Clair de Lune
Hermione Granger was an only child. She was fifteen years old, and for two months of a year, she lived with her parents in a house in Birmingham, just on the edge of the library.
One Thursday night in July, Hermione was slow getting up. She had woken in the middle of the night with cramps, and by the time she managed to fall back asleep, it had been four in the morning. Now, she came awake with a fever, and her pillow had red stains.
"Brrrrrrrng," her alarm clock screeched, loudly breaking the silence in the room. Hermione swung her arm without thinking, and a resounding thump hit the floor.
"Hermione!" Her father called to her downstairs. Hermione smashed a pillow over her head.
"Little hermit."
"I'm up!" She hollered. She was not fond of the nickname.
She huffed out a long breath before reaching over to her, nightstand again for her glass of water. When her hand came up empty, she squeezed her eyes.
Hermione was reluctant to leave her bed when her bones felt like lead. Sunlight filtered through the shutters of her window, and her head ached like it took a sledgehammer. A deep breath led to a knife slicing through her abdomen, and she stumbled. "Ow," she gasped when she crashed into a wall, black spots fluttering in her eyes.
When she made it to the bathroom, she held onto the porcelain sink like it was a lifeline and debated if she was going to throw up or not. She had eaten enough food yesterday to hibernate through winter, but waking up this morning, she felt like she hadn't eaten all month.
"I hate this," Hermione whispered. There was a mirror over the sink, and for a moment, she couldn't bring herself to look.
"Hermione, breakfast will be ready soon!"
She swallowed, wincing at the dryness of her throat, and found her Gryffindor courage to look up. She felt as if someone else was in the mirror. Dried blood flacked down her upper lip, her eyes were bloodshot and framed by dark shadows, and her cheekbones stood out from a face now gaunt.
Her hand trembled as she turned the faucet on, and as she splashed the icy water against her skin, fresh blood began to flow from her nose.
She scowled into the mirror and pressed a towel against it. The blood quickly stained through, and Hermione added more pressure.
It was getting worse; the nosebleeds were becoming more frequent and were becoming harder to hide.
Her skin was hot to touch, and only the water gave a reprieve. Her face had broken out acne from the cold sweat that came from nightmares each night, and she felt as bad as she looked. She tried to fight down the shame that swelled at the state of her body. The mean girl at school, Pansy Parkinson, never failed to remind her of her flaws. She wasn't attractive, and she couldn't change that. She eyed the bottle of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and knew that magic couldn't change who she was inside. Not this.
Hermione turned the water on and stripped, her eyes focused on the reflection in the mirror. A crack broke the clear picture, and she narrowed her eyes at it.
She flinched when she touched the right side of her chest and felt nothing. She pressed her nails into the skin until they made crescent marks, and still, she felt nothing.
Hermione's eyes stung as she held tears back. Her left ear was ringing as she heard the sound of leaves crunching, and the wind blowing in an eerie whistle. She could still feel him on her, grabbing her, breaking her, teeth tearing through muscle and marrow. She gasped, grabbing her head and shook it hard. It seemed to clear, but now she was dizzy and weak.
"Hermione, breakfast is ready!"
"Coming!" She shouted back, forcing a cheer in her tone. She pulled her shirt back on, pulling away from the truth as she turned her back on the mirror.
Nothing was wrong.
No one would find out.
Hermione came down the stairs with a smile and turned into the kitchen where her parents were. It almost felt like any other day; the eggs were served hot on stringy cheese, the tea was steaming out of the pot, and the toast crunched like charcoal with a spread of raspberry marmalade. Her father had a newspaper open as he nibbled on some grapefruit, and her mother was reading her latest series in her hand. At the same time, she nursed a cup of tea in the other.
She was home.
Hermione pulled back the wooden bench and sat down at her usual spot beside her mother and across from her father. It felt safe, and she picked up her utensils to enjoy her food, but as she scooped up her eggs, she felt her stomach clench in pain. She grimaced.
