Hermione slammed open the door to her flat. Then she slammed it closed, knocking the small key holder off its spot on the wall next to the doorframe.
Taking out her frustration on the door wasn't helping, but what else was she supposed to do with all the new information messing with her head? Add in her hand and her magic, and the threat of death in twenty-four hours (give or take, whatever that meant), and she could honestly say that she might have gotten just a little overwhelmed.
She stared at the key holder splayed on the floor with all of her keys scattered across the tile.
Nope. She was not going down like this.
Hermione tore open the kitchen drawer just as forcefully, almost ripping it out of the cabinet. The accumulation of knick knacks, loose ends, and package leftovers shifted and spilled over the side, joining the keys in a jumbled mess at her feet. The double-sided sticky pads were under a collection of bread ties (Benny from downstairs said they were useful to keep around), and she selected a double-sized pad to replace the old one. Paint and plaster came off the wall (she'd deal with that later), and the fresh pad, along with the keyholder, got shoved back into place.
She slammed the front door a few more times, watching the keys rattle around to the rhythm of her frustrations.
Vampires
Deadlines
Her job in jeopardy
For a long while, she just stared at the tiny hooks, waiting for the piece of wood to fall back to the ground. As it held fast, her vision blurred. Hermione rapidly blinked her world back into focus. Besides her short, potion-induced naptime on a sofa in the back of a seedy pub, this might have been the longest she'd stayed absolutely still all day.
She hadn't stopped to eat. Hadn't stopped at all. By some twist of fate, her boss had been called into another Wizengamot hearing that was likely to continue through the week. Both she and Henry had gotten memos citing that their deadline had been extended accordingly. Thankfully, it had bought her the time to bring Malfoy's files home to sort through. She found herself clinging to the crumpled paper airplane memo from her boss, a promise that she could get through this, keep her job, work through the complications that the vampire… Burns… had set forth in front of her.
She heaved her overstuffed bag onto the breakfast bar. Was she feeling faint? Were her hands shaking?
Did it matter, though?
Come on, Hermione Granger. You're stronger than that. Only one debilitating breakdown is allowed per lifetime. Over the past year, you've already had your share.
A lot could be done in a few extra hours. Look at what she'd done back at Hogwarts with the Time Turner. She'd saved lives, turned the tide, released a wronged man. She could still make a difference.
She turned her attention back to the stuffed bag. Remembering where those files had come from, the blood she'd consumed and the way she'd felt afterwards. Remembering the way she felt now, as if coming down from an extreme high of Pepper-Up potions.
She didn't want to believe that man… Burns… when he told her that if she didn't give him the location of the rogue nest, more people were going to die.
Lives were in danger. Countless, faceless lives.
Well, now she couldn't ignore the rogue vampires and their unreasonable demands. Had he known that was just the push she needed?
All this time, she'd been fighting for the underrepresented, the people that the Ministry was unwilling to see clearly, to prove that they had a valid place in the Wizarding World. To prove that they belonged, and their unique talents should be valued and not dismissed because they did not conform to typical wizarding society.
And what if she did as the vampire Burns said and saved those potential victims? And then lost her job because of it? If she was no longer in a position to fight for them, where was her place in the Wizarding World?
Who would be left to fight for her?
Shame splashed messily into her soup of emotions, causing her stomach to turn over for different reasons. Her job had always been the most important thing in her life (except for Ron, who was now an exception to the exception since he wasn't supposed to matter anymore). How could she even consider putting nameless others' lives at risk for her own personal gain? When had she become THAT person?
A squawk shot out from her kitchen, and Krustus landed clumsily onto her kitchen island. His pale underwings stretched out, splaying its talons against the formica surface, unable to find purchase. He had a tangle of messages on his legs and looked forlornly at her for help.
"Hold on, Krustus, I'm coming," she called as the speckled owl hopped out of the way. She must have forgotten to close the window from last night, but at least he didn't have to wait outside.
"Ugh, another one?"
She untied the Ministry scroll from Krustus's leg and scanned the contents, but it was just a formality, a duplicate notice to the memo she'd received in the office. Never accuse the Ministry of missing an opportunity to produce pointless redundancy. Then a signature caught her eye: this wasn't just a duplicate, it was a signed and sealed copy from the Ministry's personnel department. Gringus Alabastor had officially filed her probation notice. The Ministry was actually going to sack her, with cause, unless she complied with her boss's explicit terms.
The hard deadline was a week from today.
The case, along with all threads, needed to be closed.
Warrants should be issued for the arrest of any wrongdoers, along with hard evidence to back it.
The location of the wrongdoers and the means to bring them in should be reported and executed (which was not her department, and he knew it).
Did Alabastor think she was going to lean on her connections in the Auror's department to save her own job? In the past, she wouldn't hesitate to do that, but after the vampire showed up in her office…
She was going to lose this fight. Unless…
"Do you have anything else for me, Krustus?"
Her owl pecked at the stray strands of frizz that had escaped from her business bun as she bent over, hoping for a second scroll, a postcard, something that looked like it came from her therapist's office, or a note from Dr. Metzker herself. Hermione dug through her bag until she found the pager, still with no messages on it. Krustus nipped at her fingers and she threw him a seed treat from the tin on the counter.
