Seven:
Old World Prayer
Mystic Falls; Old Witch House Grounds
There was a few groans, a scantly pained sigh, shuffling and shambling, a fleeting moment as the dust fell and the wind settled where there was a disorientating breath of what the hell just happened.
It didn't take long for mind to catch up with matter.
Kol was the first up, as he was the first back down again. Raising himself from the stones, dirt and trampled grass shoots, he got one good look at the All-Blood before it raced at him. It was a she, he saw, stepping out of her last decade-long prison, just as his mother had said.
Young.
Younger than he expected. Sweetly delicate and sweetly deceptive, as Kol knew their appearances could be. Human looking too, from that little glance, no horns or scales or tail in sight, just jeans and boots and a well-worn leather jacket that seemed to be two-sizes too big for her.
A man's originally, Kol would guess.
He couldn't see much, not underneath that shock of onyx curls as black and heavy as the night above, but he saw enough. Pale skin, cattish, aristocratic features, the kind graced in old renaissance oil paintings done by Florentine masters, somewhere lost and secreted between Botticelli and Da Vinci and those broken, armless Roman statues of Gods, an old-world prayer with a nearly unbearable green eye. There was a sort of green that preaches to the soul of nature, of crisp blades of pasture and new spring sprouts, a soft, bold colour of harmony and peace.
That wasn't her green.
Her green was a cruel thing, an almost excruciating thing, a look so intense and brilliant it could almost be felt in the skins of your soul, as if it was radioactive, seeping in by mere proximity, dangerous. Madness in folly and-
Wild.
She looked wild standing there, a distinct sense of ferocity only seen in nature, in apex marauders, that had nothing to do with the fangs and the black-veined outrageously green eyes. The type of girl who had whisky for breakfast, and cheap thrills for dinner, and someone's heartbreak for a late-night snack.
Kol's movement caught her eye, and it was too late that he realized perhaps standing up was not his best choice right then, how it could have been taken for a threat. He should have known better. He knew how instinct driven a Vampire could be after waking up in a coffin, a momentary frenzy for a feed or a fight or a fuc-
Well, something to feel alive again, to get the blood singing, as funny as that was for the undead.
How instinct driven would an All-Blood be when denied food for ten years?
Kol found out when the woman moved, faster than he could see, and wasn't that a little terrifying, and suddenly she was there, right there, with her hand around his neck, and there was a pull and a slam, as his back, all over again, met solid ground, thrown down in the undergrowth, defiantly hot breath at his neck and-
Something knocked into her side with a gust of wind, a burst of speed, thankfully, before the All-Blood could get her dainty little teeth into his jugular, Elijah Kol could see in his daze of one instant being on his feet and then abruptly not, at having death right at his throat.
"Get off him-"
She didn't stay down for long.
Not long at all.
Not long enough to do anyone any good, and swiftly, irrevocably, Elijah had her attention.
No one saw how exactly she got Elijah's knees out from underneath him, whether it was a kick or a sweep, neither did they really see how she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, but they all heard the crunch of bone shatter and the howl Elijah gave as the joint in his shoulder popped.
She dived for his throat-
Rebekah jumped onto her back, arm slipping around leather-clad collar, yanking the head away from Elijah's neck, and Kol scrambled to a stand once more just as the All-Blood, yet again, did the impossible. Like she was made from oil, slick and slippery, her legs lifted at the hip, feet thrown over her own shoulders, over Rebekah's, feet tying in a hook around Rebekah's neck, and with a bend and a wrench, she was out of the hold, crouched on Rebekah's shoulders, tiny, pale hands grasping temple, threatening to twist Rebekah's head clean off-
A punch from Klaus knocked her off, and maybe he expected the All-Blood to go flying as Kol did, sailing through the air, maybe even be winded, knocked out-
She was none of those things.
Instead she grabbed the arm and held. Got her footing back under her, span and lifted and-
Bent Klaus over, kneeing him sharply in the ribs.
More bones cracked in the night.
