CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Summary: Nine years after the war, Hermione's the Head of the Auror Department that specialises in dealing with Magical Creatures and fugitive Death Eaters that are loose in the Muggle World. With the fugitive Death Eaters no longer hiding in Britain, she's tracking rogue Death Eaters in the United States, which leads her to The Winchester brothers. The Witch and The Hunters are a dynamic trio that no creature, being or beast wishes to mess with, Magical or Supernatural. Hermione/Dean pairing. Rated M for a reason.
Disclaimer: I don't own original canon characters or events, just those that I create myself. Everything belongs to J.K Rowling and the creators of Supernatural. I am not making a profit posting this fanfic.
Page count: 8
Three days later...
"What the bloody hell was that?" Hermione panted, leaning against the door that she had just slammed shut behind her.
It was now three days later and they were still at the hotel they had checked into, and although it was quite nice and far better than the motels they had stayed in, it was tarnished by the fact it was haunted.
"That, was a violent spirit," Dean panted also, leaning against a wall with a bar of iron in one hand and a gun loaded with salt pellets in the other.
"Remind me to introduce you to the spirits in my world."
"Why?"
"They're a lot nicer and most of them don't try to kill you, in fact, most of them ignore your existence."
"If only it were that easy," he replied.
Hermione gave a shriek of surprise when the head of the ghost appeared beside her, through the door, and she jumped and ran, all but hiding behind Dean.
"You okay there?" He asked, despite the situation she could tell he was amused by her reaction.
She stood taller. "Yes, he just startled me," she said, her eyes flickering over to the middle-aged man stood in front of the door way, and he was eyeing both her and Dean in a way she didn't like.
"What's taking him so long?" Hermione grumbled.
"Sammy has to dig up the bones first, and that takes time," Dean replied, his eyes on the ghost, the gun aimed at it should it come any closer to them.
"Next time, I'll do it and you can deal with the ghost, with a few spells I can have the earth dug up, the bones destroyed and put back in place so no one would notice anything being different."
"You're just telling me this now, because?"
"Well I'm sorry, I've been a little distracted by Freddy McCreeperson over there."
"McPeterson," he corrected, but she knew he found her comment funny.
The ghost seemed to be contemplating his next move, whilst watching the two of them bicker, and suddenly he lunged forward, and just before he could reach them, Dean pulled the trigger on his gun, a salt pellet passing straight through the ghost's stomach and he disappeared from view.
Hermione sighed in relief, only to scream when the ghost reappeared beside her, and a knife appeared from nowhere, aimed straight at her heart, and then, it burst in flames and the knife dropped to the ground.
She stepped back and watched as the flames devoured the spirit and he was dragged underground. She stared at the floor in surprise and then turned to Dean.
"Okay, I have a new found appreciation for you and the scary shit you deal with."
He snorted at her, slinging his arm over her shoulders and then walking out of the room, and back to their hotel room to wait for Sam to return.
~000~000~000~
A week later...
"Sam! Duck!" Hermione called.
Sam dropped to the floor, scraping his hands on the twigs and dried leaves of the uneven ground of the forest they were running through, and just as he hit the ground, the large club that had been thrown went over his head and slammed into two trees, splitting the wood and sending both trees tumbling to the ground.
"Sammy!" Dean yelled.
"I'm okay," he yelled back, standing up and continuing to dart between the trees as there was a deafening roar of fury from behind him.
Sam made a noise of surprise when he felt someone grab his arm and he was yanked forcefully behind a large tree, where Hermione stood beside him and Dean was hidden behind the tree to the right of them.
"What the fuck is that thing!" Dean cursed.
"Ogre," Hermione panted. "Don't worry though, it's only young, I would say no older than twelve."
"Oh, well that makes everything alright then," Dean said, glaring at her and she laughed at him.
"Don't be a baby, ogres are only a level three on the scale of classification for magical creatures and beings," she responded.
"Just how many levels are there?" Sam breathed heavily, looking down at her.
"There used to be five, but a few years ago it was upped to six. Level one is for those considered boring, level two is for those that are relatively harmless, level three is for those in which competent magical folk can deal with, level four is for those that are dangerous and requires magical folk to have specialised knowledge and skills, level five is for those that are known to be magical folk killers and are extremely dangerous and hard to defeat. Level six is a fate worse than death."
"What's worse than death?" Sam asked.
"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to."
"And that ogre is only a level three?" Dean questioned, looking surprised and wincing when another deafening roar carried through the wind.
"Yes, it is, and like I said, it's no older than twelve, imagine the damage a fully grown adult can do when they reach heights of fourteen feet." He didn't look pleased by what his imagination conjured up. "I told you the creatures I deal with are dangerous, you've now seen a level three classification, imagine a level five."
"What's considered a level five?" Sam asked, looking as though he didn't actually want to know the answer.
"Shit! Run!" Hermione yelled, and everyone dived to the side as a club came down on the trees, splintering the wood and sending it flying in every possible direction.
The darted through the trees and they continued running even though their lungs were burning, they had pains in their sides and their legs were aching.
