Denial

by corvusdraconis

SSHG, SSSHG, The man that was Severus Snape was just a cover, but the man who became him had his own secrets and his own private curse that he never thought could be appeased. (Complete) (M for some graphic violence)

Summary: SSHG, SHG, SSSHG, Mistakes were made, and Severus Snape was notoriously good at them.

Beta Love: Dutchgirl01 the Sneaky Doc Stalker Professional, Dragon and the Wonky Weather Mayhem, Commander Shepard the Social Ninja

---

Denial

Denying the truth doesn't change the facts.

-Anonymous

---

"Tobias, if you cared for the woman, you had but only say something," Sanguini said.

"How could I?" the brooding vampire said. "She knows me only as her hated teacher who insulted her for her entire schooling career."

"You have worn thousands of identities throughout the ages," Sanguini said. "Why does this even matter to you? If she knew you were Sang, she would understand.

"I—" Tobias trailed off, closing his eyes. "I wiped her mind of it. When she saved my supposed human life."

Sanguini stared at him, not even bothering to be polite. "You what?"

"I violated her trust and wiped her mind to ensure she didn't—"

"I don't believe you, Tobias," Sanguini seethed. "Has the last century of playing paddy cakes with mortal wizards turned your brain into mash?"

Tobias grimaced. "It was an easy role to play."

"And get trapped in, it seems," Sanguini said, his lip curling. "Did you ever think that maybe she had her own secrets, and maybe you could have opened up to her like a normal person?"

"When have I ever been normal?" Tobias asked in misery, rubbing the space between his eyes vigorously.

Sanguini rolled his eyes. "We've survived this long when our long-dead Sires are but dust and memory. That should say something." Sanguini spun, his face twisted. "No, you will not derail me in this! What were you going to do? Ignore her for the rest of your undead life and pretend that you were bleeding for a long-dead mate? Is that why you've been hiding from Rada? You'll know he'll notice just as I did."

Tobias grimaced. "She's better off without me and my—problems."

"You've been running from that curse for thousands of years, Tobias," Sanguini observed. "Maybe if you untuck your balls for a moment you'd realise that this is not something you run from. You were never a coward."

Tobias' eyes glowed. "I am not a coward."

"Then. Stop. Acting. Like. One." Mihail's teeth were bared but clenched. "There is great beauty in her. Wisdom. So much more, and that is not just me speaking because she shares my life. Te uiti ca vițelul la poartă nouă! If you don't pull your brooding head out of your posterior, I will ask her to be my mate without you and let you cuddle a bloody cabbage for the rest of your life while you sleep! Se pare că o varză are mai puține șanse să fie jignită de prostia ta!"

Tobias seemed to rise up in anger, his eyes glowing as his power rose from its wallowing place.

SLAP!

Hermione snarled at him, her face wreathed in a crest of angry feathers flared out to frame her face like the points of a sun. Her talon-like hands curled, strangely delicate but deadly. Her golden-sienna wings flapped once before folding neatly against her back. Her body from the waist down was like a predatory bird. Human in shape but for the feathers that covered them and her leg below the knee was like a prehistoric dinosaur and bird came together.

She was a harpy.

One of the sirens of the skies.

She opened her mouth, and a song that seemed to pierce his very soul sank its hooks into him taking away all will to be anywhere else. He would walk straight into fire to get to her. As Tobias took a step toward her, her face twisted in utter disgust as she stopped singing.

He came closer, unable to stop himself, and Hermione's eyes narrowed. She reached toward him like a lover, her hand touching his cheek as if to caress him, and then she jerked her knee sharply between his legs so he crumpled to the ground.

"Now you know what it's like to have your choices taken away from you," she seethed angrily. "We could have had a conversation. Like two creatures pretending to be human, but you wouldn't even let that tickle your fancy. You disgust me."

Hermione's face changed into that of a harpy eagle, and she spread her wings and launched into the air with a screech, zooming off toward the sun through the forest canopy faster than any broom.

Tobias looked after her with a painful longing and clutched at his chest even as his lower body was protesting on an entirely different level.

"It will wear off in a few days," Sanguini said grimly. "Just as your mind wipe did to her." The Dacian vampire scoffed and turned, sweeping from the area as he disappeared into the shaded forest like a ghost.

---

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever for, love?" Sanguini rubbed her back where her wings attached to her body.

Hermione purred and immediately snuggled into him, her one wing folding over him like a sun shade. "I shouldn't have lost my temper with him."

"We've all done it," the vampire said with a sigh. "Few can get away doing so with a master vampire lord, though," he added with a chuckle.

Hermione grimaced. "Not my finest moment."

"I found it rather—satisfying," Sanguini said with a wicked smile. "Tobias and I go way back, and of us—he can appear to be perfectly human. He can swallow his power and simply be human. Magicals can't even tell he's a vampire. Vampires can't tell either. But the tradeoff—is that he can fall into his roles very easily and has to be shaken out of them. His accumulated knowledge is shared with the Sang elders, and that helps us to understand humans better—something we often forget as the centuries pass. While I am not trying to excuse his behaviour, I can at least explain that he has always been—complicated."

"So his life as Severus Snape—his parents, his infatuation with Harry's mum was all a farce?"

Sanguini grimaced. "His parents were merely a cover story, with him being his own father, but the unfortunate attachment to Lily Evans was very real. "A vampire can fall for a mortal just as in any human relationship, but that doesn't mean they are our mate. We are—biologically unable to ignore the bleeding—the production of living blood. We can bleed to pass on memories or power, but it is not the same thing. Our Triumvirate makes things slightly different than most of my species. We can provide for each other as we would a mate. It is the advantage to our bond, but it can be troublesome when a mate not already of us shows up. Troublesome when the vampire is far too stubborn to read the signs that for other vampires would be screamingly obvious."

"With such a history, what chance could one lone harpy have of piercing such a relationship?" Hermione asked, not really expecting an answer.

"More than you might think," Sanguini said. "You caught my attention. Do I disappoint you?"

Hermione flushed. "Hardly. I did not expect to find someone who could accept—well, a harpy."

"Well, you have accepted that I am a vampire, and most would not react well to that revelation."

He touched her cheek and drew her close to place a gentle kiss on her lips. That gentle touch of lips, however, became heated quickly, and the pair ended up tumbling onto the couch in the half-built treehouse. They startled the dozing Lethifold on the soft sofa, but it seemed to realise it was time to wrap Hermione up with her attending suitor.

Hermione meeped and found herself in a rather comfortable swaddle with her not-exactly unattractive "older" man.

"Mrr," she purred.

Sanguini arched a brow and pulled her into his embrace under the Lethifold. "Well, at least I'm not burning to death out in the sun. That would be a horrible end of my day."

Hermione snorted. She experimentally licked Sanguini's skin on his breast, and the vampire stiffened with a hiss and held her tightly against himself.

"Unless you would like to consummate a mating bond with me, you might want to—not do that. I fear I am lacking my better control when it comes to you. I am but a man, and I am weak in the face of eternity with you."

Hermione puckered her lips in a pout. "What happens when a vampire mates a harpy?"

"We built a sturdy treehouse with very functional windows," Sanguini supposed.

"Would I become a vampiric harpy? Or would you become feathered and sprout wings?" Hermione asked.

"It hasn't come up before," Sanguini admitted. "Few have ever wished to compromise their life with a vampire when they are already of a supernatural bloodline. And—if they did bleed for them, it is not in our collective history. Times were different back then. The Sang were not as organised. Many kept to themselves. Supernaturals were—I won't say common, but they weren't exactly unknown. What is now regarded as myth was very close to the living and breathing world. Vampires, however, have always been viewed with more negativity. Most cultures find anything that brings those who should be dead to the point of not being as dead as they thought a bit of an unnatural, sacrilegious thing. And—for some of us, maybe it was. Not all vampires are Sired intentionally. Not all are born. Some rise from being buried in odd conditions, but even the Sang cannot say for sure. Ancient lines were anomalies at first. A curse, perhaps. Or a mutation. Alas, we do not have a history to consult. Many of those first lines were every bit as primal as they were single-minded. Sentience—took considerable time. Language. Organisation. The elders we have now hail from ancient civilisations and people. Lines from before then have long since perished or been banished to myth in certain smaller areas."

"Harpies are not quite commonplace," Hermione said.

"Well, maybe they will give us a few hundred years," Sanguini rumbled into her neck. His voice growled against her skin. "Maybe longer."

Hermione's eyes blew wide. "You—you would want—children with me?"

Sanguini frowned, pulling back enough to touch her cheek with his pale hand. "Of course. Unless you were thinking I will not be fertile to my mate? I can assure you, both the act and the products of conception are more than a little arousing to me."

"But—they'll be harpies—"

"Well, so will part of me," Sanguini reasoned. "Magic always finds a way to propagate itself across the world. What if our particular mutations become the dominant form across the Earth?"

"Vampiric harpies?" Hermione mused.

"Hrmm," Sanguini hummed into her ear. "Think of it as—mm—the best of both worlds. Of course, I have no idea what the end result could be. Maybe we have an entirely vampiric child. Or full harpy. But a combination could be—fun."

Hermione burst into tears.

Sanguini cupped her face. "Love, what have I said?"

"You're so amazing," Hermione sobbed into his chest, her taloned fingers curling against his skin.

"Mmm," Mihail said. "Does this mean you won't devour me like so many other victims of harpies throughout history?"

"I suppose if Walter hasn't eaten you all this time, I can maybe restrain myself," Hermione mumbled.

The Lethifold radiated warm agreement.

"It is appreciated," Sanguini said, arching a brow.

Hermione traced a line down his chest with one talon. "I want to have a life with you."

Sanguini seemed very still, as if one movement might startle her. "Do you? Truly?"

"You're terribly insecure for a man who is the very poster child for outgoing confidence," Hermione said, the tip of her talon tracing around his breast.

Sanguini trembled while attempting to stay still, but his fangs gave him away as they lengthened as his mouth parted, a soft hiss escaping without his permission.

"I would not presume," he said with a tremor in his voice, "to know how serious you are about our relationship status. No matter how much I would love to think otherwise."

"You could," Hermione said as she trailed her talon along his chest hair, "read my mind."

Sanguini closed his eyes. "I—could, but I would never do so without your permission unless you were projecting very, very loudly."

Hermione puckered her lips in a small pout, wrapped one talon under his chin and pulled his face forward to whisper into his ear in a low, breathy voice, "I want you inside me. Your fangs. And. Your. Cock. Now. Tomorrow. Next week. Forever."

Sanguini's eyes went bright glowing gold and crimson as his fangs practically cracked into a fully extended position. "Yes, ma'am," he managed as he jerked her head to the side, sank his fangs into her neck, and drank with the force of gravity. His pale arm cradling her head, his hand spidering over her head as he drank. His claws seemed to lengthen, pushing out from his fingertips just before he pulled away.

