students with a swish and flick.

Both wizards regarded the naga with wariness as Severus was eyeing him with nothing less than smouldering wrath. The two illegal Animagi, however, not including the one who smashed through his balcony door into his office, put a new spin on the possibilities he had not been aware of.

The naga stared back at him, unblinking, the inhuman stillness of a natural predator instilled in his every cell.

"Mr Snape, do you care to explain yourself?"

The naga's lip twitched, a glint of fangs flashed. "Hermione and I were attacked."

"That freak attacked Peter!" Potter snarled.

"They attacked us first." Snape's tail twitched back and forth like a rattle.

"I have an injured wizard in my office who claims otherwise, Mr Snape."

"I'm sure he would say that after he savaged Hermione's arm as a bloody dog. I am sure there are black hairs to be found in my best friend's ravaged flesh." Severus' black gaze was inhumanly blacker than usual. "They turned me into this."

"Transfigurative permanent magic is hardly the skill level of a fifth year—"

"Oh, like—" Severus hissed. "Animagus transformations?" Severus's tail was moving, and Severus' impressive height rose even taller as his tail pushed up his human torso and his arms crossed over his chest. "I am not to blame here, and when Hermione wakes up, she will tell you the same."

"Of course she would!" Potter snarled. "They are thick as thieves. Those two berks hurt Peter!"

"Ask them why Peter was even close to us tonight!" Severus demanded. "Ask them how they sneaked up to us unseen just before a bloody rat ran up Hermione's robes. INSIDE her robes!"

"You're a liar!" James yelled.

"No, he's not," Slughorn said as he limped up, obviously in pain. "I was nearby gathering potion ingredients, Headmaster. I arrived when I heard the kerfuffle, and as I attempted to intervene, I was slammed into this tree and had the wind knocked out of me. I only just recovered, I'm sorry to say. I could do nothing but watch."

"Horace—" Dumbledore said. "Those are some very grave accusations."

"I have proof," Horace said. "My memories should be more than enough, but should they not—" Slughorn pulled out a somewhat rumpled and torn invisibility cloak, its fabric clearly having seen better days. "They dropped this on me just before attacking Mr Snape and Miss Granger. Granger was attacked first. Mr Snape came to her defense— and it was Mr Potter who cast the spell that turned Mr Snape into the shape you see now. The spell in question was 'Facti Anguis'."

Dumbledore's expression puckered. "I see."

Crack!

Crack-Crack!

Crack!

A blur of brown robes materialised outside the gate to Hogwarts.

Dumbledore closed his eyes and sighed.

Student Gang Savagely Attacks Two Fellow Students at Hogwarts! Illegal Unregistered Animagi to Blame!

An unprovoked attack on two Apprentices at Hogwarts have the school reeling from the implications that the Headmaster was unaware of the Animagus activity at his school. Albus Dumbledore has said only that the event is under investigation, but three victims were treated in the Hogsmeade Healing Hearts Clinic and Apothecary due to the simultaneous injury of master and apprentice during the attack.

The sacred bond between a master and their apprentice has always been incredibly strong, and one of the many reasons this bond is considered untouchable is the shared life-force between each during the duration of the bond's Oath and the progression of apprentice into their own mastery.

The attack on Apprentice Granger resulted in the wounding of Madam Poppy Pomfrey, Hogwarts' head mediwitch. Granger's best friend and fellow future apprentice Severus Snape was transformed into a naga by emotion-warped transfiguration magic.

All attempts to reverse the condition have failed.

Traces on the wands have revealed the truth even without confessions, but Professor Horace Slughorn has submitted his memories of the event to Aurors in order to clear Apprentice Granger and Mr Snape of wrongdoing.

The students responsible for the attacks on Apprentice Granger, Mr Snape, and Madam Poppy Pomfrey have been found to be: James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew.

They will be brought before the Wizengamot for formal sentencing pending their expulsion from the school for their assaults on both fellow students and Hogwarts staff.

Manfred put a wing around Rasmus as they watched Severus wrap his coils around Hermione and cradle her against his body. The naga-wizard had not left her side for more than a bathroom break, and even then it was only to stuff his tail end out of a window to do his business.

