Time escaped her in moments spent lounging, bound beneath the heavy weight of covers and Tonks' worshipping hands. Luna thought the pair of them interesting, pressed against Hermione's back as she was with her own wandering hands and the egg warmed by their overheated bodies but… they could not remain that way forever, despite the idle pressure that hovered, unfulfilled at the back of her mind in the form of Tonks' yet satisfied craving. They needed a solution to the bond Voldemort had twisted through them.
Luna kicked Hermione out of her own room so she could find it.
"You're a distraction to Tonks," Luna said, "go play outside today."
Rude.
That was how Hermione found herself wandering the halls, seeking solace from the Madam of the manor. Narcissa appeared aware about the mystery of bond(age) and despite Andromeda's compliance in being the subject of Hermione's exploration she doubted the other witch would be soothed if she knew Hermione had actively done something Voldemort found delightful to her daughter. And Bellatrix… Perhaps, much like the Dark Lord, Bellatrix would have only been interested in the further corruption of their beings. She was the type.
She tried not to smile at that thought but ultimately failed.
And maybe they deserved that corruption. The bond between them wasn't unpleasant. It was thrilling to the scholar in her, the thudding hum beneath her skin that constantly pushed her down a path of unforgivable knowledge.
The part of her that she found near impossible to control as she bloomed into… whatever the maddening thumping otherness within drove her to become.
How far could she exploit herself and others before there was nothing left?
She drew her tongue across her bottom lip with a shiver.
Only the interruption of the steady clack of her polished shoes drew her from the vacuum of more tempting thoughts.
For around the corner, voices bubbled with the hiss of secrets-
"So, will you do it?"
Hermione peered around the wall, spying further down the hall the indistinguishable forms of two dark-haired women. Shadow cast from the flickering oil-lights gave them both a malevolent profile. There was nothing casual in the flex of Bellatrix's arms, extended as they were to cage in her sister or the glazed glow of Andromeda's eyes that made them sharp and perfervid.
Upon them, Hermione spied.
"Are you attempting to bully me, Bellatrix?"
Bellatrix tilted her head, "Do you feel like I am?"
Andromeda gave off a small hiss of displeasure when Bellatrix pressed against her, a knee between her legs.
"I'm your Head of House," Bellatrix continued, with the sort of look Hermione had often seen projected on hungry wild animals, "should you not do as I command?"
Fingers, hooked and cruel, gripped Bellatrix's shoulders with little care. Though Andromeda's expression held tension along her brow, she appeared relaxed in the flickering light. "I'm a Tonks, not a Black."
The sound Bellatrix made at Andromeda's melodic words made Hermione's toes curl.
"You. Are. Not." Bellatrix rasped with fever, "You're a Black. And you are mine."
Andromeda's cheek twitched but she gave no reaction other than to peer at Bellatrix through lowered lashes. "I am no one's."
"You stand here and lie?"
Andromeda said nothing but she did lessen the tightness of her grip, exchanging her unkind touch for a more soothing one.
Bellatrix lowered her head slightly, eyeing Andromeda as she slowly licked her lips. Hermione thought that would be the end of it then, Bellatrix with her forehead against Andromeda's shoulder, while Andromeda in turn gently tugged at the loose curls bundled at the back of Bellatrix's head.
It was a moment Hermione locked within her mind, stealing away a piece of their intimacy to mingle strangely with the warmth in her belly.
But Bellatrix had more to say.
"Do this for me." She husked.
Andromeda drew a shuddering breath, "I don't know if I can... Or if I even should."
Hermione saw a flash of teeth as Bellatrix buried herself further against Andromeda's neck. Her arms dropped, but Andromeda was no less free. Now, Andromeda was trapped by her hips, tightly held within Bellatrix's grasp as she shoved her own forward for the pin. Hermione bit her bottom lip hard at the sight of it, knowing how it felt to be… contained in such a way.
Knowing that, despite being unable to see Bellatrix's face beyond their combined curtain of hair, that the reason Andromeda hissed and groaned was due to the lips Hermione craved.
She held her hands to the wall for balance, eyes wide and curious as Bellatrix worked just beyond her sight. If only she could see, if only she could truly know-
When Andromeda gave a sharp squeak Hermione almost rounded the corner. Damn the exposure. She deserved to see it, Andromeda's conquering for that something Bellatrix demanded of her.
When Hermione heard Bellatrix release a guttural croak of 'do as I say' she pushed from the wall, more than brave enough to weather their displeasure. They shouldn't play without her-
"Hermione?"
She twisted on the balls of her feet and turned to face a cautious Draco.
She hoped he didn't notice the flush that graced her cheeks.
She cleared her throat, "Yes, Draco? How can I help you?"
He furrowed his brow, hesitant to speak and Hermione in turn ignored the swimming thoughts that plucked at the thickness of her magic.
When she could maintain eye contact without seeing Bellatrix and the wicked flash of sweat-slick skin between her teeth in the recess of her mind she asked him again- "Draco?"
"Hermione," He cleared his throat, and opened his mouth, but nothing further came forth.
Hermione tried not to scowl, knowing that at her back just out of reach there dwelled a scene of greater interest.
His voice returned just as her nose wrinkled, "She won't return my owls."
Hermione blinked, "She?"
"Pansy."
Hermione thought about the last time she'd seen her, wistful and forgotten within the noble crowds.
"Why do you think that is?" Hermione asked.
Which was probably cruel of her. They both knew the reason.
"She won't return Astoria's owls either. Or Daphne's, and that's highly unusual."
She was not aware of Pansy's previous relationship to the younger or older Greengrasses. During their now defunct teas their conversations had been politely empty. Fashion, the trending nature of the world's elite, her aurorship, and a grumble or two about Brown's lacking humanity had been the extent of their topics.
"Are they friends?"
"Well," Draco ran ink stained fingers through his hair, surprising considering who his mother was, "she has obligations, you know."
What did that mean?
He didn't elaborate, "I'm just worried."
Hermione strained her hearing, wondering if it was too late to join her betrothed around the corner, "It can take time to process bad news."
His left eye twitched, "This isn't a bad thing, I'm just trying to explain to her about our Lord! Their plans for us are absolute but we're set to gain so much it's…"
"Frustrating?"
Draco released a loud puff of air. "Yes."
She looked at him, really looked at him. His hair was limp with a trickle of moisture that dripped onto the silk of his wrinkled robes. The blouse beneath was buttoned incorrectly, highlighting an inkstain that blossomed across his belly as if he'd been stabbed by a particularly sharp quill. But it was his eyes that Hermione searched, his endless grey outlined by blueish bags, distant and unfocused.