"Come on, Hermione, your mother didn't burn them this time," her father teased, and Hermione tried to muster a grin as her mother narrowed her eyes at him. He cleared his throat, and his eyes darted back to his newspaper. Hermione stared at her food, salivating even as her throat clenched in disgust at the thought of eating this.
She pushed the eggs around her plate and nibbled on some burnt toast. Two bites in and the room spun. She rubbed her head and stared blankly at the red marmalade, feeling the same hunger she had when she came downstairs. Her eyes traced the droplets of jelly as they cascaded down the sides and seemed to bleed unto the plate.
"Hermione, are you all packed?"
"Hermione?" The concern in her mother's voice broke through the trance, and she looked up.
"I want to go back to bed," she said out loud.
Her parents looked at her. Hermione started to get up, but a gentle hand pushed her back in her seat, and she found her mother suddenly in front of her, hand touching her forehead.
"You have a fever," her mother sighed.
"Maybe we should cancel the trip."
"No," Hermione immediately argued.
They ignored her.
"But honey, it's too late to refund the tickets!"
"Our daughter is sick-"
"We've been saving up for this trip for-"
"Stop!" Hermione snapped, the shout stopping the argument still.
She took a deep breath, breathing out the lies like it was second nature. "You should still go. I'll stay home and study," she started.
"Honey, we can't just leave you. You're sick!"
Hermione huffed.
"This is hardly the first time I've stayed home alone. I'll keep the house clean. I'll even take the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley - they have magical amenities for sicknesses."
Her parents looked startled at the declaration, but after a moment, they looked resigned.
Hermione felt a pinch of guilt for blatantly using their ignorance against them, but she had no choice.
She couldn't let them know the truth.
They couldn't help her.
"Are you sure, honey?" Hermione smiled at the question because she knew she won them over.
"Trust me; I'll manage. I always have."
She felt terrible for lying to her parents. A few months ago, she wanted nothing more than to spend the summer away in her mother's homeland — a getaway to France.
She was different now.
Hermione was glad her mother helped tuck her into bed with chicken noodle soup and her favorite book on mythology. She was delighted they left her to their own devices as they prepared to go because it meant she didn't have to hide. She cried quietly to herself as she curled inward. The pain in her abdomen, chest, and hips that could only be cramps struck her in the solace of her own company. Hermione listened to her parents as they moved around, plates clinking and wheels thumping down the stairs. She knew when they went; the house would feel empty and quiet. For now, all could do was try and pass the time.
At some point, she slumbered, and when she opened her eyes, she winced in acute pain coming from the gauges in her arm. She studied her hand and found her nails encrusted with blood that could only explain the wound. She brushed the area with the tips of her fingers and suddenly itched to scratch at the area. Hermione clenched her jaw and stuffed her hand into the covers. She stared at her window, where no light filtered from the shutters now. The sun was setting.
It was time.
Hermione gulped and threw the stained sheets away. She went to her closet on unbalanced feet but managed to get the door open before she collapsed. She was running out of time.
Her ears were ringing again, and this time when she pushed her hand against them to muffle the sound, her hand came away wet with blood.
Her other hand spasmed as she reached for the doorknob again, but she managed to turn it properly. When the door opened, she pulled out her trunk, flipped the latches, and removed her knapsack. Glass clinked together as she lifted it over her shoulder. Hermione stumbled to her feet, hating how the room spun around her. She tightened her grip on the bag and propped herself up on the wall to keep herself from falling and breaking the fragile components inside her bag.
Her breathing stuttered, and every gasp felt like a fresh breath after drowning. Her chest felt like an open wound that clenched with every heartbeat. She stomped down the hallway yet heard no sound; she felt tears down her face that fell in drops of red as she made it down the stairs. The knapsack was her lifeline, and she felt bruises forming on the skin where she took the brunt of her stumbles protecting the bag.
