Hi everyone! I am glad to know that you guys like the story. Here's another chapter, I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This is for pure personal enjoyment.
It had been quite some time since Hermione read a book out of pure enjoyment. During her sixth year at Hogwarts, especially toward the end of the school year, she had been heavily focusing on drinking as much knowledge as possible to prepare for the eventuality of her gallivanting around with Harry and Ron. The death of Dumbledore pumped so much 'book adrenaline' into her. When Voldemort died for good, somehow Hermione found it quite a difficult thing to relax and enjoy a book without analyzing its contents and studying it for future purposes. When the voices started, there was no time for her to enjoy books.
There was a whole shelf of books in her personal library that had been begging for her attention for years. Some were books gifted to her on her previous birthdays and Christmases (before she disappeared from the world). Some were books she compulsively bought whenever she went out to shop. Yet, unless they contained information that might help her free herself from her demons, she could not bring herself to read them.
Hermione touched one of the books in yellow cover titled Subterranean Whiskers and smiled wistfully. Harry gifted her the novel for her twenty-third birthday. She had not read it. Well, it was the first time in years she touched it. Should she read it? Should she not? Would there be a clue inside, showing her what exactly ailed her?
Because a curse was the laziest way for people to explain the unexplainable.
Hermione could not quite believe the curse theory that Fleur and her odd friends were claiming. The brunette was rather annoyed at herself for not thinking clearly when Fleur decided to drag her to meet Armand and Mildred. Hermione was also quite worried for the kind of friends Fleur was keeping. One was institutionalized (even though seeming to be of sound mind) and the other a questionable ex. That word brought a growl from the brunette's mouth.
She shook her head. That was in the past and Fleur was with Hermione. Sort of. They had not discussed the status of the relationship after last night's kiss. They cuddled after that and fell asleep on the raft, only to be woken up by the light drizzle of the morning rain. Fleur had gone out not long after, needing to do something. Whatever it was.
Hermione pulled her hand from the book and went to the windows, watching the rain fell. It was such a mesmerizing and soothing natural occurrence, and with the steady rhythms of the rain meeting the earth, it was hypnotizing.
Of all the likeliest possibilities, curses were not one Hermione considered. Well, not the kind of curse that dealt with the spiritual world. She thought only Luna Lovegood could spew such nonsense. For if such things were real, then why were there not many wizards and witches committing suicides due to hearing strange voices?
The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. Why was Fleur even bothering to entertain such idea? Was that the blonde's way of making Hermione felt better, that it was not the brunette's fault for succumbing to madness? Hermione frowned. Why was she even thinking of Fleur in that way? Fleur had been nothing but nice to her for the past few months, even putting up with her bouts of 'headaches'. Hermione should treat Fleur better than that.
Hermione was deep in her thoughts and did not hear a soft knock at the door. She was startled when a pair of hands embraced her from behind.
"Fleur! I didn't hear you coming in," Hermione felt her heart rate skyrocketing from the adrenaline and from being hugged by Fleur.
"I'm sorry to startle you, Hermione," Fleur said, a lilt to her voice. Hermione liked it very much and wondered why she had never noticed it before. "It's just that it's cold outside and you're so warm, can't help myself."
Hermione felt herself blushing. "You have such sweet mouth," she rolled her eyes, pretending she was not affected.
"That's why you love it, hmmm?" Fleur whispered in her ears.
"So how was your morning?" Hermione decided to change the topic before it escalated. She looked up at the taller witch, whose features changed to seriousness instantly.
"I went to see Mildred." Hermione tried to control the jealousy that sprung forth. "She would like to come here to check the area, see whether the lake and the house are infested as well. According to her, the curse placed on you is usually the kind that the victim's house and surroundings are infested."
"Fleur, don't take it wrong, I do appreciate your concerns and you trying to help me, but I doubt this is caused by a curse," Hermione spun gently and looked into Fleur's eyes. "Yes, I do know you worked as a Curse-Breaker but that's different. Those curses you came across were spells and other magical entrapments to prevent people from entering their vaults. It's nothing to do with someone sending spirits, ghosts, and whatnots to haunt someone else mentally. Those are just myths."
