Chapter Two: Hurt me so good

It really shouldn't have happened. She never should have allowed herself to become so obsessed. But sometimes, and definitely in this particular case, Hermione was just a bit too curious for her own good.

(And curiosity might actually be the death of this proverbial cat).

To say her obsession began with the act itself wouldn't be the whole truth because the roots of it took hold far before that. In actuality, her predicament started with a symphony of whispers – whispers that were, to put it mildly, referencing the sexual proficiency of an entire class of immortals. And although she tried to ignore them, a myriad of stories still managed to reach her through an inconceivable web of loud-mouthed gossips.

Now, Hermione didn't typically subscribe to the rumor train, nor did she, until that point, hold much of an interest in anything outside of work, but something about the stories piqued her interest, and without really noticing she was doing it, she started to pay attention.

The tales she heard varied both in scope and scale, and most went no further than a bit of harmless foreplay, but some were so wonderfully dirty that they made her cheeks flush in horribly human ways. She wasn't a saint by any definition of the word – angels were far too busy saving humans from themselves to bother with that kind of flawed ranking of souls – but she was certainly more virtuous than most of her kind. The vast majority of her romantic entanglements had been appropriately vanilla and, more importantly, satisfying enough that she never felt the need to look for aide outside of the golden gates within which she resided. But suddenly, almost as if the whispers had carried a sickness she couldn't rid herself of, she found herself wanting more – of what exactly, she didn't yet know.

It was no surprise when the whispers quickly (at least in immortal terms) morphed into something considerably more similar to a cascade of shouts, drowning every nearby angelic being in stories so complex and unbelievable that they just couldn't be false. Angels of all ranks seemed to have something to say about one story or another, and fiery debates seemed to break out whenever any of them had a few unburdened moments to spare. More interesting perhaps considering who they all were was that none of them, not even the ones in charge of keeping them all in line (not even Hermione) had any intention of doing anything to stop it at all.

Before moving on, it's important to point out that while this particular scenario – a workplace devolving into a full-out tizzy over a healthy dose of erotica – may not sound all that out of the ordinary, the beings involved were, quite literally, supposed to be more honorable than that. But, in a kind of irony that should have been far too good to be true, the angels were really no better than their demented below-Earth counterparts.

And oh, did Hermione learn things about her colleagues that could never be unheard.

There was the story about a prolonged imprisonment followed, rather surprisingly considering the red-headed angel it supposedly involved, by an even longer consensual play on power. There was the one that involved a solstice, a few witches, and an impressively large circle of rocks. There were the tales involving the rather odd combination of demons and other creatures, including the one with a dragon and its hoard of gold and another with a group of bearded near-immortal men dressed in, as it had been explained to her, strangely erotic robes. There was even the one involving her best friend and a terrifyingly large snake, which was most definitely a euphuism for something she didn't want to know. There were short-lived dalliances, and there were longer-lived ones, all of which (allegedly) ended in a predictably explosive and entertaining fashion. But what Hermione could never be sure about was which of them were simply the result of overzealous peacocking and which of them, if any (even the ones involving people she knew), were actually the whole uncompromising truth.

But perhaps more importantly, was the fact that none of the stories – not a single beautifully wicked one – contained even the tiniest reference to love.

Of all the things that she heard over the course of a millennia, it was the blatant omission of that particular emotion that was her ultimate undoing. Love, she thought, wasn't just dangerous, it was horribly distracting, and she, the ever-faithful servant that she was, didn't have time for that kind of nonsense. Now, being an angel didn't mean she wasn't plagued with a need to fornicate (translation: she most definitely was), she just didn't want it to get in the way of her more important goals. And so, because she wasn't one to make a rash decision about anything, she deliberated. She weighed her options - made lists to put all other lists to shame. She drove herself to the brink of madness contemplating that ethical implications of what she was considering.

There was just one problem – no one, not even the others who were alleged to have already partaken, had done their due diligence to determine the severity of their consequences if the Old Man upstairs ever decided to put an end to their madness.

And that was enough to keep her from doing the thing she so desperately needed to do – deciding.