Hermione felt squeezed of all energy and life by the time she made it to the bottom. Her stomach growled, and she felt it tremble her entire body. Hermione left her bag by the stairs, then left for the kitchen as a ravenous hunger consumed her thoughts. She grabbed a roll and dipped it in red jam. Her appetite vanished, but her stomach hurt too much this time to ignore. She bit into the bread even as it turned to ash in her mouth. It was like trying to swallow sand like she expected something different when she sunk her teeth in it. Hermione made an effort to keep it down, but in the end, she didn't have the strength to do so. It came back up, and she felt hot as she gripped the cold porcelain of the sink. The windows revealed a fading blue sky, and she realized she had an hour, at best, to prepare.
Hermione didn't waste any more time, and this time made it to her destination with renewed determination. The basement was as cold and dark as she remembered it. It was empty and covered with enough dust to make her nose twitch.
She flipped the light switch, but nothing changed. The basement was as dark as night, and this time there were no windows to tell the time.
Hermione went to the end of the room, as far away from the door as she could get, and set her knapsack down. She set up the contents as quickly as she could because the tremors were getting worse, and she risked breaking the glass the more time passed.
It was difficult to imagine how her life had turned into this. Only a couple of months ago, she was a normal teenage witch looking forward to a vacation to her mother's homeland, and now she was here. Desperate to make it through the night. Hermione was so desperate to pretend everything was okay that even when her body was breaking down, she finished what she set her mind to do.
Hermione didn't feel very sick, but her ravenous hunger these past two weeks had been a red flag from the start. Even the excess bleeding revealed it wasn't puberty.
Her fingers tapped nervously on the lids of one of the jars, and she muttered quietly to herself some words of encouragement. "You researched this. You know what you're doing," but even as she said it, her heart was beating too fast for her consciousness to feel calmed by these words.
Her hands shook as she unscrewed the lid of one of the jars and pulled out the purple flower. One whiff of the stuff and her nostrils burned as though she breathed smoke. Quickly, she stifled her sense of smell by pressing her shirt against her nose. The flower looked innocent in the palm of her hands, but she gulped at the thought of swallowing it. Hermione winced as the skin on her hands, itched the longer she held the plant, and the urge to scratch distracted her. Dropping the petals, she dug her nails into her skin and rubbed back and forth, determined to make the sensation go away. As Hermione leaned over to get a better angle, her nose began to run again. Still, Hermione barely paid attention to the red droplets that stained the ground. She just fell apart in need to scratch her skin to pieces. Hermione didn't even flinch when her nails tore the skin, and the wound stung in the open air. Her throat suddenly clenched and itched at the same time, causing her to cough thickly. Blood sprayed from her lips, snapping Hermione out of the urge, and she leaned over as she hacked. Greedily, she gulped down breaths of air and swallowed down the blood that wanted to expel from her throat. She plucked the purple flower from the ground - now stained with her blood - and tossed it in her mouth before she could hesitate.
Tense like a bomb was about to go off, Hermione quickly put her energy in what she came down here to do. Chains clinked together as she dragged them out of her bag. The weight of the metal bearing down on her arms and panted as Hermione used them to block off the door. When it looked secure, she threw her weight against it and smiled when she bounced back. Next, she found the can of gasoline and dumped the contents sloppily against the stairs leading to the door. The smell alone made her head spin, but the goal was to make the stairs so slippery she couldn't get up them.
With the door and stairs inaccessible, her heart hammered in her chest as the walls began to close in, and the air grew thin. When her throat itched again, she leaned over with the expectation to cough, but when she opened her mouth, a stream of blood poured out her lips as though a dam had broken. She struggled to breathe through her nose as she vomited, and her eyes stung as she cried.
A sharp pain hit her from her chest, and she twisted her body with the pain. She was drowning, trapped in all corners with no room to breathe. By the time she could close her mouth she looked down and found the petals of wolfsbane floating in the contents of her vomit
She failed.
