Summary: AU, Hellhound pup Hermione is weaned from her parents and goes exploring as is her lot in life, looking for the one that will be her bondmate for life. She never expected to fall into an adventure and conspiracy, but maybe it came with being born into a "nice hellhound family."
Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose
A/N: Might actually be short. A pre-Severus short. It's actually short. Gosh.
Warning: Dark shenanigans and questionable moral fibre.
A Good Day for Adventure
I think it's my adventure, my trip, my journey, and I guess my attitude is, let the chips fall where they may.
Leonard Nimoy
"Keep your nose, teeth, and hide clean," Hermione's mum told her.
"And don't go bonding with anything mortal, they'll spontaneously combust," her father-sire advised.
"I will," she told her mum. "And I won't," she told her dad.
"Be careful," her mum said worriedly. "Be wary, love."
"Never kill what you can't eat," her father said. "It's wasteful."
"I won't, dad," Hermione whined, her long tail thumping the ground as her spade thunked back and forth on the ground.
Her mum gave her a good lava lick all over so nothing strange hitchhiked on her pup's skin. "You'll do fine," she said. "Your older brother bonded with a fine demon in Yorkshire. "They're setting things on fire around the world. It's a good, proper Dark bond. Just don't be seduced by some grey entity that can't make up their mind or some light bringer. That never ends well, and you may have to eat them."
Hermione licked under her mum's chin. "I'll be careful!"
"Alright, off you go," her father said. "We love you, and we want you to tear apart your enemies and horrify the mortals at every chance you can get. Just don't get exorcised. It's a pain to remanifest without a bondmate."
"I'll be really careful, dad," Hermione whinged.
Gosh.
Her parents gave her another thorough licking over until she was literally dripping with lava love before she bounded out the door toward—adventure.
Food, she found, sort of came to her.
Aggressive stray dogs would throw themselves at her, trying their best to take her out, and she would set herself on fire and tear them to pieces while burning them to death. She took care to always eat the charred remains because being wasteful was wrong.
It also tended to attract mortals when you left your savaged carcasses lying casually about.
She learned to try not to do that around certain things lest they set those on fire and those set other things on fire and—
Well, setting things on fire was great, but it always attracted mortals before she could properly frolic in the flames and ashes, and really, what was the use of having a good fire and charred remains if you couldn't frolic in them?
She was right in the middle of a nice charred meal when she heard more stray dogs coming her way. They'd taken out an old moggie and were fighting over it, and then they were fighting with some black cloak they had probably pulled off a laundry line.
They were being really loud and distracting, and she wanted to listen to the bones crunch, not their rude snarling and barking at each other.
Hermione growled, stood up from her meal, and bounded at them, making sure to exude a little extra lava to signal her really irritated state of mind. She whipped her tail around one, slamming it into the wall, and then she tore into the other with her teeth.
But she missed the throat and ended up mauling the dog's ears with her teeth, tearing them to shreds.
The dog yipped loudly, and scampered away, leaving its companion to whatever fate, limping as he went.
Hermione's lips pulled back from her crimson-stained teeth.
She thought about pissing lava into corners to mark her turf, but this wasn't her place to guard.
She didn't particularly want it anyway.
There was nothing here she wanted. Even the char tasted foul.
A rustling noise caught her attention, and she realised the fabric was surrounding the carcass of the dead stray and its unfortunate moggie victim with soft sounds of mastication. In a few moments, both things were gone leaving Hermione rather impressed.
The cloth rose up and seemed to regard her curiously.
Hermione sniffed.
The cloth booped her nose.
Hermione cocked her head, baffled.
The cloth pet the top of her head between the ears, and she closed her eyes in pleasure.
Oh, that felt nice.
Whuff.
She found herself wagging her tail, but that made the spade on the end smack into the nearby rubbish bins, and she cringed at the sound.
Her new ear-rubbing friend sort of slithered over her and fused to her body.
Oh, alrighty then.
She felt that her new friend was still hungry, and realising she was full, she pointed her nose towards the charred remains of her lunch.
The living shroud moved over the remains and swiftly made it disappear.
Well, that was pretty useful.
