Beta Love: Dragon and the Cold Water Bottle Torture, Dutchgirl01 the Busiest Bee that Ever Buzzed, Commander Shepard the Winter Soldier
A/N: Artfight is eating my soul… x.x death. FF dot net is not even coming up anymore, so this remains the only place you will see this chapter. I am so frustrated with FF dot net right now, that I almost gave up posting here forever. I hate the lack of transparency on why it was down or what they were doing to fix whatever it was.
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One Life Ends, Another Begins
Fake people have an image to maintain. Real people just don't care.
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Prompt: A soft glowing drew her eye to those particular worlds, the ones that to any passing Muggle would have been lost in the sea of graffiti. A prophecy was written in Sharpie on the wall of the dingy station bathroom.
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One did not expect to find the magical in bathrooms. Not in run-down neglected ones like the one Hermione found herself in at the moment. The door to the stall was carved and dented and written over like so many doors before it.
Antiquity was not immune to such things—
Even the bathrooms of the old Roman bath houses and brothels had carved notes stating everything from " Defecator, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place " to " the one who buggers a fire burns his penis " to " Chie, I hope your haemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they every have before! ".
Shit-posting was an ancient human sport. Only the technology involved changed. Even now, people carved their messages into the walls of bathrooms all across the world.
But—buried in the sea of marker, scratches, and attempted paint-overs, Hermione saw something glow within the twisted mess of lines.
Magic .
She had to half close her eyes to make the graffiti fade and the magic grow brighter.
She smiled as she noticed it was a knot-puzzle.
She'd always loved puzzles as a child. She would trace the old Celtic weaves to find one end to another. But this one was magic.
One had to simply find the start and the end, tracing along the line—but to find a line amongst a sea of lines, that was a challenge.
As she traced her finger along the magic, it read like a story. Knowledge surged into her from the trace.
He hated me.
Not because I was his kin but because I was a girl.
Well, I am no longer a girl.
Tamsin is dead.
I am now Tom forever, and I arose from the blood of his corpse as I took what was mine.
People always called me Tom. They thought me a boy because I dressed as one. They feared me more because I was one, so I let them. But this—this is real. Forged in wrath and desire and magic, I will be the man that people fear. I will make them all pay for underestimating me.
And it will be anchored in this supposedly forbidden magic in a place no magical would ever look.
Here in this cesspit of scrawl on a stall door.
I leave my past here in this hole I will never see again. I leave it here on the grave of Tamsin.
This door is the body I leave behind.
The life I leave behind.
I become Tom Marvolo Riddle.
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.
Hermione's finger blazed with fire as she pulled away from the end of the knot, the knowledge burning in her head as the door shuddered and fell to the ground, twisting, jerking, reforming into the pristine body of a tall girl with short cut hair in a boyish haircut from years past.
They had high cheekbones, and gaunt features, but they were not unattractive. They wore a troubled expression as if worried about something.
But the body was covered in runes—binding magic. This body was a focus for something complicated. Something Darker than what Hermione was expecting.
And she had found it because she'd really needed to pee.
She fingered the token Amelia Bones had given her as it hung around her neck.
If she used it—her time with Harry and Ron would be over. They would have to find their way without her.
But this—
She closed her eyes.
This was bigger than what they had been prepared for.
She placed her hand upon the body of Tamsin Riddle, grasped the token, and pressed the gem inset with her fingers with a click.
With a pull at her navel, she was gone.
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Hermione woke groggily to a comfortable warmth and a scent she adored but couldn't place. She mumbled, her hand curling into that soft warmth.
She felt a strange thirst stirring, and before she could even realise that it was, she was drinking in a deep, filling warmth.
"Only Granger would sign a living will before going out to save the world," she heard a familiar voice say.
"She's simply quite thorough," a velvet voice purred in response. "You should appreciate such things, considering she's our mate."
"It's not like I had sufficient time to even explain it." The voice sounded rather annoyed. "Much less come to terms with it."
"You'd rather her die before you can sort that out?" the other voice mused. "Call me mercilessly practical, but I'd rather not wait for reincarnation."
"This is hardly—"
"I'm not Turning her into a vampire, Severus."
"You're feeding her Lethifold milk!"
"Technically, the Lethifold is providing the milk," the other voice said with a chuckle. " I do not lactate."
Hermione opened one weary eye. Focusing was still pretty difficult, but she finally made out the finely chiselled cheekbones of a certain vampire she recognised from Slughorn's dinners. Her fingers tentatively reached out to touch his jaw.
"I am very real," Sanguini said with a smug smile. "If that was what you are wondering."