Fleur looked hurt. Hermione felt guilty instantly. Why could she not shut her mouth and find better ways of explaining things logically?
"I know it sounds highly absurd to you Hermione, but can you just play along with it for a little while? I won't let any harm come to you. Besides, you've got nothing to lose. If after a month you are bored of playing along and there are no changes, I promise I will not mention about the curse anymore."
Hermione tilted her head to the side, considering. Fleur looked so earnest and serious about it. Oh well. The blonde was right. It was not as if by playing along with Fleur that Hermione's schedule would be in disarray. Perhaps a little bit of weird adventure was in order. Except for one thing.
"I don't like the idea that Mildred is coming here. Not even my friends know where I live, Fleur," confessed Hermione. "You're the only person that I have ever allowed to be here." Even though it was accidental, she did not say.
Fleur nodded. "I understand. Well, I will go and see Mildred and let her know that we shall do this at another location."
"No, I'm coming with you," Hermione decided to Fleur's surprise. "While we're at it, why don't we just go see her now?"
That one moment of bursting confidence and bravery was soon regretted by Hermione when she stepped out of the Floo and entered Mildred's room (this time at the Winking Boggarts Inn. Hermione was starting to suspect Mildred to be an outlaw or a fugitive of some sort.)
The room was heavily incensed which made Hermione sleepy immediately. There were several wind chimes hung on the ceiling, and a spell must be keeping them gently swaying, producing soothing sounds. All furniture were moved to the walls, making space for the middle of the room, where a dark green mat was unfurled, with some bright orange leaves that Hermione did not recognise strewn across the floor. To Hermione's amusement, the mat was placed inside a pentagram drawn in chalk. There were no candles, however. Hermione was quite certain Mildred was something akin to Professor Trelawney, trying so hard to be mysterious and esoterically all-knowing, but turned out to be a fake.
The woman of mystery was dressed up in blue, talking with Fleur in a serious face. Hermione was not consumed with jealousy at that sight nor was she angry to be in the same room with Mildred. Fleur was hers. Or going to be. There was no way Fleur would want to be with Mildred again. The memory of Fleur's kiss cheered Hermione. Was Mildred hiding from people unhappy with the fortunes she told? Or was it because people realised she was a fake? Despite herself, Hermione grinned, amused.
Mildred then noticed the brunette observing the room with a grin, mistaking Hermione to be in a joyful mood. She sauntered to the brunette and greeted her solemnly. Hermione had to control herself from bursting to laughter.
"I am glad the incense and wind chimes are working," Mildred told Hermione. "I was afraid that the ancient knowledge I call upon is not as strong as the demons sent by your enemy."
"Incense and wind chimes are always so dependable," Hermione nodded wisely. Realising Fleur was watching her from across the room, Hermione decided to not overdo it lest the blonde figured out that the brunette was making fun of the whole thing. As amusing as the situation was, Hermione did not want to hurt Fleur's feelings.
"While the demons are temporarily weakened, shall we take the opportunity and start?"
"Um, what are we doing exactly?" Hermione was ready to run and drag Fleur along if Mildred was planning some odd ritual. Well, something more absurd than the current situation.
"I need you to lie on the mat while I make a trace to track the spirits to their source," Mildred said. "At the moment I don't know what and how many demons are there, or who sent them. Without those information, I am unable to...expel them from you."
"So exorcism huh," for a brief moment Hermione was reminded of a few muggle horror movies she watched. "Interesting. Well, shall we?"
Hermione took off her jacket and lied on the mat carefully. She felt uncharacteristically cheerful.
There must be some kind of drugs in the incense, she mused to herself. Not that it mattered much. This beats feeling miserable all the time.
