Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.
A/N: Hi all. Initially, I didn't intend to write this chapter, and, after I did, I decided I wouldn't bother posting it, because I wasn't sure whether some of the material in it would be well-received. However, it has come to my attention, that there's a fic out there that features in explicit detail, Harry having sex with his mom. After hearing about that, a little bestiality and infanticide seems downright tame. If either of these topics apalls you, either morally or artistically, feel free to disregard this chapter entirely and move onto the next one, which I am posting immmediately after I post this one. There's nothing you need to know in this chapter that you can't rapidly deduce from the next one. All right, on with the show.
Chapter Thirteen
The Winter Solstice
Hermione was cold and wet, and, at the present time, was crouching back on her haunches while sitting on a thick branch in a tree in the middle of a giant, dark forest. She remained like that for some time, the late November night continuing on in silence, the glow of the full moon cutting through the thick wall of tree branches, forming a spray of moonlight dewdrops on the earthen floor. Below her, the deep rumble of what could have been a Ford Mustang v. 8 rippled through the silence, making goosebumps break out on Hermione's flesh. She licked her lips in unconscious anticipation, forcing herself to remain composed, counting silently in her mind to keep from jumping the gun. Timing was everything; it was the difference between life and death. The Dark Lord knew this, and he learned patience over several decades. She expected to learn it much more quickly.
The dark creature down below turned its gaze up to the sight of that rich, glowing white orb in the sky and emitted a long, mournful howl. Now, Hermione thought, her eyes blazing with a momentary ferocity as she slipped from the tree branch, silently crashing down on top of the werewolf, her slim legs pincering the creature's midsection on either side as she straddled it, a nine inch switchblade coming to life in her hands so that, as the creature bucked and reared back to try and throw her off, she responded by driving the point into the base of the werewolf's neck hard and fast so that the blade penetrated its tough skin and was buried right up to the hilt. This caused the creature to jerk that much more wildly, giving its macabre dance in the clearing a twitchy sort of desperation. Hermione gripped the creature by the hair on its head, using only one hand so that the other was free to grab the knife by the handle and wrench it sideways, opening a large gash in the creatures body, so that blood could pour out freely.
Blood. The sight of it made Hermione lick her lips in animal anticipation. Without waiting for the creature to settle down and fall unconscious, or sink into a drunken stupor from blood loss, Hermione gripped its fur in both her hands, all the while squeezing that much harder with her legs to hold on, as she bent down and pressed her pink, wet lips to the open wound, suckling the gash as blood poured out, drawing the dark red substance into her mouth, over her tongue, where it tingled the senses, made her magical receptors come alive with energy, the blood coursing down her throat in a steady stream. God, how she loved the taste of it. She loved the dizziness that overtook her, the feeling that she couldn't stand from the sheer giddiness, the heightened awareness of her limbs, the strength, the constant flow of vitality through her veins, the feel of the rich life of the forest rolling across her skin in waves. Hermione let each bout of the liquid slosh in her mouth, coat every warm, wet area. She let it slide down her face, dripping over her chin and curling around to the underside of her head and down her neck, pooling about her Adam's apple and continuing on down onto her shoulders, along the ridge of her collar bone, down across her chest, filling in the hollow between her breasts as it continued winding its way downward, filling in her belly button and down her waist, her legs, her calves until it disappeared into the forest floor. She drank so that her teeth were stained red, so that her belly gurgled with the richness of it. She drank and she drank until the wolf fell into a heap and the blood flow began to slow, and she was sated for the moment, her feeding done. Hermione rolled off the creature, which she knew would not lie still for long. God, how she loved the taste and feel of werewolves; their strength a hundred times that of the krup she had enjoyed on that fateful day so many months ago. The cold now embraced her, turning from a daunting, lethal entity to a warm embrace. The moon made her come alive, made her free as it sprinkled her with light. She lay there, smiling, staring up at the canopy of foliage, her eyes attuned to all the creatures that roamed the night.