Then a sickly thought came to her, a disturbing image of her therapist in a pool of her own blood somewhere dark and abandoned. Would the rogues have gotten to her too? Would Hermione be able to connect them to her therapist's disappearance as well?
The bag on her kitchen counter sagged and then spilled over like a poorly shuffled deck of cards. Hermione attempted to re-stack the pile and ponder the complexities that had hit her up in the last twenty-four hours. Fatigue was settling into her bones. Normally, she'd eat something, but her stomach still wanted nothing solid. Coffee would at least keep her alert. She poured the cold coffee into a mug and stared at it. Out of reflexive habit, Hermione made the wand motion with her empty hand, and a jolt ran through her arm.
Bubbles rose from the murky water inside.
Wide-eyed, she stared at the steaming mug. With trembling hands, she cupped the warmth of the mug and took a small sip. Hot liquid scalded the tip of her tongue, and her stomach flipped. It was a simple spell, but she couldn't disregard the thrill of rediscovering what she thought she'd lost forever. Twice in one day couldn't be a coincidence.
Burns had said whatever strength she gained from the mix of wizard's blood wouldn't last. He'd also said that it was dangerous, and that it came with a price… and that some vampires could get a high off it, while drinking a certain combination of… was that what Draco had given her?
Hermione wondered how much she was capable of…
It isn't yours…
Burns' words stung. But the truth was in the steaming mug, which made her want to know what else she could do with whatever this was.
She hurried into her dark bedroom, stubbing her toe on a trinket Krustus had dragged around her flat. The pull of an inexplicable energy pulsed within her as she opened her bedside drawer and rummaged around for the item she was searching for. A small victorious cry escaped her as she wrapped her fingers around the familiar wood of her wand. She lifted it out of the drawer with her newly healed hand. The smooth wood soothed her burning fingers, and a buzz ran through her entire arm. It was like her body was trying to reconnect with it.
The spark between her fingers and the wand, she could almost see it.
She itched to try another simple spell. Ignite the wick on the lavender scented candle next to her bed. It was far less jolting than 'Incendio', and most witches and wizards performed it wordlessly. It only needed a thought.
The flick and swish was reminiscent of the very first Hogwarts spell, except the order was backwards. It happened so fast that Hermione had little time to think it through. The wick began smoking, and then a small flame appeared. Elated, she watched the glow intensify until it ballooned and then exploded into a cloud of sparks and smoke, covering her pillows and bedsheets with small charred balls of lavender scented wax. Before she could react, the wand wrenched itself out of her hand and flew back to the drawer. It rattled all the way to the back, and then the drawer slammed shut on its own.
"Wait!" With a shriek of frustration, Hermione rushed to the drawer and tried to pry it open, but the drawer held fast.
Fatigue hit her like she'd just apparated into a wall. She sank to her knees. Colors faded from the room like a sun sinking below the horizon.
Her next thought was Draco Malfoy. He knew more than he was letting on.
He could feed her...
As soon as she thought about it, the craving hit, stronger than it had ever been. Images of the wolf's head bottle, the way the red splattered against her arm when she stabbed the blood bags with the metal straw… Half of her attempted to fight off how her needs twisted into something equally repulsive and undeniable.
The other half of her begged to go along for the ride.
One thing was obvious. If she didn't get up right now, she would die alone. Somehow, she made it to her closet. The simple intention of going out seemed to quiet the monster within her that tried to rip through her skin.
Half-turned, she reminded herself.
But then new, disturbing thoughts rushed through her, superseding right and wrong, driven by need and survival. Blood was out there, on the streets, in the buildings around her. Downstairs, even, in Margaret and Benny's flat. She could just go over there, knock on the door, ask for an after-work coffee, and then…
Hermione shook those unwanted thoughts away. That was not happening. She was not a monster. She was still capable of doing the right thing.
She would bring more Ministry funds to the Prickly Arse Pub and purchase another drink from Draco Malfoy. Just enough, until she could get all of this reversed, like Burns had told her.
Her body remembered how the blood felt, thick on her tongue, and how it woke up her senses. How Draco Malfoy had watched her with a mix of fear and fascination, and how she was the one who had demanded more, and he was the one who had given it to her. Now that she knew what she needed, it was all she could do to slow herself down enough to be presentable about it.
Brushing her hair became an act of rebellion. Putting on her clothes —no, not the leather pants Ron had talked her into that one time when they went to Spain… she wasn't out to seduce anyone—she just needed to look presentable. Low-rise skinny jeans would do… When was the last time she had worn those?
She stared once more into the mirror, smoothing down the front of her gold-lame flowy top, checking that the straps along her back hadn't tangled up as she'd pulled it on over her head.
Her arm… oh, her arm looked positively normal for the first time in forever, which was why she had dared to pull out the sleeveless outfit she'd bought on a whim and then hidden away in her closet for 'one day, maybe never'. Her shoulders were on the pale side, but it was already dark outside, and would be even darker in the pub, so who would notice? Hermione pinned back a few of her wavy strands, finger-combing the rest of her hair to frame her face. Making sure she looked like any normal person, going out for a drink.
Going hunting...