Instead, Hermione did what she did best; she researched, scouring every text she could get her hands on and discretely requesting every willing being more ancient than herself to tell her tales of the beginning. And when the results of centuries of work turned up nothing more than a list of cautionary remarks about the dangers of mingling with the other side, she was forced to change tactics. She began to study the devious actions of her contemporaries. It was tedious work, and her time for snooping was significantly more limited than she would have liked it to be – there just weren't enough moments in eternity.

In the end, she was forced to wait, which wasn't exactly the sort of thing she was used to doing. What she needed was some sort of sign, a loophole, anything that would open the door for her, a chronic rule follower, to join in on all of the alleged fun. And when she finally found it a few too many decades later… well, let's just say that the poor soul at the receiving end of her curiosity never stood a fucking chance.

The loophole Hermione had been waiting for, the green light if you will, came after a rather dimwitted angel she was acquainted with came back from a mission gone horribly wrong. The angel in question had almost been discovered when an angry (very predictably human) mob had not only accused her of being a scarlet but also attempted to execute her with fire. Of course, being immortal and all, she couldn't exactly be killed by any kind of weapon a human could wield, and so the angel had done the only thing she could think of: she goaded the mob into a frenzy by pretending to be exactly what they had accused her of hoping it would be enough of a distraction for her to miracle herself away without detection.

It was a risky move, but even Hermione couldn't blame her for playing that card. Wiping memories from human brains was risky and time-consuming, not to mention incredibly dangerous for anyone called in to do the deed, and before an angel was sent down to Earth, they had to pass a series of tests to prove their competency in the art of distraction and disappearing without a trace.

And so, this particular angel should have known better than to miss what happened next.

Unfortunately, she did not. In fact, the angel took her distracting about a few million leagues too far, and because that mistake hadn't been idiotic enough, she (who had undoubtedly been too pleased with herself to notice what was happening) completely overlooked the tell-tale shift in the crowd. It wasn't until the uproar magnified to proportions not seen on Earth for hundreds of years that she realized she had gone too far, but it was far too late to do anything about it. The emotions emanating from the crowd coalesced and erupted, sending a shockwave out into the surrounding land.

It wasn't long before dark forms began to emerge from the shadows, and the angel, who was overwhelmed by the sudden turn in events, panicked (eye roll) and froze (more dramatic eye roll), unable to conjure the power necessary to send the twisted beings back to where they had come from. Instead, she watched horrified as the new arrivals closed in on the crowd, making it just within grabbing distance of the first few poor angry souls.

But in some sick kind of non-miracle, a demon appeared in front of her mere moments before she would have been forced to watch the whole horrific scene unfold. No doubt, the demon had been drawn out by the scent of malcontent and trouble, and if you believed the tale, he hesitated only long enough to flash her a playful smirk before whisking her away from the chaos, not even bothering to disguise their sudden disappearance nor lifting a finger to help a single pour soul in need.

The angel was so caught up in the romance (yes, another eye roll) of it all that she proceeded to, in no uncertain terms, show her thanks by fellatio-ing her supposed savior in the middle of a muddy field. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you're a sick, twisted soul), before it could get any further than a heavenly blowjob, they were interrupted by reinforcements that had been sent from both sides to deal with the rapidly devolving situation.

Naturally, both sides tried to suppress news of the whole debacle – the incident wasn't great for either of their brands – but word of the dalliance still spread like wildfire, and by the time the angel was once again safe behind the golden gates, everyone in Heaven knew. The whole thing turned out to be quite the scandal, but what had been most interesting was that, in the end, the angel hadn't been punished for any of it. Apparently, anything was fair game, even something as ridiculous as putting your enemy's cock in your mouth instead of doing one actual thing that was in your job description, when the secret of Heaven's presence on Earth was threatened.

And even though the entire thing horrified her, the loophole this particular incident exposed was exactly what Hermione had been waiting for.

Finding the right dangerously demonic being in just the right set of circumstances, however, took a tad bit longer.

Interacting with demons was one of the more normal parts of her job, but it wasn't until she found herself in fighting against an impressively barbaric group of humans that she found anyone worthy enough for the kind of entanglement she was hoping for. A demon fought with the opposing side, as was often the case when an angel was asked to lend their services to a mortal war, only this demon drew her in like none of his kind ever had before. More specifically, she sensed him before she actually saw him, and knowing he was there but not knowing where he was exactly was enough to thoroughly distract her from her task. She found him eventually, of course, but it took far longer than it should have. In fact, he blended in so well with the the opposing side that if she hadn't caught the inhumanely graceful movements that he made with his sword she would have missed him entirely.

