I know it's been a while, but between two dead computers, a natural disaster, and a new job, I've been rather busy. But to make up for it a little this is the longest chapter yet. And as the chapter title suggests, it's rather dark. It's unedited though, as I didn't want to make you wait any longer, so hopefully it isn't too rough.
The ride home was... tedious. Bumping around in a rattly tin box for over an hour just to go a couple of dozen miles. Muggles really are pathetic. Hermione thought to herself, as the two in the front seats prattled on with random inane questions that they probably wouldn't understand the answers too anyway.
Her parents had been rather happy to see her of course; and after her apparent escape from the trace her mood had been lifted so that she hugged them with a smile on her face. Now though... well, there wasn't any way to know if she'd escaped the Ministry's tampering nosiness without risking a letter.
Huffing a bit, Hermione gave another one-word answer to her mother's stream of questions, and turned to look out the window. Her discontent grew as she watched the various muggles pottering about in their dull, mundane, magicless lives; this really wasn't her world anymore.
If it ever was.
"Hermione?"
"What?" She snapped at her mother's interruption to her thoughts.
Her mother jumped a little at her sharp tone, before her eyes softened a little and she asked, "What's wrong sweetheart? You've been awefully quiet."
A Snape-worthy sneer crossed Hermione's features as she answered. "I'm stuck in a rattly tin box with two stinking muggles. What do you think is wrong?"
Her mother gasped, hand rising to cover her mouth; the shock just as much from the look of disgust on her daughter's face, as from her words.
"Hermione! That's enough!" Her father commanded, and Hermione glared at him.
"Yeah, maybe it is." She muttered to herself, and turned back to the window.
It was dark when the car pulled into the driveway, Hermione shuffled out of the back seat and made her way to the front door in silence. She waited there for a few moments as her parents whispered to each as her father struggled to pull her heavy trunk out.
Quickly growing impatient, she decided to test out her possible avoidance of the trace; it wasn't like a first warning was much to worry about, the Ministry weren't going to send her to Azkaban for opening her front door. Pulling her wand out of her sleeve, she stepped inside after easily unlocking the door; leaving her parents to their hushed argument.
The house was exactly as she remembered it, it was the house she'd spent her childhood in; and yet it was missing something. She'd felt it last summer too, but now after another year at Hogwarts - and having pushed her magical knowledge and abilities far beyond where she was a year ago - the sheer muggleness of this place stood out like a hippogriff in a tutu. Hermione twiddled her wand as she waited for her parents, and contemplated the alien-ness of the house that no longer felt like home.
A little while later a noise behind her drew Hermione's attention back to the outside world, and she turned to see her father struggling to bring her school trunk inside. He'd certainly taken his time about it, with whatever he and her mother had been 'discussing' as she'd come inside; it had been nearly half an hour. She saw her father huffing with her trunk and glared, disgusted; couldn't muggles do anything? She thought for a moment about the lack of an owl all this time after she'd unlocked the door, and with a shrug pointed her wand at her trunk.
Her mother let out a startled yelp - that wasn't quite a scream - a moment later when Hermione's father was suddenly knocked off his feet by the a trunk that seemed to be moving on its own. They both looked at their daughter as the trunk made its way toward her; she stood at the foot of the stairs, a look of bored confidence on her face as she held her wand steady.
They continued to watch in stunned awe, Mr Granger being slowly dragged along the entry hall rug as he still clung to the floating trunk.
"Are you going to let go? Or should I just drop it on you?" Hermione asked when the silence continued on beyond her patience, though a faint flicker of amusement could be heard in her tone.
"I..." Mr Granger started, then stopped as he finally let go of the trunk and dropped the few inches to the ground.
"I thought you couldn't do magic at home?" Hermione's mother asked, seeming to continue her husband's words without much thought.
Hermione's lips curled in a show of distaste, "Oh, a disgusting little mudblood certainly wouldn't be able to do any magic outside of school. But I learnt some interesting things this year; did you know you're fourth cousins?" Her expression shifted to the familiar look she got when she knew something others didn't; but the air of superiority was disturbingly more pronounced than it once was. "It turns out you share a great great great grandfather, Hector Dagworth-Granger."
"That's... " Her mother started, but Hermione interrupted.
"Grandma's maiden name, I know." She paused a moment, as her father stood up. She enjoyed the shocked looks on their faces as she continued, "Hector Dagworth-Granger was a wizard. A Potions Master, one of the best. That's how I found out, I found a book he wrote in the Hogwarts library. Love potions. Shame he didn't use them on his sons; the traitorous swines married muggles." Her face scrunched up in disgust as she spat the word out. "Destroyed 600 years of pure magical blood, introducing that muck. Not a witch or wizard in the family until the line rejoined in me. So now here I am; on the one hand I can trace both sides of my family through 800 years of wizarding blood, but on the other I'm tainted by your filth."