Her friend seemed to warm and move more fluidly after a good meal, and she figured it had been hungry and sitting in the sun too long—probably on someone's laundry line. Not a good place for a Dark creature to hang out—literally.
Well, now they both had a friend to help them. Nothing wrong with that!
Looping her tail with her discovery, she trotted off to further her adventure into finding her bondmate. Surely they were out there somewhere!
She smelled the blood first.
Then she heard the solid thunking of flesh pounding against flesh. The tear of flesh and skin. The cracking of bones.
"You don't belong here, filthy Muggle," malevolent voices hissed.
"You should stay on the other side of the wall!"
Hermione sniffed the air as she came closer. The blood was different. Thicker. She could almost taste a sense of history with her nose. It was intoxicating, but it made her utterly wrathful. Nothing that tasted so strongly on her tongue through her nose could possibly be snuffed out. Think of the knowledge she could learn!
Her vision changed as she evaluated the people attacking the man with the positively decadent scent. They were human.
Mortals.
They were bullies.
Their energy was corrupted by the Dark, like roots or veins in their aura. It wasn't the comforting feel of home. It was something unnatural. Worse, there were some sort of "strings" coming from their bodies that led off to somewhere else, strings forged of Dark energy forced into a cord.
Like a rope.
Hermione perked.
She knew exactly what to do with a rope.
She tore into the rope cords with her teeth and pulled.
And pulled.
And shook her head violently.
And pulled some more.
She envisioned her father and mum tugging on the other side, daring her to win.
They always did.
Not today.
She was going to win this fight.
The rope tasted like her father's secret addiction—licorice.
It made her salivate. It made lava ooze from her body.
It made fiery drool drip from her mouth, and that fire flowed up through the cord and through all the things it was connected to.
She backed up against the man they had been beating on as her Lethifold friend detached from her back and savagely mauled the nearest attacker.
As he screamed and fell to the attack, the whisper of Death seemed to seep up from the ground and drag their soul from their body to a fate only the gods and Death Himself knew of.
The tendrils of Death seemed a comfort—like a hand caressing her back with a gentle stroke, and she dug into that cord even harder, pulling with all her might.
She would win.
She would have stories howled by her family in their pride of her accomplishments.
She would get to step out of her brother's large shadow!
Her eyes slid sideways to peer at the man that they had beaten on, and she saw a familiar dark crimson aura that her parents had taught her meant power that was connected to blood.
But first—
She had a decision to make.
Cord or their victim.
Why not both?
She concentrated, and her tail split, evolving as the spade transformed into a fanged maw filled with angry, angry teeth and strings of sizzling lava drool dripped from them like water.
Her Lethifold friend dropped the barely alive body to the ground as if sensing what she needed, and she wrapped her tail around it and dragged it over to him—
Nothing.
Hermione kept her teeth clutching on that rope, feeling it starting to fight against her more strongly.
Frustrated, she wrapped her tail tightly around the cord, sinking its mouth of fangs into it as she moved to lick the blood off the man.
It tasted like history. Ancient history buried within strange human clothes.
False clothes.
Her lips pulled back sharply from her teeth. It was a good thing she could multitask.
Her Lethifold pounced the other guy in the line, and he let out a shocked scream as the living shroud's many layers of teeth ground him to a crimson paste from the outside in.
Her fangs seemed to erupt further from her mouth, and she bit into the man's neck, injecting him with her Dark venom, making that connection that would give the Dark energy a pathway into his body.
The Dark seethed over him like a steamtide, burning away the layers of binding humanity as the magma blood dripped from where her teeth had erupted and joined his dulled blood—
He gasped, his throat working as if to swallow, but she felt the tingle of his mind stirring under that suppressive bind of opaque mortal stench. His eyes began to fill with deep crimson, the dull black turning like glittering obsidian as the hint of flames began to fill them as her Dark energy paved the way to the Dark that they both called Home.
His jaw cracked, and he uttered a strangely pleasured groan as a set of fangs erupted from his gums, lengthening.
Vampire!
That was more like it!
Hermione pulled back, their combined blood mixed in her mouth as she pulled that body to him, and he sank fangs into that poor sod's neck, draining him so extremely that his body desiccated into what looked like an ancient mummy under the wrappings—face contorted in that final scream.