Klaus coughed up blood.
Kol sped for his brother-
Stefan Salvatore ploughed into his side, knocking them both into a nearby tree, raining down twigs and leaves and dead branches above their heads, as Damon too leapt for a lunging Elijah.
It was fists, teeth and growls then, a mess, a disaster, a-
Hell.
A mindless, furious hell.
Kol got free for a second, away from Stefan Salvatore, but as soon as he got close enough, the All-Blood batted him away like he was sand in a tide to be swept off in her own current, her focus solely on Klaus.
The biggest threat around.
Klaus now bleeding from the speared branch through his thigh she had skewered him with, still fought on, but he was used to be being the strongest in a fight, the fastest, the smartest. He wasn't used to fighting something meaner than himself, Kol thought, something that could pitch him around like a rag doll, fling him and break him as he had done to so many other's before.
Klaus didn't know how to fight that sort of strength, and it showed.
It didn't take her long after that to get the Hybrid cornered, pinned against the biting bark of a barren tree by his neck, feet kicking, useless, fangs descending-
"Yes, that's it! Kill him! Complete the prophecy!"
Kol had nearly forgotten about Esther until she spoke, and, perhaps, the oddest thing that night took place.
The All-Blood stopped… Just… stopped.
A beat.
Another.
"What did you just say?"
The All-Blood asked millimetres from Niklaus's throat. It was the first time the All-Blood had spoken, and her voice was like smoke and mirrors, deviously soft and dark, like raven feathers, sleek and lilting in a lullaby, and-
And British.
Esther, crouched behind her, still in the circle, safe from the mayhem outside, frowned.
"Do it! Do it now! Fulfil the prophecy!"
The fingers pinning Klaus to the tree by his neck slackened, a break, and then the Hybrid fell back to the floor as the All-Blood turned away from her meal, shifted eyes bleeding back to a startling, but human, green.
It made them no less wild.
She was grinning Kol could see from the floor, from where she had thrown him.
lopsided and dimpled and feral.
"Wrong thing to say me of all people, sweetheart."
In a flicker the All-Blood was gone-
Not gone.
Moved.
Standing right next to Esther, head bent, teeth tearing.
The witch screamed, cried, but all that came out was a gurgle and a rattle. Kol could only watch as his mother struggled, banging fists, trying to cast magic, but nothing worked, nothing could shake the All-Blood off. The struggling stopped all too soon, and the All-Blood dropped the body, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand with a groan that sounded long suffering now soothed.
"Pesky things, Prophecies."
She curiously kicked Esther's body over, eyeing the Witch staring blankly up at the dead-dark sky.
"They never go the way you think they're going to go. I've had just about enough with them, cheers."
The All-Blood turned, moonlight painting the blood on her face black, stepping over the dead body of Esther, rolling her neck, kicking back against the overturned sarcophagus, sitting on the rubble like one might sit on a throne.
Carelessly but consoled in their own power.
"Fuckin' coffins give you a right crick in the neck, aye? I don't suppose anyone's got a cigarette I can bum?"
Kol stayed silent even as he, hesitantly, heaved himself up from the grove once more.
The All-Blood glanced his way, and he braced and-
She didn't come sailing at him this time.
"No? Really? So it's going to be like this, then? Alright. Have it your way."
A further sigh, this one more annoyed than suffering, as the All-Blood swept her arms out wide, baring herself in challenge.
"Which one of you fuckers wants to go first then?"
Her gaze span, locking onto Klaus now fixed by his shoulder against the tree she had previously had him pinned against, ribs already healing, pulling the branch from his thigh out with a snarl.
"How about you, Bark Twain? You want another round?"
Bark… Twain…
Did she just call Niklaus Bark Twain?
"You can speak?"
The All-Blood blinked over to Elijah, a heavy frown settling over her arching brows beneath the curls, hooding her eyes darkly, and her hands fell back to her lap.
"No shit. What kind of bloody question is that?"
Rebekah growled.