How stressful was it to plan a wedding when you'd been intended for another?
"Draco."
He blinked once, twice, then strained his shoulders. "How do I fix this?"
Hermione wasn't certain if Pansy had been his original betrothed. She had never witnessed their closeness in school, but she'd heard plenty about it. If their bond held even half the strength of what she once carried for The Boy, then their separation these past moons must have been uncomfortable for him.
She was surprised that she disliked his discomfort.
"Do the owls come back as undelivered?"
He seemed displeased she hadn't answered his question. "No, why?"
"May I have one of your letters? Maybe also Astoria's?"
"Sure," He croaked, "But-"
Hermione dug about her robes, searching for the watch she carried amongst her pockets-a golden elaborate thing she'd been gifted by some pureblood, it's embroidered S just another sign of Voldemort's ownership. "I'll fix this for you."
"W-what? How?"
Her fingers met warm metal and she withdrew the clinking chain, unaware of Draco's thin-lipped expression as she popped it open. "Ah, good. I won't be late either."
"Late?" Draco barked, carried along the whirlwind of Hermione's shifting thoughts, "Late for what?"
"Tea," She closed the watch with a snap and shoved it back amongst her pockets, "I'll just need you to do something for me in return. Could you get some information for me?"
"I-what? Of course I can-"
"Excellent." Hermione interrupted, "Does Pansy like Quidditch?"
"Hold on-Quidditch? No." Draco scowled, "She hates it. Always has."
Hermione smiled then. "Good."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Hermione turned the letter in her grasp in idle fascination, impressed by the looping cursive and the thickness of the bold black lettering. Astoria had pretty handwriting.
Astoria, herself, was rather pretty.
Hermione had no doubt Draco's union, surprised or unwanted aside, would provide whatever the Dark Lord wanted from them. Yet, Hermione had not taken Astoria's letter to ponder the intricacies of her handwriting.
She'd taken it for the address written on it.
The squat and unappealing building was shaped like a beaten old box in Hermione's opinion, cursed a cloud-struck grey with a large steel door. The address hung haphazardly from a wooden post, ill-cared for and rotting while uneven cobblestone steps led toward a cracked porch and a post carrying bell, crooked and cracked down it's brass center.
She wasted no time in approaching the pathway, even if she felt somewhat unnerved by the slope each stone seemed to purposely hold. Still, it wasn't the threat of rolling her ankle that made her approach slow and methodical, it was the hyper buzz of a ward plucking at her skin.
She considered her choices, knock or don't?
She checked her watch.
Then extended her hand to touch the magic of the wards.
Perhaps, it was the idle strum of otherness, exploratory and curious through the magic of the ward that made Pansy whip open her door. But Hermione liked to think it was the pulse of intention she sent through the ward's portion that sung Pansy.
Pansy appeared flustered and angry enough that it could have been.
"Wh-what? Who…"
Hermione gave Pansy a moment to catch her breath and eliminate the bugged-eyed look from her gaze before she shoved her aside with a huffed, "You're late."
The wards bowed and easily let her past the threshold, to the utter astonishment of the woman at her back.
"Late?" Pansy garbled, "Hermione what are you doing here?"
"Tea."
Hermione's short trek down the entryway was interrupted only by the frantic patter of Pansy's bare feet behind her. Despite the unfortunate appearance outside of the small estate, beyond the hall laid an explosion of color. Floral pots of different shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling and walls through careful vinework, inspiring a beauty that had little to do with what she saw and more to do with what she smelled. Dirt and petals littered the floor in clumps across the receiving room and while an aged coffee table-that might have once been an expression of opulence-sat stained with carved groves against the far wall.
With a flick of her wand Hermione wordlessly moved it before the couch.
There was a manic disarray to the space that seemed very unlike her wheezing company. Everything was shockingly homey… and earthy. Hermione had anticipated something cold and stiff, the usual image of affluence and nobility. Instead, it was all very warm and lovely, albeit messy.
"Hermione!" Pansy sputtered, "Watch the table!"
She carefully maneuvered it beneath a swinging rack of plants, only to drop it with a thunk that shook the ground beneath her feet.
"Sorry." Hermione said.
"You aren't," Pansy snapped with dirt smudged fingers at the bridge of her nose.
"No," Hermione confirmed, "I'm not."
She sat on the only clean space available, with her robes folded beneath her bum. She ignored the slight wriggling vine along the back of the couch that reached for her when she did.
"Why are you here?" Pansy asked, but her gaze was on the state of her own clothing.
Hermione thought she looked more human that way, dressed in her planters smock with her sleeves rolled up and her toes curled against the dirty marble. "I told you already."
"Tea?"
"Tea." Hermione repeated.
Pansy gave her a glare of exasperation, "We haven't had tea in weeks."
"Well," Hermione clicked her tongue, "I want to have tea now. Do you have an elf?"
"No."
That was surprising.
"Sit there. Touch nothing."
Hermione smiled at Pansy's retreating back.
Then she stood from her spot on the couch, no longer the casual guest in her home.
While the sound of clanking metalworks echoed from the kitchen Hermione peered with wonder upon the various swinging racks and pots of floral life. She inhaled deeply and enjoyed the heavy curl of heat that rippled through the living magic infused within the brickwork. It's taste was distinctively Parkinson, stubborn and sturdy, but the splash of color she felt more than saw brush across her skin came from the overabundance of plant life that subsumed the walls.
"What is this place, Pansy?"
From the kitchen, Pansy spoke with heightened volume, "And old flat in the family. Excuse the mess."
Hermione brushed a clump of dirt from her shoulder as one of the flowers, orange with blue veins among its leaves, reached for her with curling petals. "It's all so fascinating."
By the time Pansy had returned with an old copper kettle and two cups for their tea Hermione had managed to find various non-magical flowers curled and cuddled by their strange magical counterparts.
She had so many questions.
"Hermione!"
She jerked at the call of her name and pulled back her head, itches from caressing the skin of a waving flower.
"I said don't touch anything!"
Hermione furrowed her brow, "But it's waving to me."
Pansy sighed and set the kettle down with a clatter onto the beaten table. "Please come here and sit."
With a grunt Hermione did as asked.
Once the tea was poured Hermione plopped back onto the couch with far less grace that she'd sat on it previously, no longer mindful of the scattered dirt. "Why haven't you been to the manor?"
Pansy took her time answering Hermione's question, more focused on sipping her tea-tea Hermione knew Pansy didn't even like. "You've things to do. Seemed rude to bother you."