Crimson painted his lips, as he gave a slow blink. Emotion swam across his eyes. He took one claw and pierced the side of his neck where bright red, living blood trickled from the wound. He winced, his fangs flashing. "This is forever, my love. Be sure this is what you want. I can wait if that is what you need."

Hermione gave him a serene smile. "Be sure I am what you want, vampire," she crooned. "A harpy never relinquishes what is theirs without a violent fight." She teased his lips with her tongue as her mouth parted enough to breathe warmly into his mouth.

Sanguini groaned as he covered her mouth, bridging the gap, and practically inhaled her. Hermione pulled away from him for a moment—just long enough for him to give her an anguished look of uncertainty—and then lowered her mouth to his neck and sealed it over the offering of blood.

Mihail jolted, his body surging with the metaphysical mix of energies flooding and then knitting together, tightening between them like a mesh and then sinking into their souls. He panted, his clawed hand cradling her head. "Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, one heart, one soul, now and forever."

He held her close as she curled herself against him as the Lethifold wrapped itself around them both with a seemingly smug aura of satisfaction.

Sanguini closed his eyes, not even noticing that there were tiny feathers now poking out of his skin, working a trail from the crown of his head down his back and slowly covering his legs.

---

"Is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?" Rada asked, his brow arching sharply as he took in his friend's rather stunning iridescent black and charcoal feathers.

"Would you believe I tripped?"

"No, not really," Rada said idly, passing him a goblet of blood wine. "It would hardly explain the cravings."

"Do I apologise for those?" Sanguini asked.

Rada reached out to the open window as the sun danced across his skin. "No, I suppose being able to stand in the sun is a small price to pay for the occasional cravings for raw fish and wild game. At least I can eat non-blood food and not feel like a rabid animal is trying to rip itself out of my abdomen."

"See? You already have the benefits, my friend," Sanguini said with a cheeky smile. They clinked their glasses together.

Sanguini frowned. "Is he—?"

"Brooding?" Rada finished with a sigh. "Uncommunicative? Insufferable? All of the above."

Sanguini sighed. "He won't even stop to see the house."

"It is," Rada said, gesturing with his hand. "A tree."

"But it is a great, wonderfully spacious tree," Sanguini said.

Rada chuckled. "You win, old friend. It is a grand tree. Home. Death trap."

"I don't plan on falling onto one of the branches and impaling myself," Sanguini sniffed. "Rest easy."

"What an embarrassing way to end thousands of years of survival," Rada quipped.

"I'm a vampire, not an idiot," Sanguini scoffed. "I will not get drunk and fall off my front porch to my death."

"Considering you have wings, that's even more disturbing an image; thank you ever so much," Rada muttered.

"You are so very welcome," Sanguini said, shaking his head. "Where is the brood master, anyway?"

Rada shrugged. "He swallowed his power and melted into humanity. Probably at a pub getting utterly knackered."

Sanguini made a face. "Considering we can't actually get intoxicated, that makes me think he's even more frustrated than I thought."

Sanguini rubbed the back of his neck where some of his feathers tingled. "Look, he needs to pull his head out from his nethers and apologise properly like a normal person—before we have—hatchlings. If he wants to be a part of our life, he can't simply deny himself there."

Rada shrugged. "The irony is that Tobias is the one that usually has a better connection to the ways of humanity. That he is caught brooding in a very mortal, human way is—" He sighed.

"Immature," Sanguini suggested.

Rada winced. "Not quite the word I was searching for."

"Cowardly," Sanguini said grimly. "Let's try that."

"That's a touchy word for him," Rada noted.

"Good. Let him get angry. Let him throw the first punch, and then we can finish what we started when he tried to murder me the first time!" Sanguini growled.

Rada placed a hand on his old friend's shoulder. "You don't mean that."

Sanguini tched. "I want to mean it. For her sake."

Rada flashed a small smile. "She is a fine young harpy," Rada said. "But Tobias is her mate, too, if he can just pull his head out of his arse. It's possible—he put down his sword when his order was to murder us."

"Why does that seem easier than admitting he's being unreasonable?" Sanguini muttered.

Rada chuckled. "She's a harpy. I think that adds a bit of the unknown to his mental plan."

"Does he even have a plan?" Sanguini asked, cracking the bones in his neck.

"I admit to some uncertainty in this area," Rada said. "When he dives into the mortal world, he disappears from both us and everything that could possibly track him."

Sanguini grunted at that, tipping back his entire goblet of bloodwine. "He disappears from himself. That is the problem."

Rada closed his eyes. "Yes."

"Lord Rada!" Hermione exclaimed as she landed on the front stoop of the treehouse, her arms full of grocery sacks. "I didn't realise you were visiting! I would have picked some fresh fruit for you!"

"It's just Rada, child," Rada said as he engulfed her in a hug—or she did, wings and all. He pressed his lips to her cheeks in greeting, but then he drew a claw across his neck.

Hermione latched on, her arms wrapping around him as her wings trembled, and she pulled away. "It's good to see you. Thank you!"

The tree branch poked through the open door and showered them in bloodfruit, then darted back out.

Hermione laughed as Rada and Sanguini caught them all with all the skill of a champion Twister player in a mosh pit.

"You may be the luckiest of us all," Rada said with no little amusement. "Of all the places you could choose for a home, you find a sentient bloodfruit tree."

"It didn't start out as one," Hermione said with a cocked head. "But one morning, we woke up, and the bloodfruits hung on the branches like they'd always been there.

"Magic seems to approve of our union," Sanguini said with an arched brow.

"I've made a few different varieties of bottled bloodfruit juice," Hermione said. "Since the tree is kind enough to give us various flavours and types of fruits. Some bubbly ones for the children—well, and for the adults who can appreciate fizzy bubbles in their drinks."

Rada laughed. "How wonderful," he said. "Do I get to sample?"

Hermione helped him put the fruit into a wicker basket. "Of course. I'll pack up some for you to take with you along with these fresh fruit the tree donated. But this—" She pulled a bottle from the shelf. "This I think you'll like right now."

Rada arched a brow and looked at Sanguini. His friend just gave him a smile of smug satisfaction and clear pride in his mate.

Rada plunked his talon into the cork and pulled it out like magic, and poured it into his goblet. He took a sip, and his eyes went wide. "It—tastes just like the ancient Dacian aromatic wine from our home—"

"But do you like it?" Hermione asked, twitching in anticipation. For all she knew, Rada hated ancient Dacian wine.

Rada gave Hermione a long, warm gaze. "I love it. You did very well."

Hermione beamed in delight, and she jumped on him, wrapping arms and wings around him to hug him.

He rubbed the spot where her wings connected, knowing that it was both a reassuring and pleasurable feeling and that she often couldn't reach there herself without extensive effort. He supposed that was why harpies were the best communal creatures.

"How are your parents?" Rada asked.

"They flew in the other night for dinner," Hermione said. "They are busy with their practice. They have a passion for dentistry."

"Perhaps we can send the Sang there. We do like our teeth, after all," Rada said thoughtfully.

Hermione brightened. "Really? That would be wonderful!"

Rada flashed a fanged smile.

"How goes your courtship of the cat-witch?" Sanguini asked, curious.

Rada sighed. "She thinks I am too young for her," he said.

Hermione made a slight choking noise.

Rada slumped. "Tobias has his deaging potion from when he goes mortal and needs to play the role of growing up, but it is designed for Sang physiology. If there is a human version it is only in Tobias' mind."

"I have it," a familiar voice said as a figure darkened the doorway as they stepped into the home's sun-sheltered entryway. "But it requires an ingredient long lost to antiquity to make it stable and permanent."

Tobias stood framed in the outdoor sunlight, his long black hair hung about his shoulders like funerary curtains, and he looked as though he'd been working hard labour with hand tools. "I beg permission to enter and wish to apologise for my abysmal behaviour."

Hermione stiffened, her wings stilling as she stared at him. Her neck and crest feathers stood at attention.

Sanguini touched her shoulder, Rada the other—

"Perhaps, give him a moment to explain his—absence," Rada said, his expression concerned.

Hermione closed her eyes, grit her teeth, and then slowly walked toward the door. "And what reason would I have to entertain your silence for this long? After multiple invitations, ignored. After many letters, ignored."

"I could not show my face until I had made things right, something I should have done the moment I knew you were—special."

"Just because I have wings does not make me special."

Tobias grimaced. "That is not what I meant. I—should not have treated you like the majority of people that infest this world. You deserved better. You deserved the truth."

His face twisted in pain. "And I should have trusted you with it instead of simply assuming."

Hermione closed her eyes. Her jaw tightened reflexively. "You can come in. I'm certain your friends will be quite eager to know what you've been doing for the past few months without even the slightest word."

"I was posing as a mortal in the jungle," Tobias said in a rush of words.

"Because you so enjoy the delights of malaria?" Hermione inquired sceptically, her back turned.

"Because it was the only place I could prove myself."

Hermione whirled, anger dripping from her frame as her wings flared, only her eyes caught the clutching of a box where a dark shape rose like rising fog. It formed into a great cloak lined with so many rows of glistening teeth against a crimson field of a Lethifold's inner mouth.

The Lethifold cocked its head to the side, staring at her like how a wave might regard a surfer.

Walter rose from Hermione's back, seemingly to glare at the interloper.

The two Lethifolds were suddenly on each other in a flash of movement, making noises that no one realised Lethifolds could even make. They growled, snarled, and made savage-sounding grinding noises as they smashed into the sides of the tree house, knocked over the bookshelf, pulled down the curtains, and launched the chesterfield out the door, zooming right over Tobias' head.

Rada and Sanguini, still holding their goblets of bloodwine, sipped with grave consternation, looking utterly constipated.

The battling Lethifolds then fell from the ceiling, landing on Hermione like limp lasagna noodles, and then made an odd squeegee-like sound as they slid down her body and slithered into place on her back—together.

"You—found a Lethifold?"

"I found one that believed in the depth of my feelings for you and didn't want to murder me on the spot," Tobias said.

Hermione touched the "fabric" of both Lethifolds. "Are they normally so—violent? Walter has never been aggressive to me."

"Wild Lethifolds are notoriously difficult to communicate with," Tobias said quietly. "They have never had the desire or need to meld minds with another being."

"Then—why go find a wild one when there are so many, erm, habituated Lethifolds living amongst the Sang?" Hermione asked.

"Because a wild Lethifold cannot be biassed as a judge of one's sincerity," Sanguini said grimly.

"What makes a Lethifold a wild Lethifold?" Hermione asked.

"It will try and eat you first," Rada said promptly.

Hermione blinked. "Oh. Guess that explains why you don't tend to have wild ones around the Nation."

"We have more than enough problems keeping people from accidentally immolating themselves than bothering to worry if they will survive a wild Lethifold attack on the walk back from work," Rada said wryly.

