"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."
Sam marched over to the door and wrenched it open, Dean following. Hermione gave a small smile to Jess then turned to follow her brothers. God that sounded odd to her ears. They moved downstairs, through the old building and towards the car.
"I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you and our long-lost sister!"
"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."
"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gate in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."
"Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with us or not?"
Sam stopped and Hermione had her first good look at him. He was amazingly tall, around a whole foot taller than her, with long-ish hair for a boy anyways, that matched hers in shade. He had blue-green eyes that almost changed colour in the light which she could see straight from mom's face. While Hermione herself had their dad's brown eyes, and Sam having their mom's, she had no clue as to where Dean's green orbs came from. His face was set in a hard way that she could see straight from their dad this time, forehead slightly tensed and eyebrows pinched, the look John got when he was being stubborn about something, so about 97% of the time.
"I'm not."
"Why not?"
"I swore I was done hunting. For good."
"Listen up, buttercup," Hermione spoke this time, and Sam almost started, hearing such a different accent to someone that looked so much like their dad was frightening, as well as the fact she had just called him buttercup, which was not cool. "You don't just stop hunting. I was trained, I haven't even gone on a hunt yet, and I was sent away from all this shit, and look where I am now. Even if you do try, this is our dad we're talking about, not just some run-of-the-mill douche that's trying to eat your arse."
"I said I was done, and where do you come into this? You left – "
"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."
Sam saw the change of subject but he also saw the look in Dean's eye, warning him not to. Sam almost scoffed, he looked at this petit brunette who hardly came up to his shoulder and had never even been on a hunt, he could take her easily. But there was something about her that made him stop.
"Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45."
They stopped in front of a metal gate that lead out of the apartment building and Sam turned to face Dean.
"Well, what was he supposed to do?"
"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say "Don't be afraid of the dark""
"Please, quit whinging, John's done worse to me."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?"
"Like seeing his 6 year old daughter do something she has no control of, taking her away from her twin and baby brother, kicking her out of the family, and loading her on a plane to England, never to be seen again. Now shut your pie-hole, 'because whatever dad did to you, I'll tell you what he did to me."
"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."
"We save a lot of people doing it, too."
"You think Mom would have wanted this for us? "
Dean rolled his eyes, but Hermione was hurt, what had happened to her baby brother, the one who she chased around stuffy motel rooms and cried whenever he saw anything clown-related? Who hated to be separated from his family?
Hermione walked in between the two and pushed pen the door, walking towards the car.
"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."
"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?"
"No. Not normal. Safe."
"Safe? Please! Safe doesn't work out, I know. I've tried."
They walked over to the Impala, checking over their shoulders to make sure no one was looking at them.
"Well it's worked so far."
"And that's why you ran away. "
There was another moment of silence, Hermione staring with her mouth agape. Ran away?! Why on earth would he do that?! She realised that maybe they weren't that similar, Sam wanted to get away from the family, while Hermione would have given anything to get them back.
"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."
Those words. Stay gone. It happened again. Only this time, Sam was the one who wanted to.
"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already, I can feel it. I can't do this alone."
"You've got Mya to help you." Sam sneered, for some reason he really did not like his sister very much at all.
"Yeah, but how about a little family outing?"
Sam looked down and sighed. When he looked back up his mind was a bit clearer.
"What was he hunting?"
Dean opened the boot of the Impala. It was full to the brim with weapons, papers, and other clutter; he pulled up a shotgun and used it to brace the trunk open. He dug through the clutter.
"All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"
Hermione came up, and moved Dean aside. "Budge up, I'll find it, you talk. It's obvious he doesn't want to talk to me. That last bit was said under her breath but Dean still caught it and looked at her with a frown on his face. It was true, Sam wasn't being the nicest at the moment, and he wondered what his problem was. Hermione leant down and searched through the boot, moving more carefully around the knives that were in their and tried to find the thing.
"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?"
"I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."
Sam smiled a small bit and leant again the car.
"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"
"I'm twenty six, dude."
"Jesus, don't say that. I already feel old enough." Hermione muttered as she pulled out several papers from the back of the boot, under several guns.
"All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy." She passed a paper to Dean who scanned it and then passed it to Sam. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely M.I.A."
"So maybe he was kidnapped."
She looked at another then passed that one on too.