The wolf stirred next to her, its heightened regenerative abilities already restoring its lost blood, the otherwise fatal wound visibly thinning. Hermione watched, fascinated as always by the regeneration. Unlike before, where she often watched from the tree branches high above, her own self-preservation instinct inducing her to flee the monstrosity, she now remained on the floor with it, next to it, admiring it in all its glory and in a way she never could have done before. Its hulking frame rose into the air, its body all the more fearsome from her vantage point on the ground, as she lay helpless before it, full of a nervousness and an excitement, though for what she couldn't quite tell. The creature looked down at her, its jaws snapping the night air, saliva dripping from them and onto her neck, sending shivers of anticipation through her.
She purred softly in response to its deep growl. "Hello," she continued, her eyes alight with mischief. In a flash, the creature moved itself on top of her, its powerful forearms and hind legs forming a cage around her body. It growled again, its hot breath smelling of digested raw meat and tickling her neck and shoulders. It peered at her closely with its slitted, yellow eyes, as if sizing her up, and Hermione felt an instant thrill course through her; a kind of thrill she hadn't felt in a long time, and she suddenly realized just how alert all her senses were, how alive she felt, how she felt so incredibly... lustful. "Are you even my type?" she asked aloud, knowing full well the creature would not respond one way or the other. Instead, Hermione simply cast a glance down at the creature's lower half, her eyes easily picking out its genitalia, which caused a visceral delight to well up in her. She locked gazes with the creature once again, her face expressing unfettered delight, one hand, stroking the creature's muscular chest, the other reaching down and gripping its hard penis. She cocked her head as a sign of questioning, wondering if the creature was understanding her meaning. From the throbbing organ in her hands and the howl of triumph that the creature emitted as it turned its snout to the sky, Hermione decided that it did understand.
In all honesty, Hermione had no clue what she was doing. All she knew for certain was that the blood drinking, which she had acclimatized herself to over the last two months had escalated to her current predicament, where she needed large doses of magically powerful blood just to keep from going into convulsions. Now, it seemed that her newfound beverage of choice was creating other side effects, demanding of her other urges that demanded satiation. Her intellectual mind still very much intact, Hermione knew that sex between magical beings could have deep consequences, and, to her surprise, that part which had always been reserved about her newfound endeavours, had appeared to give up fighting and join her dark side, for it now simply urged her onward to satiate its own curiosity regarding the effects that such a bizarre and unseemly union would have.
As such, Hermione let go of the werewolf's penis and threw her hands around its thick neck, arching her back and lifting her legs up to wrap around its hind ones, affording the creature better access and making it clear that she was not only willing, but eager. The creature bent down close and fucked her senseless, acting uncharacteristically human-like at times and doing things like nuzzling and licking her neck and shoulders, causing Hermione to oscillate between moaning and screaming with pleasure.
That night, Hermione lost her virginity. Come morning, she had disappeared, leaving a dishevelled, naked Remus Lupin ambling about in a most peculiar daze. he didn't know quite what to make of the previous night, though he felt that there was something distinctly different about it. Just what it was he couldn't put his finger on, and, so, shrugging, he simply transfigured himself a new pair of clothes and apparated back to his flat near Diagon Alley, where Tonks was waiting for him.
In the days that followed, Hermione knew that something fundamental had changed within her. It was something inarticulable, and it wasn't altogether a good thing or a bad thing. For one, she found the usual invigorating feeling that accompanied her blood drinking did little to assuage her deep thirst. However, while the thirst remained omnipresent, the shadow of withdrawals never breached an arms length distance. It was all around disconcerting, because it left her in a state of perpetual yet mild discomfort. It seemed as though nothing was fated to go her way. She also found her moods to be largely moved by the waxing and waning of the moon, and she had no doubt that she would be in for a peculiar surprise on the next full moon, which, she noted, was on the day of the Winter Solstice. That, she knew, would prove to be most interesting, for a werewolf's strength grew exponentially at the height of the moon's gaze and was amplified that much more the longer the preamble. She had no doubt that the werewolves in the forest would be at the peak of their strength on that night. A peak that would not be realized again for another twenty to thirty years. Armed with that knowledge, a decidedly twisted plan began to form in her mind.