Hermione had been in and out of consciousness, her body (at least according to Rasmus) was trying to decide what to heal and what to evolve, not that Severus seemed to care. All he wanted was his best friend to return to him. Even Walter the Lethifold, who had obediently stayed "home" while Hermione was going to school, sneaked back in to wrap himself around Hermione to help her heal.

For one moment— Hermione had woken— if only to keep her father from drinking in all the souls of the residents of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts combined in his wrath to punish those responsible for his daughter's injuries.

The sight of her blood had sent the Rasmus into the kind of overwhelming rage that made the bombing of Hiroshima look like a calm day for a picnic. If anything, the fact that it had drained Hermione even more to stop her father (and arguably her mum) from flattening Hogwarts so they could pull out certain corpses to personally tear them apart was the only thing that seemed to tame the incandescent rage of her parents.

The rage of Snape's parents, however, had spurred them into demanding that Albus Dumbledore be replaced due to his negligence as well as attempting to shift the blame on their son instead of the young wizards whose attacks had led to their son being permanently transformed into a naga.

The fact that the incident caused the Snapes to meet both of Hermione's parents did not soothe their worries in the slightest.

Still, when both sets of parents saw Severus' dutiful protective curl around Hermione, they couldn't help but decide that appearances were not everything, and maybe their son cared far less about being a naga than they did.

If anything, Hermione's parents seemed pleased—

So when Hermione awoke to find herself wrapped up snugly in Severus' new coils, her parents and his surrounding her bedside, her hand wrapped around Severus' fingers as she curled up closer to his warmth.

"You saved me," she whispered into his chest.

Severus pressed his cheek to her hair, the cascade of his newly returned hair mingling with hers. "Always."

Year Seven

The Amazing Self-Writing Journal at the Circus!

Circus fans! Come and see the amazing self-writing journal at the Great British Circus now in Rochford!

Rowena Ravenclaw's Fabled Diadem Found as 25 Murders Terrify Residents of London

While Ministry agents have successfully found another long-cherished relic of the Wizarding World, each one that is found seems to trigger another rash of homicides throughout Britain.

The Amazing Self-Writing Journal Stolen After Hours, Circus Owner Heartbroken!

Memo: Do not forget that the Fiendfyre oven has a set schedule. If you wish to make an appointment for use in between scheduled times, send an owl to the DoM secretary.

Fiendfyre Oven Log:

0600 - 1200 Office Document Disposal

0100 - 0300 Cursed Artefact Neutralisation

0400 - 2100 Fiendfyre Pizza Creations

2200-2300 Bathtime for Salamanders

Please be courteous and empty the ash-trays after each use.

Severus and Hermione chuckled as they watched Manfred attempt to eat his Hawaiian pizza by licking all the pineapple bits off and into his mouth. Rasmus watched with half-amusement and half-horror at the sight while simultaneously biting into a well-aged, tortured soul-filled calzone, complete with all the fixings.

"Congratulations on your graduation, Severus and Hermione," Amelia Bones said, biting into a slice of the house special pizza with relish. "I swear the Fiendfyre oven was the best invention ever."

Severus caught a rolling piece of Italian sausage before it crashed on the table— with his forked tongue— in a practiced bit of dexterity.

"Have you two decided to take me up on my offer?"

"My baby daughter is not ready for a full-time job at the DoM!" Rasmus said, glowering.

"Dad!" Hermione hissed.

"She's hardly a baby," Manfred scoffed. "She's fifty now. All grown up—"

"Shut it, Manfred, and eat your pineapple!" Rasmus growled.

The dragonbat rolled his eyes and continued the liberation of all things pineapple off his pizza slice. "She's practically married anyway."

"MUM!" Hermione attempted to bury herself into the table in utter mortification. Walter, ever dutiful, attempted to help her disappear from sight.

Severus managed a very pink blush as his scales turned a rather dull black instead of the normal shimmer.

"Better hurry up, son, before some other bloke comes 'round and sweeps her off her feet," Tobias teased.

Severus did his level best to turn into a snakeskin settee and simply disappear.

Amelia chuckled.

A clutter of bright purple-spotted bouncing spiders skittered onto the table, a gaily wrapped box shared between them. They pulled it onto the table and bounced around it excitedly.

Severus and Hermione traded a look.