"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April, another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92, ten of them over the past twenty years, all men, all the same five-mile stretch of road. It started happening more and more, so John went to go dig around."
"That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough."
Dean then pulled out a small tape recorder.
"Then I get this voicemail yesterday."
He pressed "play". The recording is John's voice, and is broken up, full of static. Even though it was hardly distinguishable, Hermione still felt a shiver go down her spine, but then her face hardened and her shoulders straightened.
"Dean... something big is starting to happen... I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may...
Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."
Dean looked back up at Sam who replied.
"You know there's EVP on that?"
Dean smiled tiredly, still leaning on the car. "Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it? All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got."
Dean pressed "play" again. An eerie woman's voice whispered slowly.
"I can never go home..."
"Never go home. "
Hermione shut the trunk and then went round and sat in the passenger side of the car. "You let me know what you wanna do, but I have a class to teach on Monday and I wanna be done by then."
They looked towards her, both with different thoughts in their head.
"You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing. "
"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just… answer my question. Why is she here?"
"She's our sister, Sammy, my twin. I haven't seen her properly in twenty years and I got an excuse to see her now. She's got this whole other family and I wanted to see her before she went back to them. Plus I wanna know what the fuck possessed dad to send her away like that."
"Fine, whatever. Just don't expect me to be all chummy with her. I need to get back first thing Monday as well."
"What's first thing Monday?"
Sam started to walk away, but turned back, suddenly looking all awkward and shy. Yeah, this was gonna be good.
"I have this... I have an interview."
Dean was leaning on the trunk of the Impala, and shrugged his shoulders.
"What, a job interview? Skip it."
Sam turned to face his brother even more now, moving his shoulders and saying confidently.
"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."
"Law school? Really?"
Sam glared at him but ignored him.
"So we got a deal, or not?"
Sam went back upstairs to pack, Hermione was waiting in the car. Dean opened up the door and slide in next to her.
"So what'd he say?"
"He said yes."
"Of course he did." She looked around at the familiar inner of the car, the black leather seats the memories of her childhood. "Just like the good ole times," She said, smirking up and Dean, who again was so much taller than her.
"You bet it, shorty," he winked.
That conceded to an argument, whether Hermione was unnaturally short, or he and Sam were just giants. It somehow ended it a battle of the wits as they ended up just calling each other weirdly fantastic insults and then laughing. Some of them were hilarious, especially the British ones to Dean. But, come on, what kind of insult was git? Or knob? Or tosser? Or twat? They all sounded made up!
-SPN&HP-
The next morning they were in an out of the way gas station in the middle of no-where, but yet, they still managed to find junk food. Dean and Mya came out of the store holding two paper bags full of the junk. Sam was sorting through the tapes Dean still kept in the car when he looked over to see then standing there.
"Hey! You want breakfast?"
"No, thanks." Sam looked a little disgusted by the stuff Dean had in his hand, and couldn't help but wonder who could eat that first thing in the morning. Well, his siblings obviously. "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"
"Nope, Sammy. I'm paying. I have an honest job thank you very much. School teacher. Plus I used to work in a hush-hush area of the government, I can live off the rewards for the rest of my life." It was true. Thanks to being part of the "Golden Trio" Hermione had received 36,000 Galleons for her war efforts and to cover any therapy if he needed to recover from the cruciatus curse. Plus, they had wanted her to be Minister of Magic, either her or Harry, so a little bit of a bribe was put in place. This was around £18,000,000, or $30 million dollars once converted. She was loaded, but not that she told the boys that, they'd wonder how she got the money and she didn't want to tell Sam that she was a witch, he was already acting hostile enough.
"Yeah?"
Dean got into the car from behind the wheel, and Hermione pulled the older sister status and got shotgun.
"I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection."
Hermione's face scrunched up in confusion.
"Why?"
"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two, Black Sabbath? Motörhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock. "
"Yeah, and they're awesome. I tried to show my friends the wonders of rock music but they just covered their ear and told me to, and I quote, "Turn that bloody abomination off, who'd want to listen to middle-aged men screaming into microphones." At which point I showed them the door and turned the music up. My parents listened to classical crap, it was hilarious to see their reactions when AC/DC came hurling through the walls. Seriously though, how'd you grow up in this car and not love the music?"
"Well, she said it. House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole. "
She snatched a tape from Sam and popped it in; "Back in Black" by AC/DC blared from the speakers.
