Author's Notes:
Only small revisions here and there this chapter over the original fest piece.
After the blow-up with Malfoy, Hermione had little to do but concentrate on generating a fire using wandless magic, and to wait for Theodore Nott to contact her regarding the bracelets.
About two hours after the argument, while her partner was still out sulking, she managed to accomplish the first goal: she'd conjured fire. Quickly, she rushed around looking for a way to save it before it went out, but by the time she'd returned from the cave entrance with a branch she could use, she'd missed her chance. It took her another ten minutes of concentration and another small pile of rushes to make it happen again. By the third try, she was well on her way to mastering the spell – and to feeling comfortable again with her magic.
It was while she was taking a break, washing up in the hot spring, that Nott contacted her.
"The magic innate to being a Werewolf doesn't work with the bracelets on!"
She paused, asking him to verify how he knew such a thing.
"Because I tried calling for you for the last twenty minutes while wearing them, and I felt a mental wall between us. I couldn't feel you. Could you hear me?"
"No," she confirmed. "I never heard you or felt you. Try Malfoy now. See if you can reach him."
She waited five minutes.
"Nott?"
He sounded panicked when he finally replied.
"I can't feel Draco at all, even when I take the bracelets off. He's not answering me. What's going on?"
Hermione quickly stood up and reached for her cloak, using it to dry off as she got out of the steaming water.
"We had a fight. He stormed off. It's been a few hours."
Nott's long, ranting condemnation of both her and Malfoy was quite colourful, but ultimately, not helpful. Hermione finally had to tell him to shut up, so she could reach out and try to connect with Draco. She closed her eyes, concentrating... There was nothing. No connection. Draco was simply not there.
That awful feeling of dread and alarm came over her once more.
"I'm going out to find him," she told Nott, and grimacing, went through the pile of rags and pulled out a shirt and a pair of trousers that still, mostly, held together at the hems. They smelled terrible and were stained with all manner of things, but they were all she had to work with.
"Be careful, Hermione. It would kill Draco to lose you now."
"I'll be careful, I promise. You, too, Theo."
She paused.
"And, in case I don't get a chance to say it again, thank you for saving me. For years, you risked everything to heal me and protect me, and I never knew the dangers you'd faced on my behalf. I never understood how hard it was for you to be spying for the Order, yet pretending to be evil, all while trying to suppress your wolf's instincts and hide your... condition from the others. How you juggled all that without going insane, I'll never know. And... it must have been painful wanting the same woman your best friend and Alpha wanted, too, knowing that you'd have to eventually step back and let me go to him once it was inevitable that I'd be needed by him. That was very brave of you. All of it has been. I... I can never repay you, Theodore Nott."
She could feel his embarrassment through the link just before she closed it down on her end.
Mind now completely focussed on her task of finding Draco, she slipped her feet into her cobbly, worn shoes, donned her cloak, and grabbed the pouch Theodore had given her, tying it to a belt she'd fished from the pile of discarded clothing as well. Then, on the way out of the cave, as a precaution, she took the branch she'd used as an experimental firebrand. It would come in handy as a bludgeoning weapon, at the very least.
After all, one never knew what monsters, aside from the spiders, might be still lurking out there in the forest, waiting for her to be alone and defenceless.
*.*.*.*.*
For two hours, she mentally called for Malfoy, to no avail. By that time, she'd travelled far into the forest, where it grew darker, following the scent of fresh blood.
The first warning that she'd stepped into Acromantula territory came when she spied thin filaments of silk clinging to tree bark. Using her firebrand, she poked at it, getting a good wad of the sticky substance onto the end of her stick. It was freshly spun, as it still had that tell-tale glimmering pearl sheen to it.
Clutching the oak branch in her hand, she continued on, resolute in finding Malfoy. By now, there was no doubt in her mind that he'd fallen foul of the spiders, for his wet-dog scent was strong in the air.
The darkness closed in around her the deeper into the wood she walked.
She concentrated, reaching for her magic to summon fire so she could have a torch, at least, to see by...
Flames burst to life at the end of the thick stick she carried, and she felt an odd, magical resonance vibrate up her arm and into her chest. By the Founders, it felt just like she was holding a wand in her hand!
