Andromeda was understandably furious. Hermione could feel it against her skin, like a knocking irritated pressure, whenever she went down to the dungeons to see her. She'd been incredibly cross, ranting with all the protective concern any mother would have displayed once the understanding their child had been utilized in an ancient - and, frankly dangerous - ritual fell upon them. She wasn't sure what had been worst. Andromeda's condemning of her being, or the way her normally soft and brown pupils had consumed the whites of her eyes when Bellatrix had smugly told her the news.
But she'd been patient, quietly absorbing all of Andromeda's continued ire and tolerating the way Bellatrix strutted among the Death Eaters as if she'd been the one to be given the Dark Lord's task.
Did she even realize what Hermione had done? The Death Eaters among the circle certainly didn't, if the confusing expressions they'd tossed her were any indication. But, it was all irrelevant in the grand scheme of her plans. There was still work to be done, potions to brew, accounts to build, and of course Tonks to train.
Which, compared to the fury of her mother, had been an incredibly easy thing to face.
Not as simple as going, "Hello Tonks, I've implanted my fractured soul within you and now we're much closer than friends outta be" but much easier than cutting through Andromeda's screeching.
It helped that there seemed to be an unusual eagerness to the humancrux, a sort of syrupy energy that evolved the longer Tonks stood out in the sun instead of the darkness of the saturated dungeons. Hermione wondered if her current disposition was due to being freed from the constraints of the last Order hide-out. Certainly anything, even forced vassalage, was better than that. And while Hermione had only been in that house for a short period of time, even she could tell that being under the pressure of that otherness would have driven anyone to madness.
The fact that Andromeda held herself so well together - though Hermione knew there had to be some damage to her psyche - was as impressive as the chill that now lined her tone whenever they spoke, which wasn't as often as Hermione had hoped.
They were on a time-limit, imposed upon them due to the creeping approach of the Dark Lord's Day of Birth. She intended to present Him His gift - the first of the two subjects she'd been asked to research for Him among the madness of her own elevation. But, should the prisoners in the manor not appear adequate for rehabilitation the revel would devolve into ritualistic sacrifice.
She had a feeling it wouldn't be as pleasant for her as it had been during her humancrux making.
"Hermione."
She blinked tired eyes and scarcely noticed Luna's hand upon her knee, always a comforting presence when she was lost in her own head, which had been happening more often than not.
"Yes, Luna?"
Though it took some effort she managed to tear her gaze from the translated scrolls she'd been hunched over to view the woman at her side, calm and unrattled, though her own eyes were glued to a massive book upon her lap.
"You've been invited to the Engagement Ball of Astoria Greengrass to Draco Malfoy, Heir Apparent of the Malfoy estate."
Hermione sucked in a sharp breath, bewildered - by the announcement and Luna's odd formal utterance of it, "Draco is engaged? Draco Malfoy is engaged?" A pause before she barked, "And not to Pansy?"
She wondered how the girl was taking it.
"That is normally what the Engagement Ball is for-"
Hermione gave an idle wave, irritation clear in her features, "He never told me. He never told me he was engaged." Not that he had to, they weren't best friends, but they were court members and certainly associates seen together at his high class lounge. He should feel comfortable with discussing it.
"You've been busy." Luna said. "With your knight and your prisoner. There is also Madame Malfoy's etiquette classes."
Of which Hermione disliked the most, she had the raised hex-stinged flesh to prove that.
"Your classes with Professor Snape and Madam Black."
She only hated those two a little more than the first.
"And your project for our Lord."
Not to mention the hundreds of other little things Luna had her doing with the goblins and her familiar - not yet hatched. She slumped back in her seat with a deep sigh. Great Merlin, she had been busy.
"That's still not..." She swallowed a strange feeling. It wasn't hurt per say, but she really shouldn't have been so absorbed that she hadn't noticed the ebb and flow of the moods of her own Potions partner.
She'd have to change that.
"Astoria Greengrass?"
"Slytherin. A year younger with an alluring softness. Very nice curves." Luna paused for a moment, as if to search for more arbitrary facts, "Enjoys mint tea, no sugar, no lemon."
Yes, thanks for that. "What is the appropriate way to…"
"Say no?"
Hermione hesitated. Would that have been rude? Her time was so divided, but… "No, no. I want to go. To show support."
They weren't friends, not really, but they were something and she wanted to hold onto that.
"Do they… love each other?"
She didn't know why she'd asked the question. Most marriages were arranged - including her own - when the pureblooded elite were involved. She knew love could not describe the budding emotion between herself and her unwanted intended. Yet, Narcissa and Lucius had something, and it seemed cruel that Draco couldn't at least experience that.