Hermione did some complex arithmancy in her head and came up with negative imaginary numbers. "So, why did you walk into the rainforest as a human?"

"Lethifolds prefer humans," Tobias said. "They make easier meals."

"Should have just sent Tom Riddle into the rainforest. Just think of all the drama it would have saved," Hermione mused.

"Wouldn't have gotten rid of him permanently, I fear," Tobias said.

Hermione grunted. "Horcruxes."

Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose and then the space between her eyes, then both places at once. "Look, I'm willing to give you a fair shake if—"

Tobias lifted his head, and Hermione saw in his eyes how tortured he was. Whatever she may have thought of him, he had punished himself far more severely than she could possibly have done.

And he had brought her a wild Lethifold.

Walter seemed to have ironed out whatever territorial dispute he was having with the other Lethifold, and now they were both cohabitating on her back making what seemed like crooning noises at each other.

So, if the Lethifolds could manage to figure things out—

"You swallow your power for all kinds of reasons, but," Hermione said, turning her head. "Will you swallow it for me?"

Tobias raised his head, his brows knitting together.

"I have to go to London to take care of my parents' house and get it ready for when they come back from Australia," Hermione said. "It would give us about a month or so to—get to know each other better. See the museums. Exchange archaeological humour at reality versus what people think they know."

Tobias' eyebrows raised. He looked at Sanguini and Rada who were sipping their goblets of bloodwine with feigned disinterest.

"It would be nice if you used this opportunity for positive results, and I didn't have to fight the urge to pull out a sword and remember how to murder you," Sanguini said with slightly puckered lips.

Tobias looked somewhat constipated or nervous. It could have been both. Whether it was for the possible future between himself and Hermione or the possible murder by Sanguini remained to be seen. "That can be arranged."

---

As Hermione sat on the salty pier with the man she had always thought was Severus Snape, she realised that life was far more complicated than just being a harpy in a world that believed she was a mythological creature.

The man was—complicated.

But—so was she.

So was Sanguini.

Sanguini was just more socially suave, and while Tobias—the man who would live the life of the embittered mortal wizard Severus Snape—he was strangely socially awkward.

Maybe, it was because while he engaged the human world—he was never (either by purpose or design) in a position of great power since he had left the lands of his Roman birth.

To do so would only bring attention to himself, and that was increasingly a bad idea. He had already mucked that up by being a man under the thumb of two egocentric megalomaniacs that both fought over the leash to the man they both thought was theirs alone.

All of it, he had confessed, weaving a tale that had she not lived half of it, she would never have believed it. He had been in that role when she was but a chick trying to fly before her wings were ready and having her parents rescue her and plunk her down in the nest with a scowl that was seemingly passed down from generation to generation of parental harpies with wayward (read: really stupid) hatchlings with little to no sense of self preservation.

Hermione sighed. Her early days were not exactly indicative of her best efforts.

When she'd finally figured out how to not die horribly to splat, they had moved to London. Her parents resumed their dental practice passion, and she had to learn to be human. To fit in a world that increasingly didn't believe in beings like harpies.

Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, Hermione had been called off to attend Hogwarts as a magical child. Better than a normal human, perhaps, but magical children didn't believe in harpies either.

They, much like sirens, were believed to be mere figments of mythology, as unlikely as Charybdis. Or as extinct as the Nemean lion. But no—harpies were quite real, and unlike in mythology, her parents were male and female. They had to have HER after all. That required a certain balance since her mum was not inclined to reproduce by asexual budding.

Thank the gods.

THAT would have been much too strange, even for a harpy.

She was, however, as far as she knew, the first vampiric harpy, with her mate being the second to hold that unique honour.

THAT was new for her species.

And yet—

Here she was, giving Severus a chance as a suitor for her eternal family—provided none of them were exceedingly stupid and managed to get themselves murdered. Harpies were, if anything, survivalists. They simply—ate their problems.

She supposed vampires were, in many ways, much the same.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) taking out Dark wizards as a harpy would have brought undue attention to her species, so she had to play the good little human—one who was ostracised by her "peers" far more than she was accepted.

At least when it was time to send her parents off to Australia, it was easy to convince them that taking a nice break to visit their Aussie relatives down south was a reasonable request as eating the Death Eaters that came for them would have been—messy.

So, off they went, and they found that they liked Australia so much that they visited at least once a year. Hermione kept their nest in order along with the house, and tended to their other affairs, and then made sure the utilities were set up for their return each time.

Tobias had agreed that it wasn't unreasonable to want to move her parents to their "proper harpy tree" and expand their business to the Sang—a species who did value their fang health as well as their other teeth. And since they were harpies—they were hardly typical "Muggles" that had to be sheltered from the truth in the world that vampires existed or that magic was real.

It was—a really big tree.

Her parents could have their nest and the comfort of their own space but the convenience of flying out their front landing and visiting.

It seemed perfect.

But—

What to do about Severus-Tobias?

The fact that he was an integral part of her mate's Triumvirate was only part of the equation. No matter if she accepted him as a mate, he would always be around in their life. It was simply a decision if she wanted the rest of their eternal life to be awkward and bitter or—

Tobias took her hand so gently, his human hands sans the almost talon-like claws of his vampiric nature.

This was—a gift.

To get to know each other as humans would. Free of all the politics. If only for a little while. Free of—masks, save for the mutual one to be human in a world of wretched, seething, humanity. Yet, she had no desire to scrape humankind off the face of the world. She just wanted to live in peace and not have to hide the core of what she was—but that was an unlikely dream. She would settle for being able to live in peace and be herself around those that mattered most to her.

But as the warmth of the vampire's hand curled around hers, she felt that same kind of familiar thrum that she had felt with Mihail. The fact his hand was warm told her all she needed to know.

He carried the living blood. Blood meant for his mate. Her.

Harpies were a gregarious sort in history. Many took human mates in order to make more harpies—and then murdered them back when the Greeks knew they were real. It probably didn't help their reputation. Meanwhile, those like her parents paired up for life—realising, perhaps, that a team with a mutual investment in their nest would have a higher chance of success and less, erm, raging mobs of heroes with swords and spears.

Needless to say, harpies like her parents survived into modern day, while the more homicidal ones became more and more rare. They were blessed with the ability to shapeshift, and they could unobtrusively fit under the radar of mobs of frightened villagers.

It didn't make her any less of a harpy, though. That was why she had moved to the outermost fringes of the Wizarding world where she could nurture her home tree and—

Erm.

Apparently grow bloodfruit.

Magic clearly had plans for the first vampiric harpies.

Or the old gods.

Or—perhaps both.

It was hard to tell when the gods were involved.

Unlike the Wizarding World that paid little attention to the gods save in lip service, harpies remembered the touch of the gods in their lives and very DNA, perhaps. Zeus, especially, who would send ancient harpies off to do His bidding with the coming of the storms, whether it was to torment a particular target—or simply eat them. Harpies were used to being perceived as harbingers of doom.

Of being feared.

Looked down on as being mindless beasts.

Yet the both of them, non humans pretending to be humans, put themselves in places that ended up fighting a war to save the Wizarding World. There was some great irony in it. Most humans believed non humans were out to destroy humanity, but most just wanted the world to survive so they could keep living in it.

Most, anyway.

Just like with humans, there were good creatures and bad eggs. There were also those that, in their own way, were just trying to survive but happened to prey upon people in a way that made social acceptance in the modern world a bit—difficult.

Then again—if Lethifolds could surpass their wild natures, who was anyone to judge whether such ancient creatures could, if properly inspired?

Tobias' apologies had been frequent, but she could feel he truly meant them. She, too, had meant her own when she'd apologised for singing his will away.

He'd admitted he had deserved it.

She still felt a little dirty for doing it. Much like the sirens, a harpy's song could lure a listener to throw themselves into a raging bonfire to get to the singer. It was a skill for survival—whether to eat or not be eaten or murdered. She'd just been so—angry.

Angry at having not even been given the chance to be trustworthy.

Judged by someone like harpies had been judged since the beginning—as untrustworthy monsters.

"Sorry for setting you on fire," Hermione said as they shared the sunset together.

Tobias snorted softly. "I'm sure I seemed deserving."

"I admit that Professor Quirrel did have a better personality when it came to students, even if it was false," Hermione said, her brows furrowing.

Tobias shook his head. "I became—very good at detaching myself from emotion. Otherwise, my true nature would surface, and I would have to struggle not to break someone's neck."

"Vampire instincts do seem about on par with harpy ones," Hermione said.

"How ever did you not murder those two cretins you called friends?" he asked. "If your instincts were anything like a vampire's?"

Hermione winced. "They were the only people who even gave me a chance, however small, to fit in."

Tobias sighed. "I am sorry."

Hermione chuckled. "It wasn't your fault that the Wizarding World is even more xenophobic than oblivious Muggles."

He snorted. "Was it a struggle to remain human?"

"At first I thought it was neat," Hermione said. "Be in the middle of so much humanity and no one looking twice. I could go to the grocery, get sweets. People would pat me on the head. Say I was a cute kid. It really wasn't until I went to Hogwarts when I realised that I was going to be judged not for what I could do but my blood—and I couldn't exactly come out about what I was. It would have been worse than them thinking I was blood scum."

Hermione sobered. "But the high emotion was—difficult to retain control. When you said you saw no difference in my teeth, I almost lost it. Fortunately, when Draco pissed me off later, I just punched him into a wall. It—helped me cope."

Tobias raised a brow. "Violence helped you cope?"

"It was," Hermione said with a wince. "Surprisingly effective. I just—imagined he was Ronald at the same time."

Tobias started to choke, and Hermione gave him a look of concern. She realised with both horror and fascination that he was laughing. Snorting out his nose, chortle-laughing.

"You're amazing," he wheezed, clutching his chest. "I would never have suspected that you were the one Draco wouldn't tell Lucius about decking him."

He flopped on his back, looking up to the cloud-filled but sunny sky.

Hermione looked down at him, her face softening as she saw the light playing within his dark eyes. No longer just fathomless black, rainbows danced as if trapped inside faceted stone. Whatever power he might have, he looked—even felt on an energy level—quite human.

It was utterly amazing.

Sanguini was very good at blending in with other cultures, but there was always a bit of an aura about him. Something more than what observant eyes could tell someone. On a magic level, he could appear weak or insignificant, but he could not swallow his power like Tobias did. He could not walk out into the sun and be—human.

At least—until he had some harpy mixed in. Now, thanks to her mating bond with Mihail, Rada and presumably Tobias both could reap the benefits of a harpy constitution and abilities no matter the time of day.

And she—

Had a brand new set of wild instincts to deal with that seemed to whet a different type of hunger.

He looked at her, his usual tortured expression softened by the sunlight and his bout of laughter. "Come here. You should not go without feeding even if you don't feel hungry this early in your transition." He drew his finger across his neck and frowned, sighing in mild frustration. "You will have to use your fangs. I am somewhat—handicapped at the moment."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably.