Her Lethifold dragged the other screaming idiot over, and her newly rediscovered vampire sank fangs into his neck and drank him down too, alternating from one idiot to the next—
And with each new victim he drained, the Dark cord of power that connected them like an umbilical grew stronger. As it did, she sprouted a new spaded tail, and it split, grew fangs, and sank them deep into that unnatural root, helping yank it from its moorings as Darkness anchored her to its core in the Earth where the primordial Dark slept, stirring just enough to bless its children with power it earned through deed and need tickled it awake.
In that moment, she finally realised what she was.
She'd known she was a hellhound, but until that very moment, she hadn't realised that she was of the deep Dark Earth. She was the buried wrath of the volcano—a wandering eruption of fire and molten stone.
Power unbridled.
All she needed was a bondmate to harness her and guide her, temper her nuclear wrath that destroyed without thought or regret—
"I am Tobias," the vampire said, his voice and energy finally clear—a Dark beacon of familiar power that seemed to sing to her like the great howl of the first hellhound that had been birthed from the primordial darkness. He placed his hand on her back, and her back sprouted tendrils that wrapped around his arm. "I would offer you myself to the bond. You would live as one with me for as long as I draw breath, but I would live as long as you live."
He bit his wrist where the deepest arterial blood ran, allowing it to drip. "I give you my life. My bond. My soul to your keeping, as I will keep yours. Let us walk the Great Dark together and liberate my heart-brothers from the chains that ensnared me, and I promise you the hearts of those we vanquish from now until the sun burns out and returns us Home to the Eternal Dark."
Hermione shoved her muzzle into his hand, her forked tongue sliding across his skin as she soaked the blood offering up like a sponge. "I accept."
Tobias smiled as the cords of Dark forged into a thin, eternal chain that linked their souls together in mutual armour. And for a moment, Hermione saw him in all of his Dark glory, with giant bat wings unfurling from his back and horns curling back from his head—the seat of his Dark soul resettling in his body in a very physical manifestation of his True Form.
Hermione's heart could burst with the rapture of having found him—her soulkeeper and heartmate. Her bondmate throughout eternity. Her mum could sleep well knowing that her pup did not bond to some shady grey magic user, some mortal—or some—shudder—paladin of the light in disguise.
The moment their bond snapped into place, he helped her pull that cord of unnatural Dark magic from where it had wrapped its hooks into too many places.
The Lethifold wrapped around Tobias' talons and Hermione's muzzle, helping them pull.
There was a great pulling.
And a mighty tearing.
And the sound of piercing screams as a swirling vortex of Darkness formed before them. The fiery magma surged over the path the lava had already paved, the higher blazing temperature spreading to every branch of that cord, snapped tight, and then they gave a great tug as the "rope" gave way from its moorings and came to them in a rush of freed Dark magic that washed over them like a blast from a hurricane.
People came tumbling out of the vortex in a sprawling heap of disoriented people, magic raw where the Dark had been ripped from them down to every last anion had been torn free and liberated from its fleshy prison. On top was a handsome man with short, brown hair that curled like a serpent on one side of his face. His face was finely chiselled with a strong jaw.
But he was frantically trying to grab some objects that tumbled down from the vortex—
A ring.
A goblet.
A leather-bound journal.
A diadem.
And some sort of necklace wrought in heavy gold with an ornate S inlaid within the glittery green gemstone pendant.
The man tried to grab them—with a desperation that seemed terribly out of place.
Tobias bit his hand and called upon the Dark, tendrils shooting from his wound into whiplike forms that snapped out and dragged each item to him.
The man looked up at Tobias, his face creased in anger and shock. "You—you should be dead!"
"So sorry to disappoint you, mortal," Tobias said coolly. He drew a claw down Hermione's back, and magma poured out of the wound as lava. He placed each piece into the flaming, molten rock. "But your bid to gain immortality has been denied."
Dark was gathering in the shadows, rising out of the Earth through the pavement stones.
Lethifolds were gathering all around.
Rapidly spreading hoarfrost signalled the arrival of the Dementors.