Thankfully she did not because he – all six plus beautifully pale feet of him – was really quite something to behold.

He was donning a rather impressive human form. His shoulders were broader than they had any right to be and his arms – oh, his arms – looked as if they had been carved straight out of a perfect block of marble. And yet, despite looking like he could take out a full grown elephant, he moved with the grace of someone with a lot less mass to them, moving so effortlessly it was as if his body weighed nothing at all.

He was shirtless, having like many of the other Northmen tossed his chainmail aside, and his chest was riddled with scars which only heightened his allure. Everything about him was oddly beautiful, statuesque almost; even his damn hair, which was stained with blood and pulled back into some sort of braid, seemed to exude a sort of brilliance that lured her in.

Hermione watched him for few ragged breaths, ignoring her own place in the gruesome battle before snapping out of it long enough to grab hold of a riderless horse that suddenly came charging toward her. And somehow, despite not being able to tear her eyes away from him, she managed to climb onto the horse back and resume fighting from a new and illuminating position.

For a demon, he certainly didn't play the game like she expected him to. Yes, he killed ruthlessly, but it was war after all, and unlike the other demons she'd had the misfortune of interacting with, his kills appeared to be driven less by an inherent madness and more by the necessity of the battle in front of him. He never chased anyone down, he didn't taunt or prolong someone's suffering which made absolutely no sense for someone designed to do exactly those things. Instead, he simply plunged his blade directly into his opponent's heart and moved on to the next foe.

It was art or magic or really whatever word one used to describe something exceptionally exquisite, and when she caught him looking at her with a hungry look in his eyes, it was all over.

He may have been in control of himself before, but he spectacularly lost control of himself when he finally charged toward her, and Hermione, who was doing everything she could to not fall off the horse she was clinging to, was so caught up in the moment herself that the number of mutilated bodies he left in the wake hadn't even mattered.

"You should take your Northmen home," she had told him after sliding off the horse. She wiped at her mouth, hoping (praying, really) that he couldn't see the tremble in her hands.

"And why the fuck would I do that?" he replied, nearly boring a hole into her with his stormy gray eyes. "We're winning." And then he cocked his head and lifted his bloodied hands, and she was suddenly overcome with the desire to both punch him in the face and rip what remained of his decrepit clothing off.

He was right, and she knew it, and it infuriated her beyond belief, but it didn't change how incredibly turned on she was standing so close to him. It certainly wouldn't be the last time she accepted an assignment to fight for a so obviously ill-fated king just for another chance to see him in action.

Hermione looked around and narrowed her eyes, but it was all for show – she had finally found someone worthy of the loophole, and she wasn't going to waste it. "For now," she told him as she tossed her sword at his feet, not taking her eyes off of him as she surrendered. "For now."

What followed were a series of events that even she couldn't have planned better herself. The blond tackled her to the ground, albeit only after one of the other Northmen made a move to do it himself, threw her in a set of iron chains even an infant angel could have found their way out of, and then proceeded to watch her as he lurked nearby. It was almost too much, watching how her presence unraveled him so quickly, and it took every ounce of her self-control to not break out into uncontrollable laughter as she sat in the mud with the other hostages.

He wanted her just as much as she wanted him, and for some reason that was the most unbelievable thing she'd learned in her entire existence.

His subsequent flashy 'rescue' had been more predictable than the entire war itself, and when she was finally in his arms, she didn't even bother to explain her intentions before transporting them to the nearest unoccupied bed and shoving him onto it.

The sex was punishing and hard and anything but sweet, and it was exactly what she had needed – exactly what she had been searching for all these long years.

Still, it was never supposed to be anything other than the one time. It should have been just one well-planned mistake, one single alleged momentary lapse in judgement (and brains). After that, she was supposed to forget about it, to walk away and pretend that it had never happened. There definitely shouldn't have been a repeat, nor should there have been hundreds of annoyingly delightful encores after that. She definitely shouldn't have felt anything because feeling things for someone else, especially when that someone else was your sworn enemy, was just so tragically human. She had just wanted to figure out why everyone had been so obsessed – why she had been so obsessed – but in the process it seemed she had tangoed with the wrong fucking demon, and things had gone horribly wrong.