"Love…" Luna began, "What is love?"
Hermione sighed, "I wouldn't know."
"And I'm not sure that Draco does either. But love is a fistful of dust and other strange nothings. Just small inconsequential sensations that lead everywhere and nowhere. So, there will be plenty of that, I'm sure." But Luna gave her a look. "What you and Madam Black have is a different type of nothings. Flames and crumbling buildings with secondary moons consuming far too much light."
Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, but if there was anything to say it refused to leave her, and all too soon Luna had moved on, gaze now back to the scheduling book.
"You have time to go, our Lord's Day of Birth is soon after but juggling two events is not impossible. This will be a good time to get Nymphadora out of the house too."
"We're sure about that?" Hermione drawled. There was still something undeniably wild about her humancrux and while Tonks seemed agreeable within the confines of the Manor and those who visited, she wasn't certain if that would change if a gaggle of elven champagne drinking fools found cause to mingle.
And yet, Luna never answered.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The night of the ball came suddenly. She'd spent the bulk of the day in question avoiding the almost predatory gleam of Narcissa gaze - for she refused to be trapped at the door welcoming the smiling and calloused - but once the sun had set she'd been found in her suite with the oddity of her strange shaped egg trapped between the warmth of her thighs as she'd polished it with a cloth.
She'd been found by Tonks in her untoward position in little else but her undergarments and the taken jewelry she'd intended to wear for the evening but instead of asking questions, the woman had only tilted her head.
"Wotcher, Hermione. Master? Mistress? My Lord-"
"Don't," Hermione grunted, though it was difficult to ignore the odd tingle of pleasure at being addressed in such a fashion, even if it was with playful insincerity.
Still, Tonks' smiled, something shark like and far too reminiscent of Bellatrix, "But I've been told I'll be spanked if I don't at least throw in a 'my Lady'. Somethin' about remembering my place."
"Did Bellatrix tell you that rubbish?"
"Aunt Cissy, actually." Tonks responded, "And she isn't wrong. I am your vassal, aren't I?"
There's something eerily shadowed in the depths of Tonks eyes, an emerald glimmer that flecked soul-sucking black. Hermione might have thought her dazed, but knew she was more… consumed. Consumed by the urging to serve that Hermione had unwittingly placed within her. She should have felt bad about that, but it had only driven her to curiosity. Tonks was still Tonks, or whatever that house had done to Tonks, but she was other now too. Magic and something twisted. Lost, Hermione might have guessed.
All the better to bind her closer, Hermione supposed.
"We're friends first and foremost, but if you must in front of them then by all means." Hermione croaked as she spoke past a tightness in her throat. Friends? So much more than just friends and yet-
Tonks gave off a curious sound, "Friends? This thing in me. The heady beat of it. Right beside my heart… it tells me somethin' else."
Slowly she slipped into the space, and the door closed behind her with a delicate click. It left an oppressive silence between them, heavy and intimate as Tonks approached her. It was only when she was standing between her open legs, with hands upon the egg beside her own, that Hermione remembered she was barely dressed.
Her scar burned with a sweet reminder that she was tainted - morally, physically - by the black in her own chest and she wondered, if some portion of Tonks was just as connected to her as Narcissa claimed to be to her sisters.
"My Lady," Tonks spoke with such reverence that Hermione, for one moment, felt like a god, "may I help you dress?"
Hermione swallowed, then whispered. "Yes."
If Hermione felt incredibly indulgent as her humancrux touched her gently as if in reverence, she didn't mention.
Or feel guilty.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"How kind of you to grace us with your presence, Lady Granger."
Hermione repressed a wince as she slipped through the ballroom threshold, the phantom memories of her last ball a constant presence against her flushed skin. "I apologize for the delay. Have all the guests arrived? Do you need assistance?"
Luna slipped in behind her, all dreamy smiles and wandering gaze but if was Tonks Narcissa stared at, Tonks who gave her aunt a half-smile that seemed too sly and not nearly nervous enough. It was a tad unfair that only Hermione felt vulnerable beneath that stare, but she tried not to complain - within the vicinity of Narcissa's hearing.
"Are you behaving yourself?" Narcissa drawled, with a low and ominous sort of tone that licked right up the length of Hermione's exposed spine - for a backless dress of dragon-scale green had been the only thing present in her closet, courtesy of Luna, for the evening.
"Yes, Aunt Cissy," Tonks whispered, but with the eagerness of a training puppy as Narcissa carefully tipped back her head with the sharpness of a well-manicured nail.
The way she stilled and patiently allowed the Malfoy matriarch to access her dress robes and presentation felt like one more clue that there had to be some sort of link between them.
