AN: Rabid plot bunny… not my best work… my muse kept poking me in the eye. .
Disclaimer: Not mine.

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The moonlight sliced through the tree, casting uneven shadows across her face. Her honey-colored hair danced around her face in the soft wind. The vibrant red lipstick contrasted against her pale flesh, making her look like a living china doll. Lost in his thoughts, a touch to his cheek caused him to start slightly.

"Do you truly fear me?" she voiced, barely above a whisper.

Dark, penetrating eyes met her auburn ones in intense concentration before examining her features as if they held the answer.

"No," was his clipped reply.

"Good." The smile she gave him melted his heart. He hadn't thought it was still capable of feeling. The responses she was eliciting in soft words and one simple touch was startling to him, to say the least, though he was sure to keep his features schooled against reaction.

"Still warding off vulnerability?" her whispered words were a caress unto themselves. He attempted to look away: up, down, anywhere but at her questing eyes. She knew him too well. Even without the use of Legilimency, she could see right into his very thoughts and feelings.

She took a single step, closing the rest of the gap between them to tilt into his lean frame. "No…" an inclination of her head repositioned her back into his line of sight, "Don't close yourself off to me." She smiled, "You know my heart. You'll not find judgment here." She turned her hand to cup his cheek, her thumb rubbing small, languid circles.

Suddenly, it was as if a dam had broken. His arms snaked around her waist and pulled her against him fully. Her small gasp of surprise morphed into a sound similar to a purr, which simply spurred him on. Snaking her hand up the back of his neck, she pulled him closer. Toying
with the raven locks at the base of his skull was exciting his every nerve synapse. His eyes stayed trained on hers as they slipped closed, imbued with the passion of their impending kiss. Their lips connected in a chaste kiss, before he attempted to deepen it. His tongue grazed
her bottom lip lightly, seeking entrance. Acknowledging and accepting his unspoken request, she opened herself to him. Their mouths warred playfully, before he felt his mouth begin to fill with a velvet-like substance. He started to pull back slightly, but her hands at his face, kept him there. The metallic tang shook him out of his reverie. It took seconds to register the pain coming from his bottom lip. He wrenched himself free of her grasp, her nails ripping at his cheeks as he
disconnected.

Stumbling backwards onto the grass, he couldn't believe the image before him.

Her once bright eyes were dark and menacing. Dark red blood oozed through her teeth and down over her lower lip from her insanely grinning mouth. Her body was panting as though she were out of breath, but seemed to shift into giggling, which quickly became loud cackling.

"Hermione…"

Her cackling subsided to quiet giggling as she wiped her bloody jaw off with the back of her sleeve.

"Whoops… couldn't help myself, could I?" her brow arched in a perfect imitation of his own had on so many occasions.

"Why?" the words were infused with more hurt than he had cared to share.

"Why?" A pregnant pause sat between them before she began sauntering toward him.

"WHY! You aren't as smart as you think you are, Snape." Her wide eyes held an insane mirth that was reflected in both her face and voice. "You deserve to be punished… to be hurt." Hermione ground the words out cruelly.

She stopped at his feet, her hands behind her back like the coy school girl she'd once appeared to be. He appeared frozen in shock, the dew soaking through his soiled cloak. Disbelief and panic flitted across his face. Swiftly, she lifted her arms, one brandishing a silver dagger. Embracing them above her head, she quickly kneeled between his legs, and plunged the dagger into his chest. Barely registering her movement until it had been too late for him to react; he had no choice but to watch in abject horror. He grunted at the impact. He futilely lifted his hands to clasp hers, in a perverse twist of a romantic gesture of new love. Tears flowed from her now bloodshot eyes as a smile grew on her madness-distorted face.

She lowered her voice to a soft whisper, "To suffer…as I have." The sweet feeling of vengeance flowed through her veins, giving her new life in his painful death.