They tugged on the silvery silk ribbon from each side, and the box fell open to reveal a very old, one might even say gaudy, golden ring set with a glossy black stone as the centerpiece. There was writing around the stone, but the metal was so worn with time that whatever runes had stamped there were long since seen better days. The bezel around the stone was thin but just enough to hold the stone in place securely. The stone itself seemed strangely shiny like a polished river stone with a symbol etched in the surface like a signet.

"That's the symbol for the Deathly Hallows," Severus said slowly. "I recognise it from one of my old storybooks. Mum used to read it to me."

Hermione looked at the ring with an appraising look. "It has a piece of a soul in it and a Dark curse," she said. She looked at the spiders. The spiders bounced excitedly.

Rasmus and Manfred were immediately looming over the table, their faces grim.

"It's the same soul as the first piece we found in the locket," Rasmus said. "I recall its distinctive tattered scent quite vividly."

"I think we highly underestimated the cunning of our spider friends," Amelia said as she looked between Rasmus and Manfred.

The spiders scurried around in a circle and then created a (bouncing) exclamation mark.

Hermione scooped them up and cuddled them. "You guys are the best spiders ever!"

The happy spiders enjoyed their snuggling reward as Amelia used her wand to fling the ring into the Fiendfyre oven. The grateful Fiendfyre made short work of it as a deep belch came from within.

"So, what do we do about the one who made them?" Manfred asked, his nose wrinkling as he picked between his teeth with one wing talon.

Rasmus straightened, cracking his neck as his form became more wispy, floaty, and cloaked in tattered cloth. His skin seemed to shrink around his bones as his muscles wasted away, the skin clinging tight to the bones so intensely that the shape of the bone was only just covered. He twirled his neck around, the bones swiftly realigning as his face transformed into the gleaming sun-bleached skull that screamed Grim Reaper.

"Now, it is my turn to have some fun."

Hermione embraced his waist, her face pressed against his skeletal ribs. "Be careful, dad."

Rasmus stroked her hair with their talons affectionately. "I will always return to you, my daughter. You can count on it." Their smile was but a crack of teeth on open mandibles, but Hermione only hugged him tighter before letting him drift away.

Then they disappeared in a wisp of black smoke.

The End of the War That Almost Was

The Ministry issued a press release stating that the rising Dark Lord was found unresponsive and catatonic in Lestrange Manor, his body frozen rigid with his eyes wide and his mouth gaping open as if caught in mid-scream— as was every man and woman sworn into his service, their left forearms bearing the now-infamous Dark Mark.

Rabastan, Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange, who were also found rigid with their faces frozen in screams, were two of a great many others scattered and found across Britain, some in Muggle hospitals being treated for an inexplicable and persistent comatose state.

While many have been found, Aurors have not released a formal list of victims, as each of them are being checked for evidence of the Mark to help differentiate between Death Eaters or those who may be possible collateral damage.

The public is strongly encouraged to report any and all victims of sudden coma to the DMLE immediately and are advised to not touch the bodies, lest there prove to be a lingering curse afflicting them which is, as of yet, unknown.

Severus fidgeted nervously, the tip of his tail shaking like a rattle as he slither-paced back and forth on the same patch of ground. He'd been trying to wait for the right time, but every time he thought he had a perfect opening, something would happen to prove him wrong.

He'd almost gotten it out, and then Hermione really had to use the loo.

He was doomed.

Utterly doomed.

Why did it go so easily for normal people?

It was because he was a half-snake, wasn't it? Who the hell wanted to be with someTHING like that?

I mean sure, she was his best friend, and she'd never once expressed any hint of discomfort with his naga form, but that didn't mean she was wanting to spend a lifetime bound to him!

Severus thumped his head back against the wall. Get a sodding grip, man!

You can do this. You CAN do this.

His hand fingered the ring.

Reverse Animagus training did absolutely nothing for him when his nerves were completely shot. Under stress, he'd always end up with more tail and even less coordination.

So, he was, pacing in the park (thankfully under a powerful glamour) but still tripping over himself, his tail, his words, his brain—

Ugh!

Some woman had already run her buggy over his tail that evening, he'd tripped up some poor granny, and he may or may not have accidentally flung some stray dogs into the pond with a sudden muscle spasm.

Brilliant.

He rubbed the space between his eyes and winced. Bloody awful is what he was. He was about as brave as a fainting goat and almost ready to prove he could faint more than any hoofed mammal under stress.