"You cannot defeat me! I am of the Dark like you! We are cut from the same cloth!"
"I think you lost any right for such a comparison when you subverted me into a Muggle's existence when I refused to bend my Line to your service," Tobias said. "You took me off guard once, but I will not make such a mistake again."
Shadows bent and moved as vampires materialised out of the shadows of the alley, summoned by the Call of their Master of the Line. All of them pale as alabaster and hungry.
"Your people feed my people and the hound," Tobias said, "but you Tom—you—"
He nicked his finger with the tip of his fang so the blood formed into a droplet of dark, malevolent blood. "You will serve as a reminder to my people of what I do to those that annoy me."
His eyes glowed gold and crimson. "And those that hurt those I care about."
He pulled the man toward him with his Dark power, and simultaneously drank him dry as he shoved his finger into his mouth, forcing the Dark infused blood down his throat. As the man's skin grew blue, pale, and then an ashen grey, the followers moaned and tried to crawl away.
"Feed," Tobias said, his face a mask of emotionless stone.
His vampires descended upon the alleyway to the symphony of screams as Tobias ripped Riddle's heart out with his talons and held it out to Hermione.
Hermione took it into her mouth, her lava coating it as it cooked into a delicious char on the outside with a tender squishy inside, and she devoured it with noisy munching sounds, her new tails all beating happily as she stared up at him with total adoration.
"Good dog," Tobias said warmly as he leaned to place a kiss upon her head.
Sanguini hung limply next to Rada as the sun beat down upon them in their pit of isolation in the middle of the desert. Their gaolers had long since dropped to the ground screaming in terror before being portalled away leaving them with only their Imperiused witch mindlessly reinforcing the cutting curse that ensured their blood spilt upon the sand instead of helping them to heal and gather power.
"Old friend," Sanguini said in Dacian. "I fear I need a great and mighty shower."
"Hoodwinked by a mortal," Rada replied back in the same language. "How ridiculously embarrassing for the both of us."
"I think Tom got Tobias as well," Sanguini said gravely. "I had a lead on his location around the time we were lured into that nicely baited trap of our slaughtered Kindred."
"We failed them," Rada said heavily.
"I think we underestimated the greatness of human aspiration," Sanguini said with a weary sigh. "We have been far too complacent with regard to those we send to keep track of what the mortals are up to."
"Remind me to remind you to go out there and drink in the memories of a few mortals of the current time," Rada said.
"I will, when we are no longer so embarrassingly hanging out in the sun like carcasses awaiting butchering," Sanguini said wryly.
"Three Council members brought down low," Rada said with no little disgust. "If I didn't know it was that bloody mortal, I'd have thought it was one of our own trying to rid themselves of our Coalition, but the wild rose branches, poppy seeds, and garlic seems to point to the mortal working under his own delusions of what a vampire truly is."
"The one thing he got right—" Sanguini said, "is what is keeping us hanging here."
"He would get that part right," Rada muttered.
"I rather think he just used every possible solution and managed to find one that worked," Sanguini said. "Still, we are out here enjoying each other's company at this sun party, far too weak to even call for help. If you wanted to have a nice date, you could have at least brought wine and a picnic blanket."
"I was mugged on the way," Rada huffed.
"Pity," Sanguini said.
There was a whorl of Dark plasma as a hellhound "pup" jumped out, sniffing the air as her large paws thumped and slid on the hot sand. Her heated body seemed annoyed by the sand, and when her body touched it, the sand melted and turned to a liquid and then cooled into glass.
She had a torn piece of fabric in her mouth—two. One was from Sanguini's favourite vest and one was Rada's favourite dressing gown.
She dropped the fabric and sniffed them both again then sniffed them, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Know anyone with a hellhound?" Rada asked.
"No one who values their curtains," Sanguini answered dryly.
"I never liked curtains," Tobias said as he stepped out of the whorl of Dark plasma, smoothly dodged the spell that was aimed at him and grasped the witch's arm with a disarming grip.
"Imperius? She responds to me but not to the hound."
"While I would love to speculate as to the intricate planning details of our captors, old friend," Rada said, "I would be ever so grateful if we could do it out of the desert."