Something else she didn't quite understand just waiting to be unraveled.
"I see…" Narcissa hissed, "then you best be off. Not you Tonks, keep your Aunt company. Hermione darling be a dear and tell Rita to come relieve me so I can introduce my niece to proper society. Lucius is unfortunately absent. Suspiciously absent."
Hermione thought that Lucius best be gone for good reason then, as she hurried to join the mingling Luna. Still, she swore she could feel the intensity of Narcissa gaze along her back as she did so. Hungrier than usual.
Perhaps, it was due to the dark rolling thing that made her feel so… powerfully confident. Each step was a reminder that she now belonged here, no longer the awkward girl of her awakening she was now a… a…
A monster in her own right. A raider, a Death Eater, a Lady, and a patron of Magic just as those in attendance claimed to be. They were all just dogs rattling their chains but some of them had nicer, more decorated collars of magic-born metal. Collars that kept their starving bodies stationary, for now. For the first time in existence, the idea… the thought of having another in her control didn't fill her with dread but a heated anticipation. Even here, at Draco's Ball, they bowed their heads and smiled prettily. Well most of them.
Dolores Umbridge glared at her from across the room with narrowed gaze and contempt in her furrowed brow. Maybe she didn't sense the change, maybe she did.
It hardly mattered.
"I picked up your ring today," Luna whispered in her ear with teasing breath. "It's been set aside for approval by our Lord. If it is a respectful declaration of your intents to form House Granger, than you will be presented at His Day of Birth."
The usual nerves that clustered in her belly only fluttered briefly before she swallowed them down, "Why tell me now?"
"You should have something to be excited about at a Ball. They can be so dreary and boring"
"I'm excited for Draco at the Ball. Isn't that it's purpose?"
Luna's mouth popped open in the motion of a small 'oh'! "Well yes, certainly. But isn't this more exciting?"
A little.
A lot.
Still, "Luna-"
But her Companion was distracted, her gaze distant and settled upon a lone figure near a droning warbling phonograph. Hermione was silenced by just her gentle touched and her mouth snapped closed with an audible sound as she recognized the figure.
Pansy.
"I'm going to say hello. There's some…" Here Luna paused, and for a moment Hermione thought she might mention one of the odd creatures she often saw hovering about the girl, "confusion and sadness, I think."
Oh.
Luna patted her arm again before she could volunteer to go too. She instead made a vague motion toward a nearby section, a dark door that beheld an even more moody figure.
Andromeda.
Out of the dungeons.
"I'll talk to our friend. You should see to finding Rita."
But neither Luna or Narcissa had told her when she should find Rita. So it was easy enough to trail toward the other woman once she'd been released by her Companion. A woman whose gaze had been steady upon the talking figures of her daughter and sister before it swung to her, intense and dark.
Just as black as Tonks own hyper-focused gaze had been, though lacking the twisted color of Hermione's soul.
"Andromeda." Hermione greeted, concerned and surprised by her presence against the doorframe of the ballroom lounge. The last time she'd seen her she'd still be in her cell. On her taken throne of disgruntlement and anger. Now she was out, dressed in robes as vibrant as her own, with her tumbling hair pinned up on her head. She was beautiful, stunning in a manner as intense as Bellatrix and yet still different enough to be noticeable. Andromeda's softer eyes were narrowed and yet not hard-edged and sharp. She was inquisitive, contemplative, observant.
The tactician, but not the control, not the power.
And yet, when Andromeda licked her bottom lip in thought, Hermione saw all three lined with a sort of acute cunning that they all possessed in different flavors.
Yes. Andromeda was still a Black. Still dangerous. Just a different sort of it.
"Granger." The woman rumbled as she shifted - and Hermione heard briefly the distinct rumble of something metal. "Enjoying my sisters extravagant celebration of another successful pureblood marriage contract?"
She narrowed her eyes, "No. I don't much enjoy the pageantry and please, call me Hermione."
For a moment she thought Andromeda would start in on her ranting again, but she instead tossed a quick glance over Hermione's shoulder, back toward the vision of her laughing daughter who Hermione saw twirl Narcissa about the dance floor from the corner of her eye, now finally relieved from door-watch duty.
Something hard slipped into her gaze before it melted away with a sigh. Hermione took that as a good sign.
"Hermione, then." Andromeda grumbled, before she slipped further into the darkened room with barely another word, the idle clang of metal trailing after her.
Hermione followed, ignoring the sight of the small and almost fashionable metal ball about her ankle. So she was still a prisoner, just a better treated one. Perhaps, Narcissa did not think her sister would behave. Bellatrix would have left her unchained just for the thrill of it, Hermione was sure.
