Death Becomes Her

by C

A young woman left her family and friends ten years ago to become a (drum roll....) HIT-WITCH! Now she is offered a job to murder one of her friends. And now her world is turned upside-down as she re-enters the world that she left so long ago. A tale of

3. Screaming is Not Good

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There is a Disclaimer to this story. It is that the characters that I am using are of JK Rowling's property. The story was, interestingly enough, inspired by the film "Grosse Point Blank" (Don't blame me! Blame the telly!!) and some of my dialogue is loosely taken from it. Also, it suddenly occurred to me after one review, that my story is a little bit like the film "The Whole Nine Yards", so I've decided to say that I never meant for it to wriggle it's way into the story, but Fiona, like the dentist's secretary in "The Whole Nine Yards" has a taste for killing. In the same review, I was told that my story was a little like "Pulp Fiction" and I would like to say that I've never seen the film.

This is my very first piece of Fanfiction. But I'm not going to go off and say that you must be gentle because I'm just a beginner. To be honest, I don't mind whether I get a Flame or a Brilliant Review, though a brilliant review is much preferred. In my opinion; Flames are useless. But if you have something good to say, like my grammars all wrong, or that the story is too vague and you have a suggestion on how to improve it. Then the constructive criticism is welcomed with opened arms.

The third chapter is just what I would call: The Third Chapter. It's not th beginning or the end. It's not even really the middle. It's just the third chapter. It could be very eventful. Or it could not…

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Chapter O3 – Screaming is Not Good

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"A true friend stabs you in the front"

– Oscar Wilde

I aimed my wand carefully at the skinny woman as she lit up a cigarette. I knew her name. It was Natalie Down. And I met her a couple of times, awfully nice, sweet and polite. She was a few years my senior, awfully mature and just lovely. You'd never take her for a crook. But she was in the inner circle of the London Underground. And no, I don't mean the tube. I mean the criminal underground. She was quite a character. And now she had conned one too many people, and this one was also in the inner circle. Albert Hall. That was his name, not his real one, obviously, but that was what he went by. And Natalie Down had got him in a lot of trouble with the authorities. It was pay back time. But I was the thing that killed her. I was the one who would get another ball and chain on me when I died.

I breathed deeply, like I had done with the man in Paris. Concentration was vital. One false move, one daydream could blow my cover to pieces. And frankly, when it came down to the nitty-gritty, I preferred her to die than me.

A droplet of sweat fell off my nose. It shouldn't have been so hard to pop her off right there and then. She wasn't in a public place. She was just at home, on her terrace, having a fag. Her husband was inside, probably having a shower from the sounds of the opera coming out of the third window. I bit my lip in total and utter concentration.

Then something set me off. Something that I probably would never have set me off a few months ago. A tall, quite handsome teenage boy came out into view. Closely followed by a young girl of about eleven. I froze. I went catatonic. Suddenly, I couldn't do it. It began to occur to me for the first time in ten years that this person had a life. That every one I had so carelessly deleted had a life. And someone who loved them. I knew that everyone had at least one person who loved them on this earth. And this woman in front of me had a loving husband and children. Their lives would be wrecked if she died. And they probably didn't even know that she was a criminal. I knew she was a nice person to be around. I had met her.

I began to shake uncontrollably. I couldn't do it. No amount of will power could make me do it. I tried to snap out of it but I couldn't. My wand was going mental, shaking like I was. I bit my lip harder, drawing blood.

Come on Hermione, I growled to myself. You can do it. Don't be such a baby.

I fixed my eyes on Natalie Down. Her daughter had her arms around her, giving her a soft kiss on the cheek. Down was beaming. The cigarette was out in an ashtray. I knew that Down didn't smoke with the children around. Somehow I knew that. Concentrating began to get harder and harder. My whole body felt like it was going into some sort of seizure. A tear rolled down my cheek as I tried to pick myself up together.

Then I did the unforgivable. The worst thing I could ever do. And considering I was up a tree, I was in the worst position ever.

I screamed.

I screamed a scream that I thought I would never scream. The scream of someone about to have a nervous breakdown.

Down's head snapped up and her children were suddenly very alert. She grabbed her wand and started exploding the bushes. Then the trees. One by one, the trees were left stark naked, with no leaves to cover them. Two more trees then it was me. She would get me.

Still shaking, I shoved my wand into my pocket. Then I took a deep breath and apparated, just as she hit my tree.

* * * *

Fiona was in the office as I apparated in. She was on the telephone to someone, but she immediately hung up when she saw the state up was in. She rushed to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. I was shivering badly.

'Ms. Granger!' She gasped, settling me down into a chair. 'What's happened to you? Did the job go wrong?'