"I would have made time for you."
Pansy paused, then set the cup down with a disgusted grunt, "It's not your duty to make time for me, Firstborn."
"You sound a bit grumpy."
"A bit?" Pansy bit her bottom lip, "You came here unannounced. I should send a letter to your Head of House."
Hermione smiled, something unkind, "Which one? The Dark Lord or Lady Malfoy?"
Hermione carefully noted Pansy's pinched expression at the second name she'd spoken.
"I shouldn't have let you in without an invitation."
"The oh-so-polite-elite visit the manor all the time and they certainly don't check in with me first." Hermione scrutinized Pansy from the corner of her eye and noticed the tension that tightened her shoulders. "Why did you really stop showing up?"
Instead of answering, Pansy said, "You know, the flat isn't normally like this. I'm not normally like this."
Hermione didn't interrupt her, she could feel a shiver along the magic in the space, like a thin band stretched to the snap-point.
"Draco and I have known each other for a long time. We were introduced as children, before Hogwarts. Maybe around age six or seven. We grew up together. Went to school together. Studied and learned things beyond what Hogwarts claimed mattered. We knew, then, before it got really bad and the world caught on fire that we would be… together.
So we stopped keeping secrets, those deep soul-shaking kind of secrets. He knew everything about my parents and I. In return he told me about his mom and their struggles when the Dark Lord was…" Pansy swallowed then in residue fear that Hermione knew must have come from memories of The Before, when the Dark Lord was madness and power without false-law or bonds.
"When She was different," Hermione supplied.
Pansy nodded.
Hermione sipped her tea and patiently waited for Pansy to start again.
"We were going to get engaged, I thought. He kept telling me to wait. He said he loved me. That sorta thing." Pansy kept her eyes forward, lost within the murky liquid that still filled her cup. "And I'd told him what my mother had told me, that love is a rare and odd thing in marriage."
No one had really explained it well, but Hermione knew that pureblood custom dictated a match through strength of power-political or magical. Emotional currency mattered little, weak before the pull of the mighty galleon.
"He assured me otherwise. His mom and dad, don't they love each other?"
Much in the way one loves a treasured artifact, Hermione thought.
Pansy took a sudden sharp breath, "Do you love her?"
Hermione blinked. "Bellatrix?"
"Yes."
"No."
Hermione would not shame the concept of something so pure and selfless. Love was meant for the wistful and innocent. She did not love Bellatrix.
Pansy's shoulders crumbled.
"I feel something for her though. I want her."
She wanted them all. So powerfully it hurt.
Pansy seemed unconvinced, "He kept a secret from me. I have the right to be mad. They both did."
"Astoria?" Hermione asked.
"We have an understanding." Pansy stressed.
Hermione still wasn't sure what that meant.
"The Dark Lord told him to do it-"
"I don't care!" Pansy barked, before she flinched and whispered, "S-sorry. I do care. Please don't tell Her I said that."
Hermione basked for a moment in Pansy's brimstone, her smile soft, "You'll give me something for what you said. "
Pansy scowled but gave a sharp nod.
Hermione took that to mean it was her turn to ask questions, "Do you love Draco?"
Pansy shoved away from the couch, pacing across her dirty floor to a nearby plant. She didn't answer and that silence was enough of an answer for Hermione.
"Does it make you angrier that you don't or that he was too frightened of our Lord to tell you first?"
"He didn't even tell me at the ball," Pansy whispered, her hands already in the dirt as her magic hissed around her.
Hermione licked her lips and repressed the urge to reach out and touch it, "That was very rude of him. Have you read his letters?"
"No."
"Will you eventually? His and Greengrass's too?"
"No." Pansy pouted.
"You know, I think he did care, does care still. Love you, maybe. Just differently or maybe not enough." Hermione set down her empty tea cup and began to pour herself some more. Pansy had made far too much. "You can't avoid him forever though, aren't you in his court?"
Pansy was quiet for a very long time before she husked out a low, "No."
Oh.
Well then, "You can be in mine."
Pansy's hands jerked within the dirt. "What? Really?"
Hermione shrugged, "Why not?"
"It's not really done," Pansy said, "I broke a covenant."
Hermione's nostrils flared at the opportunity to learn, "Explain."
"It's… a bond, a bond between a vassal and a Lord. I wasn't one of Draco's knights, not really, but I was a part of his circle. I created disharmony when I left it. I spoke of my displeasure within Salt and Circle, and that's not seen as very loyal."
"Fascinating." Hermione whispered.
"It isn't," Pansy scowled, "I can barely sit still for more than two minutes I'm so anxious. I'm on leave of absence From the Ministry until that… something inside of me that was harmonious settles."
Hermione grinned, showing far too many teeth, "I can help you. Join my court."
She abandoned the couch to pace forward quickly, before Pansy thought to attempt an escape. She barely slowed before she caged her, mimicking Bellatrix's earlier position with her sister. Now a slick excitement crawled up the length of her back, the sensation that came with undoubted power.
Pansy held her breath.
Slowly Hermione relaxed and her magic pressed against Pansy's skin. The other woman's pupils dilated, a fat deep green within a sea of white.
"Draco wouldn't want you to be lonely, I know how desperately you Slytherin's enjoy being touched."
Hermione toyed with the idea of caressing her, of flushing the pretty pale skin of her neck, but she slowly withdrew from her space instead. Sometimes, all it took was a taste of ability to make another want. She knew that much from the bond she shared with Tonks.
Pansy drew in a raspy breath, then croaked as her knees shook, "Wh-who is in your court?"
"Luna, Nymphadora, you. I'd like a few more of course. You do still talk to Lavender, don't you?"
"Of course," Pansy snapped, mostly back to herself.
"Then convince your Companion too."
"This is a huge decision, Hermione." Pansy said, "I need time to think, to-"
"Nope," Hermione popped the 'p' as she eyed a silver wisp seeping through the front room door. "Wouldn't you like to get back at Draco?"
"Yes," Pansy hissed.
"In a playful way, Pansy. I don't want him to get hurt."
Hermione turned away from what she knew would be a pout, right as the silver twisted through the space, hovering in a half-formed blob before her. It garbled in Draco's voice-
You have permission. This cost me a lot. Do not go alone.
Hermione felt her heart swell with warmth. Anticipation. Hope.
She mouthed 'thank you' to the silvery apparition just as it faded from view.
"He should practice that more." Pansy snarked, "What did he want?"
"Never mind that." Hermione half-sung as she sauntered back to her cup of tea, no doubt now lukewarm. "Go get dressed, put on something warm."