Since her departure back in September, Hermione had spent her time doing many things. She had roamed about all parts of Britain, apparating here and there, slipping between the dark places and the light places, like sunrays and moonbeams in twilight. All this she did for the purpose of executing one critical task: gathering as much information on the dark arts as she could possibly manage. In particular, information on dark transformations. She had no illusions that whatever magic was necessary to liberate dementors from their bondage would not be recorded. She knew already of their history, which was distinctive to say the least. Moreover, the confluence of magics that brought them into existence were enormously complex, spanning multiple phenomena and theories, all of which were amortized over decades, geographies, climate conditions, etc. All in all, it should have taken her a lifetime or more to uncover, and it would have, if she concerned herself with defining the term "free", as the dementor commanded, in a more liberal sense.
Unlike Voldemort, Hermione did believe in an afterlife, and she was happy to go there once her time on Earth finished its run. She didn't particularly believe that she would be sent to Hell, because she didn't believe it existed. As such, it was easier for her to cast off whatever qualms she had regarding some of the less sanitized elements of her dark arts education. She supposed that the dementors would, if all else were equal, would have just as well gone on to some pretty place with endless seas of flowers and blue skies and soft ocean waves, butterflies and all the other namby pamby aphorisms that people tended to use to describe idyllic or heavenly landscapes. Such a place, Hermione supposed, may or may not exist. Certainly, if it did, she imagined that the dementors would want to go there, like it were a luxury retirement condo with one of those fancy names like Devonshire Estates, or Kensington Gardens or something. However, Hermione knew that the term "free", which might normally connote such an endeavour, was not quite adequate to describe her plans for the dementors. No, she had something else in mind quite entirely. As far as she was concerned, simple annihilation would have to suffice, and whatever the universe or God or Gods did to rectify or relocate their intrinsic energies would be up to them and not her. Or at least mostly. Part of her plan, of course, was to simply vaporize their souls magically, or at least do so to the best of her abilities. Such a task in its own right was extremely difficult and worth a Nobel prize in magical theory.
One October evening, having recently penetrated the deep recesses of Borgin & Burke's and extracted several rare dark arts texts, she spent reading on the subject, familiarizing herself with the nuances of blood alchemy and mechanisms for understanding magical degree, strength, flexibility and other concepts. She discovered that the most complicated aspect to blood magic was, in muggle terms, a relatively simple concept. Just like blood, magical essences had to be compatible with the host before ensuring acceptance. This led Hermione quite quickly to the notion of a magical immune system, which, to wizards, would have been a revolutionary concept all on its own. To Hermione, it seemed rather obvious and took her less than a fortnight to fully comprehend and deconstruct. She supposed Riddle would have had to have understood something similar for he surely had undergone some of the same transformations that she was slowly undergoing herself, albeit in a fashion that didn't give much regard to his appearance afterwards; something she was keen on preserving. She was still a girl, after all.
She supposed that Voldemort, unlike her, would have taken steps to maintain blood purity, possibly even going so far as to reduce the diversity of his own blood in attempt to rid himself of the muggle taint. She could manage only a barely concealed contempt for that sort of thinking. Already, by early December, Hermione felt a chronic vitality unlike anything she had ever felt before. The wolf in her had fused itself into every part of her body, turning her skin tanned and healthy looking, giving her a clarity of vision she had never before had. Animals had no concept of politics; their minds were clear of all the ambiguities that the "moral sense" brought with it. She felt as though her intellect had been purified somehow, stripped of the restraints of uncertainty that had plagued her before. And so, she delved, harder and faster and with a keen, discerning eye that allowed her to create a flawless plan for the next full moon - one which would begin to solidify her power and bring her to the brink of the abyss, from where she would either learn to fly or lose herself in her own madness.
December 21st.
"Come to me," she said in a clear, ringing voice. All manner of creatures now flocked to her, both light and dark, those few small birds that did not hibernate during the winter coming out and perching high above to watch the display of raw power that was about to be unleashed. From around her, the howls of her children reverberated through the deep oaks and elms, the resonance a trumpet call bringing to bear all that felt her, the Dark One. Soon, dementors began pouring in, or at least the ones that had charged her with her task. They glided silently through the woods, the moonlight turning black wherever they past, the winter chill deepening around them, their cold, ragged breath the only sound as they closed in about their quarry. Hermione smiled. Come and get me.
