Chapter 8: Waning Sun, Waxing Moon

Hermione yawned and stretched when the door opened once more.

"Mrrr!" She purred excitedly as Severus rushed out and raised a hasty ward on the door. He was shaking and pale, and she could see a glowing green line rising up the side of his neck. She bounded over to him and rubbed her face against him gently, savoring the rising, familiar scent of another of her kind.

"You lazy girl-" he started playfully, before he suddenly let out a pained moan and stumbled forward, his hands instinctively flying out to try and grab hold of something, anything. He would have fallen hard on the unforgiving stone floor were it not for Hermione allowing him to grasp her fur to steady himself.

Hermione tucked her large, leonine head around his shoulder and nuzzled his hand, which had gone a bit furry

"Prrrrip?" she asked, letting out a soft sympathy chirp.

"I...I'll...be...f..fine." Severus held on for dear life until the pain seemed to subside, but he did not let go of her, choosing to bury his face in her thick, velvety fur and breathe her scent in deeply. Hermione could feel his body relaxing as he breathed in time to the rise and fall of her own breath.

Though Hermione was sure that this wasn't normal behavior as far as Severus was concerned, she also couldn't be bothered to care. All sense of propriety had neatly vanished from her mind in her manticore form. Manticores were creatures of transient emotion, and Hermione could feel the human part of herself relishing the purring satisfaction of a belly rub and the pleasure of a kip by the fire. She enjoyed the playfulness of chasing her tail (damned short thing was always just out of reach- she almost wished hers was a long snake like Severus' manticore form because it would be immensely fun to chomp on it, pain be damned). There was just so much to enjoy without thinking about duty or honor, or long-lost loves. There was only the scent of him- male and musky; the feeling of his thin fingers stroking her fur as he breathed heavily against her and found peace by her side.

It took her a long time to realize he was whispering something into her fur.

"...soon," he whispered.

Hermione shivered with anticipation. His voice was so soft, but she could feel the vibration of the words against her skin and she thrummed with happiness and a growing sense of desire.

Odd, the noise sounded familiar. It wasn't quite as throaty and deep as...oh.

OH.

Her human mind flashed back to a memory of her mother giving her one of those obviously ridiculous lectures of "boys beating down the door" in response to her appearance. Hermione had always known that no boy would be willing to do such a thing, not for someone with wild bushy hair, teeth that belonged to a squirrel, and a ruthless obsession with being better than everyone at everything. Really, though, she'd always thought she'd be fine with that. After all, there was more to be said for a mutual interest in one another that develops over time, or in the frenzied feeling of a war pushing her into the arms of someone who provided even the merest hint of comfort and camaraderie and who she knew would never, ever leave her of his own accord.

Hermione wasn't sure if manticores were unable to mope, but she was getting a pretty good idea that it wasn't exactly easy. Instead, the manticore part of her brain decided that it was time to give Severus another tongue bath, and she soon lost herself in the physicality of pressing him down against the floor gently enough not to hurt him, but firmly enough to keep him from escaping.

There was no danger of that, though. Severus lay there, looking up at her with an expression of utter trust that she'd not thought him capable of having, let alone sharing with her. She watched as his eyes went from black to gold, and his body shifted under her. He was surprisingly quiet this time as his body rearranged to that of a beast, and she only opened her eyes when her tongue met the resistance of thick, dark fur. With a growl, he pushed back against her, rolling them over until he was above and she found herself pinned down. His body was larger than hers when transformed and he immediately began to purr deeply as they rubbed faces and scent-marked one another. Of course, by this time, Hermione was purring as well, which was just as well, because purring felt amazing, especially in tandem. Then, he gave her a tongue bath, which became quite a lot more awkward when she shifted back to human form a few minutes later. Severus went on for quite some time with her hair before he stood back to admire his handiwork, and Hermione was far too busy trying to dry out her soggy hair to be embarrassed at her newfound nudity. If anything, she was disappointed when she was no longer covered up with his warm, furry body. In fact, as the beast watched her, she found that her main annoyance was that it was drafty in the kitchens, though the fire alleviated some of the chill. As she twisted her hair, divesting it of extra moisture, she noticed that the green, caustic saliva he'd had before had gone clear and was thankfully not burning her skin and hair. She wondered, idly, if that meant that her transformation had made her immune, or if something in her sharing the transformation had changed the concentration of poison in his various secretions. Hermione noticed that he'd shredded the transfigured curtain robes during his transformation, but she found herself curious about his snake tail. After all, she didn't have one while transformed, but she did have the wings, which should not have made any sense.