"There it is!" Hermione yelled in joy when she saw the entrance to a well hidden cave. "That's the entry way into the Wizarding World, it'll take the ogre straight back to its mother!"
"Well it's about fucking time!" Dean yelled, turning to glare at her, and then ducking around a tree before he could smack straight into it.
She skidded to stop, standing in front of the cave with her wand held tightly in her hand, as her curls surrounded her, sweat glistened on her forehead and her chest heaved erratically.
"Stand on either side of the entrance, and don't move, we don't want to confuse it," she instructed the brothers and both did as she said; in the previous weeks, they had learned that Hermione knew best and they were least likely to get injured, or to face her wrath, if they did as she said.
"Come on, come on," she muttered, her eyes locking on the young ogre as it come into view, smashing down a tree with its club in rage, and when it saw her, it let out a roar and charged towards her.
"Hermione, whatever you're doing, you better do it quick!" Sam warned, his eyes on the hideous green skin and the large tusks of the creature that was heading straight for her.
Hermione ignored him, she had her eyes on the ogre watching its progress, but she was too busy focusing her magic and summoning it until it congregated in her stomach, ready for her to cast the most powerful Knockback Jinx she had ever cast.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself.
"HERMIONE! MOVE!" Dean yelled.
Hermione waited, and she waited, ignoring the yells from the brothers, and when the ogre was about to take her out, she jumped and slid through its legs, as it went tumbling into the cave, getting stuck between the narrow walls.
"FLIPENDO!" She shouted, her body twisted around and her wand pointed at the ogre with its back to her.
The spell slammed into the ogre's arse and the force of it pushed it through the mouth of the cave. Its roar of fury died down as it passed through the entrance into the Wizarding World.
She was breathing heavily as she stared at the cave, listening for any movement inside, but there wasn't any. She slowly stood up, walking over to the entrance of the cave and she crouched down, seeing the black goo that covered the ground, clumping together a pile of fallen leaves.
She raised her eyes to cave and then back down to the ground and an idea crossed her mind. She stood and focused her wand and her attention on the cave and the brothers watched in silence, as the mouth of the cave began to glow a soft gold, Hermione dipped her finger into the black goo and then pressed it to the cave walls, and the cave glowed red, before returning to normal.
"What did you just do?" Sam asked.
"I've placed wards around the cave, sealing it as a point of crossing between both worlds, only for ogres though."
"How did you do that?"
"See that black goo?" She gestured down to it. "That's ogre blood, the spell I hit it with injured it. I was able to use the blood to create ogre specific wards, to prevent them from coming back through."
"You said Blood Magic was illegal," Dean pointed out amused, leaning against the cave with his arms crossed.
"It is, so don't be telling anyone what you just witnessed, I would rather use an illegal form of magic to prevent future injuries, than have possible deaths on my conscience. We got lucky that no one was hurt this time, and I won't allow there to be another incident, not if I can help it," she responded.
She then turned and began walking in the opposite direction, hearing the brothers falling in step on either side of her.
"Dragons, chimeras, wampus cats, horned serpents, basilisks and acromantula, to name a few."
"What?" Sam asked confused.
"Level five classifications," she answered.
"Dragons?"
"As in the fire breathing and flying kind," she nodded.
"Chimeras?"
"Head of a lion, body of a goat and the tail of a dragon."
"Wampus cats?"
"Basically a mountain lion that is able to walk on its hind legs, it can out run arrows and it's said its eyes have hypnotic abilities."
"Horned serpents?"
"They vary in size and there are several species, some have jewels encrusted into their horns, jewels that are said to grant you the abilities of flight and invisibility and they are highly venomous."
"Basilisks?"
"Twenty foot long snakes, that kill by looking you in the eye."
"Acromantula?"
"Giant, giant, spiders that eat anything, including humans."
"What the fuck is wrong with your world?" Dean asked bluntly, Sam smacked him on the back of the head and she laughed at him.
"That's the question I've been asking myself for a long time."
~000~000~000~
Four days later...
"A what now?" Hermione questioned with a confused frown on her face, as she sat on the edge of the bed in their motel room.
"A lamia," Sam repeated.
"And what's a lamia?"
"There's two versions in mythology, one in which she's a beautiful women that appears as a human and she attracts the attention of men, seducing them and later killing them by sucking the blood from their hearts. And the second is that Lamia was the Mistress of Zeus, and in a jealous rage, Hera, killed all of Lamia's children and cursed her into a demon that devours children."
"Lovely," Hermione commented, rolling her eyes. "And you say my world is strange."
Dean snorted and she turned to look behind her, where Dean was reclined on the bed with his hands behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles.
"Your world is strange, but so is ours," he shrugged.
"How do we deal with a lamia?" Hermione asked, turning her attention back to Sam.
"Two ways, the first being to use a silver knife that's been blessed by a priest, and the other is the easier method, which is using a blend of rosemary and salt and burning the lamia with fire."
"I have some rosemary in my bag, and we have bucket loads of salt," she thought aloud.
"Like I said, the easy option."