"It is fine," he said. "It is perfectly natural. And your saliva will heal the wound when you are finished. I will not bleed to death—not even in this weakened state."

Hermione grimaced. "You—are certain?"

"I know my own mind," Tobias allowed. "Usually. This time, most definitely." He gave her a frustrated sigh. "I'm not typically this—inept, but it seems when it comes to those I wish to have the skill of Sanguini with, I end up eating my boot instead."

Hermione sighed with a tired smile. "I suppose neither of us are perfect in communicating what it is we really want."

"And—" Tobias said carefully. "What do you want, Her. Mio. Ne."

"My parents are monogamous," she whispered. "I shouldn't want you as much as I do. How can Mihail be okay with—How is that fair to him? To you? To me?"

Tobias sighed. "When you have lived as long as my Triumvirate—or, hells, long enough to hit a few hundred years you realise that you have the time to pursue multiple things, multiple interests, multiple loves. It does not detach from one because you love another. My love for my Triumvirate does not diminish from one member to the other. But it does take confidence in one's partners. Trust. Communication. I have never hidden anything from my Triumvirate but once. To my eternal shame."

"What could you have possibly hidden from them?" Hermione asked, frowning.

The vampire sighed deeply. "My desire for you."

"I hid behind the belief that you could not possibly forgive me for what I put you through as your teacher, nor could you ever find a way to look past it. And I had sealed my sins by wiping your mind of having saved a vampire from the very brink of death. For a person who had so little trust in the lives of those around me, I did the very opposite of what one does when they wish for someone to trust them."

"Maybe you've spent so long with forever that you forget that forgiveness is not something that is one and done—yes or no—forever," Hermione said. "I can be angry with you, and I was, but still, I was angrier over the thought that you didn't trust me. But if you can accept multiple loves in a long life, shouldn't you be able to accept that mistakes are not forever, either, no matter how many years we might live before making them?"

Tobias grimaced. "I had made—many of them."

"Considering how old you probably are, I should hope so."

Tobias startled, brows furrowing.

"If you aren't making mistakes, then you aren't living," Hermione noted with a chuckle. "I've lived a lot—by that example of living. Starting out as a chick that tried to fly before her wings were fully feathered in. Or thinking that Gilderoy Lockhart was an impressive wizard. Thankfully, someone set me straight on that."

"Someone with competence, I hope," Tobias quipped, his face scrunched.

"You," Hermione replied. "When you wiped the duelling platform with him."

"That was hardly a feat," Tobias stated grimly. "He was a mere charlatan."

"It shook me out of my absurd crush," Hermione said with a derisive snort. "It was enough. Besides, could you see someone like him covered in feathers, his pretty face twisted into a predatory bird's?"

"I happen to think you're beautiful," Tobias said. "And not just because you sang to me that way."

Hermione frowned. "That's just the song talking. I'm sorry."

Tobias shook his head. "Now you're lying to yourself, just as I did to myself. Take my blood, and you will see the truth. Just as you do with Mihail. Since I am not at my full power, I cannot hide anything from my blood. If you wanted to see the truth in something, you could."

Hermione bit her lip.

"You needn't be afraid of it," Severus said. "This is how our Triumvirate has remained strong for so long. We know each other very well, and sometimes it takes another to see what we are hiding from ourselves—or to rub our nose in it when we are being stubborn."

He snorted softly. "We are among the few that do. Most of my kind are zealously protective of what they believe belongs only to them, as if power can only belong to the one who hoards the most of it. We are fortunate that our Council is not this way—or rather, those that have survived this long have since learned how to—share. The younger generations must learn to—get over themselves. Sometimes with a forceful reminder. That is the difference between the Sang and mortals. We are too powerful to tolerate what might be called bad behaviour. Things that have been known to cause angry mobs and—witch hunts, as they say. We may look human enough to pass as such, but we can never allow the young to assume they are. Even if they started out that way. Perhaps, even more importantly then. The memories of being human will not protect them from breaking the neck of someone who just happened to piss them off and then have the vampire respond like a human—"

Severus sighed. "But sometimes, the Sang need to remember what it is like to be human to better understand and tolerate the fleeting life that often causes—acts of great stupidity."

"That was why you were posing as a human— but you picked a really horrible role," Hermione observed. "Or an amazing one, depending on what you were going for."

Severus snort-chuckled. "I was a dick."

Hermione snickered. "You said it, I didn't."

"I was trapped in it—the troubled boy I had posed as became a disturbed adult who joined a cult, and then he ran to who he thought could help him only to get sworn into his service and then serve as a double agent."

"Dumbledore," Hermione said darkly. "He had you murder him—for the greater good."

"Ten points to Gryffindor," Tobias said.

"What a—fucking WANKER!" Hermione exclaimed, and it was so sudden and unexpected that Severus burst out laughing.

Hermione turned red, sputtered, sprouted a few feathers where humans most definitely didn't have them, and then flopped on top of him as the spurt of indignance drained from her.

"You're so beautiful," he said into her ear as he gently soothed her back. He grasped one of her head feathers and gently groomed it between his fingers.

"I'm thinking really inappropriate thoughts about you right now," Hermione whispered softly.

"Inappropriate for our deserted, private location or in general?" he replied, a strangely foreign look of smug mischief on his face.

Hermione flushed as she tried to bury her face into his chest robes.

"I want you," Hermione confessed into his buttons. "And I am somewhat relieved that even when you're not posing as Severus Snape you have them to stare at.

"Stared often at my buttons, Miss Granger?" Tobias said in a very familiar rumble.

Hermione's newly emerged fangs gave away what she was feeling at that very moment, and Severus smiled at her—a small tug of lips that might as well have been a broad smile.

He tilted his head to the side, and she descended upon his neck in a flash of movement. His eyes closed, and his lashes fluttered. His body shuddered as she fed, and he did not even attempt to discourage her.

With what seemed like great effort, she withdrew, her tongue sliding across her bottom lip to clean the blood there.

He looked at her languidly as if he'd just had the best sex of his life and was utterly sated.

Hermione flushed. "I'm sorry."

"Do not," he rumbled, "apologise for THAT, Hermione." He said her name like it was an utterly decadent dessert. It is—a relief to have the blood that has been screaming for you finally taken."

Hermione's expression changed as she filtered through the surge of memories from the blood. "You—really do want me."

"So much more than can be expressed with mere—words."

"And when did you start bleeding?"

"I suspect the moment you gave me CPR—when you touched me."

"You were bleeding so much, I thought you were surely going to die from Nagini's bite."

"Well, part of it was her venom," Tobias confessed, "but the sheer amount of blood was due to my body instantly recognising you as my mate."

Hermione frowned. "Has it been—painful for you?"

He closed his eyes. "Uncomfortable, assuredly."

"And you were ready to live with that—forever?"

"It was—what I thought I deserved," Severus replied.

Hermione frowned harder.

Tobias sighed. "I was cursed by a Dacian woman when I killed her husband in the war when Rome wanted Dacia. Badly. As it wanted every people it crossed."

Hermione's eyes widened.

"That Dacian was Mihail—who had to step out of his identity so as to not reveal his true nature. Both he, Rada, and myself had to—but they needed a reason. I became their reason. It could not be avoided. We were bonded in our Triumvirate, and there was no guarantee that there would be a war which we could—disappear together in. My being Roman just made their deaths more likely. More—plausible. Romans had been trying to take over ever since Rome first crawled out of collective memory. The Dacians were but one step on a greater journey to conquering the world—at least the world as they knew it. And the gods— maybe they supported it in a way. Back then, the gods were on many a mind from every walk of life."

Tobias sighed. "We made a real spectacle of it. Everyone knew I had run them through, but so then, did his wife. She was not Sang. She was, ironically, a woman of superstition and gods fearing. Mihail, as you know, is very good at commanding a crowd or distracting it. No one more than her—it was an arranged marriage. Pressure from those in power. Also—necessary for his guise. So we fought in a great battle. I slayed them so they retained great honour defending their people against the evil Romans. Then, when the dusk fell with the night, I allowed the assassin to stick a blade in me. It was Mihail's wife, and as I lay dying, she cursed me. To never know the love of a woman. At the time, I found that ironic, for the only loves I had were my Triumvirate. And Romans were known for loving their fellow soldiers and only returning to make more little Romans for the future. There were exceptions of course, but—it was expected that if you loved your shieldmates, you would fight for them like they mattered. Because they DID matter. Rome was secondary to the love of the ones who had your back. And I—thought myself safe. I was used to loveless marriages. Marriages of convenience. Marriages of state. Of expectation. I have lived for thousands of years, and I never bled for anyone but my Triumvirate. Until you. And I remembered the look on your face when I said that I saw no difference. That betrayal. Where respect for one's role turned into anguish and hate. So, I wiped your memory of my reveal. That you had let me feed on you in my desperate hunger. That I had cradled you in my arms and wanted nothing more than to draw my claw against my neck and make you mine. Because I did not deserve you. Not after seeing that terrible look on your face. I have disappointed many. Insulted many. And the weight of that curse I had thought long past came roaring back with a vengeance."

Hermione was silent, her eyes closing. She let out her breath slowly. "Well, you can tell that curse to get stuffed," she said after a while. "For I am not a woman. I am a harpy. A vampiric harpy, now. If anything I am even further from what Rome would have considered a woman than what Greece believed a harpy was. Shun me for what I am, by whatever name you call me, or not. But it will be your choice. Not some dead woman whose anchor a curse was the death of her husband who is not even dead or alive. Her curse was but air in a vacuum. Fed only on the belief that you would die and be reborn to never know the love of a woman. And I'm sure she meant human. If anything, living in the Wizarding World has taught me that such bias is easy to track throughout history. So, given that probability—"

Hermione gestured with one hand as arithmancy calculations floated in the air and then poofed. "You are free to choose whatever you want in life—Tobias. So, to quote someone I know. What is it that you want, To-bi-as?"

The vampire's eyes glinted just for a moment. A hint of crimson hidden in the black. "You. If you will have me."

Hermione chuckled, releasing a breath with her shoulders. "You can have me, if you can live with two conditions."

Suspicion flickered across his eyes, but he set his jaw and tilted up his head. "And those are?"

"You have to get along with my other mate—not like never have a fight, but you're not allowed to kill each other."

Tobias blinked and nodded slowly. "I think that can be—arranged. And the second?"

"I am a simple harpy. I like simple things. If you want me, it has to be forever."

"It is a good thing then," Tobias said with a grim expression, "that I have brushed up on my harpy mating rituals."

He pulled a box out from beneath the snoozing Lethifolds and offered it to her.

Hermione's eyes widened as her expression turned to confusion. She took the box and carefully picked at it as if it would explode like a WWW prank box and cover her in dung.