"Why?" Pansy questioned.
"We're going out." Hermione smirked, "Don't you want to go on a date with me?"
Hermione felt the unease of Pansy's magic and the shiver of anticipation as she gently grasped it, tugging and tugging until the other stepped clumsy past her toward what Hermione suspected was her bedroom.
From over her shoulder Pansy slurred out a, "No."
But Hermione knew her magic was screaming yes.
So, it was all good.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
When the Order lost the war there'd been a clear decree that certain individuals could not interact or gather. Those individuals, tagged through Azkaban, could eventually earn the trust of the gentry through years of good service and probational watching. Yet, their release and rehabilitation had been done through scattering. No more than one member at a time would see sunlight with others held back for release the year after. Hermione wasn't sure if she'd been the last or the first to be held before Voldemort's execution council. Her memories of that time were unpredictable and flat and when she drew to close they inspired bouts of madness.
There had been a sick freedom in that pain and thoughtlessness.
Still, despite their freedoms there'd been one clear rule. They'd been forbidden from certain areas, and leaving Great Britain had been out of the question.
Even now, as Her Firstborn, Hermione had never imagined she'd see Hogwarts proper.
But now?
Her breath came quickly as they stood before the wrought iron gate, Hermione in her fancy robes and Pansy dressed in much the same way. Beyond the buzz of nature and the crunch of fallen snow there roared a wave of sound and enjoyment as Hogwarts' magic hummed a siren song of welcome home.
Hermione only noticed her cheeks were damp when Pansy wordlessly handed her a cloth to wipe them.
Hogwarts was beautiful, magnificent, and everything that she remembered. It was all those good memories, great sights, wonderful discoveries. The thrill of her first friendships. Eating chocolate without the disapproval of her parents for the first time. Brewing a difficult potion to perfection in a bathroom with a ghost despite one of the three not being so perfect. Rescuing a stone. Twisting through time. Watching dragons soar, and even punching Draco.
All those memories and more flashed rapidly before her eyes and she didn't bother restraining herself when McGonagall opened the gate to usher them forward. She wrapped the woman in her arms and hugged her fiercely, letting her know without words how grateful she was to be there.
It felt all the more spectacular when Minerva returned her embrace.
Behind them, Pansy kept herself occupied, giving her time to recover. Hermione appreciated that immensely.
"It's so wonderful to see you here, Hermione." Minerva said.
"Yes, of course. I'm happy to be here too."
Pansy kicked at snow, awkwardly attempting to be unobtrusive.
"Miss Parkinson," Minerva greeted before she turned to lead them forward, "it's nice to see you as well."
"Of course, you as well Headmistress."
Hermione was not surprised that Minerva had managed to retain a high position, but she found herself woefully unprepared for the inner workings of Hogwarts political system.
"Don't worry, dear. Nothing too radical has changed. Other than this. It's not often that the… Dark Lord allows those of our standing to visit this space."
"I had to bully someone for a favor."
At her side Pansy snorted.
"I won't ask questions," Minerva smiled, more than willing to use Hermione's privilege. That was the sort of world they traversed, one where favor and debt flowed freely.
"I wanted to get Pansy out of the house, she's been sulking from Draco's engagement."
Pansy nearly choked on her words, "I wasn't skulking! I was processing the information!"
Minerva gave Pansy a solemn nod, "Ah, of course. It must not have been easy to see Mr. Malfoy match with another."
"He's not even that great, if I'm honest." Pansy grumbled.
"Still," Minerva continued, "we'll be sure to take your mind off of your loss. I didn't know you enjoyed Quidditch so much. Please know you're welcome here to cheer on your team as a Slytherin alumnus."
Pansy's face flushed an angry red and Hermione turned her head to politely laugh in a different direction.
That was when she caught a figure running toward them.
She gave an effortless twitch of her wrist and her wand came easily to her hand. It was only Minerva's casual demeanor that stilled the cruel spells on the tip of her tongue, fueled by the heady pulse within her chest.
"He's so excited. I told him to wait inside."
Before Hermione could question the runner, the shape of the wizard came closer. He was imposing and tall, grown and yet boyish, his face still round despite his musculature-
Neville.
He rammed into her body with enough force to lift her off her feet and held her that way in a frozen moment. Her heart rattled painfully against her chest, her muscles tight as she scrambled to hold him. She held his warmth against her for balance, careful not to stick the tip of her wand in his ear as her feet dangled over the snow. She didn't struggle against him, however. She felt safe within his embrace and knew he wouldn't mistakenly drop her.
"Oh Hermione, Hermione!" Neville held her so tightly, "I fought hard everyday to see you. I followed your story in the Prophet. I'm so sorry if you thought you were alone."
Hermione traced the pattern of Neville's Azkaban tattoo with a single finger and knew he was telling the truth from the shake of his hands and the slight tremble in his form that he suffered from the lingering impact of his disobedience. She wondered, then, what lay under his cloak. Scars like her own? Burns from Bellatrix's whip?
She reluctantly released him, "Neville?"
He met her gaze with his own glistening hazel, filled with storms of his doubt and his joy at seeing her. The weight within made them a strange reflective green that reminded Hermione painfully of The Boy.
She hated seeing that burden there.
She was out of tears. She'd mourned them all once before and had given the last of that sorrow to Hogwarts, but she was still careful and undoubtedly kind when she wiped away his own.
"Put me down, Neville."
He laughed nervously and settled her in the snow and she put away her wand just as Pansy tried to cover up the fact that she'd drawn her own.
"I just… I can't believe they let you come here, Hermione! They don't even let me leave-"
"-That's not true, Mr. Longbottom. You're allowed to visit your estates and the village on holiday." Minerva interrupted with a hastey movement that meant they should continue on into the castle.
"You know what I mean," Neville groused. "They don't let me visit anyone. They just let me teach."
Hermione perked up at that. "You teach? Oh Neville, is that what you wanted?"
Neville looked sheepish and guilty then, as if his contentment was a sin when compared to her current situation.
If only he knew how much she reveled in it.
"Neville, you do know I'm… fine, don't you?"
"How could you be?" He hissed, "Are they hurting you? Treating you like-"
"A shiny bauble, mostly." Hermione said. "Believe me, Neville. Do you trust that I know what I'm doing?"
He looked pained then, and Hermione couldn't blame him. She looked nice, of course. Dressed as one should be in her standing. Treated far better than he might have thought. But he couldn't really know what it was like to drown beneath the manorholds power. To fall to her knees and worship the very manifestation of the dark.