"Have you dealt with a lamia before?" She asked.
"Yes," she turned her head to see Dean's grimace and she raised an eyebrow, but he didn't elaborate further.
"We know the victims have been disappearing from the same bar, we just need to head there and hopefully one of us will catch the attention of the lamia," Sam said.
~000~000~000~
"She's terrifying," Sam muttered, standing beside the panting Dean and leaning back slightly away from the flickering flames as they devoured the screeching lamia, of which Hermione was responsible for.
"It just had to be you, didn't it? Especially since you're the one with the girlfriend," Sam commented, and he noted that Dean didn't correct him on the way he referred to his relationship with Hermione, which meant their relationship was a lot more serious than Sam had previous thought.
Dean didn't respond; his eyes were focused on Hermione's figure, as she stood in front of the burning lamia that had collapsed to the ground, her wand pointed and her frame tense and angry.
Well, it wasn't his fault!
He hadn't expected the lamia to follow him to the bathroom and stick her tongue down his throat.
He hadn't expected Hermione to appear out of nowhere with a truly terrifying look on her face, nor for her to grab the lamia by the hair and apparate into the alley way behind the bar.
By the time he and Sam had reached them, the lamia was already soaked with the rosemary and salt blend, and Hermione had thrown a ball of fire at the blonde haired demon.
When the body was nothing but ash, Hermione cancelled the flames and the ash was swept away in the wind. She turned around, coming face to face with the brothers, and although she appeared to be calm, Dean could see the murderous look in her eyes and he wasn't sure if he should be afraid or turned on, and to be honest, he was a bit of both.
She pinned him with a gaze that had his heart racing and his mind swimming with thoughts of her naked and writhing beneath him. She slowly approached him, her eyes holding his and when she stopped in front of him, she dug her hand into his pocket, found his car keys and threw them to Sam, all without looking away from Dean. She then bunched her hand into his leather jacket and spun on her heel, the both of them disappearing from view.
Sam blinked and looked around at the empty alley way, and in that moment he decided he would find some place to have dinner and he would take his time. The three of them were forced to share a motel room, getting the last room available and he didn't want to risk traumatising himself by walking in on the pair of them. It was bad enough hearing them and he certainly didn't need to see them.
~000~000~000~
"Shower, now!" Hermione pointed to the bathroom after landing in their motel room.
Dean blinked, getting his bearings back and then he looked down at her.
"What?" He said in surprise.
"Go shower now," she told him, the murderous look was still in her eyes, but so was jealously and possessiveness. "And brush your teeth."
"What?" He repeated.
She didn't answer this time, instead she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the bathroom, using her wand to start running the shower and she began stripping him of his clothing.
"What's going on?" He questioned, once his leather jacket had hit the ground and his t-shirt followed, leaving the top half of his body bare and she started working at his jeans.
"I need you to shower and to brush your teeth."
"Why?" He asked, bringing his hands up to grip hers and stopping her from pulling down his jeans.
She looked up at him and he was sure he could drown in her chocolate brown orbs.
"I don't know why, I just need you to."
He searched her eyes, trying to understand, but it seemed that she didn't understand her actions either so he wasn't getting the answers he wanted.
He busied himself with removing the rest of his clothing and Hermione turned around, busying herself at the sink. When he stepped under the hot spray of the water, Hermione's hand appeared around the shower curtain, holding his tooth brush out to him, and he took it without question, quickly brushing his teeth and then handing it back to her, and then he heard the door closing.
Once he'd showered and made sure that there wasn't a single trace of the lamia on him –which he deducted, had something to do with Hermione's strange behaviour- he stepped out of the shower, drying himself off and he wrapped the towel around his hips before exiting the bathroom.
Hermione was sat on the bed, she had removed her shoes and jacket, leaving her in her t-shirt and jeans, and she stared down at the ground with a blank look on her face. When she heard the door opening, her eyes lifted from the ground, locking straight on to Dean.
She stood up and he watched as she approached him, stopping in front of him and her eyes trailed the length of his body, but he knew there was nothing sexual about the action, it was as if she was looking for something, and he guessed she found it. She stepped into him, wrapping her arms around him tightly and pressed her cheek over his heart, listening to his heart beat. His arms came up to wrap around her automatically and he rested his chin on top of her head.
"What was all that about?" He asked, hoping that now she had took some time to think things over, she would've sorted through her thoughts.
She shrugged. "I don't know, I just couldn't control my reaction to her kissing you and I needed you to shower because you smelled like her," she answered and he could tell from her tone that she wasn't lying to him. Mind, she had never lied to him, if anything, she was one hundred percent truthful.
"You're mine," she whispered.
"What?" He replied as he hadn't heard her properly.
"You're mine," she repeated, a little louder.
Dean couldn't explain it, his stomach dropped, his heart clenched tightly and his length twitched at her words and the possessiveness to her tone. And he agreed with her. He didn't know why, but he knew her words were right; he was hers.
"And you're mine," he replied, truly meaning the words.
"Yes, I am," she agreed. "Always," she whispered, without realising that word had left her mouth.