So yes, she should have left it at the one time. Everything should have happened differently, but it didn't, and Hermione had absolutely no delusions about what she'd done.

And while it was far too late to change any of it, she could at least never (ever) let it happen again.

Her only saving grace was that the whole horrid affair had been grossly out of character for her, so much so that no one, not even the Old Man himself, would expect this kind of betrayal from her. She was Heaven's golden girl, an exemplary student of the light, and until the whole 'should have just been one time' incident, she hadn't stepped a single toe out of line. Where there was wrong, she fought it. Where there was evil, she did everything she could to vanquish it. And as far as anyone was concerned, she was a perfect example of what an angel should be - pure of intention and heart.

But even the perfect ones stumble, and she certainly stumbled… hard.

Perhaps one of the more remarkable things about Hermione was that where others might try to lie and maneuver their way out of taking responsibility for their mistakes, she wouldn't hesitate to come clean if she was ever confronted with the truth – not even when it came to this. There wasn't a dishonest bone in her body – although technically speaking, the bones were less her and more an odd collection of matter meant to conceal her natural form – and so her capacity for mistruths ended firmly with lies of omission. You see, she wasn't just an angel in title, she was the very definition of angelic, and there wasn't a single situation in which she'd gamble her own integrity for the sake of avoiding due punishment.

But brutal honesty wasn't the only facet of her personality. She was brilliant, caring, and kind, taking assignments that none of the others would and tackling them with a kind of impassioned fury no angelic creature should be capable of possessing. She was stubborn, famously and unforgivably so, and nearly always right (and not just in her own mind). She liked rules, and she didn't question the status quo; she certainly didn't like to subvert anything ordained to be forbidden. Unfortunately for her, the behavioral boundaries in Heaven were not quite as clear as she would have liked them to be, and so more often than not, she drew those lines herself, silently judging anyone who unknowingly didn't abide by them.

Of course, none of that could erase what she had done, and at best, her good deeds were now completely offset by all the misdeeds she had turned a blind eye to for just one more taste. Even more alarming was the worst-case scenario, which was the possibility that her ledger was now so filled with losses that they could be counted as wins for the other side, and if she was someone who actually needed sleep, the threat of that alone should have been enough to keep her up at night.

But it wasn't.

Truthfully, the irony of the whole debacle wasn't even in the act, correction, acts themselves – she wasn't the first angel to find herself tangled up with a demon, that much had already been blatantly established, and she definitely wouldn't be the last – nor was the irony in the fact that everything that made her her had been the thing that pushed her closer to the very thing that could very likely destroy her. The irony, the real shocker of her predicament, was that, even though she knew what would happen to her if someone found out just how truly compromised she was from the torrid love affair, she had never even really cared.

And she still didn't – not really. Hermione had wanted him from the moment she first saw him, and despite everything that had happened since, she still wanted him now.

Running away and leaving him the way that she did had probably been the smartest thing she had done in centuries. An angel couldn't be with a demon, it certainly couldn't love one, and the rational part of her brain had been screaming at her for decades to end it once and for all. Still, even after all these years, a day didn't go by that she didn't think about him, that she didn't daydream about his annoyingly handsome scowl or imagine her fingers in his irritatingly perfect hair.

It was madness – there just wasn't any other explanation.

She had mulled over countless theories, referenced every romantic novel probably ever written, and she had come up with absolutely nothing to explain her current predicament. And sure, maybe opposites really did attract, and yes, he was certainly hers, but that wasn't really it – at least it wasn't all of it.

She should have loathed him, should have done anything but submit to her misfiring hormones at the end of that blasted battle against the Northmen, but she couldn't have avoided him that day even if she tried – especially not after he looked at her the way that he did and definitely not after he whispered wonderfully barbaric things in her ear as he tore off her chains.