Mildred stood outside of the pentagram, at Hermione's legs. She signalled Fleur to stand at the opposite, at Hermione's head. The brunette gave Fleur a lazy grin and a small wave. The blonde waved back hesitantly at her, giving Mildred questioning looks.
"Hermione, breathe in deeply and then release it slowly," instructed Mildred. Hermione stifled her giggles. This was Divination all over again, except that she did not have to make up miserable predictions just to pass the class.
"Hermione?"
"Oh yes, I'm sorry, my bad," Hermione realised she let out a few giggles.
She took a deep breath as instructed and exhaled slowly. She repeated it when Mildred prompted her to do so. Hermione lost count of the breathing exercise. The more she did it, the sleepier, lighter, and happier she was.
There's definitely drugs, she happily thought to herself.
After the umpteenth time, Hermione started to zone out. She stared at the ceiling, studying the dancing wind chimes, marvelling at their graceful movements. She started humming along the sounds, confident the wind chimes were playing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'. She was barely aware of Mildred asking how she felt and mindlessly nodded her head at the question. Hermione did not notice the looks exchanged between Mildred and Fleur. She was happy in her own world.
Hermione was intrigued when colourful butterflies started to emerge from the wind chimes, fluttering around the room. She watched as several of them slowly descending upon her, their colourful wings swirling through the air.
As they landed on her, Hermione suddenly was consumed in darkness. She did not hear Mildred chanting in the old tongue, she did not hear Fleur calling her name, she did not hear the sounds from the wind chime anymore. The darkness was devoid of all those. The only sound she heard was her own self screaming in agony.
She felt her body burning from within, and watched helplessly as those butterflies that landed on her skin grew claws and buried themselves in her skin, slowly sinking into her. Tears streamed down her eyes – the fire was scorching her insides, her guts felt like they were squeezed and twisted, she could barely breathe, and her skin felt like a million invisible paper edges were cutting her incessantly.
A pale grey mist formed around her, making her feel like a wet dog. She shivered even though her insides could power a thousand saunas. The mist brought a stale and stinky air. Hermione retched.
A cruel laughter reverberated around the darkness. Its source was nowhere yet everywhere. Hermione swore her head was exploding. There were voices giving her their opinions on the reasons for muggles missing their socks during laundry, there were voices reciting page three hundred and fifty one from Hogwarts: A History, there were voices debating the merits of conducting lobotomy on one's eldest daughter, and there were voices asking her why she never rescue them from the Vikings.
Hermione clamped her ears with her hand but to no avail – the voices were still loud and clear. She felt invisible eyes filling the darkness, the void, silently judging.
"Shut up!" she cried, closing her eyes tightly.
The voices ignored her, mocking her inability to defend herself.
"Which knee do you prefer, lass?" a random guttural voice asked her.
Hermione refused to answer.
"Why does it matter? She'd still have another knee. Cut it off!" a high-pitched voice of a youth said gleefully.
There were a thousand clapping, with millions of cheering. Hermione wished herself to die.
"Chop! Chop! Chop!" the voices chanted in excitement.
Hermione felt a sensation of cold steel on her left knee. She was frightened.
"NO! Don't you dare to cut my knee!"
She struggled to move away, wiggling and shaking. She could not see the weapon intending to severe her body and desperately tried to not stay in one spot, trying to make it difficult for the voices to achieve their goal.
"Hermione!"
"I won't let you do it!" the brunette yelled, sobbing with fear and adrenaline.
"Hermione!"
"Let me go!"
"Hermione!"
Suddenly the darkness disappeared and Hermione was back at Mildred's room. The brunette was trashing wildly on the mat, held still by Fleur. Hermione opened her eyes and looked into Fleur's gentle eyes that were filled with worry. There was sweat on the blonde's brow.
"Hermione, I'm here, you're safe," Fleur said.
Hermione gripped Fleur's arms and sobbed. The pain was slowly subsiding. Fleur held her close and rubbed her back soothingly.
"It's alright, it's alright," Fleur said repeatedly.