I nodded numbly.

She gave me a sympathetic pat on the arm. 'Would you like to tell me what happened?'

The thoughts of Fiona and the person in the black cape at Flourish and Blott's flew out of my head. And I told her. I told her about my careful planning to get Down, scraping my knee climbing up the tree and my articulate aiming. I told her about the children and how I snapped. I told her about the conscience that had finally caught up with me.

And when I was done, the reaction was something I didn't quite expect.

She picked up her wand off the table and inspected it closely. She took a deep breath and looked at me hard.

'Would you mind if I went and did the job for you?' She asked.

I looked at her, my eyes widening.

'P-p-pardon?'

'Would you mind if I went and did the job for you?' She repeated slowly, as if I was some dumb being.

'Why?' I stammered.

'Oh…' She sighed. 'It's just that I've always wanted to kill someone.'

I nearly fainted.

'You see,' She continued. 'You always get the fun job. You get to go out. I'm stuck here in this office punching numbers.'

'B-b-b-but you're my secretary!'

Fiona shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. The thing is that you're going to get into big trouble with a certain Albert Hall if you don't erase Down. And then your own life is at risk. So if you can't go through with it, then I'll do it for you. And you still get paid. All I'm asking for is a small percentage.'

For some odd reason, it made sense. So I agreed. She could kill Down.

'How much are you asking for?' I asked cautiously.

I saw a small glint in Fiona's eyes. 'Just 30%.' She said. 'You already pay me far to well.'

I privately agreed. I did pay her far too much. But that was the price of keeping my identity a secret.

I put out my shaking hand and she took it. 'Deal.'

* * * *

I knocked on the plain wooden door of number 28 Duckpool Parade. It was the door of quite a nice looking house. Very well kept. Everything from the steps until the window seemed squeaky clean. It brought back memories of when I was in Switzerland on a job, very neat. Number 28 Duckpool Parade was the house of Mr and Mrs Neville Longbottom. And I was going over for dinner. Neville owled me an invitation to their dinner party. A dinner party. That meant that there were other people coming along. Yuck. I hate being around so many people. Especially if I knew them from my Hogwarts days. But I was looking forward to seeing Ginny. I assumed that she was the 'Mrs' in the Mr and Mrs Neville Longbottom.

The door opened revealing a tallish woman with blonde hair and rosy cheeks. She looked as if someone had died, very sad. And her make up was smudged. I stepped back.

'Er – Is this the home of Neville Longbottom?' I asked. 'I'm looking for it.'

The woman broke into what I could tell was a forced smile. 'You must be Hermione!' She said. 'You've changed quite a bit since I last saw you at Hogwarts!'

I gave her a puzzled look. 'I'm terribly sorry.' I said slowly. 'But I can't remember who you are.'

She didn't look annoyed, as I had expected her to be. Instead she let me inside the home and took off my coat, still giving me that false smile.

'I'm Hannah.' She said. 'Hannah Longbottom.'

I blinked.

She let out a weak giggle. 'Oh! Sorry! My maiden name is Abbots! I was in Hufflepuff. We were in Herbology and Muggle Studies together, before you dropped Muggle Studies.'

A vague memory of a squat blonde girl who always wore pigtails popped into my head. I nodded slowly.

'Ah yes… Now I remember.'

She led me down a small hallway of the house, presumably to the living room.

'Neville!' Hannah called. 'Hermione's here!'

She steered me into the living room. And Neville shot out of his chair.

'Hermione!' He said warmly, giving me a hug and a peck on each cheek. 'So glad that you could make it!'

I forced a smile. 'I'm happy I could make it too.' I scanned the rest of the room. And unfortunately, I saw many familiar faces. Several of them made their way to me. I began to wish that I could've become a miner. Then I would've been able to dig my way out of there. But, as it turned out, I chose to be a professional killer rather than a miner.

Oh brilliant. Now Harry's heading towards me. Urgh. I grabbed the nearest glass of drink from the passing servant. It was obvious that this was a very high class party.

'Harry!' I said in a false tone of happiness. 'How are you?'

He too embraced me and gave me a kiss on both of my cheeks.

'I'm fine.' He said, looking at the ground. 'You?'

'Oh! I'm fine… just fine!' I said, laughing nervously. The scream of that afternoon was still boring into the back of my brain.

Harry looked straight at me with a look of concern. 'What's wrong?' He asked me directly.

'Nothing that would matter to you.' I snapped.

I suspected him to persist on the subject, but he just dropped it, taking a large gulp from his glass. I glanced uncomfortably around me. I could see people who I guessed to be Parvati Patil, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie MacMillan dotted among the crowd.

'You a bit surprised then?' He said finally, slicing through the silence between us.