Undoubtedly, she had been doomed from the start, and she fell into his arms so easily and repeatedly over the course of a thousand years that she couldn't help but question her own sanity. Despite everything that he was, despite every horribly demented thing that he had done and had yet to do, she couldn't hate him and never would. Somehow, and lord knew how, he was the wretched half of her beautifully angelic soul, the voice in the back of her head that she so desperately needed, urging her to her to just – for fucking once – let go. She did her job, and he did his, but when they were together, when they were finally done fighting whatever battle had been tossed into their laps from their respective sides, they were a strangely perfect one.

And when she was with him, Hermione felt more alive than she ever had.

Which was ridiculous, of course – she was an immortal angel, fated to serve a purpose higher than herself for an endless eternity. Life wasn't a gift she'd been granted nor was it something she could ever have. And he was just a demon, similarly shackled to the construct of his own eternity. There was no they – there just couldn't be.

So, in the end she ran not because she was scared about how she felt about him but because, no matter what her heart wanted, there was simply no way around the bounds of their existence. They were never and could never be anything more than a pair of eternally doomed star-crossed lovers.

Which really made Ron's idiotic blunder and her respective role in the clean up that much more infuriating.

"Harry," Hermione forced out between her tightly clenched teeth, "I've told you at least a hundred times. I will not, under any circumstances, go anywhere near him ever again."

Harry, who was seated in a couch on the other side of the room, his arms crossed tightly across his chest, sighed. "Hermione, we need someone on the inside. He's the only–"

"Don't you dare try that with me," Hermione interrupted, throwing her hands to her hips. "You know one too." She paused, spinning on her feet to face the red-headed angel still standing timidly in the corner. "You both do," she added angrily.

"Know isn't really–"

"Ronald, so help me God!" she shouted, throwing her hands in the air. "I will divest you of your precious jewels if you even attempt to finish that thought."

Ron shrank back slightly, cringing, but nodded.

"This is your fault, not mine," she continued, not even pausing to take a breath. "You had one job, Ronald. ONE. JOB."

"I know, I know," Ron said, hanging his head. "I'm sorry, okay? You know I didn't mean to."

Harry snorted. "That's a bit beside the point now, innit?"

"You too?" Ron groaned, throwing his hands up to his face. "I knew Hermione would be mad, but I thought you would at least have my back."

"After doing something this incredibly stupid?" Harry said, raising his eyebrows. "Sorry, mate. Really can't help you there."

"You know, neither of you are making me feel any better about this," Ron mumbled, dropping into the nearest chair.

"What? Did you want us to hold your hand and tell you everything would be alright?" Hermione asked, already exacerbated with the entire situation. "Honestly, how could you be so–"

"It could have happened to anyone," Ron tried again, looking at her with his signature puppy dog eyes. "I was only gone for a minute…"

"What kind of half-assed excuse is that?" Hermione snapped, wishing she could smack the dumb look off his face. "You shouldn't have been away from your post at all. You know how important it was that no one touch them let alone remove them and take them God knows where."

"I was hungry – someone was yelling about scones in the break room – I just wasn't thinking."

"Well, that's the understatement of your entire existence," Harry mumbled, pressing his fingers into his temples.

"Oh, come on," Ron whined, looking wildly between his two friends. "It probably would have happened no matter who was on guard."

Hermione stared at him for a moment in disbelief, and then shrieked, throwing her hands in the air. "Harry, I can't," she began as she threw her body onto the couch next to her raven-haired friend. "I can't deal with him anymore."

Harry sighed again and pushed himself off the couch. "I hope you realize how incredibly tempting it is to just turn you in and wipe our hands of this," he told Ron quietly, not taking his eyes off him as he walked toward his friend.

Ron's eyes widened and he half swallowed, half chocked, the sound of which was audible even to Hermione from her position on the couch.

"But for obvious reasons – you know, friends forever and whatnot," Harry continued as he now hovered over Ron, "we're going to help you."

Ron glanced at Hermione who after exhaling quickly, offered him a brisk nod of support.

"Thank you," he squeaked out.

"But seeing as you can't be trusted around shiny objects, we're going to need some help," Harry said. "Your sister–"

Ron's head snapped back. "No – no we can't tell her. Please," he pleaded, interrupting before Harry had a chance to finish. "Anyone else, please."