As she opened it, the shimmer of complicated magic revealed a preservation spell of the highest order on the box. When she looked inside, her eyes went even wider. "Is this—a fresh Grecian Snowpeak cow liver? However did you—?"

His expression was utterly smug. "I might have been a dumb Roman, but I paid attention to my surroundings whenever I visited other places."

"I," Hermione stammered. "No one has ever—I never expected—"

"Do you accept my offering—my worth as a provider?" Tobias asked.

Hermione burst into tears and threw her arms around him.

Tobias quickly caught the box, guiding it down to the pile of snoozing Lethifolds as he enfolded her, a twitch of muscle tugging at his lips as a soft, almost imperceptible hiss escaped his mouth.

"Yes," Hermione whispered into his buttonline. "I accept your offering as my mate."

She looked up at him, her pupils blown wide as a golden shimmer trickled across her eyes—raptor eyes staring back at him from a human face.

He cupped her face in his, his expression softening as he dipped his head to capture her mouth with his.

"HARPYRIAE DEBILITARE!"

Hermione screeched as her body was abruptly torn from Tobias' embrace—suspended in the air, spread eagle and stretched like in the drawings of Leonardo DaVinci.

"SANGUIS DETRAXI!"

Tobias' face twisted in horror as rivers of blood poured out from Hermione's eyes, nose, mouth—even the pores of her skin. Her entire body seemed to exude crimson.

Crippled as he could feel her agony, he staggered, knowing that Sanguini and Rada were both feeling the pain as well—

The potion he needed to jumpstart his vampiric nature was deep in the Lethifolds' pockets, and they—

They were trapped within a barrier formed in Patronus magic so bright that he couldn't even see who was beyond it.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!"

Tobias choked as the spell slammed into him, still too stunned by Hermione's pain to even summon the will to cast a silent defence.

"Fucking Snape," a familiar voice angrily hissed at him as everything went pear-shaped and then faded to black.

---

"You need to stop the bleeding," a voice admonished. "If he dies, they will trace it."

"Wut? It's just Snape. He deserves to die!"

"He has a trace on him," the female voice chided. "A trace you put there with Auror magic. Don't think they won't find it. Harry suspects already."

"Harry won't care," Ron claimed adamantly. "It's bloody Snape. This is for Fred. Fred is way more important than Snape. If Harry wants to have babies with Ginny, he has to support our family."

"If you want him to keep his job, you'll care about this," the female voice warned. A parcel of strangely scented soaked bandages smacked Ron in the face. "Use these to wrap him up."

Ron huffed. "Fine," he said as he took the bandages and wrapped the restrained wizard up. "But he should just bleed out on the ground."

Ron fidgeted as the man he'd feared all his childhood life stared up at him silently. His black eyes gazed at him hatefully, and it was, perhaps, in that moment that Ron realised that he'd never known Snape's true hate.

Not until this moment, that is. There were no words for that utterly malevolent gaze.

Ron fumbled with the bandages. "You don't scare me, Snape," Ron muttered as he cast a Crucio at him.

As his hated professor's body spasmed and locked in a rigor-like torture, Ron finished with the haphazard bandaging, frowning as the wounds began to heal. He ripped one of the bandages off. "One off won't kill you," he sneered as he cast the bandage away.

What he didn't see, nor would he have realised the significance, was that as Snape's body fell to the ground, and his unbandaged, bleeding arm fell into the gathering pool of Hermione's draining blood. Their blood mixed, and with a flare of Dark primordial magic, it reverse-flowed back into his limp body.

His dark black eyes began to glow a malevolent crimson as dark, talon-like claws pushed out of his fingers, and dark pin feathers began to sprout from his pale skin, growing like a silken carpet across his arms, back, and legs.

---

"Did you bandage him and move him to a safe place?"

"As safe as the ground can be, yeah," Ron said with a snort. "You get the blood for the ritual?"

The pale blonde woman turned, a sneer on her face as she gave him a large flask. "There is more than enough here to resurrect your brother thrice over. Don't mess it up."

Ron took the flask. "I won't. Have you been around my mum for the past two years? I'm not messing this up."

"Good, because there won't be another chance for you if you botch it," Luna warned him. "She's not going to be around for any second chances."

"Why are you so pissed off at 'Mione anyway?"

"People have been ostracising and making my father feel like the Wizarding World's heel because someone tattled about him bargaining with Death Eaters to save my life. To save ME," Luna spat hatefully. "And if it wasn't Harry, and it wasn't you, then it had to be her." Luna jerked her head to where a limp Hermione hung by magical fetters.

In her hand was a familiar Dark knife.

A knife that practically cackled psychically as Luna drew it down Hermione's chest, carving new patterns into her skin. "No one makes fun of my daddy. No one!"

Ron frowned, but he eyed the flask of the blood he needed to bring back his brother. "Why does it have to be harpy blood?"

Luna seemed to grow bored now. "Because widdle Ronniekins," she sing-songed with an eerily familiar giggle. "Harpies are the messengers of the god Zeus. His soldiers. His instigators. His torturers. Their lifeblood carries the King of the Gods' blessing of magic, and it will make any potion it is put in work for any man, woman, child, creature, or thing—and amplify it. They don't even have to be magical. They can be mere—useless widdle Muggle filth."

Ron shifted uneasily with growing discomfort. Luna had always been a little—off. But now she seemed more than a little off. More like a lot. More like—

He grasped the flask of blood tightly.

It didn't matter. He had what he needed to bring Fred back home. Make his mum functional again.

Hermione wasn't even human.

She was a bloody harpy.

She knew what Fred meant to their family.

'Mione hadn't said anything to anyone since the end of the war. She had a chance to pony up and offer her blood to restore the family that had supported her and Harry all that time, but no.

She just clammed up and left until Luna told him the truth.

Sure, she'd done it as a favour after she'd asked if they'd been the ones to reveal what her father had done. Of course he'd sworn he hadn't outed her dad. They were neighbours. Better if 'Mione was blamed for that, anyway.

But the way she held that ruddy knife, stroking it like it was some kind of treasured, intimate friend or even a lover. It was sick—perverse.

But she did give him the blood he needed for Fred. That was more than 'Mione had ever done.

"Fine," Ron grunted. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Luna's face twisted into an utterly malevolent smile. "Of course I do."

Ron set his jaw and disappeared with a crack.

It was then, perhaps, that Luna heard a song in the wind. Familiar—wanted.

"My Lord calls to me," Luna whispered fervently, dropping the cursed blade as she staggered forward toward the cliffside.

The song was a deep, Earthen vibration that moved through her body. She stepped forward.

Again.

Again.

Her Lord had come back from the dead! That was infinitely more important than the stupid Mudblood creature that had evaded her before.

And with every dark thought the weak little wisp had wallowed in, she'd been prepared to invade the cracks in the foolish girl's ignorant husk. She'd fed her anger and delusions, spurred her on the snipe hunt for the guilty Mudblood—

And the idiot girl had just let her in.

Well, she could use the girl's body better than the airy little father-lover could. And she had. And she would continue to do so, to destroy the little wretch's pathetic soul so she herself could take its place in the body.

She deserved to live.

She smiled.

And if she could wreck that stupid Weasley blood traitor's life, all the better. She would enjoy their impotent wails as they realised harpies didn't actually exist.

Maybe, if she'd been paying attention to her surroundings, she'd have noticed that she was perilously close to the edge of the cliff, and the jagged rocks below were not inviting in a preserve your life sort of way.

But her Lord was floating in the air before her like the Dark God he was. His hand reaching out, beckoning to her—

Come, Bellatrix. It is time to rebuild our world.

"Yes, My Lord!" she cooed, confident that when her master called, she could walk on air to take her place at his side.

The beautiful song ended, and Bella blinked, confused.

Where her Lord had been, a man stood wreathed in feathers. Wings unfolded from their body as crimson eyes glowed in blackened pits from a raptor's head. A halo of dark grey and banded feathers crested around a viciously curved beak that seemed even more dangerous than any knife.

Fingers splayed outward in a dangerous curl of birdlike talons as those great wings flapped.

"You could never appreciate the truly magical, Bellatrix," he said as the face of the raptor melted into a human face. Pale. Roman. Alabaster. "Or those who appreciated power far more than you."

"Luna's" face twisted unnaturally. "Bloody Halfblood wannabe wizard!" she spat. "You were never one of us, widdle biddle Severus!"

"No, thank the gods," Tobias said with a dark expression. "I've made enough mistakes in my long life, but that was not one of them. Nor do I galavant around using the shell of another's stolen body. Nor do I attempt to cheat Death in some way that gives me all the benefits and none of the responsibilities."

"My Lord will return, and his faithful will be well rewarded!"

"Ah, well," Tobias said archly. "I rather doubt that. There are not any left who are truly faithful to such a poser. They just care about themselves and what doing or not doing will get them. And you—are just a victim, taken as a child and twisted by your family into the perfect psychopath—so great that when Tom Riddle came a-calling, you found the perfect role model who encouraged your psychopathy and your spite—so long as it was not directed at him."

"You insignificant flobberworm!" Luna screamed and pointed her wand at him, only the movement of pulling it out caused her weight to shift, and the crumbling ledge of the cliffside gave way as she went shrieking down to the treacherous rocks below.

The irritated Lethifold that had been caught in her Patronus ball trap had her wand grasped in its folds as it hovered in mid air. It ground its "teeth" together.

Tobias tched as he dove down toward the rocks, wings flapping. He sank his claws into Luna's body and took off again, heaving her up toward the top of the cliffs with great beats of his newborn wings.

As he dropped Luna's body in the clearing where he'd been tortured, he nodded to Sanguini and Rada who were cradling Hermione between them, transferring her from one neck to the other as the other Lethifold had her wrapped in a swaddle.

"Must you be so dramatic with your reveals, old friend?" Rada complained. "I was actually worried about you both."

Tobias shook his head. "I fear I did not suspect they knew she was a harpy— or that Weasley was talented enough to put an Auror tracer on me without my knowledge."

"It must have been when you swallowed your power," Sanguini said, tsking as Hermione decided his neck was particularly delicious as she sank her fangs into it. "You do underestimate the power of mortal determination when you're playing mortal."

"What of the girl?" Rada asked.

Tobias tilted her head. "Bellatrix was always far too perverse with her blades. She liked to stab people or carve them up and then—lick the blade."

Tobias gave Rada the look.

Rada's eyes widened. "She took vampire blood before she fell off a cliff?"

Tobias nodded. "The Lovegood girl is dead," he said grimly, his sharp features seeming even more so. "Bellatrix devoured her soul to anchor herself in the body via the Horcrux blade." He pointed to the evil blade that lay upon the makeshift table.

"We should let the Council decide her ultimate fate, if it pleases you and Lady Hermione," Rada said. "The Lestrange witch brought tremendous suffering to a great many Kindred families during her reign with the Dark Lord Voldemort."