Staring at the stick, Hermione was flabbergasted. How was this possible? Had she accidentally created some sort of primitive wand? It was oak wood, a material that was known for making excellent, beginner wands, and the Acromantula web could be used, she supposed, as a medium through which her natural energies could be augmented, much like a wand core. Acromantula webbing was, in fact, one of the materials that had previously been used in exactly such a manner, according to a book she'd once read on the subject. It had been illegal since the 1780's, though, because of its strong ties to dark magical energies.
She quickly tried another spell for reference. Pointing her firebrand up at the sky, she waved it properly and cast, "Avis."
A flock of small song birds popped into existence right over her head and circled round and round – and it had felt like the most natural and easiest thing to accomplish! There had hardly been any effort on her part.
She stared at her make-shift wand and grinned.
Well, this was certainly one for the books! Perhaps this was how wand-making had come into being, back during the early days of mankind, when wizards and witches were first discovering how to channel magic.
"Ollivander, eat your heart out!" she muttered under her breath, giddy from her discovery.
She cancelled the bird conjuring spell, and suddenly felt a whole lot more confident about her trek into spider territory. She had the means to defend herself at long last—and to burn the lot of them if any dared cross her. Summoning a bright ball of white light, she set it to floating in front of her, up into the air, illuminating the forest around her...
Dozens of hairy, chitinous legs scrabbled backwards, seeking the cover of darkness, and an odd clicking noise was heard all around and above her. The arachnids, it seemed, had been closing in on her without her knowledge. They'd been about to ambush her.
Disgusting, perfidious creatures!
She wasted no time in casting, "Arania Exumai", blasting the giant spiders backwards and sending them scuttling in retreat. They weren't very brave, even in numbers, it seemed.
She then cast the Conjunctivitis Curse at everything still moving around her, causing spiders to let out high-pitched, pained screams as their eight eyes swelled shut and began to ooze and crust over.
Moving forward, steady and unflinching, Hermione kept a ring of hexes and curses going, including ones for any attackers attempting to swoop down from the tree limbs above. At one point, when she appeared surrounded, she cast a Firestorm around the area in a desperate attempt to kill off the enemy and ward off those with the intention of coming closer. Spiders scrabbled everywhere to get out of the fire's path, and with the help of a "Partis Temporus", Hermione was able to make her escape from the deadly ring of fire.
Stumbling on, coughing from the smoke and stench of burned spider, she eventually came to an quiet clearing where a giant tree stood. From its branches hung hundreds of cocoons containing the dead victims of the spiders. Most of them were bones that she recognised—Centaurs, Hippogriffs, Blast-Ended Skrewts, Trolls, a few people-sized ones, and one huge web that she shuddered to think might have actually contained Grawp. Some of the cocooned prey were relatively fresh, however, and their rotting carcasses fouled the air. A few of them even weakly moved. She recognised the Bugbear, and a Merperson, both of whom were already in a state of partial decay.
A sob worked its way up Hermione's throat, and she covered her mouth.
"Gran...ger"
She turned, and there, being pinned to a nearby tree by a giant arachnid that was easily the size of a juvenile dragon was Malfoy. The cunning spider had it dark, glittering eyes on her, and one leg pressed against his throat. The implication was clear: if she moved, it would crush his windpipe.
This, then, must be the new Queen.
Hot, feral anger boiled Hermione's blood. This bitch had her mate!
Yes, Draco was her mate, like it or not—which meant he was hers... and she'd had enough of people taking what belonged to her away. No more!
"I've got a better idea," she countered, speaking directly to the Spider Queen, knowing their species was sentient and could even speak the human tongue, as Aragog had proven long ago. "You let the Werewolf go, and I let you live." Just to prove she meant business, she called fire again to the end of her make-shift wand. "Otherwise, I'll burn this whole forest down with a spell you won't be able to run from or put out."
When the spider seemed to understand and consider whether she was bluffing or not, Hermione made her stance very clear. "Cross me, and you and your children will die screaming under my wand. Your webs will burn to ash. Your kind will be extinct when I'm through with you!"
The giant spider seemed to believe her, for she slowly moved her woolly, segmented leg away, and skittered closer to the hole at the trunk of the giant tree, where her lair was apparently located. Hermione kept a solid distance between them as she made her way over to Malfoy.