"That's more than enough, young..."
"Silencio!" Hermione cut him off with a wave of her wand; the manic gleam from a few weeks earlier starting to show in her eyes. "You think it's enough? Think you can muddy good magical blood with your stench, and I should just shut up and take it? Is that it, 'enough'?" She stalked closer to her parents as goosebumps rose on their arms. Hermione smiled, "you're scared now, aren't you? Is this enough now? Do you think you've paid enough for two centures of theft?" Her wand pressed against her father's cheek, she could see his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"Hermione..." her mother started in a shaky voice that was trying for reassuring.
"Subseco lingula!" Hermione snapped in annoyance, giving her wand a quick downward movement - almost a chop - as a familiar rage built inside her, causing her mother to gag on her no longer attached tongue. A moment later her father was in the bonds of an incarcerous; his attempt to jump at his daughter ending in him thudding solidly on the floor.
A disturbing grin slowly shaped Hermione's lips as her wide mad eyes watched her father silently screaming at her while her mother choked on her own blood. "Trying to steal my magic again muggle?" She asked in a tone that sounded far too serene for the scene before her. "It's far from the first time, isn't it? You've been trying for years; taking away my wand, keeping my books in your study - away from me. You've been trying to steal my magic, haven't you? Just like those filthy muggle sluts my traitorous ancestors married, you've been trying to take it for yourself: It's not going to work." Hermione paused a moment, seeming to calm herself from the rage that had been building as she spoke.
"You know what happens to thieves, don't you?" She asked her father, her tone almost conversational now, but with a hard edge that had him shaking in fear as she raised her wand at him again. "I haven't tried this one on a human yet, but if its effects on a toad are anything to go by it certainly works as a punishment. Sanguinis Inflamarae."
Her father's pale skin flushed pink, then red, and he thrashed on the floor as every drop of his blood boiled in his veins. Hermione held him under the curse with a bored expression as his silent screams were hidden by the sounds of his wife choking, a car back firing, and his body thrashing about.
"It's quite fitting, really." Hermione mentioned casually as she released the curse. "Your blood taints my good name, maybe if I burn it enough I can truely reclaim my family's rightful pure status." Her smile softened sickeningly. "Purification by fire as it were, a kind of... trimming... of the family tree." Her expression hardened again as she finished, "clean the filth out once and for all."
She raised her wand again, then paused in thought. "Fipsy," she called after a moment's silence, and before too long the little elf popped into the room. Hermione looked at her adoring servant, pleased. "Gather everything magical in this house and store it away in my trunk. Then hide my things in the garden shed, and return to what you were doing before I called."
"Yes Mistress, Fipsy shall." The excitable young elf replied joyfully, then immediately begun rushing about the house and packing things away. It didn't take long before she popped away with Hermione's trunk and Crookshank's cage, leaving the witch alone with the muggles once more.
"Fipsy is my elf," she explained with a soft almost motherly smile, "she is ever so happy to be bound to me, and serves in any way she can. Even hiding bodies when needed."
Her father's eyes widened, he looked at her as if he'd never seen her before; a stranger in his house, and one he had every right to fear.
"Oh don't look so worried father," she sneered the last word, making him cringe. "I promise after tonight you won't feel a thing." She spun her wand between her fingers for a few moments, before flicking it and binding her mother in the same way as her father. "I don't think she's going anywhere, but it's better to be certain." She spoke mostly to herself, "Now where were we? Purifying the family tree, of course, can't have your muggle filth spoiling a perfectly good line, can we."
With a flick of her wand, her father was thrashing on the ground again, as she put him back under the blood boiling curse. Hermione watched with fascinated glee as pink turned to red, before his skin slowly began to blister and peel, his eyes - wide with pain - slowly softened, and started turning to liquid as his thrashing turned to twitches. She lifted the curse as he continued to twitch; the rise and fall of his chest showing he was still alive, if unlikely to feel anymore for some time.
The curse didn't have the madness inducing qualities of the cruciatus, so while he'd never see again, it was possible that in time he'd recover. If he lived.
"Avada Kedavra." Hermione had no intention of letting him recover, a fact that was highlighted by the green flash of her killing curse. She shuddered as the familiar power of the unforgivable washed over her with a lover's caress. Repeating the curse on the pale blood-soaked form of her mother, Hermione took a few minutes to bask in the glorious power radiating through her, before stepping over their still forms and heading toward the back of the house.
The moment she stepped into the back garden, Hermione turned and sent a fireball into the house; destroying the last of the muggle in her line. She made a promise to herself never to allow a Dagworth to fall to that level again.