"You're the Devourer! You're a beast of-"
The All-Blood-
Well, the All-Blood scoffed.
"Well that's fuckin' rude. Yeah, I enjoy a good buffet-… Or I used to. So sue me. Shit."
Elijah interjected.
"You ate our mother."
That seemingly stalled the All-Blood, as she let her gaze trail over to the dead body crumpled in the pentagram at her feet, cheeks-
Cheeks flushing bashfully.
"Yeah… That's uh… New."
She didn't know what she was-
But then her face hardened, cynical, and Kol stiffened as she stood once more.
He wasn't the only one to, either.
"Really? You're denigrating me? I was minding my own business, enjoying a slamming limoncello at my favourite bistro when your fuckin' Wiccans jumped me and shoved me into a box."
She stepped forward, Kol stepped back, Elijah too, even Klaus, headstrong, reckless Klaus, steadied himself against the tree, readying for another attack.
"I wake up to bloody chanting of all things, and what do I find after breaking out of said box? I'm surrounded by fuckin' Vampires, a useless Wiccan who-"
Her gaze cut across the clearing, to the huddled forms of Elena, Caroline and-
And Bonnie Bennet.
Bonnie Bennet with her hand raised, palm out, spell on her lips.
"I really wouldn't try that. I'm surprised you can even float a fuckin' feather with the tiny shred of magic you have, so sit back down and behave before you hurt yourself trying to do actual magic."
The All-Blood-
Snapped her fingers, and Bonnie went sailing backwards, into the woods, into a tree.
The branches morphed, slipping down, encasing, binding the witch to the trunk in a screeching swath of-
Magic.
The All-Blood had magic.
Oh…
Oh no…
"And with her, whatever the hell she is, the one with a nasty reincarnation curse on her-"
The All-Blood added, flippantly waving at a prostrate Elena before she turned back to Klaus.
"And we can't forget Count Woofula here, while being demanded to fulfil a prophecy… Which I'm guessing here includes fighting another fuckin' war I had no say in, that I did not create, for people who wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire, and somehow, someway, I'm still the bad guy?"
The All-Blood held her hands up-
In surrender, stealing back the step she had taken forwards, backs of her knees knocking into the broken sarcophagus.
"You know what? It doesn't matter. Hermione's right. I need to stop engaging with you lunatics. It's not healthy."
She grinned toothily.
"Have fun with your dick-swinging competition, or whatever shit this is, but I'm out."
Stefan took a stride forward, reaching.
"Wait! I'm Stefan Salvatore and I'm your-"
But with a crack of thunder, and a waft of black smoke, the All-Blood-
The All-Blood was gone.
London: Kensington: Grimmauld Place
Hemlock Potter appeared at the end of Grimmauld Place's drive with a crack and a dizzying whirr of magic. She groaned as she made her way up the short steps to the front door, rolling her shoulder as she went with a grimace.
That box had really done a number on her joints.
How long had she been in there?
A day?
Three days?
A whole fuckin' week?
It was hard to tell. Hemlock… Hemlock couldn't remember much. It was all fairly… Dull, really. Darkness. Sleep. More darkness. More sleep. Pretty teeth grinding dreary shit.
Coming to the door, she fumbled for her pockets and came up empty. Fuck. She'd lost her keys again. Hermione was going to kill her-
For this and disappearing for a few days.
After she found Ron. He would be okay, Hemlock knew. He was a wily bastard when he wanted to be. There was no way Wiccans could take him out-
Bloody hell. What a mess.
Casting a small unlocking spell on the handle, Hemlock finally stumbled into her home-
And tripped.
Cursing, she lifted her foot and found… A toy train?
Why was there a toy train near the front door? And… And letter blocks? A rubber duck and-
Hemlock felt a pair of eyes on her, coming from the kitchen doorway and glanced over. A boy-
A teenager really, stood there in his pyjamas, perhaps the older brother of the owner of the toys littering her foyer, glass of milk in hand, face slack and eyes wide and-
Hair a crop of blue curls.