Harry simply looked at Ron with an unapologetic smirk on his face.

"Bollocks, you already told her, didn't you?" Ron asked, the color quickly draining from his face.

Harry smiled broadly and nodded. "I sent her a message as soon as you left to find Hermione. She should–"

With impeccable timing (as was her thing), the door to the room flew open, and a beautiful redhead with legs for days walked into the room, pausing only to kick the door shut behind her, and Hermione chuckled as she saw Ron bury himself even deeper in his chair.

"Where is he!?" the angel demanded, her head swiveling around the room. It only took her a moment to locate Ron, and when she did, she leapt across the room and smacked him in the back of the head, the resulting sound echoing off the walls. "Bloody idiot," she muttered as she took a step back.

"Ginny," Harry said, tipping his head toward the newcomer in welcome.

"Harry. Hermione," Ginny said in reply, purposely not offering the same greeting to the only other remaining angel in the room. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked Ron after a moment, crossing her arms and tapping a booted foot impatiently.

"You want a list?" Hermione muttered under her breath to which Ginny threw her head back and laughed.

"It was an accident, okay?" Ron began, his face turning an even deeper shade of red.

"An accident is knocking over a fragile object, Ronald," Ginny said, the annoyance obvious in her voice. "This – I don't even know what to call this," she said gesturing to the empty display cases situated near the center of the room.

Ron, rather smartly this time, chose to keep his mouth shut.

"What do we know?" Ginny asked, turning to look between Harry and Hermione.

"Not much," Harry shrugged, snapping his fingers to conjure seven brass colored balls, each one morphing quickly into the exact shape and size of the object they were meant to imitate "He was the only one on guard. He left for a few minutes, and when he came back, they were gone," he summarized, before turning his back to being placing each newly conjured fake in its respective case.

"Merlin," Ginny whispered, waving a hand to help Harry levitate the objects into place. "Do we think it was… them?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course, it was them," she said, crossing one leg over the other. "Who else could have managed something like this?"

"Fucking, demons," Ginny hissed, shaking her head.

"Which is exactly why Hermione needs to find hers and talk to him – see if he knows anything about this," Harry said, turning around and gesturing behind his head. "I haven't seen mine in 500 years – not since..." he stopped, cringing slightly at whatever memory crossed his mind as he said the words. "He's out of the question," he clarified.

"And you think I'll have better luck with mine?" Hermione asked in disbelief. "Seriously, did someone drop you on your abnormally large head?"

Harry frowned at her. "My head is perfectly sized," he told her, bringing a hand to back of his head. "And to answer your question, no. Your demon is our best bet, and you know it."

"He is not mine," Hermione seethed, clenching her fists into tiny balls at her sides.

Ginny laughed again and flipped the tresses of her long red hair over a shoulder. "Oh, I really have missed this," she noted, clearly amused despite the seriousness of the entire situation. "American politicians can only keep one entertained for so long." She paused, looking down to examine her fingernails. "Harry has a point though," she added after a few moments, "about your demon."

"He won't talk to me," Hermione said, her voice almost a whisper. "Trust me. Honestly, knowing him, he did this just to spite me."

"You won't know until you try," Ron, rather bravely for someone who had caused this whole debacle, offered up.

"Oh, don't think I've forgotten about your little dance with Hell," Harry said, stepping in front of Hermione and grabbing her by the shoulders before she could launch herself at Ron. "You're going to find yours too," he instructed as he tried to keep Hermione's flailing limbs from smacking him in the face.

A look of terror crossed Ron's face, and not even Hermione, who was in the middle of a rather futile retaliation, could pretend that his hilariously visceral response wasn't amusing. "N-nno," he sputtered, looking rapidly between the other three angels. "She'll kill me. She'll fucking kill me."

"Saves us a murder, don't you think?" Harry mused, turning to wink at Hermione who had, at least for the moment, ceased her attempted attack to laugh.

"If I had known you had it in you to be this devious, I would have never ended things," Ginny remarked, eyeing Harry with a sudden wave of admiration.

"I'm leaving," Hermione announced suddenly, rolling her eyes as the duo that was once Heaven's golden couple stared at each other with mirrored curious expressions on their faces.

