The Prime couple headed down to Narcissa's lab. The blonde took out a shallow bowl, grabbed her potions knife, along with the bag that held the cursed quill. She placed the quill in the bowl, and held out her hand to Hermione—who placed her own hand on top of the blonde's. Narcissa took her knife and sliced into Hermione's hand. The brunette closed her hand into a fist so that her blood would drop onto the quill, while Narcissa began the spellwork that would neutralize it.
A red smoke began to swirl around Hermione, causing her to cough and breathe heavily. She took a deep breath, drawing in all of the smoke into her lungs, which quickly spread to her mind to try and gain control of her completely. Stumbling back into a wall as she fought the entity, she gripped her head, hissing in pain. She growled softly while taking deep, centering breaths in addition to using her occlumency training to trap it in her mind and compartmentalize it.
Narcissa watched with concern as she waited for Hermione to either be taken over or come back to herself with control over the quill. As she watched the alpha's breathing settle, she let out a sigh of relief. "Mia, are you alright? What happened?"
"It tried to take over my mind. Luckily, with how much practice I put into Occlumency and compartmentalizing, it didn't take much to neutralize it and lock it away somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind," Hermione said with a sigh as she slid down the wall that she had been leaning on.
"Do you feel like it might have triggered anything?"
"I'm not sure, I'll let you know if anything changes though."
"Very well, let's get you something to eat then see if that helps settle you more," Narcissa said as she reached out to help Hermione up, while also casting a quick healing spell on her hand.
As the women walked out of the lab, they heard someone yelling their names at the front of the manor. They began to pick up the pace and follow the direction of the voices. As they grew closer, Hermione realized that it was the boys who were calling for them. When they finally found the boys, Hermione rushed to them in a slight panic. "What's going on? Why are you guys here instead of at the Ministry?"
"There has been a rash kidnapping of betas in a few magickal towns around Wizarding Britain. And according to the eyewitness statements, they were abducted by a man who just stepped out of a portal, and started singing something that caused all the betas in a 50 kilometer radius to fall into a trance and walk into the portal with no regard for anything or anyone. When the locals—that weren't affected by the singing—tried to keep them from leaving, they were shoved off. The locals even tried to use magick, but were unable to do so. We think the man singing was causing a disruption in the flow of magick, making it impossible to cast," Harry said in a rush.
"We figured that this might be one of the creatures that you guys have been dealing with and wanted to make you aware of it sooner rather than later," Ron added helpfully.
"It certainly sounds like one of the creatures we are to face. I suppose that we should quickly try to find some sort of information on it," Narcissa said with a sigh.
"Urgh, this is ridiculous. We don't even get any down time between creatures now to be able to deal with them!" Hermione yelled in growing frustration. Narcissa gently placed her hand on the brunette's arm to calm her down. The boys didn't even bat an eye at her outburst.
"Why don't we take this to the library and see what we can come up with, shall we?" Narcissa said as she eyed Hermione from her periphery, gauging her current state of mind. The alpha seemed to have calmed down slightly with her touch, and was able to control herself once more.
The Golden Trio and Narcissa entered the library and began discussing options for what to do with the last of the Harbingers of Chaos. Narcissa then asked the ring for information about a singing creature. The ring directed them to a children's book about the Pied Piper. "This is interesting, but not all that far off in our search. I suppose what we're looking at is a bard that sings his victims into an almost zombie-like state, where they have no sense of self and just walk right through the portal," Narcissa said after reading the little bit of lore that they found.
"I guess that means you and I are going to have to track this thing down and figure out where he'll attack next," Hermione said to Narcissa.
"We want to help you, Hermione. This is our job," Ron huffed as he ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
"Then explain to me how you two are supposed to avoid being taken by this crooning arsehole, hhmm? Because last I checked, you're both betas. You would be taken over and dragged away before we even have a chance to make a move on this Piper creature. So, tell me, either of you, how are you supposed to stop a creature with the power to stop magick?" Hermione asked, an eyebrow raised.
"We'll come up with something, 'Mione. We always do. It'll work out in the end," Harry joined in cheerfully.
"How can you be so optimistic about everything? It makes no sense and you're not listening to me. There are no plans to make because you. Won't. Be. Going!" Hermione growled in exasperation.
"Why are you so quick to push us away from this fight? You know it won't stop us from going," Ron skeptically asked.
"Because I refuse to lose either of you, especially Harry, since we technically lost you once before during that egotistical chess game of a war! I order you to step down and stay the hell home for this. I mean it!" Hermione said as she became more and more irritated that she has had to repeat herself on the subject matter.
"There has to be a way that we can help while also not getting in the way and being a liability. I know there are muggle technologies that cancel out noise so that you can't hear anything other than music or your own breathing and heartbeat. Why not try those?" Harry said thoughtfully, completely ignoring Hermione's tantrum.
"STOP IGNORING ME HARRY JAMES POTTER!" Hermione roared as her eyes began to shift, dilating to near black in anger. Narcissa stepped up in front of her and cupped her face in both hands, bringing her head down to look her in the eyes as hers bled gold.
The boys flinched at hearing her yell at them with more wrath than she ever had in the past.
"Darling, you need to calm down before you do or say something you can't take back," Narcissa soothed in a soft voice as she kissed her hard to take the alpha's mind off what was going on.
Hermione growled low in her chest before it turned into a soft groan. She wrapped her arms around the alluring omega as her breath picked up in pace for a completely different reason.
After a few minutes, Narcissa broke the kiss, looked into those familiar red eyes, and smiled knowingly at the look of lust that she found there instead of rage. The omega turned around in Hermione's arms, wrapping them around herself tighter, pressing her body up against the alpha, and tilting her head to the side in a sign of submission, as well as giving access to her scent gland so that Hermione could press her nose into it to ground herself further, which she did readily, taking in deep breaths of the sweet smelling omega. The boys looked at the two witches in confusion at the uncharacteristic display of affection.
"Sorry, gentlemen. She hasn't quite recovered from having dealt with that cursed pen and is still having slight difficulty with controlling her emotions. Although, now that I think about it, there is a way that we could manage what Harry was talking—" Narcissa trailed off when Hermione started to squeeze her tighter to her body and kiss along her neck wantonly.
"Um, you get the feeling that we should not be here witnessing this?" Harry whispered to Ron.
"Yeah, mate. I think we should back away slowly and leave before we get caught in the cross hairs and see something that neither of us would want to remember," Ron said as he slowly started to walk backwards and Harry followed suit. A low growl was emitted from deep in Hermione's chest as her red eyes flashed up at them and glared.
"Get out," Hermione said in a low menacing tone as she bared her fangs at them, which caused the boys to make a quick retreat from the room. "Mine!" She growled possessively as she moved one of her hands up to loosely circle Narcissa's neck, biting into the claim mark in a way that made the blonde moan softly at the show of possession.
"Yes alpha, all yours," She whimpered when she took in the scent of the alpha and realized what was really happening to Hermione. "Darling, are you going into a rut right now?" Narcissa asked. Hermione didn't really answer her in words, but rather slid her free hand down to cup the omega's pussy instead. "Ah mmm, alright alright, darling," Narcissa moaned as she apparated them to the bedroom.