She had timed it so that many things were in place when they arrived. The wolves, her pack, were approaching the peak of their strength, making them agitated and lust for the meat of live humans. All the while, the dementors approached, like pilgrims on a sojourn. Two cauldrons beset Hermione, both with fires stoked underneath to keep them warm.
"Come now," she said to all the creatures that now stood before her, her macabre audience waiting to find out how she had fared with the task set before her. "It is time to release you."
With that proclamation, the chilling presence of the dementors seemed to intensify with their anticipation. Hermione simply smiled. It was almost time. Patience.
She took a moment to double-check that her cauldrons were both at the right temperatures, before snapping her fingers and calling on one of the wolves to bring forward a human sacrifice. Priscilla Flint was dragged along the forest floor by the largest of the wolves, its jaws crunching down on her leg bone as it dragged her, her whimpers cutting through the still night air as the participants watched with fascination.
"Marcus's wife, isn't it?" Hermione asked politely as she was deposited at Hermione's feet. The young bedraggled woman was too terrified to speak, realizing for the first time that she was not only in the presence of wolves, but werewolves no less, and dementors and this strange dark beauty, who seemed both lithe and feral. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
Seeming to hope that this girl who could not have been older than herself might help her, Priscilla spoke, "W-who are you?"
Hermione smiled and began speaking in soothing terms. "It's okay, Mrs. Flint. I understand you're scared. I want to assure you that it's no one's intention to hurt you here tonight. Or at least, not mine. Do you understand that?"
Priscilla seemed hesitant to respond, but, after a moment, nodded tentatively, her eyes searching for any break in Hermione's apparent sincerity.
Hermione responded with a beatific smile and said, "Good. That's good. I wanted to make sure there was no confusion." She straightened her posture and looked to the array of dementors that spanned the clearing before her. With a nearly imperceptible nod, she queued the wolves to back down and retreat into the shadows beyond the edge of the dementors' consciousness. Let them forget about my children for now, she thought. It will do better for us later. The only one that remained by her side was the alpha male, who kept his keen eyes trained on the head dementor, no doubt, exercising his will to hold back from tearing the creature's throat out. In time, Hermione thought, purring softly to her companion. In time. She pulled out a used old wand, one which belonged to one Death Eater or another. One which she had pilfered long ago during one of those tumultuous adventures she and Ron had had gallivanting around Malfoy Manor. Reflecting on it, she realized that she may have still been using the wand she snitched from the Death Eater that she killed in that junkyard with the krups. That made her smile, for, just like then, she was on the brink of a new dawn.
"Why am I here?" Priscilla asked.
"You're here to participate in a very important ritual, Priscilla," Hermione said, now levelling her wand at the prone woman.
"A ritual?" she asked, gaining a bit of her composure. "What kind of ritual?"
"A dark one, Priscilla," Hermione responded cryptically, enjoying the slow build up to the nightmare horror that she was about to inflict on this unsuspecting Death Eater sympathizer and her Death Eater spawn. "A very dark one indeed."
Priscilla seemed to finally understand that she was in a bad way. Gathering her courage, she said, "The Dark Lord will punish you greatly for this." She cast a nervous glance at the dementors, suddenly doing some quick math.
Hermione merely laughed a sound that could have been musical. "What makes you think I'm not working for the Dark Lord already? I have his servants before me, do I not? The dreaded dementors of Azkaban. Immortal, unstoppable creatures of pure power, and among some of the darkest and foulest on this planet."
"You'll never get away with this," Priscilla persisted, returning her gaze to Hermione. "Marcus has been nothing but loyal to the Dark Lord, and he and I will both be rewarded."