She immediately set to work on an alibi, clearing her wand of the unforgivables as she cast numerous under-powered aguamentis, to make it appear that she'd tried to fight the fire without success. She was between spells when her wand was suddenly wrenched from her hand. Spinning where she stood, Hermione found herself face to face with a vaguely familiar man; though his long silver blonde hair and look of arrogant disinterest would have placed him immediately even if she hadn't met him before.
"Mr Malfoy." She greeted him with faint nod, as if he hadn't just disarmed her while she was burning down her parents' home. Though her wide eyes gave away her shock.
Lucius Malfoy was intrigued, he'd heard from his son of this mudblood acting above her station - not to mention her use of an unforgivable on his heir - and had come to put her in her place, so to speak. But he had stumbled upon an interesting scene, one he had not truly seen since the last war; a young witch screaming in hate as she tortured some pathetic muggles in their own home. It seemed the girl was not as she appeared; supposedly a mudblood friend of Potters', yet she clearly held a hatred for muggles, had a good command of the dark arts - including the unforgivables - had her own elf, and was claiming to come from some old line.
He watched as she stepped outside, and set the house alight. However were the Ministry not noticing all this underage magic? And what was she muttering about the Dagworths? That line had died off centuries ago. Granger... Dagworth-Granger? Perhaps, but even if she were a decendant, that made her a half-blood, at best; and he'd heard her speaking of purity. But then it wasn't uncommon for a half-blood to want to reclaim their family's status.
Deciding to get some answers he stepped out of the dark corner of the garden, and promptly disarmed her as she seemed to make deliberately poor attempts to extinguish her own fire. He caught her wand as she turned to face him, and was surprised again by her reaction; while her eyes showed her shock clearly, she greeted him as if her were just dropping by for tea. Raising a perfectly trimmed eyebrow, he watched her for a moment longer before returning her greeting.
"Miss Dagworth-Granger, I take it?"
Hermione nodded in answer to the older Malfoy's question, "Where did you hear that?" She asked, her lineage wasn't exactly common knowledge just yet. But then perhaps he'd heard something from Barty.
He smiled genially at her before answering, "I've been listening to your little bit of... what did you call it? 'Trimming of the family tree?'" He stroked her wand as he waited for her confirming nod. His smile grew a little wider, yet cooler still. "Yes, well, we must all trim our family trees from time to time. Take out that which polutes it, makes it weak." He agreed, "It is quite pleasing to see a young half-blood with..."
"Pureblood." She interrupted him, "I'm no half-blood, I can trace both sides of my family through 800 hundred years of wizarding blood." She paused as he raised an eyebrow again. When he didn't speak, she added, "And you can see any filth in my line has been cleansed."
"That doesn't take care of their taint in you though." He told her with disdainful certainty, but continued before she could comment. "I must say I am most intrigued though, a young witch doing magic in a muggle neighbourhood, and yet there's no sign of the Ministry. How is that?"
Hermione's expression shifted again to the superiour look of someone who knows something others don't. "Surely you know all us older families have out little secrets?" She informed the older wizard.
"Indeed." He replied in the same arrogant tone, before a dark glimmer crossed his eyes. He continued, "But perhaps you'd be willing to share this secret in return for a little help?"
"Help? With what exactly?"
"Tell me how you avoided the trace, and promise not to torture my son again, and in return I can help you with your tainted blood, along with your little innocent act here."
Hermione's eyes narrowed, "If Draco calls me a mudblood again he deserves what he gets."
"Quite, but I can have words with him."
Hermione thought it over for a few seconds before nodding in agreement, "Ok, I can't do anything about this summer, as the trace is already on him. But the trace is removed each year while we're at Hogwarts, I can show you and Draco how to avoid it being replaced next summer."
"Very well." He agreed, and offered her wand back.
She took a few moments to look it over, and when she looked back up he had pulled his hood up, and was wearing his silver death-eater mask. She smirked at him.
"Authenticity is important, Miss Dagworth-Granger. Do remember our agreement, won't you?"
"Of cour..."
"Morsmordre!"
She felt the air chill as the Dark Mark formed over her home.
"Now they'll never suspect you." He told her simply. "So now I just have to take care of your taint."
Hermione frowned, "But how..."
"Crucio!"
Pain. Stabbing burning pain erupted in every cell of her body. She might have screamed, though she couldn't be sure, as the world narrowed down to the searing pain and nothing else.
An unknown time later the pain lifted, she thought she could hear voices and spell fire around her. Then someone was touching her face, and talking to her; she groaned and looked up into dark eyes before slipping into welcome unconsciousness.