"That is fine with me," Tobias said. "And judging at how enthusiastically she is latching onto our dear Mihail, vengeance is hardly on her mind."

"You're welcome," Sanguini said dryly as he cradled his mate to his neck.

"She corrupted Luna and sacrificed her to use her body like a second skin," Hermione murmured into Sanguini's neck. "If she wasn't already dead, I'd want her sadistic head on a bloody plate—but—torturing her will not bring Luna back. The Council should decide because the people she hurt do cry out for justice. As one of her victims, I can say without hesitation that her brand of fun had no sentence that I am qualified to inflict upon her. I will leave it to those with considerably longer lives and a perspective spanning generations to grasp that sort of balancing of karma. And the Wizengamot has no laws that cover the sheer extent and heinousness of the crimes she had accomplished."

"And while Luna may have genuinely wished the worst for me to obtain what she believed was justice for her father—she did not deserve to be used to bring a psychopathic homicidal witch back to life. She was, in many ways, a victim from the moment she was abducted. Her sanity protected by a thin layer of distraction she was not allowed to have while being a 'guest' in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor." Hermione frowned. "I suspect that she's been deep in denial for a very long time. While I do not put stock in the totality of Hogwarts' rumours—the ghosts did say that Luna was purposefully oblivious to protect herself from the truth of her mother's death. And when it comes to deaths, ghosts do not lose the gravity of death. They may embellish a story, they may refuse to speak of it, but they do not lie about death—perhaps because they are so denied it."

Tobias had a tortured expression on his face as he grimaced. Sanguini seemed to realise what was going on, and he gently unfurled his protective embrace of arms and wings to expose Hermione.

Hermione mumbled in protest of her warm cocoon leaving, but she looked at Tobias with a seemingly shy expression as she held out her arms in invitation.

He enfolded her tight against himself, his newly manifested wings wrapping around her in a tight wall of feathers as his arms pinned her as close as possible. He pressed his face into her curls, taking in her scent, his body tense as a spring.

Hermione slithered her arms around his body and pressed her cheek against his chest. "I'm okay."

"I couldn't protect you," he whispered hoarsely.

"Your blood protected me," Hermione comforted.

He cupped one side of her face with one hand.

"I felt you," she said. "Fighting to rise from torture—and the moment you accepted the harpy into yourself. Such anger on my behalf—such love."

Tobias' eyes widened.

"It gave me enough strength to suppress my own pain and uncripple your Triumvirate," Hermione said. "And they did the rest."

Tobias let out a heavy sigh and nodded to his old friends. "Thank you," he said, his eyebrows moving even when he said nothing else.

Hermione suddenly got a wide-eyed look on her face.

The Lethifolds scrambled, slamming into each other with a squeegee sound, and then one dove into the others' pocket and pulled out the box.

Hermione shredded into the box and devoured the Snowpeak cow liver with a flurry of movement, manifesting her full harpy eagle face to do so, shredding the liver to bits as she ate it all down in a manner of seconds.

The three male vampires stared at her with a look of concern.

Hermione's face returned to a more human one as she smacked her lips. "I, um—"

Polite staring filled the silence.

Hermione grabbed the hovering Lethifold and cuddled it desperately.

The startled Lethifold seemed to puff up and expand like a puffer fish before settling back down.

Hermione's expression pinched as she seemed desperate for them to figure things out on their own. Alas, they all stared at her, looking oblivious.

"Something you wish to share with the rest of the class, Ms Granger?" Tobias said in a very specific intonation that screamed Severus Snape times ten to the twenty third power.

Hermione's pupils blew wide, and a wave of intense lust fell over them as her crest feathers stood on end around her head like a crown.

Tobias actually managed to look both surprised and—embarrassed. "Oh."

He quickly ruffled through the other Lethifold to find its hidden pocket and thrust a potion into Rada's hand.

Rada stared at him, looking rather confused.

As Tobias began to undo what remained of his tattered clothing, and Sanguini unfastened his vest, Tobias stared into his eyes. "Take the potion to your witch and it will relieve her of her cradle-robbing argument."

Rada stammered. "But you said the main ingredient was—"

"It required the willing blood of three harpies," Tobias snapped at him.

Rada's brain took a header off the cliff and then yeeted itself off into the surf like a breaching whale.

"Unless you wish to offer up your prowess to the mating pool, old friend, I highly suggest you go find your mate and ravish her into the asthenosphere," Sanguini recommended.

Rada, who usually never looked taken off-guard for anything, disappeared with a crack.

Hermione launched into the air with a screech and blur of feathers, and her mates chased her through the skies as their mating flight launched into the heavens.

Lightning cracked and thunder boomed, and the heavens poured downward as the storms of Zeus heralded his approval to the mating harpies and the upcoming next generation.

---

Wizengamot Finds Weasley Family Guilty of Necromancy Posthumously After Entire Family Found Slaughtered At Family Dinner

---

Hogwarts Headmistress Minerva McGonagall Retires

Filius Flitwick Appointed New Headmaster

---

Cattle Mysteriously Go Missing From Scottish Farm

Bag Of Priceless Gems Left Behind With Written Apology

"A Dinnae Ken Whit Or How Come, Bit Ta!" Farmer Tate McFadden Exclaims!

---

"Sae, ah hae ye tae blame fur this, lassie?" Minerva accused Hermione with a pointed talon finger over the nest of harpy eggs. "Ah think ah ate three besom livers in yin nicht, 'n' ah ne'er liked liver in mah lee!"

"I think you look quite distinguished," Mrs Granger said as she clinked glasses with her husband, unphased by Minerva's thick brogue . "It will be so nice to have more harpies around to let all the feathers out."

Mr Granger smiled as he placed a taloned hand over one of the eggs and felt the warm pulse within. "Four lovely eggs. The gods must be very happy with us."

Hermione flushed. "Well, that is why the traditional offering to one's mate is the Snowfall Cow Liver—it's richer and you only need one—but when one isn't around three or four normal ones seem to make a respectable substitute. Makes the mating flight a wee bit slower for you or—ahem—faster depending on how you look at it, though. You're easier to catch."

"That was appreciated," Rada murmured as Minerva turned a lovely shade of bright aubergine at her feather line.

"I'd just come to terms with Rada actually not lyin' tae me about being a 'ampire and being half me age," Minerva accused. "Then I start sprouting feathers and craving liver!"

Hermione smiled. "You seemed to, erm, do rather well," she said as she gestured to the two eggs that were most definitely not hers. They were the colour of Scottish thistle and practically sang Scots Wha Hae from inside the shells.

Minerva flushed.

"You were incredibly alluring, my mate," Rada rumbled. His crest feathers rose like expressive eyebrows to punctuate his ardent approval.

"You seem to have taken well to the additional feathers," Mr Granger said to Rada.

"Mm, it helps that I had already felt the instincts through my bond to my Triumvirate. I just had the wings to go with them."

"Vampires have such oddly intense bonding rituals," Mr Granger said. "Harpies are simple. Bring fresh rare liver to prospective mates. If she takes it, you're golden. If not—try a better liver until she thinks you aren't a complete waste of space."

"How many livers did you have to bring her?" Rada asked, curious.

Mr Granger blushed under his feathers. All of his feathers did a little ripple dance. "I—might have brought her an entire flock of geese."

Hermione's head snapped around.

Her father smiled disarmingly. "They all had livers."

"They were really good," Mrs Granger said thoughtfully. "Mmm. So was the after dinner flight."

Hermione stared at her parents. "I was conceived on a flock of geese livers?"

Mr Granger mumbled. "And a few ducks that got in the way."

"We had goose and duck for months," Mrs Granger recalled fondly. "It's probably why you were such a healthy chick. You came from such a rich flight meal."

Hermione looked awkwardly to her mates who were staring intently at a point in the sky somewhere outside the window. "I suppose it is a good thing that my mates do their homework," she said.

Mr Granger huffed. "Not all of us have the ability to track down ancient traditional mating meals and are able to preserve it to bring it home in time without refrigeration."

Tobias hnned, pulling Hermione to him with a grunt as his dark eyes flickered with crimson. His crest feathers rose from his hair like a cockatiel's, punctuating his interest in his attractive mate. "She was worth a little extra effort."

Hermione let out a startled chirr, and gazed into his eyes with fondness.

"Save some of that for me," Sanguini said with a pout, sneaking in to give both of his mates a tender kiss.

"So, you were her teacher?" Mr Granger asked, giving Tobias.

"That was—one role of many I have played throughout the centuries, yes." Tobias tilted his head as he regarded the Granger patriarch.

The distraction allowed Sanguini to sneak in a snuggle with Hermione by extracting her from his arms and taking her into his embrace. He skillfully flared his head crest of feathers in a display of alluring harpy female attracting flare.

Mr Granger shifted slightly. "I—I fear I am a little disoriented by your family dynamic."

Tobias sighed. "Mihail and Rada and myself have been a Triumvirate of power for thousands of years. And—like most men of the time, we spend most of our time when our comrades and brothers in arms more than any family at home. It was expected that young Romans serve in the military before they climbed the political ladder. You can become very close to those you serve with. Some like brothers. Others—lovers. It was encouraged because the one who has everything to lose fights better than for a marriage of expectation back home. We were comrades in arms. We were more. Biologically, we know eventually we would find the one that would allow us to live—have children. This was understood. Expected. But we would never have given up on each other. Our bond was too strong. We have gone though too much to leave that behind. We also knew it would take someone very special to understand that bond and be—accepting of it. And still accept us."

"So this Rada is also—"

Tobias raised an eyebrow. "Our very good friend? Yes."

"He's not also—"

"There are two eggs from Hermione in this nest, not three," Tobias pointed out. "And judging by Minerva's efforts. He's had his hands quite full with his own mate."

Minerva turned as red as a tomato, shooting Tobias a glare. "Severus!"

Tobias gave her a familiar, professorial smirk.

Mr Granger looked at Minerva. "So—you are with them too?"

Minerva blinked. "What? Me? No! I'm just fine with one, laddie. He's enough for me. I don't hear them all up here," she said, pointing to her head. "I'm okay with that."

"Dad," Hermione said with a frown. "They loved me though to become part harpy, and I loved them enough to become part vampire, isn't that enough?" She stared at her father with a familiar potions master's glare.

Mrs Granger nudged her mate with her feathered elbow. "Hey, leave our daughter to her happiness. They are good providers. They make her happy. You're just mad you didn't get to do the fatherly interrogation before the mating flight."

Mr Granger huffed, crossing his arms.

"When I visited you both to let you know your daughter was magical, you didn't even give me a hint you were more than just two Muggle dentists," Minerva said.

"Well, we could hardly tell you the truth on our first meeting," Mrs Granger said. "Magical people are the first to want our blood for their potions."