To feel the thundering pulse of something else crawl beneath your skin begging to be let out-
But she wouldn't tell him any of that.
"I am the Dark Lord's Firstborn and I have granted Her a powerful vessel along with the future of Slytherin house. They do not, can not, damage me Neville. She wouldn't allow it. I wouldn't allow it."
Tension lined his jaw and his eyes fluttered.
"I'm content, Neville. This world is safe for me, but only if this is how I obey."
With a deep sigh he slouched and nodded as understanding eased his pain. "I'm happy Hermione, I'm happy I'm not in Azkaban and that the children are safe. That's what I wanted, and th-the Dark Lord knows that. But I feel… tamed."
Minerva and Pansy were talking ahead of them, politely ignoring their own conversation, so Hermione pressed against Neville's side to whisper in his ear-
"What if I told you you didn't have to be?"
There's a subtle shift in his gaze, a flicker of fear and something hungry, "What do you mean?"
"I want you to owl me after my visit, I'll send you an owl from House Black to use."
"Is that safe?"
"They wouldn't betray me."
"How do you know? How can you be sure?"
Before them loomed the open Hogwarts' entryway and Hermione closed her eyes as the song of it's magic plucked notes across her mind. The heat within, built by the fire-wielding lights, felt thick and tangible and so easy to touch.
She knew how to answer him.
"Because I would never betray them."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Quidditch was loud and awful and just what Hermione remembered.
Somehow, she enjoyed every second of it, even when Slytherin scored against Gryffindor. Surrounded by the ambient magic of the school and the roaring wave of out of control magic, still being cultivated by carefree students, brings Hermione alive in a way that felt joyous.
It's an alien sensation, and one she is sure to etch into her memory.
At her side Pansy was solemn but smiling, and Hermione can tell something in her magic was soothed despite her afflicted status of disharmonious. Every so often she caught Pansy speaking to Neville from the corner of her eye, their friendly airs tense but holding and during the timeout Hermione felt safe to leave, knowing they wouldn't start fighting. They are far too busy debating the aesthetic of dirt to bother much else, including the match.
So, she used the time to explore instead.
It was somewhat overwhelming to wander the hallways, feeling the groaning press of power that dwelled there. Despite Hogwarts being mostly empty, there was still so much life thumping around her in echoes of magic spent and lighthearted laughter. She shook her head and focused to push back the invasion of it, but Hogwarts felt… starving, as if it wanted to taste her. Demanding with an invasive knocking for her to share.
She took a small moment to lean against the cool stone wall and rub her sweat-slick hands across it. And still the song strummed through her mind, leading her somewhere, bidding her to walk, to consume or be devoured.
She rounded a corner mindlessly and stared with an open mouth at a cloaked figure.
"Hey!"
The cloaked figure jerked, wand still glowing, over an unmoving body and Hermione prayed the deep red on their prefect badge was ink and not something thicker.
Hermione revealed her wand and the castle sung louder in warning-something's not right, something is coming!
A thundering boom rocked the grounds and Hermione stumbled. The figure was steadier and took that time to run, a streak of black against grey stone.
Hermione caught her footing and followed.
She thought about the poor boy left behind, about the time it might have taken her to cast a patronus-
But Hogwarts demanded retribution and drove her forward.
Magic curled through her, ready and eager, and she released a simplistic barrage of slowing spellwork. Her jinxes bounced harmlessly off the whipping cloak, and the zigzag pattern of experienced footwork left her more focused on keeping pace than testing the reflective nature of the invaders clothing.
It wasn't until the figure slipped into the library that Hermione gave off a soft curse.
If they thought she wouldn't fire off a spell to keep the books within safe they were… painfully right.
Hermione followed nonetheless, stepping past the threshold as cautiously as possible. The figure had stopped running though, and stood now at the center of the room, hood down with wild locks of red hair twitching in the loose magic that flowed around her.
Then she turned around, wand held at the throat of another-
Hermione gasped as she tightened her hold upon her wand, instant recognition hitting her so hard her knees trembled.
"Ginny?"
The woman across from her, no longer the gangly Quidditch girl of their shared youth, did not respond. Instead she tightened her hold on her hostage.
"Granger!"
The hostage squealed like a frightened child, something Hermione might have enjoyed in better circumstances, but she was so shocked at the sight of Ginevra that she scarcely thought of why she held Dolores Umbridge.
"Ginny, what are you doing here?" Hermione whispered as she dared a single step forward.
Ginny tightened her hold around Umbridge's neck, and the woman gargled with displeasure. Ginny looked wild, mud smudged and bruised with various cuts across her cheeks and wand hand. But it was her eyes that drew Hermione forward. Glassy and unusual.
The magic within her coiled and begged and Hermione swallowed the urge to use it.
"Granger, help me!" Umbridge struggled, albiet weakly, in a way that might have meant she'd been hurt.
Hermione ignored her, "Ginny what are you doing here?"
Ginny blinked once, rather slowly. "Why haven't you replied to the last correspondence?"
Hermione sucked in a sharp breath as Umbridge sputtered. "What?"
"Have you given up on helping the order?"
Ginny's voice was oddly hollow. A bit tinny, like it was being squeezed through a radio.
"What are you talking about, Ginny? What are you doing here? What correspondence?"
"The information you provided on the Dark Lord was very helpful before. Did the assassination attempt on the night of your ritual fail?"
Hermione blinked rapidly, then looked at Umbridge. Umbridge, who wasn't struggling as much. Umbridge, whose cheeks twitched.
She returned her gaze to Ginny and slowly lowered her wand. "There is no Order. Their last safehouse failed."
"You were meant to go there and stage Draco Malfoy's killing by Luna Lovegood. You failed."
Hermione fought to control the heavy thunk of her heartbeat, even when Umbridge cried out, "Traitor!"
Umbridge's voice continued onward, even as Ginny just stood there staring. "I knew you were just a filthy mudblood. You've been with the Order all along!"
Something is wrong, Hogwarts sung.
Hermione turned her gaze to Umbridge and lifted her wand.
Immediately, the other woman broke from Ginny's grasp to thrust her own wand forward with a snarl. Within her other hand she held a glowing orb, filled with a murky electric blue smoke. She cracked back her arm to fling it forward and in the same moment Hermione unleashed her own spell with a cry of anger. Something was wrong-
At her back something hot licked, a wave of fire and a single voice as another explosion rocked the grounds, not as powerful compared to the first. They were getting further away, those little seismic tremors, and in turn anyone else in the castle should have been drawn toward them. But someone had erupted into the space, she'd heard in the ripple of the wards-felt it when some small portion had been torn asunder.