"So, I should just move the poles and you to another location?" Tobias inquired.
"Tch," Sanguini said. "At least there will be no photographic evidence of this."
"I'm sure I could paint something," Tobias said. He bit both wrists and put them to his friends' mouths first, giving them strength to gather their own as Hermione chewed on the magical bindings and then, frustrated, burned the entire pole and the bindings to ash.
The two vampires flopped into the sand with a grunt as Tobias shoved a crate of bloodfruit in front of them. They took them quickly, thirstily draining the entire crate in a manner of minutes.
"Where did you get bloodfruit?" Sanguini recovered enough to ask. "They are viciously guarded by ancient cursed spirits in the jungle, last I heard."
"I have a grove because a certain hound heard me say I wanted a bloodfruit tree and she brought me the entire tree, root ball and all, one after another while I slept to recover my strength enough to merge with Hermione's consciousness enough to give you good description of what to hunt for. I fear taking out Tom Riddle took more out of me than I had anticipated so soon after a familiar bond. I fear I had to rest, otherwise, any stray thought I might have would send her off on a mission, and she'd bring me back—everything from fruit trees to spare ribs, chocolate lava cakes, a whale, and even a partridge in a pear tree."
"What are you going to do with a whale?" Rada asked, frowning slightly.
"I put him in your saltwater pool," Tobias said, deadpan.
"I hate you so much," Rada said, slowly rubbing the space between his eyes.
"Mihail, if you could please un-whammy this witch so I can stop trying to keep her from hexing you," Tobias said. "I fear my mental abilities are a little—fiery at the moment. Anything I do has a strange proclivity to set things on fire."
"I'll get the marshmallows," Sanguini said lazily as he extended his fingers to the witch's forehead and placed them there briefly.
The woman blinked suddenly, her eyes losing their glassy appearance. "Wh-where am I?"
She looked at Tobias, and her eyes widened as her pupils dilated. "Oh—h-hi-hello."
"Hrm, see something you like?" Sanguini asked teasingly as he gave Rada a knowing look.
"Not to interrupt this love-gazing going on," Rada said, "but I don't think I have the strength to walk, let alone make my way hom—ALHHGGGGGFF!"
Hermione's tails wrapped around each of them, and they all disappeared into a whorl of Darkness.
Hermione hung her head as Rada and Sanguini walked out of the rooms they were in and switched rooms, bidding each other a good sleep. She whined softly, drooping a bit.
"It's okay, love," Tobias said, giving her a fond pat. "They both have atrocious taste in decor. It was an easy mistake to make."
Hermione set her head on her paws and whined softly as Tobias seemed utterly preoccupied with wooing the strange witch that had tried to murder him only a month previous.
"Love is strange," Rada said, offering her up a fresh and meaty rib.
Hermione accepted the offering with looped tails of pleasure.
Years pass (and the Undead Nation opened up a museum and aquarium for all the hellhound-fetched random artefacts and things that showed up whenever a member of the Triumvirate accidentally wished for something and forgot the hellhound was listening.)
The Rising Dark Lord "Voldemort" Has Not Been Seen Or Heard From In Several Years
Followers Strangely Missing As Holes In Pureblood Families Paint a Very Disturbing Picture!
Aspiring Ministry Undersecretary Dolores Jane Umbridge Reported Missing
Last Seen Fleeing Ministry of Magic With Her Clothing on Fire
While Screaming Her Head Off
No One Assisted, Thinking It a Mere Prank
Reporter Rita Skeeter Found Half-Charred in St Mungos Burn Ward, Her Body Half-Transformed Into a Giant Beetle!
Ministry Department Head Cornelius Fudge Found Deceased, Encased In Solid Block of Chocolate Fudge Confection
Coworkers Believed Him Away On Hols in St Croix
Eileen gave her husband a tender kiss on the cheek as she placed the Christmas decorations on the bushy pine tree. Tobias shook his head at the fuss she always gave the Christmas holiday, and found it amusing that she tried to find appropriate holiday gifts for Tobias, Sanguini, Rada, and even Hermione.
Tobias had taken on the last name Snape in order for their son to have a suitable family name when he would go away to attend the Wizarding School—in about eleven years.