"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay? "
"Nope, you're always-"
"Gonna be Sammy-"
"To me, baby brother!"
They cranked up the music and even Sam couldn't help but laugh at the twins having a singing contest at who could belt out the lyrics the loudest. By the end of the tape, Hermione had a pretend microphone in hand, Dean was belting it out, trying to keep his eyes on the road and Sam was playing air guitar in the back. It was the most fun they had had in a while.
They kept driving and they passed a sign that appeared, telling them that they were now at Jericho.
Dean had his hand on the wheel, staring out at the road, Hermione had her arm on the window, the wind dancing into the car and massing up her hair even more, It was resembling even more of a bush now, with her curls getting more tangled than they did from the head-banging. Sam had his phone to his ear, he had just gotten off of it.
"All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that's something, I guess."
"Check it out."
They had driven past a crime scene in progress on a bridge ahead of them- police tape around a beat-up car, several police cars, and various people in uniform were milling around. On the riverbed below, several more people were conducting a search. Dean then reached down into the compartment under the radio and pulled out a box, inside there were several fake FBI badges and the like. Dean pulled the car over and stepped out, followed by Hermione then Sam. There were Police men littered about, one talking into his radio, the other still investigating.
"Let's go."
They walked into the crime scene as if they belonged there, walking confidently up to the two police men investigating the battered car.
"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?"
"And who are you?"
Dean pulled out the badge and flashed it towards the cop.
"Federal Marshals."
"You lot are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?"
Hermione smiled innocently, and put her hands behind her back. "Thank you, that's awfully kind of you. You did have another one just like this, correct?"
The police man looked at Sam and Dean a little suspiciously but then looked back at Hermione. Dean almost couldn't believe it. She had a small smile on her face, as if they weren't braking the law right now, she wasn't hesitating and she looked too innocent to be doing anything bad. She was a really fantastic liar. Plus with her accent and on the account of her looking blameless, they obviously believed her much more than they would have Dean.
"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."
"So, this victim, you knew him?"
"Town like this, everybody knows everybody."
Hermione had started looking the car up and down, assessing it for damage, while Dean circled in the opposite direction, and occasionally crossing paths.
"Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?"
"No. Not so far as we can tell"
"So what's the theory?"
"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder, kidnapping ring, "The police man shrugged.
Dean smirked and stood next to Sam. "Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys."
Sam then stomped on Dean's foot, very hard.
"Thank you for your time. Gentlemen"
As they walked away, Dean reached up and smacked Sam on the head.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"
"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?"
Hermione walked up in-between them and shook her head. "Now, now boys. Don't be childish."
"There's no point in growing up if you can't act a little bit childish sometimes."
"Dean Winchester, you are such a nerd!"
"I am not!"
"Yes you are! You just correctly quoted the Fourth Doctor to me!"
"Well you recognised it!"
"It's no secret that I'm a nerd anyway."
Dean just cleared his throat.
"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves. "
Sam cleared his throat. Behind Dean and Mya are a grim-looking Sherriff and two men in FBI jackets.
"Can I help you boys?"
"No, sir, we were just leaving. Agent Mulder. Agent Scully. "
They kept walking and got back into the car. They then kept driving till they reached the town.
They walked past a movie theatre. The Marquee read:
EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING
SUNDAY 8PM
BE SAFE OUT THERE
A teenaged girl was tacking up posters showing Troy's face.
"I'll bet you that's her."
"No shit, Sherlock."
Dean arched and eyebrow at her then walked towards the girl.
"You must be Amy."
The girl looked up to where Dean was. "Yeah," her voice was slightly doubtful.
"Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles and aunt. I'm Dean, this is Sammy and Mya."
"He never mentioned you to me."
They started walking towards a diner at a fast pace.
"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."
"So, we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around."
A Goth girl approached, put a hand gently on Amy's arm.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Yeah."
"Mind if we ask you a couple questions?"
"Sure."
They went into the diner.
The five of them were sitting in a booth by the curtain clad window. The rest of the diner was empty, save for the waitress coming to clear the tables. Dean was opposite Amy, Sam on his left opposite the Goth girl, and Hermione was sitting on a chair at the end of a table.
Amy was telling them the story of what had happened.
"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and, uh, he never did."
Sam leant forward, his hair falling in his eyes that showed concern for the girl he didn't know. That or very good acting. Probably the latter. "He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?"