Hermione merely smiled. "We shall see." With a short jab of her wand, Hermione incanted, "Gastrofaetus extorsis." A pale blue beam of light erupted from the wand tip and bathed Priscilla's abdomen in light. For a moment, the pregnant woman now in her third trimester did not understand the function of the spell, though, through the sudden wash of pain and the distinct feeling of disgorgement in her midsection, she began to understand exactly what was going on. "OH GOD NO!" she half-wailed, half-shrieked, both because of the pain and in sympathy for the life of her child, which was now being ripped from her. The spell, a specialized dark arts summoning charm, had the function of extracting fetuses from the mother's womb, keeping them perfectly intact and healthy, often for the purposes of saving the male heir of a pureblood line at the expense of the mother's life.
The child, which was mostly formed, its eyes blinking owlishly as it stared at Hermione, all the while its body floating and encased in a warm, temperature moderated cocoon, sat there, still upside down and naked and curled together, it's flabby little limbs pooling about its body as though it were still simply waiting for the day when it would come to exist fully. Hermione guided the newborn baby to the center of the glade and set it down, gently wiping away all the excess juices and blood that was spilt on it during its extraction. Once having cleaned it thoroughly, she picked it up and dunked it into one of her roiling potions, waiting thirty seconds before extinguishing the heat. After another minute, as she waited for the potion to turn from a murky grey to a coppery red, she turned to the dementors and commanded. "Now you will come here and take a sip from this cauldron. Drink one vial full, no more, no less. Hermione set the vial down on a small table next to the cauldron and stepped away, so that each of the dementors could glide forward and do as they commanded. Many of them seemed hesitant, it seemed, but, after the first one - the head dementor - did so with confidence and what Hermione could only describe as grace, the others followed suit, clearly willing to trust in their leader's faith in Hermione's abilities.
Once they had all finished, she smiled again that warm, disarming smile that had worked so many times to convince people that she was naive and innocent. "Good, good," she murmured, coming forward to the first dementor, her wolf snarling next to her, her feet absently sloshing through the spilt bodily fluids of the now dead mother. Hermione placed her hand along the jaw line of the dementor, wanting to feel its skin just once before it disappeared forever into oblivion.
"How does the potion make you feel?" she asked in her soft, soothing voice, all the while continuing to trace her finger over the creature's cold, rough skin. It did not respond, and merely stood there silent except for its breathing. "A long time ago, you called me the Dark One. Do you remember that?"
Again, no response.
Hermione let out a little snort. It was almost time now. The wolves were on the peak of their power, their bloodlust held back at bay only by Hermione's iron will. Counting down from ten, she continued to stare into the shadowed depths of the dementor's hood, idly wondering what its blood would taste like on her lips. It could very well be one of the most exquisite delicacies she ever had. Three, two one. with a slight tilt of her head, her wolf companion pounced, driving the dementor to the ground in one clean stroke, its snout laying down close to the dementor's throat, its forearms pinning the dementor at the shoulders. From the corner of her eye, she could tell that the other dementors were growing agitated by this turn of events, knowing full well that their leader had not planned on this happening. Still, they did not move, not that it mattered to Hermione, for one toe out of line and the other wolves would pounce, ripping them to shreds. You only have an hour to do this before the potion wears off, so quit dawdling, she admonished herself, and, with that imperative, Hermione fell to her knees next to the dementor's head and silently drew out her switchblade bringing it to life and ruthlessly coring out the dementor's eyes, the only sign of its pain visible in the slight raspiness of its breath. Hermione threw the orbs to one side, having no use for them, and began excising the vitrial jelly from the now dead eye sockets. She threw the viscous grey sludge into the second cauldron. Peripherally, she saw that the other dementors were in the process of being mauled, their bodies being driven to the ground and ripped apart as they feebly tried to either flee or defend themselves with their bone-thin, cracked grey arms. Werewolves had no concept of feelings such as despair or hope. They had only one imperative, and that was to kill, which made them virtually invulnerable to a dementor attack. With the dark poison they were administered binding their souls to their bodies, they were suddenly vulnerable to physical attacks, which would have the effect of releasing their souls as their blood spilled onto the dirt and dead leaves.
