Author's Note: And here is part two! Enjoy the ending! Already a bunch of you reviewed and seeing a lot of my regulars made me happy! Thanks for sticking with me! As always, I'm eager to hear everyone's thought and even suggestions for other fairy tales to use. And, like I said before, the more reviews I get, the more apt I am to probably post something else and not wait, ohhhh a year! haha! Thanks for taking the time to read, everyone! And of course, there is a reason why this story is rated M!
itakethewords
To Hermione, her current residence within the infinite white space seemed like a millennia and only a moment all at once. Truthfully, she had no idea how long she had been here, nor how long it had been since her lover had visited her. He was right when he said she wouldn't notice the time between. For all her mind knew it could have been five minutes or five weeks. However, she missed him terribly. Tired of feeling nothing, Hermione plopped herself on her behind and sat on the infinite nothing, propping her chin on the heel of her hand as her elbow rested on her knee.
"Are you pouting? I told you I would be back, love." His voice was full of high spirits above her. Hermione tried stand, but was stopped. "Let me come down to you."
"How long has it been since you were here?" she asked, taking his hand.
"About four months or so. I've been busy…"
"FOUR?! Just how long have I been here then?!"
Her lover looked a bit sheepish. "Just over six months." He could tell Hermione was about to get riled up, so he put his hand over her mouth. "Listen."
"There isn't a lot of time. The curse, the longer you're affected, the more...nasty side effects start to happen. I'm almost there, in the real world, to help you but any time now, these ghosties can come out. I won't get there in time before they try to attack you so you need to stand ready."
Hermione's eyes widened and she pried his hand off of her face. "I don't have my wand or anything to defend myself, though. What am I supposed to do, play hide and seek with these things?"
Looking thoughtful, he held out his hand to the abyss. Suddenly, a white rose, long stemmed and equipped with thorns appeared. "You recall the night we met? Under better circumstance, that is."
Hermione's eyes softened. "I hexed you with jelly legs and you turned my skin blue. We called a truce and talked for hours."
"And then I gave you one of the roses in the garden there, stabbing myself on those bloody thorns." They both chuckled. "You kissed the scratches and then kissed my cheek…"
"You told me that was the first time anyone had kissed you with kind emotions."
He gave her the rose carefully, keeping her fingers away from the sharp thorns.
"I've got to go again. Something is coming soon on my end and if I don't go now, I won't be able to get back to you."
Leaving no room for arguments, he grabbed up her lips with his own and kissed her until they were both breathless. Foreheads resting on each other, their breaths mingled a moment before he pulled away.
"Give 'em hell, Hermione."
Then he was gone again.
Hermione only had time to sigh once before a guttural roar sounded behind her. A snort and the smell of sulfur permeated the space behind her, making her skin crawl.
"Bloody hell."
She turned and came face to face with the Welsh Green eyeing her as a delicacy just two hundred feet away.
Charlie looked down at the sleeping Hermione, tucked in tight thanks to his sister. Ginny had braided the woman's curly hair, keeping it from tangling in her magically induced sleep. Her face was paler than usual, though a faint blush graced her cheeks and the slightest amount of color in her lips. Her body remained still, reminding Charlie of Ron's body when they'd found it, never a breath to be taken again. Even with her lips slightly parted as if in a sleepy breath, the air around her didn't stir.
"Oh Hermione. Maybe this was punishment for me not saying something sooner?" He patted the curls on top of her head, his fingers trailing down to her cheek. A shiver ran up his arm at the temperature of her icy skin. "Ouch!"
Bewildered, Charlie drew his hand away and sucked at the drop of blood on the back of his hand. Looking back down, he saw a branches covered in thorns had come up from under the bed and surrounded Hermione's head. Panicked, he tried grabbing for her hand and arm to pull her away, but more branches grew, surrounding her body until Charlie was unable to safely touch any part of her. Backing up, he realized that a cocoon of thorns surrounded Hermione, reminding him of a casket to surround her deathly body.
Shaking his head, he pulled out his wand and fired spells to burn away or banish the branches. Instead of the desired result, more thorns grew and several white roses bloomed full along the dangerous plant. Charlie was sent backwards into the wall, slamming against it painfully.