The glass of milk fell from his hand, shattering on the marble below.
Hemlock blinked, croaking as the boy blinked back.
"Teddy?"
No. Of course this wasn't Teddy. Teddy was barely six yesterday, and not fifteen, sixteen as this teenager was-
This teenager with Remus's eyes and Tonks's nose and-
"Teddy! Get away from them!"
The voice came billowing from the stairs, and it snatched Hemlock's attention away from the boy to directly in front, and she found a woman fixed at the top of the steps, wand in hand, pointed-
Hermione Granger stood staring at her, finally getting a good look at Hemlock's face, and Hemlock her.
"Circe, 'Mione. You've gotten fat-"
Not fat, Hemlock belatedly realized, mind churning, roiling, trying to catch up with exactly what she was seeing.
Fat didn't normally congregate so much around the belly. No,Hermione was-
Pregnant.
Heavily pregnant.
Which was impossible, wasn't it? Even Witches didn't become eight months pregnant overnight and-
The wand lowered, falling much like the glass of milk had, bouncing away down the stairs, and Hermione's voice wavered, cracking in the harsh roll of her name.
"Hemlock? Is that really you?"
Hermione Granger came barrelling down the stairs, careful of the added weight around her middle, the impossible weight, and all Hemlock could do was just stand there, even as her friend came crashing into her, arms shrouding, squeezing.
"I… I've only been gone a few days; how can you be-"
Hermione pulled away, and her eyes were wet, Hemlock saw, as was her face, wet with tears and-
It's not possible. It's not possible. It's not possible. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't make it real-
"A few days?! You've been gone ten years, 'Lock! And what's with all that blood around your mouth?!"
London: Kensington: Grimmauld Place
Hemlock sat stone still at the kitchen island, Hermione, pregnant, real, older Hermione, sitting opposite her, cup of steaming tea clasped in her hands.
Hermione's hands with a gold wedding band around her middle finger.
How much had Hemlock missed? How much-
"That boy… That really was… Teddy?"
Teddy wasn't there right then. Hermione, when she had noticed Hemlock had become despondent after learning she had been gone for ten-
Don't think it.
She had ushered the boy upstairs, much to his grumbling, and Hemlock into the kitchen, and here they both sat, in the dead of night, with Hemlock's world as tatters between their feet.
"Yes. Yes it was."
Hemlock's jaw strained, twisting so tight she thought she might crack her own teeth, and suddenly, she thought she couldn't breath-
Even if she needed to.
That was new too, new and-
Everything was so bloody different. Hermione had glasses, and a wedding band, and a big, pregnant belly as if she had shoved a beach ball up her nightdress, and-
"Ron?"
It's the only word Hemlock could get out right then, between her clenched teeth. Hermione tried to smile at her, but it appeared more a grimace than anything else.
"He's perfectly alright. We found him knocked out at the café you were taken from, unconscious but no worse for wear-"
Hermione gently lowered her cup back to the countertop after taking a sip.
"He's a Quidditch player now for the Chudley Cannons. He's in France competing in a tournament, but should be back in a month or two."
Hemlock found her gaze dropping to the gilt of the wedding band, and Hermione nervously chuckled, abandoning her cup altogether to idly spin the ring around her finger.
"Oh, no, we didn't… We didn't work out. He's with Pansy now. I hear they're going well. I married Draco five years ago-"
Hemlock lurched away from the countertop, chair screeching as it was shirked backwards, hands coming up to her face to scrub, only to stop, hover, unsure of what the hell to do, what she could possibly hold onto to feel grounded, when everything was floating away-
"Malfoy?! You married Malfoy? And Ron is with… Pansy? As in Pansy Parkinson?! Morgana… Since when did you lot even talk to each other-… How much have I… Teddy-… My Teddy just looked at me as if I was a stranger and-…"
Hermione lumbered up from her seat, waddled around the kitchen isle, reached for Hemlock, but the girl stumbled back, away, couldn't bare the thought of being touched right then, as if that would somehow make all this more real and not the nightmare Hemlock was praying it was.