"You asked me to free you," she said in a soft, deadly voice, her lips brushing the creature's cheek through the fabric of its cloak. "Tell me, did you think it would be easy? Did you think freedom would not have its price? Had you visions of green pastures and soft sands and blue skies as far as the eye could see? Did you dream of paradise, Sagaz? Tell me, did you?" Hermione waited for an answer, knowing that the creature could no longer even give her that, since its legilimantic powers had been torn from it. "I have kept my promise, Sagaz. Remember that. I have released you and your kin. Soon, you will exist somewhere in the throes of oblivion, in the absence of pain. I hope that that is enough." Hermione reached down into the folds of its cloak and pressed her hands on top of the dementor's chest, where its heart should have been. "Good-bye, Sagaz." With that, Hermione drove her fingers through the cracked, brittle flesh of its body and through the bones, ripping out its still-beating black heart, slick with the viscous black oil that served as its blood. She held it up in the cool night air, the moonlight shining down on it, making it look like a living breathing heart of obsidian. Tentatively, she brought the thing to her mouth and licked the black ooze, which made her shudder with repressed ecstasy. Oh God, it's amazing, she thought. Despite her dark side begging for more, she hesitated, and, knowing better than to get herself blown up or poisoned by the substance, which, she had to admit, was far too toxic to consume in her current state, she instead thrust it to one side. Her gaze fell on her loyal wolfmate, and a new idea took hold in her mind. Without bothering to scrutinize the consequences, she cocked her head to one side and silently commanded him to take the heart. The creature, having all its faith in her, did so, consuming it right out of her hand the way a loyal dog would take from its master. The werewolf, once lapping up all the blood from her hands and having consumed the dementor's heart in its entirety, pushed forward, knocking Hermione to the ground and positioning itself on top of her. "Ooh, you want to play, do you?" she asked coyly, a smile spreading across her face. The creature tore apart her clothes and pushed her hard into the ground, both of them oblivious to the fact that they were practically swimming in the blood of all the dementors.
Hermione howled with pleasure as the werewolf pressed himself into her, she biting its neck ferociously, drawing blood and sucking on it as it pulsed and thrust back and forth, causing her to bleed into the puddles of black oil and squeal and throw her head back panting and groaning and hissing, "Yesssss." She and the werewolf passed out like that, both of them having climaxed and fallen into a contented sleep.
Hermione awoke to the blue light of dawn. She picked herself out of the still wet blood and padded softly to her second cauldron. Her tasks were not yet completed. The other werewolves had disappeared in the night, which was fine by her. When she looked down in the cauldron, it was full of that same jelly she had taken from the dementor the night before, which was a welcome surprise to her. The wolves must have done this, she thought, secretly impressed with their intelligence, and touched by the gesture. It's like a Christmas gift. Hermione stoked the fire to heat up the jelly to a nice warm temperature. She then found her switchblade, cleaned, sterilized and sharpened it for the task ahead. She deftly bathed her arm in dementor blood, and then, when the jelly was nice and warm, she began cutting thin lines across the skin of her right hand and forearm. She had considered doing this to her wand arm, but decided that it would be more effective on her non-dominant hand, since she could then keep her dominant hand free for other things. Moreover, the task took a great deal of precision, and she wasn't confident she could pull it off the other way. As such, Hermione continued making crisscrossing clines, each of which were very thin, causing no blood to actually well up in little bubbles as it often did with paper thin cuts. Every few minutes, she lathered the wounds with the jelly, letting it settle, willing it with the force of her carnal will to draw itself into her skin, to fill the narrow cuts and remain there. At first, the jelly did not want to obey, but, as each line were cut and the complex formation of the runes came into being, they seemed to take on a life of their own, even going so far as to shift ominously to redistribute themselves to where they were needed most. When she was finished, she discovered that she had used all the jelly she had, and that the network of runes stretched from her elbow all the way to her fingertips, making her skin look like the victim of some sort of tribal art. Except much more dangerous, of course.
