Summary: There will be 31 days of mayhem, but I'm not sure there will be 31 actual stories. That would require more brain than Corvus has.

Beta Love: Dragon and the Cold Water Bottle Torture, Dutchgirl01 the Busiest Bee that Ever Buzzed, Commander Shepard the Winter Soldier

A/N: Each story will be a separate chapter to feed my laziness and desire not to post that many new stories for the same event.

Meant

I think our life is a journey, and we make mistakes, and it's how we learn from those mistakes and rebound from those mistakes that sets us on the path that we're meant to be on.

Jay Ellis

Prompt: "Don't trust him."

"Funny, that's exactly what he said about you."

"Don't trust him, Mione," Harry whinged. "He's a Dark wizard."

"Funny, that's exactly what he said about you," Hermione said grimly.

Harry's eyes widened.

"You've cast Dark spells yourself, Harry," Hermione pointed out. "That makes you a Dark wizard. It doesn't matter that it was in the past. You used a spell to hurt someone. Deliberately. And if that is the classification of a Dark Wizard, then you are one, Harry. As is most anyone who cast a spell in the war. Is that what you want to promote to everyone? The press? Those who look up to you?"

Harry's face twisted in conflict. "He doesn't love you!" he blurted. "He still loves my mother! It was in his memories!"

Hermione's face seemed to fall, and her eyes closed. "Then, I suppose, no one will be happy," she said with a sigh. "No matter what love he may not be able to give me, Harry. I will never love Ron the way you seem to think I should. Nor will he ever love me the way you dream of love to be."

"You two are meant!"

"Meant to suffer, perhaps," Hermione said grimly. "His mother plagues him just as you plague me over this strange concept of being meant—as if love requires no work, no compromise. No, we are not meant, Harry. Anymore than you are meant for Ginevra. You are what you work for, but there is no predestined fate pulled on the threads of time and space that bind you to her, nor me to Ronald."

Hermione sighed heavily and touched the sculpture of the Nundu at the Ministry fountain. "I suppose I will let you explain to Professor Snape why I am not here to meet him. It is the least you could do." She tied the green scarf from around her neck around the Nundu's neck and then Disapparated with a crack so soft, she might have not been there at all.

Harry reached for her—his hands grasping at empty air. "Hermione, no! Ron needs you!"

"Mr Potter," Severus' voice rumbled with a mixture of venom and velvet. His pale fingers touched the silk scarf around the statue Nundu's neck. "To what do I owe this displeasure?"

Harry gawped and made goldfish motions with his mouth.

Severus untied the scarf from the Nundu statue and tucked it into his pocket. "If you made her cry, Potter," Snape said darkly,"I promise that you will be the unhappiest man on this Earth."

He disappeared with a crack like thunder.

Severus gently nuzzled Hermione, putting one paw over her head to pin it down so he could groom her ears with his raspy tongue.

"I was young and stupid," he murmured as he licked her ears. "Like any cub trying to be worthy of his spots, I tried to prove to her that I was great mate material in all the wrong ways. I thought I loved her, and maybe I did, but it was not in a way that forms a lifetime of marital bliss. It was one-sided and hollow, based upon a lie I told myself thinking she was the only positive force in my life."

Hermione reciprocated the grooming, the green scarf tied loosely around her neck. "I trust you. That's why I left the scarf around the statue so you knew I didn't just not show up."

Severus scowled, which was a strange expression on a Nundu. "I was worried he got to you with his rot."

"He did, but he makes a singularly horrible argument. It wasn't like Ronald ever showed up with a freshly killed stag and a handsome spotted coat, four legs, proper claws, and a mouthful of highly functional teeth. And the very best virulent disease breath."

She nuzzled him. "Yours is definitely a fine example of fatality to any who would dare threaten our cubs."

Severus thumped his paw against her back. "Practical."

Hermione's tail looped. "I was worried I'd have to go all the way to Africa to find a healthy disease-breathing male. Britain isn't exactly known for its healthy Nundu population."

"I question your parents' choice to settle in London," Severus said. "My parents were insane. What was their excuse?"

Hermione licked under his chin. "They liked dentistry."

"What a glorious reason," Severus said dryly.

"Nundus like to have fine teeth," Hermione justified. "Look what they did to yours!"

"I sparkle," Severus said with a feline scowl. "Prey will see me coming from miles off."

Hermione chuckled. "You're an exceptionally fine hunter."

Severus grumped. "I cursed Potter for making you cry."

Hermione winced. "I'm sorry. I was so emotional."

Severus placed his head over her abdomen where little cub kicks thumped against the side of her belly. "I still cursed him."

Hermione nuzzled her mate. "I'm sorry that I worried you."

Severus sighed. "I could not imagine my life without you entangled in it. I believed myself a forever bachelor, calling my hopes out over the Dark Forest to an endless echoing silence."

Hermione harrumphed. "I was pretty emotional, wanting you with me, not to go away."

Severus set his head over her back. "I'm insecure."

Hermione frowned. "You hardly seemed like it when I was growing up."

"You were just a cub then," Severus muttered. "You weren't supposed to see me as insecure."

"I was always terribly insecure," Hermione confessed. "I never saw myself as good enough."

"I didn't exactly help," Severus said heavily. "For that, I am truly sorry."

Hermione nosed him gently. "It's okay. It's such an unnatural position for a Nundu to be in. But we have each other now. And a future together."

The Whomping Willow dumped a load of pollen on their coats making their spots sparkle.

"And an over-enthusiastic tree," Severus noted, his lips pursed.

Hermione looped her tail tightly. "Best kind."

"Lass, I need ye to sign the contract," Minerva called out from below, nimbly dodging the cranky tree's ire. "I also have fresh venison for lunch."

Hermione perked and wiggled out from under Severus and thumped down next to Minerva with a headbutt and low rumbling purr.

Severus scowled from above, his black tail flicking with annoyance.

"Don't you worry, laddie, I'll have her back after all the paperwork is done," Minerva said as she waved him off.

Severus harrumphed from atop the tree, wearing his typically annoyed expression.

Hermione purred and trotted up the path beside Minerva, slightly wobbly due to the cargo inside.

Severus had to smile with smug pride at their future family despite Minerva's unfortunate timing. Albus' portrait could just smoulder and huff in impotence that Hogwarts would be home to a family of Nundu that did not tolerate hateful emotions without spewing disease.

Life was pretty damned good.

Ginny screamed as Harry's cock yelled "We're meant!" as it went erect.

"What the FUCK, Harry!" Ginevra cried, shoving him off the bed.

"Come on, baby, we're meant for each other!" Harry's cock crowed.

"I'm not sleeping with that!" Ginny cried, shoving the duvet over Harry's erect cock.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Britain, Ron was dumped off a balcony in his starkers while his erect cock complained "Come on, baby, we're meant!"

"You keep that thing away from me, Ronald Weasley!" Lavender screamed at him as she threw a bucket of water over him along with the rest of his clothes.

Flash.

Flash, flash!

The press was all too ready to take pictures for the Prophet.

And they lived Nundu-smugly ever after.