Pain exploded in her ribs, and a cry tore from her lips. She lunged for her bag in desperation but knew seconds before she reached it that she was too late.
The sun had fallen.
Falling to her knees as her intestines stabbed against the flesh of her stomach, she hurriedly began to strip. Each arm out of her sleeves made her joints pop, and her abdomen cramp on the worst of periods. She yelped, voicing an escape as she threw the article of clothing away and unclasped her bra to follow it. The rest came off just in time as her leg felt numb, and her body collapsed in the loss of balance. She tried to shake it off, but as the paralysis spell moved from her leg to her arm, she knew it was over.
Hermione wished for it all to be over when she felt strange. As if a feather had brushed across her face. For a moment, she felt as if she was staring into a faceless friend.
A child's face materialized in the darkness. The soft colored eyes brought a familiarity shooting through her that Hermione long since thought she had forgotten. "You," she growled, remembering how Bridget used her. She was in summer camp when Bridget walked up to her and became her friend. But the popular girls wanted Bridget, and they always got what they wanted. Bridget cheated off her and joined them, telling them her secrets and knowing how to hurt her most.
"Why are you here?" She demanded, confused.
Bridget showed her by pushed her back, and cold water suddenly consumed her. It pushed against her from all sides, and Hermione reached out, needing to be free. No one was there to help her, as planned. She looked around, finding another girl trapped with her. Hermione swam toward her, immediately noticing the pale skin and blue lips. Shadows fell over the pool, and when Hermione looked up, she saw herself looking down at her through the water.
She pushed Bridget in the pool because she knew one of her own secrets. She couldn't swim. and Hermione made sure no one was there to help her. Seeing Bridget drowning didn't give her pleasure, but she deserved it. Bridget humiliated her! She betrayed her!
The need for oxygen tore at her throat, and she struggled to keep her mouth from opening. Black spots darted into her vision, reminding her that drowning wasn't something she could fight.
Hermione pushed upward against the water. She kicked her legs and paddled but came nowhere close to reaching the top. Her doubleganger watched her drown with a smug grin. She wanted to slap it off!
Bridget deserved this! She deserved to feel the pressure of the water closing in on her. The suffocation of knowing she was alone in the world when she needed help most. Hermione did the right thing. Now Bridget wouldn't hurt anyone as she hurt her. No one messed with her after Bridget almost drowned. No one could prove it was Hermione who pushed her, and her parents could never believe she would do something so monstrous...
Her heart stopped as if she were struck by lightning. Hermione looked down at her naked body and saw the raised flesh of the hideous scar tissue left by his actions. Maybe it was meant to be. Perhaps they were kin souls that recognized the monster in each other. Whatever the reason, her eyes accepted the truth marring her body and finally accepted what was happening to her. Hermione reached for Bridget and grabbed hold of the fluorescent pink jacket she had given her. With one mighty push, she used the momentum to carry them upwards. When she broke through the water, she arched her back to suck in a deep breath, only to find herself again in her basement. Alone.
"What?" she panted. She relaxed and sought comfort in the ground. Then, she felt a frost settle in her bones, and a breeze kiss her skin. A rumble echoed in the room, and she froze when it didn't come from her stomach. She went to get up when she found that she couldn't move it. Like her foot, it was like her arm fell asleep, but the sensation crept up her neck, and she suddenly couldn't pull the right side of her lip. The wall on her right disappeared, and in the next, the room disappeared entirely.
Hermione was nothing if not logical.
And, in her logical mind, she knew she was going to transform into a werewolf.
But something wasn't right. This wasn't what the books said it would feel like.
Everything was so dark. Like Hermione was holding unto the edge of space, and gravity was pressing in on her from all sides. She had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and her body was abstract at best. Hermione was not truly conscious of processing anything. Still, she reasoned that this was her body's way of coping with the brutal transformation everyone who had ever heard of werewolves knew of.