"Gods, you're beautiful," Hermione whispered. "I must be dead."
Sanguini chuckled. "No, my dear, but you did try very hard by touching a cursed enchanted Hor-corpse."
"Of course it was cursed," Hermione mumbled. "But why do I have such a severe need for you to kiss me?"
Sanguini smiled with just a hint of fang. "Do you believe in fate? It would be easier if you did."
"I will confess to having some doubts in that area considering I was on the run trying to fix something without a map or even basic directions."
"Technically, you did fix it," Snape said with a rather bored expression. "By exposing his—her—first body, you made him—her—bloody hell—vulnerable to death. All of their other Horcruxes were anchored to that body, but in their arrogance, they bound the others to it. You managed to single-handedly bugger the Dark Lord and all their careful planning based on one act of shameful concealment."
"What happened to him? Her. This is so confusing." Hermione frowned.
"Everything connected to that anchor perished the moment the original body was turned to dust in the DoM's Fiendfyre ovens," Snape explained. He touched his arm—pale, white, and blemishless. "Including whatever stupidity we might have done that bound us to them. Fortunately, for those like me, since Riddle's Oath was based on a lie, it did not take us all to Death the way the Horcruxes left this world."
Hermione's eyes widened. "I would have killed everyone with a Mark?"
"It would not necessarily be a bad thing," Snape said with a tired sigh. "There were far more bad people in the batch than those like myself. I am, however, quite gratified that I was not murdered along with them."
Hermione gulped. "I am so sorry."
Snape waved a hand. "I have had a long life. As humiliating as it would be to die over such a relatively minor player compared to those who actively tried to put a sword in me, I would not think too hard on it, Miss Granger. The end of Riddle was—more than justified."
"But, why am I—so attracted to you both?" Hermione whispered.
"Are we not attractive?" Sanguini mused the question.
"That's not the problem—but—I feel powerfully attracted to you in ways that I did not when I was in school," Hermione admitted.
"You were also not grown," Sanguini said. "The moment you were—you became known to," he trailed off.
"Your fated mates," Sanguini filled in the blanks. "Those the universe sees as your intended matches in life. A counterbalance to your own life's weight."
"I've only had one brief relationship of sorts, and that was with Viktor, but it ended when he left Hogwarts," Hermione said. "Then, it was all about saving the world, so it didn't last long through owl post."
"You have all the time you might wish to get to know us, Hermione," Sanguini promised. "It can be a lot to take in, and this prime example of rancour and snark can be a bit caustic in the face of intimacy."
Hermione flushed as Snape shot Sanguini a look that could have curdled milk or made a firstie spontaneously combust.
"It's true, Severus," Sanguini said with a chuckle. "You're terrible at opening up. The only reason I know is because I've put up with your shite for over a thousand or so years now."
"You're both vampires," Hermione said.
"Obviously," Snape said, his eyebrow raised in her direction.
"Mum always said I'd be better off with older men," she noted wistfully.
"I find myself wanting something I probably shouldn't of someone I've never even touched until this moment," Hermione said uneasily.
"You may touch me as much as or as little as you desire. Only do what makes you comfortable," Sanguini said warmly. "I have nothing but time."
Hermione flicked her gaze to Snape, who was pointedly ignoring her.
Snape's robes shifted over him, detached, and slithered over to Hermione, attaching itself to her back with an audible huff of annoyance.
Hermione's eyes grew wide, her hand touching the Lethifold with amazement.
"A Lethifold?"
"Two, actually," Sanguini offered. "Unlike us, Lethifolds do not take no for an answer. I fear you are stuck with them. They will protect you whenever we cannot be there. Or—when you do not wish us to be there."
"I don't want to steal your," Hermione said with a pause, "Lethifolds."
"Lethifolds have their own minds. They team up with the males of our species until an appropriate mate is found and then—defect," Sanguini explained. "Mine fed you while you were healing. It neutralised the curse put upon you—and probably cleared up a lot of health issues you didn't even know you had. Lethifolds are possessive of their partners, and they will do all they can to ensure their bondmate is healthy."
"And I stole yours?" Hermione squeaked.
"Do not worry. We will both wrestle another one eventually," Sanguini assured her. "We have a sort of symbiosis. "Chances are, the two on your back will have babyfolds, and we will end up with a clutter of them fighting over whose back to stay with."
Hermione felt the Lethifolds on her back warm at the idea, obviously intending to do just that.
Hermione lightly touched Sanguini's cheek, feeling the tingle of a greater magic resonate with just her touch. He hissed softly, fangs bared slightly as that shiver passed into him. "Kiss me?" she whispered.