Minerva frowned. "I hate that you're right. I may not have wanted it for any reason, but if I'd let it slip—" She sighed. "Well, now I get to live in a tree away from most of the Wizarding World."

"You wouldn't have even had to have let it slip. Just knowing would have had the information in all the wrong places," Tobias said.

"Whatever do you mean, Severus?" Minerva said with a frown.

"Albus would have read you like a book," Tobias said grimly. "As he did so many times before. Or did you think you chose your career over your first love entirely on your own?"

"I-" Minerva's eyes widened. "You KNEW? And ye didna say anything?!" Anger rolled off her in waves.

Tobias tilted his head. "I merely suspected at the time. I had no proof. And what could I have said that would have changed anything other than given him information that I was more than I seemed. I did not know for sure until you mated Rada." He tapped his temple with two fingers.

Minerva's steam seemed to fizzle out and became replaced with embarrassment. "How much do you share between you?"

The Triumvirate exchanged glances at the same time.

Hermione saved them the trouble. "You're all part harpy—or rather all harpy with extras. That should tell you everything you need to know."

Minerva's face turned bright thistle and she dashed out the door as a silver tabby.

Hermione blinked. "Too soon? I figured she knew."

Rada sighed. "She does, but she's still coming to terms with it, I think. That and whatever part of her is still a cat and wants to stay safe on the ground chasing squirrels and birds."

Rada's expression softened as he gazed at Hermione, and he took her into a gentle embrace as he pressed his lips to her forehead. "She'll understand soon enough. Not everyone can be quite as pragmatic as you." He drew a claw across his neck in invitation, and Hermione took a quick feed.

She smiled at him as she pulled back. "Thank you, and I was born pragmatic. I'm a harpy, after all."

Rada laughed, touching his nose with one talon claw. "True."

Mr Granger seemed to be mulling over the true nature of what Triumvirate meant and coming up with the Randall-Sundrum model of the spatial dimensions of the universe.

Rada tilted his head, sensing the eyes upon him. "It is and shall always be an honour to feed the mates of my Triumvirate. Just as it is a great respect she pays me to take my blood without fear.

"Vampires are so strange," Mr Granger said as his wife gave him a swift peck on the head and drove him out the door with a flurry of pecks and flailings.

Tobias blinked. "Is that normal for harpies?"

Hermione shrugged. "For my parents, yes. When I was a chick, I used to think dad just liked being chased out of the nest."

"Happen often, did it?" Tobias asked, eyebrow arching.

"Enough that I thought it was a normal daily event," Hermione said. "That and the food he would bring back to the nest."

"I have a strange nagging desire to build a large nest," Tobias confessed. "With woven bars to keep our wayward hatchlings from taking a header off the side."

Hermione smiled rather sheepishly. "Probably a good idea. Harpy chicks tend to have more bravery than wingspan."

"Rada and I will provide the safety net enchantments," Sanguini said from the doorway as he watched Rada chasing his cat, er, mate, through the tree limbs.

The Lethifolds poked Hermione to remind her that they were on duty too.

Hermione smiled. "I love you."

Life was looking pretty damn good for the new harpies on the block.

---

The Sang Council had to deal with many, many things over the course of their very long reigns, but never had they ever had to deal with—

"What in the nine hells, eight worlds, and one dwarf planet is that?" Lord Advardus asked in Old Swedish, his brain shifting gears back to an ancient world where so many things made less sense— or more, depending on who was asking.

The Council stared at the shambling red-haired creature that looked like a plucked parrot humanoid—thing.

"It is what happens when an idiot uses vampiric harpy blood in an ancient resurrection ritual with blood taken unwillingly," Tobias said with a twitch of his lips.

"And we have to deal with it—why?" Lord Marcus asked, frowning.

Lord Maksim used his magic to idly poke the creature, and it squawked and tried to chase the cats around the Council chambers—at least until one of them set itself on fire and sliced its ankles.

"Must you poke it?" Lady Camille asked. "It's not right."

"So, this—thing—was once the dead and buried brother of some such Weasley family which it slaughtered upon being reborn?" Lord Nikolai asked.

"Mmmhmm," Sanguini murmured with a grimace that looked a little bit too close to that of someone wanting to pass gas.

"There is a reason why dabbling in necromancy never ends well," Lord Gareth said with a shake of his head. "But why do WE have to deal with it?"

"The vampire blood factor allowed the Ministry to brush it under the carpet and into our court," Lady Isolde said grimly.

Lord Maksim shook his head.

"Also, they attempted to liquidate it, but it just turned into a rubber duck immune to Wizarding spells." Lord Aku looked tired as he rubbed his chin.

The entire Council looked like they were all suffering from severe constipation together.

"It is a revenant," Lord Gareth. "And it should be put to rest in—" He grimaced. "The traditional way that guarantees it will not rise again and torment the living, yet allow the tortured soul to return to the Afterlife."

All the vampires grimaced together.

"It is barbaric but—quite effective," Lord Marcus said. "And we can at least take comfort in that whatever soul may be attached to this abomination will be freed of—whatever this is."

"Very well," Lady Isolde said with quiet resolve. "We shall rend the abomination, bury it with a boulder placed over the body, and with a rock wedged between its jaws to prevent a possible resouling." She closed her eyes, clearly disturbed by the tradition. "The heart will be removed and burned, its ashes cast into the sea."

The rest of the Council's eyes glowed together, but their expressions were all the same, that of pained disgust and resignation.

---

Hermione leaned in and snuggled between Tobias and Mihail as their chicks dangled upside from a branch to chatter with the baby dragonbats. She smiled as they tried to sneak off to get into shenanigans, but the babyfolds were not letting them get away with anything.

"Not fair," the strawberry coloured dragonbatling protested squeakily. "How can things without eyes watch us so closely?"

"Good thing you have so many Lethifolds in your territory," Manfred purred from his perch above them.

Hermione smiled. "They love it here. And the Sang do not have to travel as far to get their fangs kicked in."

Tobias looked skyward. "So it's just easier for them to beat the shite out of prospective suitors of the Nation."

"So much for the hypothesis that having them friendly to harpies would make them easier to tame otherwise," Sanguini said.

Amelia yawned, having peeled and eaten a very large basket of mangoes between herself and Manfred. "You have a very talented tree."

Hermione looked up to her expansive bloodfruit tree—a tree that seemed totally capable of producing the non-bloodfruit specimens for their dragonbat friends. "I suppose it would be silly of me to doubt the hand of the gods at this point."

"You doubt the gods exist?" Manfred asked, furry brow rising.

"Hardly," Hermione said. "I just—never thought they would care about one little harpy hiding away in Britain."

"Believe me, child," Manfred said. "To find acceptance and true faith is something well worth nurturing. It is infinitely more powerful than fear for it grows within the heart and strengthens while the other can only erode when the very nature of fear is surpassed."

Hermione seemed to grow thoughtful, her expression softening. "I will admit it was hard to keep such faith during a war surrounded by those who claimed to stand by the old ways but knew nothing of the gods' past or present ways."

"People or beings, even creatures have changed through the ages," Manfred said. "The things they fear or revere are as varied as those that survived prehistory."

"Well, I may not have lived nearly as long as my mates, but—" Hermione trailed off. "I do have an appreciation of those that have lived through the history most take for granted."

A nearby Lethifold tussle sent a babyfold careening in the air to splat on Hermione's head crest, and it squeegeed itself down across her face and landed in her lap with a tiny squeak.

Hermione cradled it, snuggling it to her face, and the babyfold purred and dove under her hair and feathers to hide from those that had bullied it.

The parentfolds seemed to shake their "heads" in disapproval as the offenders slinked off into the shady parts of the tree.

"Mummy!"

Thump.

A young harpy landed on the branch carrying a certain grey tabby. "Auntie Minerva said I'd have to go to school to learn magic!"

Tobias sniffed. "Yes."

"But why? I can already do magic!"

"You'd still have to learn to do human magic so you know how it is created and controlled and to learn how to fit into the Wizarding World when you visit," Hermione explained.

The young harpy scrunched her face into a pout. "That's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, Viorica," Sanguini said with a sigh, his brow arching. "No manner of time passing will make life any less of a chore. You can only hope that you eventually find someone to make it a more tolerable experience."

"I'll go to school at the DoM and won't have to go to Hogwarts then," Viorica reasoned.

"Then you'll have me as a teacher," Manfred pointed out as he expertly peeled the skin of a mango with his teeth.

Her eyes got really, really wide, and it was obvious that wasn't the plan.

"Don't be an idiot." A dark-haired harpy said as he snapped his book closed. He blew some hair and a stray feather out of his face. "You can't be everything you read in a book. Some of them are fiction. Last week you wanted to be an astrophysicist. The month before that you wanted to be a magizoologist studying the Antarctic Purple Star Otter. Next week you'll want to be the bodyguard to the Queen."

Viorica frowned. "What's wrong with being the bodyguard to the Queen, Cato?"

"Nothing, if you stuck with it," Cato said. "But you never do."

"I JUST WANT TO BE SOMETHING THAT MUM OR OUR DADS ISN'T SO I CAN BE BETTER THAN THEM FOR ONCE!"

Hermione, Tobias, and Sanguini's eyebrows shot up simultaneously.

Hermione sighed. "Pet, you don't have to be better than anyone. You just have to do something you want to do and then do it as well as you can. Comparing yourself to anyone, whether it is me or anyone else isn't fair to yourself. You have to be you. Not me. Not your brother. Not your fathers."

"But you're good at everything!" Viorica protested.

"I'm good at what I practise at, and you can be too, if you practise and stick with it," Hermione said. "Rada makes the best bloodwine and cordials in the world, but I have no idea what he does. I know how he does it, but I haven't worked at it like he does. Mihail can negotiate equal rights for arachnids and have people fully support it with barely a day's worth of talks. I cannot. Tobias brews the finest potions in the Wizarding World. I don't try to be better than anyone. I just try to do as well as I can and not hurt anyone while doing it."

"And you tame wild Lethifolds into doing your bidding," Tobias said with a flattened lip.

Hermione sighed. "Someone has to."

The Lethifolds on Hermione's back rose up and raspberried Tobias simultaneously.

"And somehow attract a living horde of magical fruit-bearing trees," Sanguini noted.

"Approved!" Manfred added with a toothy grin.

The phoenixes and an utterly random blueberry-stained gryphon on the ground chirred their approval.

Tobias rolled his eyes. "We could do without the flatulent gryphon."

The dragonbatlings chittered with amusement, obviously quite happy with the stanky gryphon's presence.

Hermione took her daughter into her arms and ruffled her head feathers. "Just worry about doing as well as you can, and you'll figure out what you really want to do eventually. Sometimes it takes a while to find something that tickles your fancy in a way that makes you want to stick with it.

"What if I want to grow plants?" her daughter whispered anxiously.

"Then that is what you should focus on," Hermione recommended.