"No. Nothing I can remember. "
Hermione sat quite awkwardly, distractedly tapping some old tune onto the mug of coffee in her hand.
Hermione then noticed the pentagram necklace that Amy had on.
"I like your necklace."
Amy picked it up and fiddled with it.
"Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents. With all that devil stuff. "
Hermione, being the bookworm nerd she was, just had to correct her.
"Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."
"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries. Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything."
The girls shared a look between them that Mya caught.
"What is it?"
"Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk. "
Mya and Dean spoke in unison, something they rarely did now that they were older.
"What do they talk about?"
"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago. Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."
-SPN&HP-
Later that day they were sitting around an old computer. Dean typed in a search screen "Female Murder Hitchhiking". He found no results. He tried "Female Murder Centennial Highway" - the same.
Hermione moved over to him. "Here let me try."
He moved out of the way but there was no there chair so she just perched on the arm rest.
"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, I haven't done this in a while."
"No problem."
She reached over and typed in "Female Suicide on Centennial."
It came up with one result, and article labelled Suicide on Centennial.
"This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty four years, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."
"Does it say why she did it?"
"Um, hang on a sec. Ahah! An hour before they found her she calls 9-1-1, apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub, she leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back they aren't breathing. Both die."
She then read part of the article out loud.
'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it', said husband Joseph Welch.
Sam had heard and wheeled his chair over to them. "That bridge look familiar to you?" It was the bridge the crime scene had taken place on.
They left the library and headed towards the bridge. IT was night now and it was getting creepier by the minute. The three Winchesters walked up to the edge of the bridge and gripped the metal railings, looking over the edge.
"So this is where Constance took the swan dive."
"So you think Dad would have been here?"
Sam looked over at Dean.
"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."
Mya continued walking and the two boys followed her.
"Okay, so now what?"
"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while."
Sam stopped walking.
"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—"
"And so do I. I have a class to get back to, plus one of my best friends is pregnant, I need to be there for her.
"Monday. Right."
"Yeah, I forgot. You've got a whole other family to get back to. Don't need us much, do ya?" He looked over to Sam. "You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"
"Maybe. Why not?"
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"
"No, and she's not ever going to know."
"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."
Dean turned around and kept walking.
"You have a responsibility to—"
"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."
Dean grabbed Sam by the collar and shoved him up against the railing.
"Don't talk about her like that."
He let go and notices Constance at the end of the bridge.
"Sam. Mya."
They came and stood next to each other, all looking out for the ghost but she disappeared.
"Where'd she go?"
"I don't know."
Behind them, the Impala's engine started and its headlights came on. They turned to look.
"What the—"
Dean pulled the keys out of his pocket and jingled them. No one was driving the car. A bad feeling settled in Hermione's stomach, warning her that this would not end well. The car jerked into motion, heading straight for them. They turned and ran. The car was moving faster than they were; when it got too close, Hermione took a leap of faith and dived over the railings.
Sam had caught himself on the edge of the bridge and was hanging on. He pulled himself up onto the bridge and looked around.
"Dean? Dean!"
Hermione pulled herself up from the railings, only just managing to hold on to them. Rather than trying to help her, Sam rushed over to the edge and saw Dean crawling out from the river, covered in mud and grime.
Sam laughed, relieved, and scooted away from the edge.
Hermione crawled up with an annoyed expression on her face, it was like Sam didn't want her there at all.
Of course, Dean being Dean had run to check over his car first thing he did. When he pronounced it safe he ranted about what a bitch Constance was. Then he complained about how much he stank. Hermione chocked back a laugh and a sarcastic comment at that, but Dean turned around to her anyway. "You think I smell bad, do ya? C'mon!" Dean opened his arms as if waiting for a hug, but when Hermione just backed away slowly, he chased after her, wrapping his arms around her, while she tried not to choke on the smell.
"Dean! Dean, get your dirty, mud infested arse off of my shirt! Uh!" By the time Dean let go and Hermione stopped complaining, her shirt was now covered in foul-smelling things. Great. He smirked at her and she poked her tongue out in return. Sam just rolled his eyes.
-SPN&HP-
They arrived back in town and got to the nearest motel. There they ordered one room, but tried to get three beds, but the most was two. When the man looked at Dean's card, he saw that they're dad had already rented out a room for a month, using the same alias Dean was using now. They agreed to that room and made their way over to it.