It was like she was sitting too close to the fire and was burning up with no way out. Frenzied, she lashed out. Hermione sought an escape, and after a violent push, her eyes snapped open as a scream tore out her lungs. Back in her own body, Hermione dragged her limbs against the ground. Her body was aching and sore like she pulled every muscle.
And then the pain came.
It started with a twang in her heart like someone took the organ in their hand and squeezed. What followed was ten times worse as her ribcage broke open, and the bones skewered her flesh. Her eyes blurred as raw screams tore, threw her throat like they had been scraped out with a saw. It was unworldly as blood slid from the stark white bones of her ribs, showing her eyes what they were never meant to see. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push herself into the woes of sleep, but the pain was too fresh and too piercing for her to be anything but awake.
Her thoughts instead became a frenzied blur, flashing through memories in such an unrelated manner, Hermione believed her bones weren't the only part of her that snapped.
Hermione could literally feel the skin separating from the sinews of muscle and the hardness of bone as fur broke through their connection. Her skin was sliding off, and it sent indescribably agony she could feel in each and every individual cell of her body.
She blinked.
Hermione was in the sky again. She was lost in space with only the light above her. She fought gravity on all sides as she tried to reach it. Her hands broke through walls, and her feet kicked through floors that exploded like landmines. She was in a cage of her own making and wanted nothing more than to break out.
Snarling, she clawed her way to the top. When the light was finally within reach, Hermione took all the violent urges within her and tore what made her who she was asunder. She stumbled out of her prison like a newly born cub and shook her body of the fluids that covered her fur. Her stomach gnawed at itself and instinctively, without thought, she lapped up flesh and blood of her former container. She chewed on bones until reaching the marrow. She dined until there was nothing left but the dark bloodstains that flavored the floor. With her stomach content, Hermione looked around at her surroundings with new eyes. The dark may not even be there. She pawed at the ground, scratching her nails into the concrete in some vain attempt to dig into it. She exhaled audibly through her nose and looked for something to do.
Hermione longed for the fresh air, the grass as it tickled her feet, and the wind as it swept by her. Instead, she had concrete and stale air. Grumbling to herself, Hermione laid down, seeking comfort and started to groom herself. She started slowly, to pass the time, each lick removing the blood and restoring her fur to a coarse thickness.
Hermione opened her eyes from a deep slumber to her stomach growling. She whined low in her throat when she caught no scent of something to quench her hunger. She yawned, her tongue rolling out of her mouth as her jaw popped. She relaxed and stood up, determined to seek out food - knowing she had to go through a door to find it. The stairs were still slick from the gasoline, and when she tried to get a leg up on it, she only experienced herself collapse as her foot slid out from under her. She grunted, licking her bruised foot before trying at it again. And again. and again.
Soon her vision tunneled as the need to eat got worse and worse. She tried to manage it by chewing on broken furniture and scratching on walls. None of it stopped her intelligence from dwindling to the point of seeing red. Saliva drooled from her mouth in a river and growled throughout the room before she began throwing her body against every visible surface.
Hermione was so hungry.
She could eat anything.
Her bruised paw drew her red-hazed mind, and she decided, anything was better than starving. Her teeth sunk into her leg, she whined at the stabbing pain, but the growls that followed were raging to quell the sickness in her stomach. Hermione cannibalized herself with vigor, tearing into her own flesh and blood.
She collapsed, black spots dotting in her eyes before regurgitating what she had swallowed. Her stomach twisted in betrayal for what she had done to herself. With nothing else to do, she closed her eyes.
When she next woke, her throat was as dry as the Sahara, and she was flacked with her own dried blood. The scent of iron filled her nose, and when she looked down to see her missing leg, she remembered what she had done. How could she have lost her mind like that? Her stomach felt empty and shrunk, but it wasn't sending pulses of agony to her mind anymore. She huffed, trying to get up with only three legs and looked around to find the basement trashed from her frenzied state. Her bones were brittle and collapsed as she tried to stand, her muscles aching and thin when she tried to stretch, and no matter where she looked, there was no food or water to quench this feeling in sight.