I jumped, startled. 'Pardon?' I said feebly.

'Are you a bit surprised that Ginny's not Nevilles wife?' He repeated.

I nodded. 'Yes… Yes, I am.'

He shrugged and smiled. 'Do you want me to tell you the story?'

I nodded again. I had that feeling that me saying no wouldn't stop him from telling me this tale. It obviously would give him a buzz to do so anyway. And I've been told it's not good to deprive the sad people.

'Neville and Ginny did eventually get married.' He said. 'It was an amazing wedding, very quaint. And not at all traditional like you might have expected it to be. It was a nice outdoorsy one in this moor somewhere out in Scotland. Arthur managed to make the area unplottable for the occasion, dunno how many strings he had to pull to get it done. And so they lived pretty happily for a while in a nice little house in Greater Littleton. Yeah, I think that's what the town was called. Anyway, they tried for a kid a few times, all miscarriages. Which was horrible. Ginny was nearly disowned by Molly for the shame of the family, no Weasley, past or present had ever miscarried. And then they kind of grew apart from each other, Ginny becoming a total wreck because her kids died. Then she went totally mad one day and applied for divorce. Muggle divorce. You can't divorce in this world, but any muggle divorce is accepted in our world as a part of tolerance of some sort of shit like that. Oh, I have no bloody idea.'

Here he took a deep breath.

'So you can imagine Neville's poor shock when this lawyer appeared on his doorstep with all these papers saying that Ginny no longer wanted to be his wife – I'll tell you now, he nearly died of shock there and then. But he still loved her, and he would've done anything for her. So he signed the damn papers. And he even carried the bags out to the car for her. It wasn't one of those messy split ups, they're still good friends, though a bit dodgy at times.'

I looked at Harry. Stunned. He smiled and took another gulp from his glass.

'Anyway. A few years later, Neville bumped into Hannah here. He fell in love with her before you could blink and proposed to her before she could even begin to think about it – I'm giving them a few more years until one of them comes to their senses.'

I looked around nervously, clutching my un-sipped glass. 'So…' I began, 'How have you been?'

'I'm alright.' He said. 'Could you excuse me for a moment? Nature calls.'

I smiled again, and looked around for someone else to talk to. I was approached by the last person I wanted to see.

Ron.

But thankfully this time he wasn't drunk.

'Hello Hermione!' He said cheerfully, raising his glass of champagne to me. 'How's life?'

No embrace. No 'hello' kiss. And no signs of stupid drunkenness. But at least there weren't any silly alcohol inspired bits of love confessions spouting out of his mouth like the last time. I took a deep sip from my glass.

'Hello Ron.' I replied dully. 'I'm fine, thanks.'

He laughed. 'That's good! – Any plans for Christmas?'

I cringed. I personally hated Christmas. Far too happy in my opinion. So, other than decorating the office with Fiona, who unfortuantely was the greatest lover of Christmas the world has ever known, I wasn't going to do anything. Except, perhaps, watch the cartoon specials on the telly. Re-runs of Bob the Builder and Banana Man were just my style.

'Yeah… I'm popping over to France to visit my cousins.' I lied.

He frowned. 'Oh damn! Mum was wondering if you'd like to come over to our place for Christmas.'

I smiled through gritted teeth. 'Well tell her I'm sorry I couldn't come and that I'll send her a card.'

He shrugged and scratched his nose. 'Alright, then – I was sort of hoping you could come along too.'

Oh great, not again.

'Oh?'

'Yeah – Do you remember what we were talking about last time we saw eachother?'

I grimaced. 'Depends. Do you mean when you were drunk and you told me you loved me or you do mean about what I've been doing these past ten years?'

He bit his lip. 'The first one.'

'Oh. Brilliant.' I said. 'What is it then?'

'I was being serious.'

I raised an eyebrow. 'That's really sad, Ron.' I said crispily. 'Still having feelings for someone who left your life ten years ago, really sad. I think you should've moved on by now – I have.'

Ron didn't seem to notice what I was saying though. Bloody idiot. He should really seek therapy.

'Listen, Hermione.' He said slowly. 'I'm not saying that I haven't been over you. Merlin knows how many girls I've gone out with to get over you. What I'm saying is that one day, you just had to come back into all of our lives and I found that I couldn't get over you because I love you.'

I looked at him sternly, finishing off my glass. 'Oh, so it's all my fault is it?' I said acidly. 'Just because you claim to love me doesn't mean I still love you, Ron. I don't love anymore, because it gets you into trouble. '

And with that, I walked off into the crowd. But not before tripping over the carpet. And swearing loudly.

* * * * *

I quickly snapped out of my daydream during the dinner. I was just eating the spaghetti cabonara absent-mindedly when someone called my name.