The sounds made by the wind chime and Fleur's soothing voice quickly calmed Hermione. The incense smelled different, however – it was sweeter and lighter. Hermione buried her head in the nook of Fleur's neck, inhaling the blonde's scent. She felt safe, far from the knee-hungry monsters.
"It's worse than I thought," Hermione heard Mildred spoke slowly, sitting behind the brunette.
"What happened just now, Mil? I've never seen anyone reacting like that," there was a hint of anger in Fleur's voice.
Mildred sighed.
Fleur swore.
"Explain this, Mil! I promised Hermione that she will not be hurt and look what happened!"
"It was not supposed to hurt her," Mildred sounded weary. "It was only supposed to make her sleepy enough and not alert the spirits haunting her so that I can track down their sender. Unfortunately, things went on a different direction."
Fleur snorted.
"Look, Fleur, it's… complicated."
"Either you start explaining things from the beginning or I shall strangle you with my own bare hand, Mildred. Hermione is hurting and I have broken my promise to her."
"Is she that important to you?" there was a tinge of sadness in Mildred's voice.
Hermione put her arms around Fleur. She wanted to tell Mildred off, that Fleur was Hermione's. But the brunette was too tired to even turn back and look at Mildred. So Hermione just growled. Fleur gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.
"Alright, alright. I'll explain," Mildred said tiredly. "About three thousand and forty years ago, or four thousand, wait no…was it five?"
"Just get on with it," Fleur cut irritably.
"There's no need to be impatient, princess," huffed Mildred. "At any rate, a long time ago, when the dark arts were practiced out in the open, when magic was just magic instead of this dark and light path nonsense, a few wizards specializing in necromancy figured out a way to 'entice' a person to commit suicide without it being ever traced back to them. They enslaved a dying man's spirit and, unable to continue its journey to the next cycle of life and had to stay in this world by force, the spirit turned malevolent. The spirit was always hungry for blood. However, as it was a fresh harvest, the spirit was weak. The wizards then 'planted' the spirit to a merchant, someone they disliked greatly for refusing to become their vassal. The spirit caused havoc in the merchant's life, slowly pushing him to the realm of madness. The merchant gave up living and at that precise moment when he firmly decided to end it all, the spirit 'ate' the man."
Hermione turned her head, giving Mildred a disbelieving look. Fleur rolled her eyes at Mildred.
"What? I'm not making this up!" Mildred said defensively. "The spirit 'ate' the man by devouring his will to live, the essence that pushes a person to wake up at the beginning of each day. Once that essence is gone from a person's blood, that person would die. Why do you think as time nears for the elderly, their body slowly grows colder for no apparent reason? There's no more of that essence in their blood, no more fire to warm their body. That's why demons hunger for blood, and that the fresher the blood is, the more the love it. They dislike cold blood, because the life essence has gone."
"I've heard about that," Hermione said, remembering the folk stories she came across months ago. "I'm not saying that I am a believer but I do admit there are many strange things in this world."
Mildred tilted her head to the side, studying the brunette. "You've always like the odd ones, don't you Fleur?" She raised her hands in surrender when both Hermione and Fleur protested. "It's not an insult. It was just an observation."
Hermione narrowed her eyes. She remembered why she disliked Mildred – that woman was too untrustworthy.
"Where was I? Oh yes – when the spirit sent by the wizards returned upon the merchant's death, the wizards knew they've struck gold. They experimented on it further, their killings more gruesome to create the perfect soul killers. They managed to create several types of these abominations. One day, they decided to part ways and each of them focus on perfecting one type of soul killer – that's the name I like to call these demons. As generations passed, the original type of soul killer became the most common and people's favourite. It is the least costly and easiest to create as well as maintain. As you might be guessing, someone sent you that type of soul killer. But what I find most intriguing is that the sender sent more than one soul killer."
Hermione's blinked. It was getting more absurd with each sentence.