"Oh, 'Lock… It's been ten years. We looked. I swear we did. I searched everywhere I could think of… I even went to Albania for a year thinking some rogue Death Eaters had maybe squirrelled you away in Voldemort's old hunting ground but… But nothing any of us did turned anything up. I tried, I swear to you, I tried."
Hemlock shook her head, tears cresting in her eyes, but there was no anger, no hatred, not for the woman before her.
"I know you would have… I know… but ten years… How could I have missed ten years?"
Hermione's gaze dropped from Hemlocks, and maybe, somehow, irreversibly, that was the worst thing to happen that night. Hermione's refusal to look at her head on and see a girl unchanged while Hermione stood there with a child in her womb, and a Malfoy wedding band around her finger, and the first hoary glint of silver at her temple.
"I don't know. I really don't know. Do you remember anything? Where did you-"
"I woke up locked in a coffin, in a fuckin' backwater woods surrounded by Vampires and Wiccans, about an hour ago. I lost control and… And… And, maybe, ate one, and I didn't really stick around after that to ask them what they wanted with me-… I just wanted to come home."
And Hemlock had come home…To see that the world had span on without her, without ever knowing time had passed, and she feels so small, so inconsequential at the thought, a mere blip in the history of her friends pasts-
She was a relic.
A ghost.
A memory.
Nothing more.
To see her friend now thirty-two, and Teddy sixteen, and Grimmauld Place now inhabited by Malfoy, who would have been the last Black descendant in line after Hemlock had gone 'missing' to inherit it, and Ron off in France playing Quidditch and-
She's a ghost haunting her friends lives. The lives they had lived on without her and-
She can't-
"Ate one? As in… Drank their blood or-"
"Blood. I didn't go Cujo on the bitch, 'Mione. I still have some restraint."
This makes Hermione smile, this little quip from a sharp tongue, and for a moment, just one, since waking up, Hemlock thinks all is okay, everything is exactly the same, they're still in Gryffindor Common room giggling in the night, or pressed together in a small room of the Burrow gossiping with Ginny, or crashed on the broken couch of Grimmauld Place's rundown blue parlour after a night out on the town.
Everything was going to be okay; nothing had really changed-
"Perhaps you have some sort of… Vampiric mutation? I know you don't need invitations inside, and stakes do nothing to you, remember that rogue Death Eater with the fence panel?… You heal incredibly fast, and you move fast, but you don't have an aversion to sunlight… So maybe if we research-"
And there old Hermione was too, the one with her nose in the book, the bushy-haired know-it-all Hemlock absolutely adored even when she argued with her, who always had a plan for a plan and-
And a crackle rings out in the quiet kitchen, followed by the sound of a child crying over a baby monitor Hemlock had not seen resting by the kitchen cabinets.
Hermione bashfully smiled, reaching for it.
"Hold that thought. I'll be right back. I just need to settle Scorpius and we can figure this out."
The moment of comfort and memories left with Hermione through the door, because that wasn't the old Hermione, the Hermione of Hemlock's yesterday and Hermione's decade, this wasn't the Grimmauld Place Hemlock knew, with its polished counters and its fresh lick of paint, and the toys dotting the foyer, and the baby awake upstairs called Scorpius-
Obviously a Malfoy spawn.
A Malfoy and a Granger child.
Her friend was married with a kid, and had another on the way and-
Ten years.
Finally, Hemlock could think it.
I've had ten years stolen from me. I'm never going to get those back.
Hermione, Ron, Draco, Teddy, they wouldn't be the only ones changed.
Everyone would be.
Everyone-
Everyone but her.
The kitchen felt too small then, the walls closing in on her, the ceiling falling down upon her head, the floor rising up to meet her face, and-
Out.
Hemlock needed to get out.
She couldn't do this-
She couldn't do this to her friends.
What was she supposed to do? Swan in after ten years and say yoohoo, Potter's back?