"Do try not to fall into his bed this time," Harry told her, tearing his eyes away from Ginny long each to shoot her a teasing glance.

In response, Hermione shot him a murderous glare along with matching set of middle fingers before closing her eyes and transporting herself quickly out of the room.

Fuck, she thought as her feet landed on familiar ground. They're going to owe me so much overtime after this.

Of course, she knew where to find him – she always did – because how in the world was she supposed to avoid him otherwise, and considering the severity of the situation at hand, she had decided it was a waste of time to pretend otherwise. There wasn't time to for games, there wasn't time for cowardice, there wasn't really time for anything at all considering what was missing, and whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have to face the very demon who had been haunting every single one of her thoughts and demand some answers.

With a wave of her hand, she swapped her clothes for something a bit more appropriate. Her white and gold gown darkened and shrank, transforming into a short (very short) dark blue dress. Her sandals morphed into a pair of jaw-dropping stilettos, and her hair… well, her hair was her hair and she didn't even bother with that. She waved her hand again, and her big, brown eyes were suddenly made a bit more mysterious with a bold but tasteful smokey eye, and her lips were tinted with a subtle hint of red. It was all incredibly unnecessary; she could have simply garbed herself in jeans and a ratty t-shirt – he certainly would hate her the same no matter what she was wearing – but she did it anyway.

At least now she'd blend in, she thought as she dropped her disillusionment shield and walked out onto the busy street.

The place she was heading wasn't far, but it was far enough that she couldn't avoid the crowds of inebriated people in the middle of whatever late-night revelry they'd deemed appropriate for the night. She really didn't understand people's desire to gather in crowds, nor did she understand their eagerness to wait in line for something that was, in her eyes, not at all worth the hype. Then again, humans were far too often drawn to the very things that could destroy them, and this (her target) – the horrible, demon-infested nightclub that they were all undoubtedly congregating for – was a perfect example.

Ignoring the disgruntled murmurs of the people queuing, she sashayed her way up to the front of the line, throwing her hips side to side as if she was some irresistible provocateur. She stopped in front of the two bouncers guarding the horribly gaudy red velvet door and smiled sweetly, flashing them them her best pretty please face while ever so slightly moving her finger to bend them (only momentarily) to her will. The men studied her oddly before the magic took hold, but when it did, their confused looks were replaced with admiration, and the larger of the two, who was rather obviously more overcome with the fantasy she had fed them, stepped aside and ushered her past the black ropes.

Men, she thought, shaking her head as she walked through the first section of the overly elaborate entrance. They're all the same.

Once she was safely out of sight, she paused under a set of near dizzying lights, taking a few deep, calming breaths as she tried to force up the mental walls that would allow her to get through the next few minutes without doing something abhorrently stupid. And for a split second, she really did feel brave enough to do what she needed to do, it's just that, when she finally flounced the rest of the way into the intrepid nightclub, strutting past another set of bouncers as if it was her damn job, she wasn't as prepared as she hoped she'd be.

The place was packed and obnoxiously loud, but the craziness surrounding her did nothing to quell her nerves. Her breathe hitched as she moved into the crowd, but she pushed her way across the dance floor anyways, knowing it was a minor miracle that her feet were still working. He undoubtedly would have spotted her from his perch by now, but she kept her eyes fixed on the mass of bodies in front of her because she couldn't look at him – not yet.

By the time she reached the center of the dance floor, she could feel his eyes burning a hole in the top of her head, could almost hear the anger and surprise emanating from depths of his very soul, and she paused, suddenly incapable of going any further. Even despite every single one of her brain cells screaming at her to keep moving, she couldn't – every remaining ounce of bravery left her body in a single exhale, and she was overcome with needs she couldn't control. She needed to be next to him. She needed to feel him… to taste him.

And then, because there was really nothing left to do but give in, she looked up.


Song – Do Me by Kim Petras

a/n: Once a week postings may have been a bit too ambitious for someone who is in the middle of a breakup and just starting a new job, so sporadic is apparently the name of the game for now. I do hope you all enjoyed a bit more of Hermione in this one – she was much harder to write for some reason (and I'm just going to go ahead and completely ignore the deeper meaning behind that).

(Just kidding… it's because I have an icy black heart).