Groaning with eyes wide, he shook off the shock and stood slowly. He called for Harry and Ginny, panic coloring his voice. "I don't believe this."
"What the hell did you do, Charlie?!" Harry slammed open the door, Ginny on his heels. He took in the scene, color leaving his face.
"Nothing! I mean, I touched her head and suddenly these thorny weeds were growing, keeping me away from her!" Charlie shouted indignantly, rubbing his bruised cheek.
"Is this part of the curse, Gin?" Harry asked, pulling out his wand.
"I don't know! I don't know the details of the curse!"
The three watched as the branches filled the space around Hermione and her bed, effectively creating a protective barrier between the sleeping witch and her friends.
Harry pulled off his glasses and cleaned them, sighing.
"Charlie? Can you go call Kingsley and ask for Snape?"
"Why Snape?"
"He knew what this was when we brought Hermione home initially. Maybe he'll know more."
Ginny reached out to touch the nearest branch and immediately, a thorn appeared, drawing a drop of blood from the woman's finger. Hissing, she drew her hand away and where the drop fell, a white rose bloomed.
"Oh, Hermione."
Hermione slept on.
The Welsh Green shorted when it saw Hermione noticed it's existence. Crouching down, it kept it's eyes on the witch, who was frozen to the spot.
"Really? A dragon?" Hermione stood and faced the giant lizard warily. She didn't want to move too sudden and cause it to attack. All she had was a flower and the Welsh had fire and wings and claws….
Taking a deep breath, Hermione stepped back a few paces, locking eyes with the beast. She stopped when it followed her, step for step. One more step back and the dragon took one forward. Calculating the risk, Hermione made to run but only got a few dozen paces before she heard the ear splitting scream from the dragon. Turning around to look, she saw the dragon was screaming in pain, blocked off by a wall of thick branches covered in roses and thorns. Looking at her hands, she realized they were empty. Whipping her eyes to look around her running path, she saw the abandoned rose had taken root and the wall was growing from that solitary stem.
"What kind of flower did you give me?!"
Only the angry snorts of the dragon on the other side of the the infinite wall answered her.
Few wizards were brave enough to try and bypass the dangerous plant surrounding Hermione. After they'd informed Kingsley and Snape of Charlie's harrowing try at waking her, they'd gathered many of the men on the list and told them of the situation and asked if they were willing to try and break the curse on the muggleborn witch.
Most were ejected from the room before they could take in the whole scene, the magic of the branches denying them immediately. Some, like the other Weasley men, had been able to step forward, but when they employed magic against the rose branches, they would be shoved out of the room by an invisible hand. And more white roses would bloom.
When the eighth month rolled around, and the list was all but cleared, save a few named, Grimmauld Place's sitting room was filled with friends and adoptive family to Hermione, all looking frustrated and sad. Harry and Bill were reading through various spell
books, hoping to find something they'd missed in the last few months since the thorny development, Fleur fed a quiet Victoire and a pregnant Ginny alternated between shredding the Daily Prophet in worry and looking green in the face with her pregnancy sickness. A thunderous thump from upstairs made them all jump, including the matron Weasley Molly, who was carrying in a tray of tea.
"What on earth?!" Fleur said, staring at the ceiling. Victoire took the opportunity to grab the spoon and fling it across the room. "Ah, non, non! Victoire!"
"Perhaps we should check in on Hermione?" suggested Bill, pulling out his wand. He looked to Harry and motioned to the stairs. Harry nodded and followed the wizard up the stairs leading to Hermione's bedroom.
Bill cast a detection charm, which told him someone was in the room with Hermione. Together, they burst in the room, ready to fire hexes at whoever was with Hermione, but froze when they saw the man.
"Lestrange?!" snarled Harry, bringing his wand to attention.
The man in question looked up from Hermione's sleeping form, the gentle look on his face still present.
"Potter, Weasley." He nodded politely and took up Hermione's hand.
"How are you so close to her? Did you do these thorns?" Bill asked guardedly.
The Lestrange man smiled small. "In a way. But it was more Hermione. I just gave her the weapon and she chose to utilize it against those she saw as a threat. I was giving her protection until I could come."