With a quick spell, she had him freed, and another made him feather-light.
"Can you climb on my back and hold on?" she asked him, warily watching the Queen Spider, knowing the thing was biding its time, looking for an opening to pounce.
Malfoy did as she bade, and he hardly weighed a thing, thanks to magic. Keeping her eyes and ears open, using all of her senses—both human and Werewolf—Hermione backtracked, getting ready to sprint away.
In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have looked up at just that moment, but something caught her attention and her body seemed to pause on its own, forcing her to look up. When she peered closely at the unexpected distraction, and her brain finally understood what it was she was looking at in all its gory magnificence, she nearly lost the contents of her stomach.
Hermione had always been envious of Parvati Patil's long, black hair when they'd been in school together. She'd often prayed for her own hair to one day straighten and be as shiny and straight as her Housemate's. It was that glorious mane that identified her now, strung up in a cocoon, hanging down from a branch. The witch was, thankfully, very dead. However, from the angle Hermione was looking up, she could clearly see that her old friend hadn't died well.
A husk. That's what Parvati reminded her of; a see-through pea pod that was empty of its magical fruit. Only its structure remained in place, supported as it was by the webbing, and even that was slowly rotting away. Many of Parvati's bones and some of her teeth had already been removed and had been hollowed, too, their juicy marrow removed. Baby spiders no bigger than her hand were climbing in and out, like playing a wet game of tag amongst the ruin of her former friend's face and chest cavity, seeking scraps to nourish them.
Something in Hermione snapped. Some bit of her sanity ran shrieking into the night, and a bit of the witch she'd once been was destroyed by the scene before her. A hot, animal's rage bubbled up, burst forth. She howled and it was a wolf's scream.
She called up Fiendfyre and let it loose directly at the body of her dead friend, crisping it and its parasites, and then she turned it towards on the lair of the Queen Spider. She swung her firebrand about and let the magical flames have at anything and everything that moved or hung or had stood the test of time. The spiders screeched and ran before the fiery image of a lion as it roared and ate up everything in its path, but she sent the fire to chase them—a monster chasing monsters.
She laughed like a mad woman as she watched the evil arachnids engulfed and consumed, wanting them to know how it felt to be trapped, to see Death coming for them, and to know there was no escape... just as Parvati and the hundreds of victims here had known.
"Have to run," Malfoy commanded her, summoning strength from somewhere deep within him. "Move your arse, woman!"
His Alpha-ness forced its way to the front of her brain, returned some rationality to her temporary madness. She turned and ran, letting the Fiendfyre burn out of control behind her. On all sides, spiders of all sizes scampered away, not to chase her down, but to escape the destructive force she'd unleashed. She knew that eventually they'd be trapped by the barrier, unable to get out. They'd die no matter how hard they ran.
And so would she and Malfoy, if she didn't get them as close to Nott's rendezvous point as possible. The fire would take a while to get that far, so there was still a chance...
"Which way to Hagrid's hut?" she asked, hoping they were going in the right direction, and that it wasn't back the way they'd just come. The billowing cloud of smoke that rolled in like a carcinogenic fog made it a little difficult to see.
Weakly, Malfoy lifted his arm and pointed off to the northeast from their current position. Hermione adjusted her course, heading in a diagonal from her previous destination. This would take them away from the caves, but there was no reason to go back there now. She had her bag, her cloak, and her shoes, and the shackles she needed were inside the bag. She didn't think Malfoy had anything of personal value that he kept (at least, nothing that she'd seen).
All they had to do now was reach Hagrid's old cottage alive.
*.*.*.*.*
It took an hour or so (and several curses and hexes to get the spiders to keep running by, and not to consider stopping to snack on them) to get to the edge of the forest precisely where she was to meet Theodore and his people the next morning at dawn.
Which was probably about ten hours away, if Hermione was judging the night time sky above them correctly.
The first thing she did was set up wards around the spot they'd claimed for their own rest.
The second was to look at Malfoy's wounds. The minute she got a good look at it, she began swearing under her breath. He'd been bitten by that spider bitch. The Queen had already set in motion the means to kill him before Hermione had ever turned her make-shift wand on the nest.