Andromeda settled before a massive harp, one Hermione had assumed to be decorative but was pleasantly surprised when Andromeda's idle fingers stroked across the strings plucked harmony into the space.
So Hermione stood beside her, silent in the face of the gentle lullaby Andromeda played with an effortless grace. So much better than the gaudy ringing song that crowed on beyond the threshold. And, it was easy to forget just then that either of them were at a Ball, in different worlds chained in different ways.
Then Andromeda finally spoke, "I am still so very upset with you, Hermione."
She could do little else but reply with honesty, "I know."
Another careful stroke and pluck, another beautiful note, and Hermione's mind wandered just slightly - because, Bellatrix own fingers were just as long and graceful. When she held her wand. When she held her, binding her to the wall or couch or the floor with little other than will and inclination.
But Andromeda spoke again, and the image faded, "I don't yet know… how…"
She sighed, cleared her throat, and tried again. "I'm not yet sure, if I can forgive you."
"You shouldn't. I've done nothing good." Hermione answered then, "It wasn't righteous. Or pure. Or selfless."
Andromeda remained silent and toyed with strings.
"It was dark and yet it was… everything." The words came without restraint, dancing praise on the tip of her tongue. "Color and vibrancy amongst oppressive grey. Fires blazing in the night…"
"How poetic."
"I know no other way, no… better way to explain it. I did it to save her. To save you. To save me. And it felt good, and-"
If given the chance. She'd do it again.
"I don't… we don't have time to dally or dip our toes into the shores of morality. There is only Magic here. Only progression and dominance. Who gets to… play in the ritual and who becomes the woman on the slab."
Finally Andromeda's fingers stilled, eerily stiff and tense but Hermione didn't stop talking.
"I don't want to be the one with my chest open and my blood in the runes." She licked her lips, "I want to be-"
"-the Dark Lord." Andromeda interrupted, gaze upon the strings.
Hermione didn't reply, she wasn't sure what she would have said. It wasn't wrong. No, wait. It was wrong. Because…
"No. No I… I don't want to be Him. There is only, should only, be one of Him."
The Dark Mark didn't allow her to think otherwise.
"Andromeda, I want to be me."
The woman in question finally turned to look at her. Her face was carefully empty, her words a soft whisper of, "Hermione."
She held her breath.
"What do you want to be?"
She released it, "Firstborn, to the Noble House of Granger, Patron of Magic, savior of all that is. Lord and Lady. Queen and King. Wilde and Olde and… hah, maybe heir to Slytherin, if He wishes that too."
Slowly Andromeda stood, "That is a lot to be, Hermione. You'll attempt to woo gods?"
Hermione took a moment to look deeply into Andromeda's eyes, to see the emotion that rolled there like gathering storms. Anger. Loathing. Disgust. Awe. Curiosity. Hunger. And acceptance.
She answered her. "I'll attempt the act of becoming a god." She took a step forward, embolden, and pressed catching Andromeda between the cage of her arms against the sturdy harp. She thought nothing of the fact the other was against the strings, or that the chair had been overturned, discarded on the polished floor.
"That's what they made Him. That's why they fear Him. Once upon a time the pureblooded and haughty destroyed their ancients and magic, true Magic with a capital M, began to thin. The lazy ate the worthy and madness ravaged the commons. This world wanted, needed, someone to take it in hand. To tame the fat. They picked Him. They wished it into being and gave birth to controlled destruction. Fables and mythos became truth because they believed and Magic made it so. He knows that. I know that. You know that. They know that and soon, they will do the same with me."
Because He'd told them too.
Hermione pressed forward, chest against Andromeda's chest and she stilled, just as consumed by conspiracy. Did her face reflect passion? Or was it something more, something else, that swam throughout her hazel?
"I will impart change with all the weapons at my disposal and little will stop me, Andromeda. No poisoned Order, or misaligned Death Eater. I am marked by more than just Him. I'm marked by the taste of my sins."
Then a pause before she added, "And gumption."
For a moment there was only heavy breathing. That of her own and that of her captured party. But Andromeda was shaking. Not from rage but from… laughter. Pure, sincere, and interested.
"Then I suppose Narcissa was right about you. You know what you're doing."
She didn't. Not yet. But Andromeda didn't need to know that.
Still, all too soon, Andromeda had grabbed her, pushing her closer into her own body by the rather rude grip upon her ass she'd taken.