"But what if Cato wants to grow plants too?" Viorica asked.

"There is no law that says you both can't grow plants together," Hermione said. "Maybe you'll team up and grow the most varied plants the Undead Nation and harpies have seen in generations. And maybe you'll introduce the Sang to their first blood salad. There is nothing that says you cannot study together and do well."

"I'd have to be able to stand being on the same branch as her," Cato muttered half under his breath.

Sanguini chortled into his hand as Tobias looked skyward for some sort of sign that their passionate mating flight hadn't been a mistake.

Meanwhile, a nearby tree shuddered as a blast of accidental magic defoliated the entire tree and turned the bark grey tabby coloured.

Minerva jumped down from Viorica's arms, turned into a female harpy, and zoomed down to the ground with a screech.

Cato's and Viorica's eyes were wide as they looked at each other in a rare moment of solidarity. Whatever they may be, at least they weren't in trouble from Minerva.

---

Hermione had a sense of deja vu and amusement as people at the train station saw "Severus Snape" standing in his black upon black robes and instinctively tried to find some place to take cover and perhaps die. No matter what Tobias was facing, whether it be the Wizarding World or errant miscreant Sang, it seemed he was striking fear into the hearts of the young regardless of species.

Mihail, who was biting into a large bloodorange and surreptitiously draining it completely dry, chuckled softly from behind the peel.

"Old friend, I swear you're a bane to clean pants and knickers everywhere. Mortal. Immortal. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference."

Tobias sighed, vigorously rubbing the space between his eyes with two fingers. "You never had this problem."

"We were attempting to murder each other at the time," Sanguini replied with no little amusement. "I think we were mutually unimpressed."

Tobias snorted, snatched the bloodfruit from Mihail's other hand, and drained it until it was a dessicated husk.

Hermione's hair sprouted a grey banded harpy feather as she couldn't contain her amusement, and she snickered into her palm. You could put the harpy into the vampire, but the vampire was still a vampire. She wasn't sure what that said about her, though.

Cato thumped into her, giving her waist a tight hug.

"You're going to do just fine," Hermione said. She took him into a warm hug.

Cato, silent but troubled with doubt, looked at her with a forced smile, trying to be brave.

Hermione shrugged her shoulder, and the Lethifold rustled and moved slightly as a shy babyfold peeked out from under. "Maybe you can face school together, hrm?" she said.

Cato's eyes widened as the babyfold touched his skin and then in a rush, zipped over to merge with his back. There was a shudder of effort, and the babyfold transformed itself into a Hogwarts school uniform, sans the house colours that would happen when sorting. Cato's face brightened with pride and love, and he clung to his mum with a tight hug. "I'm going to make you proud of me!"

Hermione smiled at him, her hand gently pressed against his head. "You already have, love. Just remember to be yourself, do the best you can, and don't eat your enemies. Outwit them instead."

Cato beamed. "I will!" A small grey harpy feather poked out of his hair as he dashed off to the train.

Tobias chuckled. "Good advice for both species."

Sanguini shook his head. "Couldn't have said it better."

They watched as Cato joined his sister and Rada's children on the train, taking up a train compartment together. All of them waved frantically out the window as the train pulled away from the station as their children zoomed off by train to their next adventure.

"It is odd being here at the station," Minerva said as she wiped a small tear from her eye. "I was always at Hogwarts to meet the children, not send them there.

Rada put his arm around her. "We'll have some time to do a proper courtship and travel what was all of Rome and Greece. I could tell you about Herculaneum before it was buried in ash and its people erased by nuée ardente. Most think of Pompeii, but both cities were caught in tragedy, but unlike Pompeii—Herculaneum is a time capsule trapped and buried, hidden under the city they built on top of it."

"I would like to see that bit of your history together," Minerva said.

"We evacuated who we could, but many chose not to believe. They did not understand the wrath of the volcano as people would today. You see the same stubbornness in modern times—" Rada said. "People who cannot or will not leave what they know for a threat they cannot fathom no matter who tells them. We could hardly tell them the why or how we knew. I suppose, in many ways, we can be thankful that their end was agonisingly quick. But they leave behind a piece of history trapped in time in items and art—the likes of which has not been seen before or since. True civilization before the time of stagnation when people seemed to crawl back under rocks and poke at things with sticks rather than work to improve their lives."

"It always amazed me, the plumbing and other feats of the ancient cities. Baths—running water. We look at the Dark Ages and wonder why, if it came after, could it be so horrible—both to magicals and people in general." Minerva shook her head. "At least the magicals knew the benefits of running water and being clean, but I suppose that was also why they were looked upon with fear and suspicion by their non-magical counterparts. How horribly ironic."

"And now you get to soak in Rada's giant bath," Tobias said. "Some things never change."

"I love that we have a bathhouse tree," Hermione said with a beaming smile.

Rada bowed his head at her with agreement. "You see? I am not the only one who admires a good place to bathe or soak away one's troubles."

Tobias waved his hand. "Fine. It's a glorious bath—tree. We are the most hygienic vampiric harpies anywhere."

Mihail snorted and took Hermione into his arms. "How long until you think Cato will be pranking his friends, making them think they are turning into birds?"

"Give it a few days," Hermione said. "His mischief will start to leak out by then, if Teigue and Daveen don't blow the school up first."

They all chuckled together with Minerva flushing a rather fetching colour of Scottish heather. "How is it that my children are such destructive little heathens?" she mumbled.

"I think they'll learn just how good they had it now that they'll be forced to live like humans for the next few years," Sanguini said as Rada nodded to him.

"It is not uncommon for vampiric children to have an epiphany of how good they had it after being forced to live truly human," Rada said thoughtfully. "But I'm sure that is not a trait that is isolated to vampires or harpies."

"Mum and dad said they could take off for a few weeks and take us around Greece and the ancient harpy haunts," Hermione said. "We could make quite a tour of it."

Rada smiled. "That sounds like a wonderful plan."

With a swirl of movement like the vanishing of mist, they were gone from the station and away.

---

Gourmet Blood Meals Designed By Viorica and Cato

Now Available Via Owl Delivery Fresh to Your Doorstep!

Great news for the Undead Nation has come in the form of gourmet blood meals that can be taken out into the Muggle and Wizarding World and pass as perfectly normal fare in various cultural regions.

The two young entrepreneurs have branched off from their parents' blood fruit varieties and created a wide range of blood vegetables that look and taste just like the real thing but are compatible with Sang biology and health requirements. The current array of offerings includes various sandwich options, salads, curries, soups, stews, as well as scones, muffins and even crisps!

Sang from around the world are now able to easily eat and drink in public without raising the suspicions of the local populace.

Meals are custom packed to your specifications and the freshest selection of blood fruit of choice, and the option for bloodwine or cordial from the Silver Goblet Winery. Bloodfruit juice is also offered for younger Sang and those who simply prefer to abstain from alcohol.

All meals are packed and sealed with a stasis and preservation charm to guarantee the freshest meal possible.

All meal packaging comes in self-disposable containers that will disintegrate into fertile ash when the enchantment is released, serving as a great fertiliser for plants and gardens as well as untraceable waste for those dining in public areas.

Special ancient traditional meals for those hankering for a taste of their youth are available on request.

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Temple Opens in the Grove

The Grove opens its grounds to the priests and priestesses of the old pantheons of Rome and Greece and allowed a temple to be constructed. Nestled in a pocket of rainforest in unplottable Scotland, both the Grove and the temple have the constant temperature ideal for the fruit-bearing trees that have been seemingly blessed by the gods themselves.

Visitors are warned not to stray off the paths as wild Lethifolds live in the surrounding pocket of rainforest. Those seeking the proper betrothal offering are encouraged to register at the Grove's temple guest book before attempting a Lethifold taming.

---

The Baths Opens at the Grove

An ancient Roman-style bath has opened at the Grove to serve both temple and Grove visitors with heated spring baths, sauna, and spa.

A separate non-traditional showering area is provided before entering the main bath area, and there is an apodyterium for changing, caldariums (hot rooms), tepidarium where warm water pools are perfect for sitting and relaxing or spreading oil on the skin, a laconicum if you really want to sweat it out, and the greater natatio for swimming in the comfort of heated spring water.

Olive oil and strigils are provided for our traditionalists.

The gift shop sells an array of scented bath salts for a little comfort at home, as well as hand-crafted soaps, olive oil, and preserves.

---

Hermione chuckled as the baths were "closed on Sunday" so the DoM's more unknown clientele could visit.

The greater natatio pool held a greater dragonbat family, a few manticores, a chimaera, and a lamia that was trying to shed.

They saw more business on Sundays than any other day—while the majority of the Wizarding World thought the baths were closed.

Hermione, Mihail, and Tobias soaked lazily together as they watched Rada being the bath's social butterfly.

"Where did you run off to this morning?" Tobias murmured into Hermione's feathered hair.

"I went to the temple and left an offering to Zeus in thanks for his many blessings," she replied.

Outside a fierce spring storm howled, and thunder boomed.

Tobias smiled. "It seems he has approved of your offering."

Hermione smiled. "He shelters us above and protects our home from wayward eyes and provides such wealth of trees and habitat for the Lethifolds. I am happy to leave him both prayers and thanks for our blessings."

Sanguini stealthily leaned in and sucked on her pulse point on her neck, and Hermione flailed and went limp into his embrace as Tobias smiled wickedly as he affixed his mouth to the other side of her neck.

"We shouldn't disappoint him," Tobias rumbled as he engaged his mate with a thorough snogging as Mihail pulled out a familiar box, a very specific sort of offering.

Hermione screeched as she tore into the sky after her flight offering, her mates giving chase in the storm as wind and the bolts of Zeus lit the sky with his blessings of the storm and life-giving rain.

"Dad, what happened to the harpies?" a curious young dragonbatling asked as Manfred lurked in the pool like a crocodile.

Manfred smiled. "Nothing that the gods didn't want."

The young batling blinked and sank into the warm water, confused. His father was always so cryptic with his answers.

"Stop being so smug," Amelia chided, thumping Manfred upside the head with one wing.

"But I'm so good at it," Manfred said with a pout.

"Be good at something else," Amelia muttered.

Manfred's eyes slid to the side as his muzzle twisted into a mischievous smile.

Amelia's eyes went wide as her mate pounced her in the pool, and a great wave of heated mineral water got even hotter.

The dragonbatlings rode the waves of the pool like the surf, oblivious to what their parents were getting up to.

---

And They Lived Harpically Ever After

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A/N: I did a lot of art for the Triumvirate the last month, and it's on the fade dot bird Instagram for those of you who aren't on Ao3 and will see it posted there.

Translations:

Te uiti ca vițelul la poartă nouă! : You are an idiot.

Se pare că o varză are mai puține șanse să fie jignită de prostia ta! : It seems a cabbage would take less offense at your stupidity!