And, Circe, she could hear Hermione's steps still, hear the grumbling of the likely blond babe being rocked in her arms, hear Teddy pacing in his room, hear the car impossibly from over two roads away crunching on asphalt and-
She'd ate someone, could still taste that sweet honey lingering on her tongue and-
Hermione did smell nice. Really nice. Juicy, almost, like a ripe strawberry glazed in dark chocolate and-
Merlin, Hemlock was thirsty again, parched really, and-
Out!
And those bastards had done this to her. Those Vampire's she had awoken surrounded by. The Wiccan who had put her in a box. They had infected her-
Awoken something, and stolen ten years of her life and-
Stefan Salvatore.
That's right, wasn't it? One of them had shouted before Hemlock had apparated away. She hadn't cared much to listen, had been so focused on just getting home-
Stefan Salvatore.
What were the chances that that name would be said in coincidence? The same name that was marked on her adoption papers? Just how common was that surname?
Knowing Hemlock's luck, no chance at all.
Hemlock couldn't do this. Not right then, and not right there, and so she conjured a slip of paper, a little pen, and she scribbled away.
London: Kensington: Grimmauld Place
Hermione Granger's P.O.V
By the time Hermione Granger made it back downstairs, that was all that was left. A little note balancing on the corner of the kitchen isle in an empty room, the back door wide open. She picked it up gingerly, scanning the chicken scrawl she had thought she would never get to see again.
Gone to get unholy vengeance. Something's wrong with me. I'll find some answers even if I have to take some heads with them. Don't wait up. I'll be in touch soon when it's safe for you to do be around me. Love, Lock.
The note crumpled in her hand.
"Oh no you don't, you bloody brash wanker."
With a flick of her wand, her pale, silvery otter Patronus bounced and tumbled around the kitchen, waiting for the message to relay.
"Draco, love, I need you home right now. I don't care about the merger. Hemlock's back."
Mystic Falls; Old Witch House Grounds
Apparating back into the clearing was relatively easy, despite having only seen it in the gloom of the dead of night, in spite of it being empty, and notwithstanding having stopped over at an off-licence on the way through to pick up the fresh pack of smokes in her back pocket and the currently half drained bottle of cheap limoncello she had already gone six other bottles through.
I deserve a drink for dealing with this bullshit, and it takes the burn in my throat down to something… Tolerable.
The Vampires were gone, so were the others, and the sarcophagus, all but a tiny trail of salt that had once been a ring around the middle where the Wiccan she had drained had cowered in. Hemlock toed the white grains with her boot, grinning.
Someone's a right Mary Poppins when it comes to cleaning up.
Not good enough, however.
The leaves and twigs crunched underneath her foot as she strolled deeper into the forest, dawn barely rising through the gaps in the trees.
Coming to a halt, Hemlock took a deep breath-
Old Books, wine, a burning log fire, and roses.
Good. The scents weren't so old that she couldn't smell them any longer either, though that one… Yeah, that one had been tall, dark and brooding in a suit.
Edging to the left, Hemlock circled, sniffing.
These senses might just give me more than migraines after all.
Whiskey, chocolate, fresh Paint, and leather. There you are Bark Twain.
Cherries, cinnamon, lemons and sugared almonds. Blondie, the one in the ridiculous heals in the middle of the woods…
Smoke, sage, beer and black liquorice. That's the one I nearly took a bite out of first. Dark eyes and messy hair boy.
Cotton candy, apricots, and… Aloe Vera. The other blond one. The one who had stood with the other Wiccan and the cursed one.
Bourbon, peppermint, primrose and the distinctive scent of burning rubber. The black haired one who had merely stood staring right at me the entire time as if he was locked in a stunner. Might be a bit of dumb, that one.
Freshly cut grass, gasoline, pears and… Ah, holly berries. Bingo. The one who said his name was Stefan.
Hemlock crouched down deep on her haunches, plucked up the disturbed leaves, brought them up to her curled nose, and sniffed deeper.