Assuming he didn't hurl all over his own tail first.

At least scales were easy to clean?

He heard her coming out of the park's restroom, and he steeled himself as he recited the Law of the Jungle.

Hermione walked out looking very much relieved, and Severus took in a deep breath, forced his nerves into submission, pressed his lips together, and strode forward—

Hermione stood on her tiptoes, grabbed his cheeks between her hands, and gave him a warm, tender kiss.

"Severus," she whispered.

All his words went tumbling out his ears, avoiding his mouth completely.

She tilted her head impishly. "Marry me."

His jaw dropped as she extended her fingers, a goblin silver ring shaped in a subtle serpent band.

"I—" Fuck, where were his words?

He saw her brows furrow, and her hand began to drop.

Too long! You idiot! You took too long!

He caught her hands in his, the goblin silver serpent ring he had crafted sitting on his index finger. A single diamond gleamed.

Her eyes widened as he slipped the ring on her finger as he put her ring on his.

"Yes," he said, pressing his forehead to hers. "By all the gods, yes!"

Hermione sniffled, tears forming in her eyes as they flashed, her pupils turning to slits as she wrapped her arms around his torso and hugged him tightly.

He stroked her cheek with his thumb as he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.

"I've been doing some research," he said grimly, his face sombre.

She looked up at him.

"Naga are, unfortunately, immortal," he said grimly. "You're stuck with me now for a very, very, long time."

Hermione's face broke into a smile. "Woe unto you," she whispered in his ear. "So am I."

Severus broke out into a grin and joyfully spun her around, his coils tightening into a ball as he wound himself around like a spring. "I love you," he whispered into her hair.

Hermione's radiant smile was all he needed as the feeling of her warmth ran all the way down his body to the very tip of his tail.

It had all started when the Boogeyman's daughter saved him from his cursed father's drunken wrath.

But it had never ended, and with the accidental blessing via an attack by a most hated bully in his life, he had been given the longest of lifetimes with the one he had grown to love more than anyone in the world.

And he wouldn't trade it for the world.

Far off in the bowels of St Mungos—

A room full of narrow cots held multiple bodies in a floating stasis. All treatments failed. All attempts to bring consciousness back to the victims had failed.

Next to the scream-frozen countenances of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, a certain flame-haired witch lay staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her body frozen with the same terrified look on her face. Her hand, however, wedding ring gleaming the soulless room, pressed against the mated other half of her consummated matrimony to Walden Macnair, their hands linked as they had fallen, together.

"It's hard to understand magical marriage," Healer Benedict said as he put the chart down on the end of the bed. "With just a kiss, however willing, magic can decide you are ultimately compatible."

"I thought Lily Evans was a Muggleborn witch," Healer Cartwright said as he checked the chart of another Death Eater patient. All of them were still and frozen in terror.

"In the end, it did not seem to matter. Their magic. Their souls—were too compatible."

The distinctive serpent and skull lay sunken in her pale flesh as if it was rotting her from the inside out.

"For all the good that did her," Cartwright said, grim.

"We warn our children not to be so free with their kisses, but we rarely ever tell them why. We assume everyone knows. But, this may not have been her story. Who can say what drives a person least likely to find companionship with a Dark wizard?"

"The trial—those three boys from Hogwarts—said she had told them where they could find the Snape."

"The young Potions master?" Benedict said with a whistle. "I didn't go to the trial."

"When the trial was done, they sent Aurors to find her, but she was gone. They assumed, of course, she had been taken against her will by Death Eaters."

Benedict sighed, closing his eyes. "We can never assume, old friend. Sometimes evil wears the pretty face. Sometimes good wears the form of a monster."

And deep within the bowels of the Department of Mysteries where Rasmus and Manfred made their cavernous home, Rasmus ran their finger down the line of sealed boxes, crystals, and Tenebris cages. They smiled with smug satisfaction.

The war had provided so much food for the larder.

Their grandbabies would feed well.

And they would not go to human school for at least a hundred years. They would make sure of that.

And they lived smugly ever after…

Fin.

Prompts used: 18) Wounded , 11) Master and Apprentice 16) Get a Grip!, lethifold

A/N: Thanks to DeepShadows2 and Dragon and the Rose for staying up past their pumpkin hour to beta this fic.