"There is a reason why this ancient weaponry is not widely used," Mildred Accio-ed a bottle of wine and took a sip, not bothering to offer to her guests. "Once a soul killer is made, it needs blood to ensure it would not go berserk and attack its master. When a 'buyer' wants to purchase one and send to a victim, the buyer must guarantee payment to the soul killer in the event that the soul killer is unable to kill the victim. There are two payments: one to the wizard who creates, own, and control the soul killer; the other is to the soul killer itself. The stronger a soul killer, the more blood it demands. Someone must be either very confident you will kill yourself or the person must be having no regard to his or her own life that the person is willing to purchase not only one or two, but at least ten of soul killers. How long has this been going on?"
"Six years," whispered Hermione. She felt Fleur tightened her embrace, a refuge.
"I salute your determination," Mildred gave Hermione a toast. "Most people dies after just two years. But then again, you won't be the Golden Girl if you can't fight this thing."
"Mildred, how much danger is Hermione in?"
Mildred shrugged. "Since it's been that long, I'd say she is in mortal danger all the time. However, as long as her will to live does not fade, she'll be fine. Well, fine enough to live another day."
"So can you or can you not help?" Fleur was sounding angry.
"This takes time, Fleur darling," Mildred ignored Hermione's dagger stares for using an endearment term. "My family has been involved in such business for generations so don't you worry, I know what I'm doing. At the moment I sent magical trackers to trace back who owns these soul killers. Depending on how good the person is at hiding, it may take as long as a month. Once that's done, then we can proceed to the next step."
"And what that might be?" Hermione asked.
"Returning the soul killers, of course," Mildred said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She slowly rose to her feet, stretching her back as she did so. "For the time being, I need you to make sure Hermione does not want to commit suicide, Fleur. The soul killers will increase their attack intensity because they're realizing Hermione's getting help. Stay away from negativity and emotional things. Make her happy. Take a sabbatical from work. Don't do any stressful activities. Fatten up yourselves. Got it?"
Hermione slowly rose to her feet but Fleur gathered the brunette in her arms and carried her instead.
"Got it," the blonde said as they Disapparated from the room.
Hermione stared at the reading figure next to her. A million things ran through her mind. Some were happy thoughts, some were of sadness. She tried to read and understand the person next to her, who was humming softly as deep blue eyes moved across the pages.
"I'm flattered that you find me interesting to watch," Fleur looked up from her book and grinned at Hermione.
"Why are you doing this?" Hermione voiced out the question that had been bugging her since their return from Mildred's rented room.
Fleur tilted her head to the side, asking Hermione to explain further.
"You've been nothing but kind, gentle, and patient with me," Hermione continued, her mind trying to make sense of Fleur. "Nobody is that perfect. I've been nothing but horrible to you but you just continue on as if I've done nothing wrong. What is your goal? What are you looking for? What do you really want?"
A flash of hurt shone in Fleur eyes.
"Must I have a reason to be nice to you?" the blonde asked quietly.
"Nobody is nice to anyone for no reason," scoffed Hermione. "Besides, we've never been close before. Why now? Wait – this is a setup, isn't it? Ginny and the rest of them just can't leave me alone, right?" She could not keep the anger from seeping into her voice.
Fleur sat and put the book down, looking angry.
"I don't need a reason to justify my feelings for you. It just is. The only time reasons are needed is if I want to hurt someone. What reason do I have to hurt you? None. What reason do I have to make you happy? Everything. You mean the world to me. Why? I don't know, but I do know that I want to be the one who put a smile on your face every day. You know what? I can't do this right now. I understand you hide away from the world to protect yourself. But why are you so afraid of me? Why won't you let me in? Why do you always push me away whenever you realise you've let me become closer to you?"
Hermione watched silently as Fleur stalked out of the room, fuming. The brunette sighed and stared at the ceiling. She closed her eyes but could not erase the memory of hurt and anger on Fleur's face.
"Stop fucking shit up, Granger," she muttered to herself.