"Dumb Hermione," she muttered to herself, hugging herself to keep the cold at bay. "It's magic. It makes its own sense."

Severus cocked his head to the side as Hermione shivered and then turned around, looking intently for something. It was then that Hermione noticed that his Nagini-like snake tail was coiled up on his lower back, its eyes shut tightly in sleep. He came back with his wand in his mouth like an oversized dog and set it at her feet before looking at her pointedly.

"Can I use it?" she asked, feeling stupid when he chirped back at her as though to say, Why else would I have brought you my wand?

Hermione turned to one of the pots that was sitting on one of the countertops. It was a bit rusty with age, but Hermione could work with it.

"Can I use this?" she asked.

Severus snorted at her and growled.

"Okay, okay, I won't stand around like a dunderhead and get pneumonia. Are you happy, now?" Hermione snapped.

Severus gave her the manticore version of a glare and bumped her against the butt with his snout to push her towards it as though to say, This millennium, please.

"Eeeahhh!" Hermione shrieked. She hadn't expected the sensation of a wet nose on her rear end.

She pointed the wand at the pot and closed her eyes, imagining exactly what she wanted to transfigure it into. Cloth would be easier, but Hermione didn't feel like running starkers across a dark, cold castle with a manticore in tow on the off chance of finding some musty clothing to cover herself with. Hermione would have considered changing into her animagus form, but she still didn't trust Severus' wand all that much, and knew that her transfiguration skills on inanimate objects were top notch. Hermione lifted the wand as though she were about to start conducting an orchestra and felt her magic travel tentatively down the length of the wand from her fingertips. She didn't want the wand to fight her again, and she was pleasantly surprised when the wand obeyed her immediately, channeling her power through its core.

"Hmph," she muttered to herself. "Dragon heartstring core, most likely."

She'd had a devil of a time with her own dragon heartstring wand in the beginning, which was why she'd practiced the first year spells for hours after her Sorting just to get it to behave. It helped that Severus had given it to her willingly, though. She knew that wands often listened better if won from their owners, but they also listened better if they were willingly lent. Harry hadn't ever had trouble using her wand while they'd been on the run for all of those months- the wand always deferred to its original owners wishes if possible, and would recognize a new master if it were treated with more care and resolve than its original owner.

Again, magic. Not exactly logical, but it did have its rules and it kept them.

When Hermione opened her eyes, she was glad to see that the pot had transformed into the soft, fleecy robes she'd imagined in her mind. They were still a silvery color with a strange brown pattern down one side that looked a bit like the rust spot on the original pot, but it would do, and it felt deliciously soft against her skin as she pulled it over her head. It was only when she was clothed that she turned around and felt somewhat embarrassed that Severus' golden eyes had been watching her, unblinking, the entire time. With a few extra enchantments on her new clothing, Hermione had made the change permanent and waterproofed the material just in case of future manticore tongue baths...which she wasn't exactly dreading, to be entirely honest.

Severus rubbed against her side, purring and then grabbed her sleeve in his mouth, pulling her over to the door he'd come from earlier, headbutting her gently as though encouraging her to go in. Hermione stared at it dubiously.

"There's a ward on this door," she said, inspecting it carefully.

"Mrr!" Severus purred, batting at her wand hand.

"Oh, that's right!" Hermione said, her voice full of dawning realization. "Since you used your wand...it shouldn't be hard to…."

She waved the wand in a practiced motion and the ward crumbled before her.

"Clever beast," she said, turning and taking his furry head in her hands, stroking his mane gently. "Now, then, it's your turn to go and nap by the fire. I'll see if I can get you something to eat. I bet you'd like for me to check your research notes, wouldn't you? Though I never did receive my mastery in Potions, I have dabbled quite a bit and my line of work requires quite a bit of knowledge in that particular area as you can probably imagine."

He looked into her eyes unblinkingly and for a moment she thought that she could feel something brushing against her mind like a gentle caress of an invisible hand. Though she couldn't hear his voice, she had a vague feeling that he wanted to tell her something.

"Don't worry, I'll be back. Just like you promised me," Hermione nuzzled his nose, wondering when she'd gone from a fierce monster killing machine to a monster snuggler, and then stood by the door and waited for Severus to pad back to the fireplace. He turned around with a big, toothy yawn and settled on the cushion by the fire, his eyes still on her as he placed his head on his paws.

And with that, Hermione pulled the door open and walked into the darkness beyond, wondering just what his laboratory had in store for her.