But the glowing glass orb had already been flung, even as Umbridge paled before her and yet her smile remained wide and unchanged as her spell collided with the now unleashed blue thunder.
It cracked and spiralled out of control as Umbridge backed up from the sudden vacuum. Behind her, Hermione heard that single voice again. Calling for her, crying out as Umbridge disappeared around a groaning bookshelf. Ginny now laid on the floor, unmoving, a red blur as the world twisted around her.
She turned to glance over her shoulder as the magic continued to suck at her. She didn't move from her spot, but her body still stretched in an otherworldly fashion-closer and closer to the electric blue storm.
Still, she was happy to see Bellatrix's face when she slid around the corner, gorgeous in her fury.
Hermione only wished she had a chance to taste the blood that dripped from her lip as the Hogwarts wards snapped back into place, repaired, pissed, and reactive to the danger within it.
Her flesh finally fractured and the storm began to eat.
Then something called for her.
She followed it.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
She was nothing.
And somehow everything.
There was no flesh, no muscle, no bone. There was emptiness. Void. Null. Darkness. Silence.
It was eternity, and yet there existed no time.
Still, something ticked or tocked if the concept floated past her. But it was over so quickly, as if it never existed. Ideals, thoughts. They were all nothing too.
Everything was nothing, there wasn't room for something.
Still, something or Something came for it. It held her. Swaddled her. Rocked her back and forth until nothing became some things again.
Magic. Power. A song.
Something flexed and gave her a concept: voice. She didn't use it. The silence was conforming. The nothing could become Nothing if she let it. But, the Something was filling her up, pulsing through every space where Nothing started to form, pushing it back and away. She used it then, her… voice, to let the Something know she didn't care for that.
Mirth greeted her then, amused and chiding.
The Something started to morph again, it felt more familiar now. Less alien. It was heat and slickness. It was hunger and fullness. She was suddenly so needy and then completely satisfied. It taught her to shiver and to feel flesh again. To crave it as much as she craved the capital Nothing.
Then it taught her to feel disgusted by those things, by skin and touch and it focused instead on only hunger, on starving, on the tight pain that emptiness drove into her. She shouldn't be caged. Couldn't be-
The Something finished morphing. She'd let it become too much and it had become the otherness instead. So much of it.
If she thought she could drool in the darkness, she would have at just the thought of magic, of the burn of it tightening what had once been muscles until it spilled forward to consume all that it touched. She suddenly wanted that more than the nothingness. She hoped it wasn't jealous, she might want to come back, to stuff her ears with silence once she was full and sleep.
There is no time here, and yet there is not enough of it for you to sleep.
Somehow she stirred and rediscovered the concept of eyes, knew that she blinked them despite the darkness. The concept of hunger surged stronger through her but she wasn't sure what she really yearned for. The silencing of these metaphysical aches and pains or the sharp vibrance that flowed, demanding, through her.
Both equally painful in different ways.
The otherness chose for her. It used her voice and flexed her tongue-
"Come to me."
The darkness shivered and a single eye of orange split it.
She rediscovered breathing while she waited.
Another eye appeared to match the first.
Then a body of orange stretched long and long that spooled out and twitched like a swimming snake. The darkness peeled back to reveal more and more, and she squinted due to the disruption of the black she inhabited. Somehow the orange with it's strange textures and motions was agonizing to view after so much nothing. She was nearly dizzy with her need to return to it.
The otherness made her keep watching.
It hovered around her, the thing with the eyes, with it's long snake like body and squashed feline face. It's ears twitched, one at a time, before paws churned out from the dark. It was oddly grotesque in structure and form, the stretched out monster in the false skin of a cat.
"Crookshanks…" She breathed the word into the dark, as her mind began to truly register the shape.
The creature tilted its head entirely to the side before it meowed with a voice deep and warped.
She held her head and whimpered from the horrid sound as it rattled in her now pounding skull.
The otherness basked in the sensation, eager to keep away the nothing.
Slowly the long cat stretched around her, embracing what must have been her torso in warmth. She wiggled her rediscovered fingers against it and curled around the furry bulk. Though the manifestation made her brain itch, she found its appearance a sudden comfort. She inhaled deeply and despite its lack of scent her brain still tingled pleasantly.
"Where am I?"
Her voice was invasive in the space of silence's birth, but the Crookshanks creature still turned to look upon her, even as its face began to wriggle and morph. She was incapable of blinking as she absorbed the maddening vision of moving muscle and skull shapes, but soon the face settled back to Crookshank's familiar mug.
The space between, where things are born or aren't.
She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them it was Luna's face on the creature's long body.
She held it closer, "Release me."
The creature rippled, maybe.
When she closed her eyes again the nothing lingered, a comforting blanket that pushed away fear.
Wake.
She did so, feeling the lick of hunger strike at something beyond her belly. The otherness raged and swelled within her and forced more words past her lips.
"What do you want to release me?"
Lunashanks tilted its head before it used its long body to move her. She floated and knew that something must be shifting, but the world was still the same-dark and empty.
When she blinked this time Lunashanks was no more, the head on the body was now Lily Potter.
You will do something for me. I will take something from you.
She spoke without moving her lips, and yet still heard her voice. "What if it's something I need?"
It's not a fair trade, the creature said in her voice, but it will be later, when I am done.
"Please," she croaked, "explain."
No, the creature spoke in Lily's voice. I don't want to.
It truly was a cat.
It tugged at her body until they moved no more then pushed her against the darkness.
Do this for me. Do this for me. Do this for me.
She wheezed and gasped at the pressure, still not sure what it wanted, or if she even wanted to leave-
She came awake.
"Oh."
A tiny voice drew her attention and she glanced down to spy upon a toddler.
"Hermy."
The child named her. Hermy. Hermione.
"I missed you, Hermy."
Weakness flooded her legs as she glanced over her shoulder and felt the suckling darkness at her back. Calling her home to the creature-cat. It was only the weight at her waist that drew her attention away from it, down to the child wearing a muggle t-shirt like a potato sack. Thin armed. With a mob of wild hair. Black.
When it looked up with eyes of a killing curse shade filled with shadows Hermione thought far too familiar, the otherness gave her the gift of recognition and a name.
And Harry Potter held her tighter.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The song was back, an idle hum, that kept her calm as she examined her area. She had no idea where she was, only that the darkness waited behind her. Her throat was covered, covered in a collar of inky black that she dared not touch while something heavy rested against her back, a chain to act as her leash to the silence. It tugged gently, a reminder that she was not free nor welcomed in reality and she squinted as she attempted to take everything in.