"You get away from her!" Harry said, taking a step forward.
However, the rose branches sensed danger and Harry bounced off of an invisible barrier. He landed on his backside a few feet behind Bill, who looked between the two bewildered.
"Who are you? Harry called you Lestrange but Rodolphus is dead."
"Rodolphus was my brother. I am Rabastan Lestrange, at your service." The man bowed sarcastically. "I am the more sane of the brothers, thus why I never took the Mark." He rolled up his sleeves to show the absence of any lingering marks from the war.
"I'm here to wake Hermione up. I've kept her waiting."
"You won't touch her!" Harry said, standing.
"Harry," Bill said, holding the younger wizard back. "Wait. He's the only one who's been allowed close to Hermione. Even you can't get near. And he was on the list…"
Harry grimaced at the thought. "But you don't even know her!"
Rabastan looked at Harry coolly. "Perhaps you don't know your best friend, Harry Potter. Hermione and I have been acquainted for almost two years."
Ignoring the indignant snort from the black haired boy, Rabastan leaned forward and whispered to Hermione, "I'm here, Sugar. Please, wake up."
Taking back one of her hands, he squeezed it gently and placed a chaste kiss upon her lips, lingering only a moment.
A heartbeat, then two. Then Hermione took in a startling lungful of air. The branches of roses and thorns closest to the couple faded away.
The color returned to her skin, a healthy flush of heat behind the tender and soft organ. More branches disappeared.
Her eyes fluttered open, her whiskey eyes overly dilated from being closed for months. Only a single wall of branches separated her and Rabastan from Harry and Bill, yet it refused to go.
"Harry, let's go. Hermione will be fine."
"But…"
"Let's go." Bill dragged the protesting Harry from the room, closing the door behind them.
Rabastan continued to hold Hermione's hand as she took in gasping breaths of air, like a swimmer rescued from an undertow. The hand he wasn't holding reached up, clawing for a hold on something and he willingly gave her his other hand to hold tightly.
"Shh, shh, Hermione. It's okay. I'm here for real now. Slow breaths now, calm down."
Hearing his low, soothing voice, Hermione's gasping breaths quieted and her body settled, relaxing from the stiff arrest to an exhausted slump. One hand dropped from his, laying across her stomach, and her eyes searched out his face.
"Rabastan?"
"Yes, love. I told you I was coming."
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Hermione shoved the wizard away and sat up, huffing. "You took long enough! I had to fight off bloody dragons and vampires and all manner of creatures while I waited for you!"
Rabastan couldn't help himself, busting out in laughter."Sugar, in the real world, those were actually your friends. If I'm not mistaken, the dragon was that Charlie boy and the vampire was one of the Malfoys."
Hermione blushed. "What?"
"That damned curse made your mind hallucinate. The only thing I could do when I projected myself into your mind was give you a memory and hope your mind would use what it was given as a defense and a weapon. Thankfully you're a brilliant woman, so it used the rose from our meeting as a wall."
Hermione's eyes widened and trailed along the room, taking note of the still present wall at the door. "It projected itself in real life, as well?"
"Apparently. Your magic latched on to the memory of the rose and brought it out to protect you from those not worthy of waking you up. Your body and mind knew you belong to me. It would have activated if someone tried to kiss you to wake you up."
Rabastan reached a hand out to cup her face, bringing her eyes to meet his. "I missed you."
Hermione smiled softly. "I missed you, too. What took you so long?"
"Had to clear my name. Find proof that I wasn't really a Death Eater. My brother and his batty wife had that Imperius Curse on me for years. Took a team of six mediwitches and wizards to clear out my head of all the memories and the like. I couldn't do it here, I had to go to the States."
He took a deep breath. "I know I was gone for a while...Nearly a year. Will you still have me?"
"Of course, you dunce!" She kissed him soundly. "You think I'd have fought a bloody dragon for you otherwise?"
Laughing, Rabastan fully grabbed her face and attacked her lips with his, drawing out a sigh from Hermione. "I missed that sound," he whispered against her parted lips.