They open the door and see that every surface has papers pinned to it: maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, notes. There were books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed, including something with a hazardous-materials symbol.
"Whoa"
Dean turned on a light by the bed and picked up a half-eaten hamburger sitting there. Sam stepped over a line of salt on the floor. Dean sniffed the burger and recoiled.
"I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least."
"Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."
"Centennial Highway victims." Hermione nodded over to a wall that was covered in posters and newspaper clippings. The victims seen on the wall included Mark somebody, William Durrell, Scott Nifong who disappeared in 1987 at age 25, and somebody Parks. Mark, Durrell, and Nifong were all white males, judging by the photos.
"I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs—"
Sam crossed to the other side of the room while Dean was talking.
"—ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"
While Dean was talking, Hermione noticed Sam move to the other side and walked over to join him, staring at a wall with different, slightly horrifying images on it. There were pictures of skeletons, of woman wearing white, of ghosts and violent deaths.
"Dad figured it out."
"What do you mean?"
"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."
"All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."
"She might have another weakness."
"He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"
"No, not that I can tell. If I were John, though, I'd go ask her husband."
Sam tapped the picture of Joseph Welch. The caption said he's thirty; the article dates to 1981, so he must have been sixty-four.
"If he's still alive."
"All right. Why don't you see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up." She was still covered in the grime Dean had gotten her with, and although he needed it more, Hermione really needed a good shower to clear her mind, to leave it open to possibilities. Hermione left the room and Dean was left standing there with Sam.
There was a silence from where they had been left together, and then Sam turned to Dean. "Hey, Dean? What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry."
Dean held up a hand.
"No chick-flick moments."
"All right. Jerk. "
"Bitch."
-SPN&HP-
Sam was pacing, holding his phone, and then bent down to sit on the bed, his phone in hand, then reaching up to his ear. He pressed some buttons and the voicemail from Jess played.
"Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—"
Dean, now clean, came out of the bathroom and grabbed his jacket then leant forward to Sam. Hermione was sitting in the corner of the room, not really looking at anything in particular, trying her hardest to think of possible solutions, any weirdness or irregularity that she could think of.
"Hey, man. I'm starving, we're gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"
"No."
"Your loss, Mya's buying."
Sam shook his head even more this time, and Dean frowned again. Hermione upped and went outside to wait for her brother, while Dean stayed inside for a minute. He walked towards Sam and put a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, we've got to talk."
"About what?"
"About why the hell you're treating Mya like a piece of dirt. She's our sister, Sammy-"
"Your sister, not mine."
"I'm pretty sure she is."
"Dean… just go."
Dean left the motel room and put his arm around Hermione, who was leaning against the door frame. He got the jacket the rest of the way on as they crossed the lot. Hermione looked around and noticed a police car near to them, with the Sherriff from yesterday still out and looking at them. Subtly as to not attract attention to themselves, Hermione tugged on the sleeve of Dean's jacket and motioned her head towards them, while still walking forwards. Dean understood and pulled out his phone, then dialled a number.
Suddenly the deputies approached them, not looking very friendly.
"Dude, five-oh, take off." Dean said into his phone, Hermione still looking out for them as he talked. They were in trouble.
"Uh, they kinda spotted me. Go find Dad."
He hung up the phone as the Deputies approached even closer. They both turn and share identical grins. Hermione said in her faultless voice from yesterday, "Is there a problem, officers?"
"Where's your partner?"
"Partner? What, what partner?"
The officer then sends some of his men over to the motel room and Hermione inwardly panics though she didn't show it outwardly.
"So. Fake US Marshal. Fake ID's. You got anything that's real?"
Hermione grinned cheekily.
"My boobs."
Dean burst out laughing, the comment came unexpectedly. That didn't turn out well, and resulted in the two of them getting arrested. They waited in the Sherriff's office, speaking to each other in low tones. They stopped abruptly when a different officer came in, this time carrying a big box containing god-knows-what.
"You wanna tell us your real names?"
"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent."
"And I'm Jane Weatherbee. But we've already told you this so I don't understand why-"
"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here."
"We talkin', like, misdemeanour kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?"
"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. Along with a whole lot of satanic mumbo-jumbo. You two are officially suspects."
"That makes sense. Because when the first one went missing in '82 we were three."
"I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me. Dean."