The room was painted a weird off white as if someone had hastily painted over a different deeper color. The floor was cracked, a child's bed was stuffed in the corner, surrounded by a stuffed dragon and a broken toy train. It was a near replica of Victorie's former space and with each breath she breathed in more of that something other. It called to her with a startling intensity, eager to greet and merge with her being. It pressed against her skin and spooled toward her magic, invasive despite being uninvited. She trembled and froze as her lungs filled with it, corruptive and sweet enough to make her teeth ache and all the while Lilyshanks laughter rattled through her mind with a melodic ring.
It wasn't supposed to exist. The birth was forbidden. And now it's out. And you're all wrong.
Then in paused in song, if only to say in deadtone. Or you are all right and we're all wrong.
Hermione tried to ignore it and focus on the tiny problem that clung to her being.
She peeled the child from her person and knelt with eyes that wouldn't shed tears. She wasn't sure how exactly she was feeling, only that she was hungry and the room was… feeding her.
She licked her lips and tried not to indulge in the ecstasy that hovered at the back of her mind.
"Harry?"
"Hi, Hermy. Have you come to get me?"
Hermione took a stabilizing breath, "Harry, is this really…?"
She had so many questions, so so many questions-
"-I hate it here, Hermy. Everything hurts." The child-Harry spread out his arms, and Hermione nearly gagged at the sight of his red-stained bandages. "I don't want to go back to the study. I'm tired, Hermy. I want to go."
She wasn't sure of anything he'd said, but she was careful when she touched his thin fragile arms. "H-harry, who is they? What are they doing to you?"
Child Harry shrugged, "They wear the cloaks when they see me. They don't' say much. They're afraid, I can feel it."
"Harry-"
"-but that's okay cuz Hermy is here! I thought so hard about you when I was at Hogwarts and the walls told me-"
"Y-you were at Hogwarts?" Hermione choked.
"Once, the cloaks wanted to show me to cat-professor but she sent them away."
Hermione had to tell herself to remember to breathe.
"But it doesn't matter. The walls here told me. They said you were coming. That you wouldn't stay away. My Hogwarts wish came true!"
The song twisted to laughter, then returned to its lullaby.
Hermione held onto Harry tightly, afraid that she'd fall to pieces if she let go.
Harry radiated with relief, clinging as she stood with him within her arms. When he reached up to pat her cheek, his curse killing green had turned into a monsterous red.
"I want to go with Hermy. Now."
He stared over her shoulder, eerily quiet before he nodded. "Mommy is calling us both."
Hermione whimpered as the collar tightened, and from the corner of her eye she saw an impossibly long neck. Lilyshanks' upper torso was now mostly Lily, while her head weaved and bobbed back and forth.
When it opened its mouth rows of teeth, shark-like in nature, greeted them both. "Hello sweetie."
Harry giggled, a sound of innocence and mirth and reached out his hands to wrap around Lily's long neck. "Hello Mommy!"
Though Lily spoke to Harry, her orange gaze was steady on Hermione, "Are you ready to go?"
"Yup!" Harry bounced against Hermione's hip. "Do I get to come home with you?"
"No, sweetie." Lily cooed, even as her neck began to untangle as she retreated into the darkness of the portal. "Unfortunately you have to go with Hermione. There's still more things for you to do."
Harry pouted but perked up rather quickly as something rattled on the other side of the door.
The collar tightened and began to choke her, but she didn't dare drop Harry as Lily's paws began to tug the chain backwards toward the portal.
"Come along, my sweet children." Lilyshanks rumbled, and Hermione hastily stepped backwards just as the door to the sterile room opened.
The last thing she saw was a long white beard.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"Opening statement?"
"I shouldn't be here."
Voices floated to Hermione from the void and within its bleak black Hermione rediscovered herself much faster.
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
Hermione opened her eyes and wiggled her fingers, discovering that she still held onto a now slumbering Harry-and some part of her was jealous, wondering if he was swaddled in the absolute quiet of the nothing-and was also hovering over a dingy room of some sort, filled with elevated benches where several shadowed figures sat around a center space.
But within that center dwelled three people.
The otherness reminded her of whom they were.
"Miss Tonks, Prisoner Tonks really, it would behoove you to remember where you are and who you are speaking with."
Settled at a table at the center of the room was Andromeda Tonks, haggard and tired in the standard garb of Azkaban. She was held down to her chair with iron chains, but her arms were spread on the table with each individual finger separated by a wooden block. At her front stood an auror, one Hermione had never seen before, but it was Umbridge dressed in a uniform of all black that drew the bulk of her attention.
The otherness reminded her of the addicted taste of anger.
Slowly, Crookshanks head floated over shoulder, and together they watched the scene below.
"You are holding me illegally, Dolores, and you know this."
"Oh, this is all very legal Andy. You are a prisoner, after all. Technically under my jurisdiction. Besides, you're also a former Order member. I told you if you just cooperate with us then we'd return you to your rehabilitative status."
Andromeda, despite her beaten appearance, was not moved by Dolores' words. Instead she leaned back, relaxed within her chains, "I was not at Hogwarts during the Order's very sloppy attack. As I told you six months before."
Six months? The attack had happened six months ago?! Was that how long she'd been there, waking and unwaking?
For time does not exist in the place where things are born and not born, not the way it does beyond it.
Hermione hissed her displeasure and Crookshanks hissed back.
How long had Dolores kept Andromeda there? How long had they thought her missing or dead?
Dolores scoffed, "And while we do know that as a fact, how are we to know you weren't in contact with them beforehand? You know, Deserter Mudblood Granger-"
Andromeda jerked in her chains, gaze wild and teeth on display, "Don't call Her Firstborn that, you know damn well she was a victim in that attack-"
"-Oh really?" Dolores slammed her hands on the table, rattling it as the nearby figures shifted uneasily, "I saw it with my own eyes her desertion! The court saw it!"
"And did our Lord see it?"
Dolores laughed, "I won't bother our Lord with the petty matters of the gentry. We have enough proof, my memories attest to that. We all saw the conversation between Mudblood Granger and the blood traitor."
The crowd rumbled in agreement, and something hard churned in Hermione's belly.
"Let me out of this place," Hermione growled.
No, Crookshanks answered.
"She had nothing to do with the attack on Hogwarts, Dolores. And neither did I." Andromeda spat.