Yeah, that one had stood right here only a little while ago and… Went…
Right.
Hemlock stood, threw the leaves down, dusted her hands off on her jeans, took one last swig of alcohol, and sped off into the breaking light.
Next Chapter Preview (Ignore if you want):
"Why didn't you say or do anything? She stood right there, Damon, and you just stared!"
Damon didn't look at Stefan, didn't even deign to peer in his general vicinity, slack and bent in his chair in the Salvatore manor, staring dead ahead into the fire of the hearth, bottle of bourbon in hand, tumbler, and any sense of decorum, abandoned as he swigged deep from the bottle.
"What was I supposed to say? Oh, hi All-Blood, I'm dad?"
Finally, Damon met Stefan's eye, the first time all night and morning since they had arrived back home, and he looked-
Tired and terribly lost.
"I… I panicked, alright. She looked… You could see… Scars and-… What-"
Another bottomless swig accompanied a deep aching grimace.
"Oh, Damon."
xXx
Stefan huffed as he sped towards the front door, to the incessant pounding on the wood, speaking as he reached for the handle.
"I told you to give us some time, Elena. What you did was-"
The door swung open, and no Elena Gilbert stood on the entrance steps. Another girl did instead, pale skinned, black hair a riotous mess upon her head, green eyes bright in the morning light, and a toothy grin on her face.
"Ah, there you are! Do you know how many doors I've had to knock in this neighbourhood? My sense of smell is good, but apparently you fucker's get around everywhere here and stink this place up to high heaven. You're worse than tween boys with Axe body spray."
The All-Blood, Stefan's niece, barged right on passed him, into the hall, without so much as an invitation or a gesture to come inside, holding up an empty bottle, wiggling it in the air.
"Don't suppose you have any liquor here? I ran out about two streets away and I am crashing."
xXx
Hemlock shook her head, frustrated, exasperated.
"This is why I didn't come searching for you! You see? The kind of fuckery that is me is so deep-rooted, so profound, so overwhelming that I knew it had to be bloody genetic! I had to get it from somewhere and, well, here you are! Me with a dick and about a million less braincells!"
Damon scoffed.
"That's uncalled for-"
"You framed my mother, resulting in her death, in the hopes of sticking around in this hell-hole of a town so, maybe, if you were a really good Vampire boy, one day you might get a chance to sleep with your brother's human girlfriend! Who, by the way, looks like one of your exes who screwed you both over literally and figuratively! Or did I just make that up from what you just told me?"
Silence… Stillness… defeat.
"Okay, that one might be fair, but-"
xXx
Stefan stared, scowling at the figures of Elijah Mikaelson and Niklaus standing on his doorstep. Elijah glared right back.
"I believe we need to discuss what you and your delightful accomplices attempted to do last night with the aide of our mother?"
Stefan grumbled.
"I really don't have time for this right now-"
Klaus stiffened, eyes flashing yellow as he slowly turned where he stood, speaking as he went.
"You brought the All-Blood back."
Oh no-
Oh yes.
As Klaus turned, Stefan got a clear shot of his back, down the garden path and steps, and would you look at that, Hemlock rested in the sunlight, grinning.
How did she even get out the house to get behind the Mikaelsons-
"Ah, come on now, Pup Tart, It's Hemlock. I know, it's a whole two syllables, rather difficult for you apparently, but I am sure with practice and a few doggy treats you can get there. Say it with me now. Hem-Lock."
Woo or Boo?
A.N: Has anyone seen that video of the child running around at a party and the mother asks let me see what you've got there, and the kid, still booting it around the pool, holds up his hand and says A knife! And the mother chases after him going No! ? Yeah… That's Hemlock. That's the vibe I'm going for. That's her in the most purest form lmao, and we're all the poor mother shouting for her to just stop XD.
Side note: I took the inspiration for the scents from a blog page I saw on Tumblr. It was under TVD characters as scents by Make_Me_Imagine. All credit due to them and not me for that lovely bit of fantasy.
THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!