"Just shut up and keep kissing me," she growled, smiling into the kiss. She pulled him closer, effectively pulling him into the bed with her. His hands automatically went to her waist, but he paused, breaking off the kiss.
"What are you wearing?"
Looking down, Hermione blushed to see she was in a silk nightgown that wasn't her own. She sighed. "I'm guessing Ginny dressed and bathed me while I slept. I'm going to guess she had an active imagination of what would happen when I woke up…."
Rabastan chuckled. "Was she far off the mark?"
"Shut it!"
Hermione pulled them both roughly into the bed more, the two tumbling over one another in a flurry of blankets and laughs. Her laughter faded into moans as Rabastan took her invitation to heart and trailed his lips from hers to her throat and chest. Her hands automatically went to his head and wove themselves into the long strands of his dark hair. The sensation of his lips and tongue mixed with the rough sensation of his goatee lit Hermione's nerves on fire, making her gasp for more.
"Rab...More…"
Happy to oblige, Rabastan trailed his hands down her sides, gliding along the silk, until he found the soft tell of her flesh. His fingers ghosted the flowing fabric upward along her body until he pulled up over her head and threw it off to the side carelessly.
The immediate cold hitting her chest made the rosy nipples on her pert breasts come to attention, goose flesh plucking along the sensitive skin across her chest. A soft grin lit Hermione's face as she watched his eyes darker in color at the sight of her bare skin.
"You need to get back down here or I'll change my mind," she whispered the threat.
"You wouldn't dare," he growled, taking a nipple into his mouth, sucking on it hard. Hermione hissed and threw her head back at the sensation. Satisfied at her reaction, Rabastan continued his feast, alternating between the two full breasts in front of him before making a trail with his tongue lower down her belly and back up to her neck, where he lavished her tender throat with nips and licks.
"You are mine, sugar." He moaned against her throat, delighting in her nails raking across his scalp. "You even taste sweeter than I remembered."
"And you're crueler than I remembered, Rab. It's not fair...You have all your clothes on still," Hermione breathed heavily. "So not fair." She dragged his head up and slammed her lips on his, licking and biting, giving his tongue a battle.
Hermione found herself lacking her lover quite suddenly, her arms empty. "Whaa…"
Rabastan stood and, keeping his predator's gaze on the impassioned woman on the bed, slowly drew off his robes, tossed them carelessly to the side, and allowed her to rake her eyes along his form.
Although they had never made love in the truest sense, the two were acquainted with one another in other ways. He knew much about what made her body jerk and her voice cry out and she knew many of the planes that made up his hard body. They kept from becoming one fully until he could become exonerated completely from the title of Death Eater, so there would be no doubt that she was a Death Eater's mistress. But rather, Lord Lestrange's wife to be.
Slowly, the taut muscles of his lean body moved to cover her entire form, skin on skin as their lips and tongues met once more, softer and sweeter.
It was the pads of his fingers, callused but soft, that found her spot in between the apex of her thighs, easily bringing her to climax, her body like a bow.
It was her nails raking down his back with the sweat sliding along the skin that made him speed up his pace, his hips moving faster.
The whisper of I love you over and over in her ear and in the crook of her neck that had her screaming his name.
The reciprocation that made him collapse on top of her exhausted, their slick skin sticking together in satisfaction.
Not long after they'd fallen asleep together, Hermione's eyes sleepily opened up to see Rabastan staring at her with heavily lidded eyes. She blushed and reached a hand out to run her finger along his lips. "Couldn't sleep?" she asked.
"How could I really sleep when I've got a gorgeous naked woman next to me?" He grinned and nipped her finger. His hands went to her hip and drew her in impossibly closer.
Hermione giggled softly and kissed his lips with a soft peck.
"Thank you for coming back to me."
"I'd never leave you behind, Sugar. I plan on keeping you next to me forever."
"I'll be keeping you to your word, Lord Lestrange," she said huskily, trailing her hands along his chest and further sound.
Rabastan closed his eyes and hummed in pleasure. "Little witch. You'll be lucky if I ever let you leave the bed, my sleeping beauty."
As they picked back up in their activities, the last of the thorny barrier faded away, a single white rose stem dropped to the ground gently.
A/N: The end! Let me know what you thought!