Sanguini's eyes turned crimson, chasing all hints of brown from his gaze. "As my lady commands," he replied as his mouth covered hers, and a rush of powerful magic seemed to sing between them.
Hermione gasped, her entire body going rigid as her hand grasped at his vest. She saw rainbows where they had never been before as a tingle spread through every nerve centre of her brain and body.
"Gods," she murmured. "Again."
Sanguini's eyes glowed as his expression changed to something masculine and possessive as his body blocked Hermione's from Severus' view as he did exactly what Hermione asked.
Snape dug his claws into his own palm with a grimace as he fought with conflicted emotions that warred with a few thousand years worth of instinctive need. He was determined to not let one female witch ruin centuries of his iron control. Lily already had, and he never, ever wanted to suffer that humiliation again.
Unbeknownst to him, Walter the Lethifold wasn't in the mood to play, and he slithered over, hogtied Snape, and hauled him into the pile so his skin touched hers, and there was a blast of powerful magic as Hermione let out a loud moan of pleasured entreaty.
And alas, whatever decorum Snape may have imagined for himself went straight to Hades and left no forwarding address.
Severus looked into her eyes and saw Elysium.
For him.
For her.
For Sanguini.
Together.
Lily had never looked at him like that. Her touch had never ignited magic across the expanse of his skin more powerful than the play of sun against shadow.
A trickle of blood flowed down from his eyes, and his mouth sought her smooth neck with the most primal of needs.
"Yes," Hermione groaned. "Please, don't stop!"
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And there was much rejoicing amongst the Lethifolds.
(Yay!)
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Severus opened one eye as he regarded his spawn, who was giving him the big eyes of entreaty.
"What, Ania?" he murmured, unimpressed.
"Daddy, the babyfolds are here!"
He shoved his head into his pillow and groaned. "Tell them to keep it down."
Ania's lip trembled. "But, Daddy!"
A boy stuck his head into the bedroom and hissed at his sister. "Get out of there, 'Nia! You know they don't like to be bothered unless someone is on fire or dying or both!"
Ania paled and dashed out of the room. "But I thought they would want to know!" she protested outside the room.
"Idiot. They know!"
Laelia sniffled. "You don't have to yell, Andrei!"
Severus lay on his back and huffed. "Are you sure she's ours?"
"I don't recall having slept with anyone else during our marathon mating consummation," Hermione said as she snuffled his neck.
"I should hope not," Sanguini mumbled as he trapped her against him in a spoon. "Are we not satisfactory?"
"Very," Hermione said with a gasp as his fangs met her neck. "Nnngh, we need to go give the babyfolds names. We promised."
"You promised, not me," Severus muttered.
Hermione huffed and wriggled out of Sanguini's embrace and Severus' arms. "Fine, I will go." She took the duvet and threw it over him.
"Must you ruin a perfectly cuddly lie in?" Sanguini complained as he sat up. He pulled on a pair of silk sleep pants and trudged out of the bedroom.
If Severus complained, it was muffled by the extra fluffy duvet over his face.
Sanguini put one arm around Hermione, sipping his blood coffee rather blearily as his far-too-excited female spawn cooed and tried to catch the babyfolds.
The babyfolds, far too wiley to be caught, easily stayed just out of her reach.
Meanwhile, her brother sat still, reading a book, and a gathering of babyfolds piled up in his lap, purring and snuggling, occasionally having a spat as they tried to battle their way to his back and cling there. He said nothing, only turning the next page in his tome.
"That's so not fair," Ania complained. She tried to reach for one, and the babyfold zipped to hide in her brother's armpit.
Andrei made a face but kept reading. "You're an idiot," he chided. "If you'd just hold still and wait, they'd explore you instead of fleeing."
Meanwhile, a shy babyfold touched Sanguini's ankle, and he reached down and scooped it up, placing it on his shoulder. The babyfold squeaked adorably, and latched onto his shoulder and dangled like a miniature cloak.
"You're such a charmer," Hermione said with a chuckle, stealing a sip of his blood coffee.
Meanwhile, when Severus entered the room, all the babyfolds that had dove under the settee to escape Ania promptly rushed over to climb his body and cling to his back.
Hermione snickered into Sanguini's shoulder as their daughter looked about ready to cry with the unfairness of life.
"I love you," Hermione whispered through their shared bond with her mates.
Severus silently took up his place at Hermione's other side and stole a sip of blood coffee from Sanguini's mug.
"Hn," Severus grunted.
Sanguini beamed from ear to ear.
Life was good.
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(Babyfold squeaking and purring)
And they lived Lethifold-ly ever after…