It was Hannah.

Still as pale and tear-stricken as ever.

'Would you like to come and help me in the kitchen, Hermione?' She said.

Oh great. I thought this little party had chefs and waiters and stuff. And I have to go and help her in the kitchen? And why me out of all the guests.

By then I should've realised that "Help in the kitchen." Really meant: "Can I talk to you in private?". But I was a bit sloshed up by then and not fully conscious. I was watching myself carefully. A quick slip of the tongue could reveal my little 'secret' of professional killing.

I sighed. 'Of course, Hannah.'

I stood up and followed her into the massive kitchen where there were loads of cooks at work. The human kind, not the house-elf kind. She motioned me to follow her into a smaller room off the kitchen.

She briskly closed the door behind me and began to cry.

Shocked. I stood there on my spot, lamely watching this grown woman crumble down into deep heavy sobs.

I moved slowly to her. Why me? I wasn't used to handling emotions or emotional people. I patted my hand on her shoulder.

'Do – do – do you want me to go and get Neville?' I asked cautiously.

She shook her head and took in a few breaths.

'No – I need to speak with you.'

'Oh. Alright.'

She motioned to a stool that I hadn't noticed before.

'Sit.'

So I sat. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

'What were Percy's last words?' She asked me softly.

My eyes widened. This of all things? And Percy? Oh excellent. I'm being questioned on the very thing I murdered, killed, erased. The very thing that brought me back into this horrid world.

I racked my brain quickly to find something suitable.

'Well…' I said slowly. 'What he said wasn't that heroic or anything. He said: "Interesting – a pet burial company. Well done, Hermione – I see you've made it successfull in life."'

She laughed weakly. 'At least he got to finish his sentence.' She said.

I shrugged. 'Are you sure you don't want Neville here? Or perhaps Susan Bones…'

Hannah immediately shook her head and looked at me seriously. 'I need to tell you something. Something that you must promise to not tell anyone else.'

'You shouldn't tell me.' I said quickly. 'I'm not very good with secrets.'

I was very anxious to not get too chummy with Hannah, the last thing I needed was a great secret of hers, or anyones, to burden me.

'But I must tell you!' She cried. 'I have to! Or else I'll explode!'

I shook my head. 'But couldn't you tell someone like Neville or Susan or even Justin? Why me?'

At this point, she was sobbing greatly. 'No! I can't tell them! They wouldn't understand! Especially Neville! He couldn't understand anything even if the rules on how to understand came up to him and hit him in the face!'

'Well I won't listen.' I said cruelly.

'You have to listen! You must listen!' She shrieked. 'Or else you'll be sorry!'

'Fine.' I said scathingly, slumping back onto the stool. 'Tell me.'

'Thank you.' She breathed.

'Well?'

'Well, you see – '

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Fear my wrath peoples! I am done with this chapter! Muahahahahahahahhahahahaha! Feel the suspense curdling your blood!! Nyeah nyeah nyeah.

Anyway, like a person at the BAFTAs, the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards, I have a very long thank you list, starting from where I left off previously:

Rachel Ray (thanks for loving it!!), Raisin (::sighs:: I know what you mean… the first chapter is always the best one… but it's great that you couldn't stop reading it!), pimoo (a pro? surely you must be high, thanx anyway), Crystal (I can't stop grinning here because of your review!!), marna (well… here's your more!), Hermione L. Granger (there are things I know about Fiona that will make you're hair curl, not that you need it), Luinthoron (oooh! METALLICA!), Luinthoron (ooh! A SECOND review!! And Percy saying 'Mudblood' was JUST because he panicked, not because he said it in everyday life), Lisa Cove (love the pun, thanks!), Bunny-chan (well then, today is finally the day you get to see a Hermione-hit-person story!! Hehehe… I'm warped), Lisa Cove (ooh! Another review!! And I'm glad I have a fan like you! Yet again, love the pun), chibiUSAxsm (er… I hope I typed that right, yeah!! I ROCK!! WAHOOO!!!), violet (here is the 'more work' you asked for madam!), velvet sun (oooh! Well… Ginny isn't dead because you see her in Chapter 01, and I'm writin'!), Charlene (excellent? Aaaaaaaawwwwww!!), Sparkle-zed (ACTION and STEAMY? This is a side of you I've never seen before!!), Mars (Hermione is not a very emotional person, but she slowly becomes emotional as shown in later chapters, thanx for the grrreat review too!!), Helena Darjeeling (delicious? Oooh! Thank you!! And I love you're stories just as much, but I've never seen "Pulp Fiction" before!!)

Thanks for all your reviews and please keep 'em coming!! Hugs - roses