Everything hurt.
But, at least her mind was her own again.
Hermione tried to occupy her mind with rationalizing and memories, but her thinking was sluggish and one track. Always going back to the same thing: food. And not the scones she missed last breakfast or the bakery down the street. No, she longed for the steak, the chicken, and every piece of meat she once kicked off her plate as a renowned pescatarian. She drifted off again, dreaming of all the things she'd never tasted before.
Hermione was cold.
Like the brittleness of her skeleton, the frost of the night set in her bones. Instead of giving her the strength to get up and find a warmer place, all she could do was take it. All she wanted was some water. Something to give her the energy to get up... something to fill her bottomless pit of a stomach.
Instead, she breathed in the smell of her blood and let it lull her back to sleep.
The last time she opened her eyes like a wolf, she felt strong. Her mind was clear, and she was filled with enough energy to do something. Hermione dragged herself across the floor, her body so malnourished that she was as light as a feather. The scent of wolfsbane would have her leaping away from it on any other day. Today, she only ignores the wetness coming from her nose caused and pushed open the flap with a nudge of her nose. There, the jars were still intact and full to the brim with purple flowers of different shapes, silver charms, and a shiny stick of vine wood. Ignoring her wand, for now, she instead rolled the jars on her muzzle. After violently flipping her head to the side, the glass broke as the jars met an immovable object, and the contents of the jar spilled out. Hermione huffed as she dragged her crippled body across the floor to the other side of the room. When she reached the flowers, she scooped them up onto her dry tongue and swallowed them down her equally dry throat. After doing the same for the charms, Hermione lay back down on her side and welcomed the darkness with open arms. For there, she would find no pain, only peace.
The first thing Hermione became aware of was the sticky fluid glued to her skin. The second thing she became aware of was the silence that surrounded her. The final and scariest thing she took note of was how she could feel her bones thickening, and the walls that weren't there before were now pressing all too closely in on her. Using her hands as her only tools, she grabbed and pushed everything they could grasp out of her way. She kicked and struggled like a newborn trying to escape its mother's womb. Only when she saw the light did the panic of escape ebb to be replaced by determination.
Her hand reached out, and with it, her hope. Something sharp pierced the flesh of her hand, but Hermione ignored the fresh pain as her fingers took hold of it. She hauled herself up with one arm until her body reached the top. She was too big to fit through the gap, but Hermione was damned if she stopped here. Instead, she used her other hand to wrench open the hole, and with a mighty push, she tumbled out of the opening.
When she collapsed on the cold cement floor she was finally able to breathe. Hermione choked on the oxygen that was filling her lungs. Her mind in a state of shock as her eyes met the smooth flesh of her body once more. The arm she remembered chewing off with her own teeth was held in front of her eyes, and Hermione failed to comprehend how. Her other hand was bleeding from where she freed herself, but as she studied it, she realized that aside from that, her skin was flawless.
No tan-lines or scars or blemishes stood out. The acne was gone from Hermione's shoulders, and as her palm ran across her face, Hermione felt no bumps or swollen areas. She could breathe in long and deep, her diaphragm expanded without repercussion, and for the first time in years, she felt like she was a kid again. Even in the darkness of the basement, she felt like the world was full of amazing detail.
Hermione felt the foundations of her world change.
But then, she looked behind her and saw the body of a decaying wolf. Its jaw had been dislocated and torn by her escape, and as the reality of what horror she experienced set, Hermione screamed.
.
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.
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I probably won't leave another Author's Note after this. As the initial chapter, I just wanted to say that I do not own Harry Potter or the Hemlock Grove inspired werewolves. I don't recommend watching the latter but the werewolves are a nice change from the supernatural anti-horror badassery expected of werewolves. This is a disclaimer. On another note, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Updates will be random but may pick up depending on the shared passion for this story.
Stay safe
- GR