The Sherriff tossed down an old battered leather-bound journal and Mya winced. It was dad's.
"This his?"
They just stared at the journal as the Sheriff sat on the edge on the table, flicking through it: it's filled with newspaper clipping, notes and drawings, just like the motel wall.
"I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, its nine kinds of crazy. But, I couldn't find your name anywhere in here, little lady."
"But I found this, too."
He opened the journal to a page that reads "DEAN 35-111", circled, with nothing else on that page.
"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means. And till you tell me who you're."
They both looked down at the page, in sync, then looked at each other, and then looked up.
Hermione had been quiet this whole time, twiddling with her thumbs while Dean wrestled verbally with the police.
"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo!"
"We gonna do this all night long?"
Thankfully a deputy burst into the room, successfully distracting the officer who looked like he was about to blow, thanks to Dean's amazing ability to annoy everyone.
Before he left, the Sheriff leant over the table, from where he was sitting, and handcuffed Dean to a table, then leant over to Hermione, who just stared back. "Is that really necessary, Officer?"
He just huffed and tied her to the table as well, not taking any chances and then leaves. Hermione looked over to Dean and smirked. "You wanna see my party trick?"
He nodded, looking a bit excited, he did like to see magic used like this.
"Okay, this is a really easy spell, I can do it without a wand, but just barely. Right, Alohomora." She whispered the last part, looking directly to the handcuffs on her wrist and they popped open with a small clang. As his eyes widened, Hermione leant over and undid Dean's as well. "Don't tell Sam, okay?"
"Okay."
They reached forward and grabbed the journal before busting outta there.
"Listen, we gotta talk."
"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?"
"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho."
"I've got his journal."
"Yeah, well, he did this time."
"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going."
"I'm not sure yet."
"Sam? Sam!"
Dean swore as the phone cut off. He turned to Mya and quickly explained that they needed to get to the old house as quickly as possible. She nodded and hurried up, they kept jogging for a while, not having the car with them but the house was quite close, thankfully. She was worried for her baby brother, something wasn't right with him. When they got there, they saw Constance leaning her Sam, her form flickering as she held all five of her fingers into his flesh, somehow causing immense damage to Sam, who was struggling to sit up in the seat of the Impala.
Luckily, Sam had thought to roll the windows down, which made it much easier to Dean to shoot. But before that happened, Hermione had panicked, and reached for her wand. It wasn't there. She tried to think of a way to do this, and she had resigned herself to having to tell Sam about Magic, as long as he got to live. Her worried thoughts were scattered and cleared at the same moment the gun shot went off. Constance, who was still straddling Sam, then turned and hissed at Dean, who had his gun in hand, and then promptly disappeared.
Sam managed to sit up in the car and then did something so reckless that he deserved the title of a Gryffindor. He put his foot down on the accelerator and drove at full speed towards the wall of the house with his words, "I'm taking you home."
He crashed through the house into an old parlour, seemingly unhurt, which was bloody fantastic news. Just as all was calm, the bitch re-appeared, glaring at the trio. As she glared, the bureau decided to race towards them and pin them to the car. It didn't work out as the spirit planned. Sensing danger, Hermione's magic flared out, burning out of her much like it did to children before they are trained. Accidental magic. The desk stopped barely a ruler's length away from them, just shy of crushing their legs.
Their exact reactions went as follows: Hermione looked surprised, but not particularly shocked as she knew that magic could react this way, but she was still surprised as she didn't think that she had enough magic to do that wandless. Dean's mouth was agape, but he wasn't all that surprised either, mainly relieved as that would have hurt. Sam's reaction was the one to watch for. His mouth was open, comically low, his eyes had bulged and he had a mix of fear and confusion on his face. Even Constance was surprised. She got over it quickly enough, especially as the lights started to flicker, and water started to run, flowing down the wooden steps. Suddenly, a young boy and girl appear, holding hands and wearing kind of old-fashioned clothes. They began to walk down the staircase while staring at who Hermione could only assume was their mother. "You've come home to us, Mommy."
Yep.
Constance looked at them, despairingly. Her children, one of her biggest regrets, drowning them in a fit of rage. She looked scared. Suddenly, in a flash, the two children appeared right behind her, and then embrace her in an almost hug, that was until the screaming started. Her image was flickering and in a surge of energy, they melted grotesquely into a purple puddle and seeped out through the floorboards.