"If you admittedly deny the pensive evidence of one of Her most loyal, then you incriminate yourself. I always knew it was impossible to change the mind of a blood traitor, I'll have to write to poor Madam Malfoy that I am denying your rehabilitation on behalf of the Ministry. You and your lot belong in Azkaban anyway, where you can't harm our forward progress."
The auror beside Dolores grimaced as pressure built behind Hermione's eyes.
Yet, behind her, as Dolores rattled on and on, the door to the interrogation chamber shook. Something or someone on the other side was yelling, but-
-Hermione closed her eyes.
Then she woke again, only to spy upon Nymphadora ramming into the doorway. Magic crawled, malicious and strong, all over the door and several blast marks scorched the wood-now cracked in several places. It was clear that Tonks had resorted to trying to finish off the locked entrance physically as opposed to magically, but it wasn't Tonks desperate attempts to open it that sucked at Hermione's focus.
It was Luna on her knees near the doorway with Hermione's betrothal dagger across her lap. Beneath her breath she whispered lowly, a chant that snaked across her skin and tugged.
What is that, what was she-
Come back here.
Hermione's mind fractured. She closed her eyes. Then she woke elsewhere.
Dolores held tightly to Andromeda's wrist, her fingers remained spread on the wooden blocks. Within her grasp she held a thick butchering blade, inscribed with several runic symbols.
"No!"
The tugging upon Hermione's being strengthened, becoming a weighted static that stretched across her soul. Her gaze remained focused on the scene below her, even as some portion of her filled with more pressure.
The otherness rose to stuff her full and magic crackled against the nothingness.
Dolores spoke to the crowd at large, but she kept eye contact with Andromeda. "I'll decide with the Wizamagot whether you are truly guilty, but your sister has sent me many threats while she mourns your dead mudblood traitor.
Threatening me for telling the truth is the same as threatening the Minister and I intend to take my cut from you, Andromeda, for the offense against us."
Slowly, Dolores leaned forward, her forehead shiny with sweat, "You and that filthy little girl are nothing compared to me and now you know it, the same as all of us."
"I claim this in the name of the department of House Affairs. The Mighty House of Umbridge will have it's due."
Dolores swung downward.
Andromeda screamed.
And Hermione roared at the darkness around herself. She felt her limbs ache with an access of magic, saw Harry stir in her arms as her skin pulsed with power she wished to use. She twisted her neck around as the crowd below her rose as one wave, all of them silent and accepting of the affront before her. She need not speak her anger to the creature beside her as the yank on her person grew much more powerful. Her skin stretched to contain it, the fury within, and the flame of that savagery echoed throughout the darkness that contained her.
Chanting words that made no sense rose and fell in melodic harmony and she saw two scenes fight for dominance within her omnipresent mind. Tonks now knelt beside Luna properly, rocking back and forth as her voice joined Luna's words, but another stood with her wand drawn before the door-Parkinson in uniform, chanting as well.
When Luna unsheathed Hermione's knife and sliced a long line along her palm, the blood that bubbled past pale flesh splashed along the hilt and gave an order to the song in Hermione's mind.
The world buckled and her magic crowed as she shoved an arm past the bubbling darkness.
It was only then that Crookshanks spoke, a whisper barely heard above the pounding in Hermione's head. I'll take what I want from you now, little godling. Enjoy being born within reality.
Something tore from her flesh and it left a wet gaping hole in her being.
That'll heal. Meow.
Then the otherness surged with purpose, her magic and it no longer separated.
The doors to the chamber burst from their hinges, spraying the occupants as Dolores held onto the finger she'd stolen. From beyond the shrapnel and billowing dust Parkinson pressed forward. Yet, Hermione already stood within the space side by side with child Potter while the lone auror stumbled and dropped their own wand in their hasty attempt to draw it.
But Hermione only held eyes for Dolores, even as the shadowed members of Dolores council began to apparate from the room. When the auror at her side finally found his wand, he did not get the chance to aim it. He fell to his knees choking as Hermione made an idle motion with her thumb and forefinger, stealing his breath, suppressing his life.
She felt little disgust at doing it.
Crookshanks had taken something important from her.
Dolores watched with bugged out eyes and shuffled backwards as Hermione stepped forward.
"C-call the force! Call Her Death Eaters, Mudblood Granger has returned from hi-gackt!"
Hermione stepped forward and slammed her foot down hard, enjoying the crunch of Dolores ankle beneath it. She had never known herself to be that strong, but a joyous thrill surged through her at the knowledge.
The something missing was just a dull ache. Throbbing but no longer agonizing.
"Hermione!"
Luna's voice, concerned and relieved floated to her hyper-focused mind and she watched with a tilted head and Dolores crawled toward an empty bench space. Anyone who could have helped her had long fled, and the auror assistant lay on the ground unmoving.
"Something is missing," Harry tugged on her robes beside her, watching her with intense red eyes.
"Yes, it is." Hermione confirmed as Dolores sloppily apparated, using a bench to help her flop and twist around.
Hermione shivered as she imagined her splinching.
"It worked," Tonks rushed forward. "The praying it-it fucking worked!"
But she didn't stop to celebrate, instead skirting around Hermione to attend to her mother, who looked at Hermione with glassy eyes and pain-pinched brows.
"I knew you'd come back," Andromeda whispered, as Tonks began to hastily unchain her from the chair. "We never stopped believing in you Hermione. Never."
Still, Hermione had failed her.
"Dolores is gone, and so is… the finger, I'm sorry." Parkinson wheezed as she jogged over, right before she sputtered at the sight of the child Potter.
Hermione didn't address Parkinson's concern nor her confusion at the child Potter, who Luna waved tired to as he began to wander the now empty chamber.
Hermione had greater concerns. "Tell my Lord and Master that I am not dead and bring me my betrothed."
Pansy gave a stiff nod before she twisted on the spot.
Hermione turned her attention to Luna.
"You prayed for me to return?" She said, still floating within the chambers of her anger. The soothing call of Luna's magic swept over her, gentle, but probing and somehow more dominant. Hermione couldn't help her conditioned response and melted into the embrace that now held her.
Luna's face was tucked against the skin of Hermione's neck as emotion, both relief and sadness, passed beneath them. "I prayed for you to return to us, my Lady, my Goddess, because I am your servant and your priestess needs you."
I prayed for you, I summoned you. For Hermione had never been dead, just trapped as she remembered what it was like to be human.
"I lost something to leave there," Hermione whispered, "The place Dolores' strange magic sent me."
Something wet dampened the skin of Hermione's neck, but they both pretended it wasn't tears. "I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Hermione said. "I don't think I'm capable of missing it."
Crookshanks could have her humanity.