Already, Hermione could feel the energy of the dementor's power trying to take over, trying to ooze into her blood, to escape into her veins and through the rest of her body. She downed three successive potions and snorted a line of powdered bezzer and let her own magic do the rest of the work, deploying the binding agents as needed, taking a grip on the incredible force that she had just connected to and assimilating it, letting it taint her body and her soul before clamping down and crushing it beneath her superior will. That's it, she thought, savouring the feeling of awareness that was stealing over; an awareness a hundred times more acute than that of her wolf instincts. She smiled at the thought of the powers she could now inflict on her enemies. With a casual wave of her hand, Hermione watched all the small creatures that had begun congregating near the carnage shriek in terror as they were bombarded by a legilimantic attack comparable to the force of a hundred dementors. Some of them clawed out their own eyes with their front paws. Birds of various kinds simply dropped dead and fell to the ground, looks of terror on their tear-stained faces. In a single stroke, she created carnage the likes of which even Voldemort would have been hard pressed to match. Hermione summoned one of the dead birds to her, its body still warm, its heart and magic still alive, waning and going gently into that good night. Hermione skinned it and roasted the meat with her wand, chewing thoughtfully. Before long, she felt the familiar aura of her wolf come forward, surprised that it was still around now under the shining sun. When she turned back to see it approach, she nearly fell over in shock.
Before her was gone the half-man half-wolf creature that she had made love to the night before. That in and of itself was not surprising, since she had fully expected to have seen an adult male in its place. Instead, however, what she saw was neither. A sleek, black-haired wolf stood before her, easily thrice the size of a normal wolf, looking more like a small pony with exceptionally large muscles. Where its grey fur had been was now a glistening black coat, and where its once yellow eyes had been were now polished gold orbs gazing directly back at her. Whether it was the wild magic in the air, the sex, the blood or the dementor's heart, or some strange mix of them all, Hermione did not know. Whatever had happened, clearly the humanity had been drained from the creature, leaving only the hulking power of the werewolf, cross-bred with what she could only imagine as being some of the strengths or qualities of the dementors. Hermione slowly got to her feet and approached the creature, which, after a moment of intense scrutiny, knelt down in a show of subservience.
"That's my boy," she cooed softly, coming up to him and stroking his soft fur. "You're so beautiful." The creature wagged its tail enthusiastically at her acceptance of it. "You're going to be my familiar, methinks. The only question is, what am I going to call you?"
The dementor-wolf merely waited for her to finish.
Hermione considered the question. She wanted a name that was befitting her new familiar. It would have to be something fierce, yet unique, for this creature was both of those things. It would have to be something that commanded respect and fear, befitting his station. Absently caressing his neck, she finally spoke, "I will call you Azrael, named after the Angel of Death."
The creature looked up at her with its deep golden eyes, and she felt him silently willing his assent. "Good," she said, agreeing. "Very good indeed. There's only one order of business left before we move on then." Hermione plucked one hair from Azrael's coat and held it up to the sunlight. It was the blackest material she had ever seen, and she thought, though she couldn't quite be sure, that it managed to make the sun a little dimmer when raised next to it. Hermione set about the rest of the day collecting the various ingredients she would need to fashion a new wand. It was about time she had dispensed with a second hand wand, and took the time to build herself a new one. She would have gone to Olivander's, except that she knew in her heart of hearts that he would have nothing that was suited to her new disposition. Besides, she already knew how to make wands, and she had some of the finest and most unique ingredients at her disposal in that clearing of death. So, as the day waxed and waned, Hermione gently carved and polished a stick of wood made from an ash tree. Twelve inches, long, she took the carefully sanded wand and bathed it in the dementors' blood, careful to keep the blood at a specific temperature with well-placed heating charms, thus infusing the wood with the visceral energies of the essence of dementors. Eventually, she affixed the hair of the dementor-wolf to the tip and bound it using charms, and, eventually, the blood of her new familiar. She then inscribed runes along the handle, etched in her own blood, thus keying it with an unbreakable signature ward. Eventually, she set it over an open flame to dry, causing the magical essences inside to crystallize and harden. She repeated the process of bathing it in blood and drying it four times, before satisfied that it was in deed complete. When Hermione was finished, she picked up the wand gently and held it between her fingers, admiring it for a long time in the growing dark. She smiled a giddy little smile as she swished it through the air, elated when she saw the stream of midnight black sparks issuing from the tip.
There she stood, alone in the dark, her clothes tattered and hanging off her like the vestiges of her own sanity, Hermione Granger was no more. In her place stood The Dark One. There stood the Wrath of God.