"So this is where she drowned her kids."
"That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them."
"You found her weak spot. Nice work, guys."
"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"
"Hey. Saved your ass."
Hermione laughed and made her way over to the car, inspecting it for any damage the crash might have caused.
"I'll tell you another thing. If you broke the car? We'll kill you."
This time Dean laughed, but Sam's face didn't change.
"I wanna say something though, what the hell stopped the bureau? It looked like magic, and we know that that isn't a good sign for anyone."
The twins just laugh nervously and get into the car, Sam shrugging and following.
They let the creepy old house and made for the highway.
-SPN&HP-
Dean was once again driving, Hermione sitting next to him, searching through the many, many tapes, and Sam sitting pensively in the back.
"So, dad's gone to this place called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado – "
"Uh, Dean?"
"Yeah, Mya?"
"I'm sorry, but I have to be back. By the next few hours at least. I have papers to mark, and lessons to plan, and you know that my friend is ready to pop at any moment. Plus, it's my godson's birthday coming up as well and I can't really miss that."
"Yeah, I understand. We'll drop Sammy off first, then you okay?"
"Okay."
Sam had nodded off at some point during the drive, and Hermione was busy taking adorable pictures of him.
"Hey Dean, did you feel like something was off about Sam? He was acting a bit mad."
"Yeah, I have no idea what's wrong with him. He's normally too nice, and sensitive and feely and all that crap."
They arrived at the apartment, and said goodbye to Sam. As they were about to drive away, they noticed the fire starting in their room and both had similar bouts of panic that was fully justified once they reached the apartment. The bedroom was in flames and Jess was pinned to the ceiling, a gash in her stomach, just like mom was. It made Hermione wince thinking about it, about how their mom had suffered.
Sam was still on the bed, in shock, crying out his girlfriend's name, but not moving away from the fire. Hermione had her wand out now, and started putting out the fire as best as she could, but for some reason, the aguamenti charm was doing nothing to help. She and Dean grabbed Sam by the underarms, and pulled him forcefully out of the door, trying as best as they could to avoid the flames and getting burnt.
Once they were outside and things had calmed down slightly, Sam turned to Hermione. He had tears on his face and he looked distraught.
"What are you? And don't lie to me."
His voice was soft but slightly broken and hoarse from shouting.
"I…I'm a witch, Sammy."
"…What?"
"A witch. But I'm not a demon-"
"Get away from me."
Sam raised his voice now, shaking and filled with disgust.
"Hey, Sam, don't yell at her-"
"Quiet, Dean! I don't want to know. I hunt things like you. Just go!"
"Sam-"
"Go! It's not like we wanted you here in the first place! We only needed you because of dad! We haven't found him and we won't so you can go now. I mean, you really thought different? If Dean wanted to see you so badly, then why didn't he come find you before this? Because he didn't want to! Go back to your new family! Because this one doesn't want you! Go back to your perfectly normal life, bring your demonic powers with you and leave us the hell alone!"
Sam was properly shouting at her now, towering over his big sister, his hair in his face, eyes alight with fury. Since Hermione barely came up to his chest anyway, with his head bent down, jaw tense, she looked even smaller in comparison, and very, very frail. That was something Dean had noticed before, she was quite thin, in the wrong places, like she didn't eat properly, and she had bags under her eyes. She also had loads of scars, all over her body, that and her teary eyes, made her suddenly look a lot more fragile and vulnerable. As Sam kept yelling his abuse at her, taking his anger out, she started shaking. This is what she had expected, but a whole lot worse.
She looked at Dean for support, but he was too busy studying his shoes. By the time Sam had finished, she had tears on her cheeks.
"Alright, if you wanted me to leave, I'll go."
She turned around, and started to walk away, but in her mind, it wasn't the outside of an apartment anymore, and it wasn't from her brothers, it was now in an airport, walking away from her father. She felt very much 6 years old again. Before anyone could make a comment, she spun on her heel, wand in hand and apparated back into her apartment.
When she left, Sam had calmed down considerably, his anger deflated out of him. Holy shit. What had he just done?
-SPN&HP-
Thanks for all of the reviews and favs and follows!
I am so so so so so so so so so sorry that I haven't updated in forever! There is really no excuse I can give apart from it's just been hectic!
I'll try and get the next one up soon!
Love you guys!
Elle
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