"Let it be known that if you cause some sort of irreparable damage to my child in your mad lust-driven and quite destruction quest to become that I will hurt you, Hermione." And the way she said it, the odd curl of her lips against her ear, the husky warmth of the breath that caressed her neck, made her shiver despite the thick threat of the statement. "I have always been and will always be, a Black. I know how to hurt. How to tear flesh from muscle and muscle from bone. There's a reason the Dark did not chase after me when I left to carve my own path."
Hermione shivered, but not from fear. "Andromeda-"
"-call me Andy," Andromeda tittered, "You've a piece of your soul in my daughter, after all, and I think I might rather like the sound of that coming out of your parted lips."
"Excuse me?"
Hermione jerked from the rolling growl of the voice behind her, but Andromeda's grip only tightened as her lips spread in a manic grin as wild as…
Oh shit.
"Bella, so nice to see you've made it to little Draco's Ball."
Hermione twisted a glance over shoulder and sucked in a sharp breath. There, at the threshold of the room, stood her betrothed, swaddled in the thick cloying vibrancy of power. Her dress was black and form fitting, her hair as wild and untamed as the day she'd been born, but it was those eyes-so greedy and wide and endlessly void like-that had Hermione swallowing a moan. There's so much tension in her posture, in the way her hands opened and closed and her nostrils flared, but that look was all for her. Predatory and ravenous.
She was prey, trapped between two very hungry women, with a third just beyond them. All of them, somehow the same hands and yet-
"I see Cissy let Sneaky Andy out of the dungeons to play with the people instead of the rats. Tell me, Andy, how does breathing fresh air feel?"
"Quite nice, actually. It's so very nice to know that Cissy loves me enough to let me out to play."
Their words were venomous, laced with a certain heat that Hermione couldn't truly place. It wasn't hatred, not quite. But it was… was like two beasts testing one another for dominance.
"She gave you a nice anklet to go along with your beautiful dress."
Hermione heard Andromeda shift her leg, perhaps unconsciously once reminded that her ball-and-chain existed. "She did." Now Andromeda rolled her voice with resentment, "And she didn't even bring your cage up here with you, seems a bit rude that only one of us should be bound this way."
And all the while Bellatrix approached, one careful predatory step before the other, Andromeda kept her hands upon her arse in the most embarrassing manner.
"Andromeda, Andy, my butt-"
"Yes. Andromeda. Andy. Her butt. Her ass." Bellatrix snarled, "You're touching my ass."
"Oh?" Andromeda gave Hermione the most inappropriate squeeze, "This one? This is your ass?"
The sound Bellatrix made then made Hermione just about swoon. She wasn't sure why she felt so… reactive to them, to any of this bullheaded behavior, and yet something deliciously dark thrilled through her at the thought of it. Amusement and greed and something slicker. It hummed in her scar and she scarcely thought the fight it. She just… didn't want Andromeda to wrinkle her dress with her groping.
"Andy," Bellatrix warned, "You've been gone so long you've forgotten your place."
And there certainly was a hierarchy among them, tattered and strained, but it fell over them and slipped like well-tied nooses in a way so painfully tangible that Hermione swore the magic that held them together was physical.
Andromeda's body rumbled with an answering sound, and yet her tone was sweet and sharp, "Oh. I know my place."
Her hands moved, and Hermione, with instinctual quickness, pushed away from the harp and Andromeda just as Bellatrix lunged forward with a battle yet to collide with her sister. She liked to think that Bellatrix wouldn't have tackled her to the ground had she still been captured but knew that the woman was aggression wrapped up in a sensual package.
The harp finally fell with a hearty clang that ended in a drowned out scream as the sculpted structured reacted to its toppling. The Black sisters ignored it, tussling in their pretty dress robes like children… or wolves reasserting their position in a pack. They didn't appear to be really… hurting one another, though to the odd passerby this would have looked painfully aggressive.
A scratch here. A hair tug there. But no magic was slung and no green colored curses.
"Ah, there you are, Hermione dear! I thought I asked you to find-"
Narcissa stood just in the doorway, glanced at the fallen crying harp, the overturned chair, the now scratched flooring and released long soul-weary sigh.
"I see this is still happening." Narcissa muttered under her breath, "Come, Hermione. Leave the savages to their rituals."
Hermione thought it incredibly unwise to leave them together, but Narcissa waved off her concern only to turn toward a curious Ball-goer with a wide smile practiced and false.
"Oh! Yes yes, everything is well. Oh, them? No no, it's alright. Siblings and all. Why, I'm sure our Lord encourages strong familiar relations. This is just part of the process-oh, you're a single child? What's that like?" Narcissa was already leading the curious fellow away. Answering his questions and dismissively manipulating his concerns with all the ease of a societal princess.
And, perhaps purposely, left Hermione to clean up the mess.