They had time before having to worry about that.
Their infant son, Severus, was a fussy baby unless he was tucked snugly up against his favourite hellhound babysitter, and Hermione would wrap all of her tails around the bassinet and set her head down beside him, dutifully guarding him against all comers.
Well, unless Uncles Rada and Sanguini dropped by for a visit.
Or Auntie Amelia Bones, who sometimes visited to check up on how Eileen was doing and managed to charm the hellhound with skillful ear rubs that made Hermione lay her head on the witch's lap and beg for them. Amelia blamed it on being mated to a dragonbat.
Whatever that meant.
The usual sign of trust with a hellhound about was getting unexpected "presents" left either in the bed or slightly beside it as to better let one trip over them.
Rada once questioned how Tobias could manage to trip over something as big as a tree until he tripped over a statue of an ancient Dacian that had long been believed to be lost to antiquity.
Tobias had started a brewing business with a sideline brewing the best bloodwine, blood cordial, and blood mead varieties in all of Britain and beyond thanks to having their very own bloodfruit grove. Eileen managed the organisation and ordering of supplies while Tobias did the brewing, Rada named and rated all the various vintages and flavours and kept them well organised, and Sanguini juggled the sales outside the Nation to distant populations during his ambassadorial duties.
His experiences brought him back to the Nation every few weeks, and he'd share the blood memories of the modern world to better prepare them all against the next Tom Riddle.
"You spoil her," Tobias said as he saw his mate slip Hermione a meaty haunch of venison.
"She deserves it for caring for Severus as well as she does," Eileen said. "He never fusses when she's nearby."
"Probably because he knows she'll eat him if he misbehaves," Tobias suggested.
"No, not for that reason," Eileen protested, giving him a playful shove. "She's so very gentle with him."
Tobias smirked, not bothering to inform his mate that Hermione could understand her all too well. One day, it would make a very good joke at her expense, and they'd laugh about it for centuries. For now, however, he let Eileen think Hermione was just a very, very intelligent beast that would go to Rada and Sanguini whenever she wanted a little alone time with him.
For, um, certain reasons.
She didn't have to know that Hermione was actually going there for magic, culture, and language lessons as well as blood memories to strengthen the bond of their Triumvirate.
Tobias did prefer the long game for his unique brand of humour.
Eileen would learn that "soon enough."
After a nice Christmas meal, with Hermione gnawing on a rawhide bone to clean her teeth, Tobias pulled Eileen against him as they cuddled on the settee. She snuggled into him as he read to her.
Meanwhile, Hermione dutifully licked baby Severus over, snuffling him, and tolerating when he'd take a chubby hand and stuff it into her mouth and even boop her snoot with a playful giggle.
Hermione set her head down next to the bassinet with a soft whuff, ears swivelling to catch all the nearby sounds even when her eyes were half closed. Her tail wrapped gently around her precious cargo as she radiated a soothing warmth to keep her charge from getting cold while her helpful Lethifold assisted with nappy duty in a way that seemed strangely easy for a creature that had no limbs or hands to speak of.
As Eileen fell asleep curled up against Tobias, his clawed hand came down to securely tuck in his baby son's swaddle and then rubbed Hermione's ears with affection and gratitude.
All for the love of an adventurous hellhound pup, Tobias had found his heartmate and his actual mate, saved his line, saved his friends and Triumvirate, and he even managed to prank Rada with a whale in his swimming pool.
Life was good.
"Thank you," he said quietly to Hermione. "I look forward to a lifetime of memories with you." He bit his hand and let it drop.
Hermione tenderly licked Tobias' hand, her tails looping in her pleasure that she had found a home and a place to protect. She made sure Severus was tucked up against her in his bassinet and enjoyed the feeling of pleased satisfaction as her Lethifold snuggled against her skin.
"I think I'll call you Walter," Hermione decided.
Walter warmed at the name, and Hermione smiled, her canines bared.
"Happy Christmas, Walter," Hermione said as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"Tobias?"
"Hn?"
"Did you say something?"
"No."
"Oh—okay." Eileen went back to sleep almost instantly.
And to all a good night.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the short jaunt into Corvusbrain.