"Treacherous, foul creature!" she snarled, working on a way to heal the damage and extract the venom.
Feebly, Malfoy laughed, and it came out as a wheezing, wuffing noise.
"That reminds me of third year, only I was the foul thing, then. You gave it to me good that one time. 'The Slap Heard 'Round The World' they called it in my House."
He gripped the area right under his wound, wincing.
"You are the most vicious Gryffindor I've ever met, you know. It's funny, but I love you for that more than for your goody-good nature."
She paused, glanced up at his glassy eyes and his sweaty, pained expression.
"That's the injury talking. Just be still, will you? Healing spells aren't my strength."
He feigned surprise.
"There's something you don't know how to do perfectly?"
"When would I ever have had an opportunity to read a book on treating spider injuries?" she archly asked, using the firebrand-wand to attempt to suck the venom out of him without taking his blood with it.
"Maybe the same time you read about two Werewolves mating under a full moon and conceiving pups," he countered.
"That was for Care of Magical Creatures class," she countered. "Shhh, now, will you? I'm trying to concentrate."
He whined as she began drawing the poison out, but to her dismay, the blood that welled up around the bite wound was a strange purplish colour that looked a little too thick. When she pressed on the flesh near the bite wound, it was too soft and squishy underneath. Hermione's chest tightened as she realised what that might mean. He'd been bitten not by any old spider, but by the Queen, herself – whose venom was probably twice as potent and fast-acting.
Malfoy's time was running out.
"THEODORE! I need you here, now! Hurry!"
There was no response. When she reached out again, she felt a queer, vast emptiness between them, much as she had when Draco had been unconscious after the arachnid had attacked him and dragged him to her lair.
"THEODORE!"
"He can't answer," Malfoy explained, his breathing becoming laboured. "Zabini... caught him at the prison. Arrested him... for desertion. He let me know just before... they came for him. They'll be coming here. You can't stay. The fire... will be coming soon, too. See?"
She turned and looked over her shoulder. He was right; the Fiendfyre was thoroughly winding its way through the forest, confined by the barrier as it was. It was definitely getting closer, too.
They didn't have ten hours to wait. Maybe two, at the most, and then it would be on them. And she didn't know the spell to turn it off, only that 'Finite Incantatum' wasn't it.
"You wouldn't happen to know the counter-curse to Fiendfyre, would you?" she asked her companion.
Tiredly, he shook his head.
" You need to go. You can pass through the barrier... if you go now. Run."
She blinked at him as tears filled her eyes.
"What are you saying? I won't leave you here to die!"
"I'm dead already. I can feel it. This spider stuff... moves fast."
She gripped his massive paw between her two hands.
"Don't say that! There has to be another way."
Her brain moved furiously over every option, trying to think of some way out of the predicament.
With a shaky hand, he reached up and touched her cheek.
"Be free... finally."
"No, see, you can't do this," she protested, choking up. "You can't just become all heroic and self-sacrificing. It's not very Slytherin of you."
"Tired of... lying and... scheming."
He glanced at her with tears in his wolf's eyes.
"Seven days... was worth waiting... twenty years."
Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Had he really carried a torch for her for two decades? Was that the real reason he'd asked her to come here, and why he'd mated her?
"I put you first, Hermione."
Furiously, she shook her head.
"You can't make me leave! I'm not leaving you!"
He huffed.
" Go, Gran...ger."
Her last name came out a garbled mess, tangling on his tired tongue.
"Get... lost."
"Make me," she choked out.
He exhaled a very canine sigh, his eyelids drooping.
"I don't... want you to see me die. Malfoys... don't... die well."
"Then don't let go. Stay with me," she whispered around her falling tears. "I've decided I might want you to be my mate after all, Draco, so... please."
He gave a rather feral, dog-like grin, even as his eyes closed.
"Funny you thought... I was starin' at Potter... all those times," he said, his words slurred, his breath failing.
The roar of the Fiendfyre in the background almost drowned his fading words out, but Hermione had heard him, not by using her Werewolf's enhanced hearing, but by using her heart.
She stood up, let go of his hand, reached into her bag, and pulled out the shackles.
He was right. It was time for them both to be free.
TO BE CONCLUDED...