Title: Whispers of Autumn (Trick or Treat Prompt #2)
Author: CorvusDraconis
Rating: M for safety
Warnings: Weasley bashing, obviously. Even if it is only at the very end. Supernatural violence. Subjugation.
Prompt it contains: Treat: The scent of fall in the air filled the castle/building/house
Summary: SSSHG, AU, Hermione returns to Hogwarts but not to teach. She comes only to temper the newly freed ley lines that were not as happy as history made them out to be.
Link:
Your team: Vampires
Card Name: Bonfire
Square #: G
Square #: 3
Prompt: In love with a ghost
Link:
Line Y/N?: (Down, Across, Diagonal) N
Blackout Y/N? N
Your Team: Vampires
Beta Love: Dragon and the Pumpkin Roll, Dutchgirl01 the Energizer Bunny, Flyby Commander Shepard aka Guardian of the Candy
Whispers of Autumn
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.
Arthur Conan Doyle
"It is a doomed love, I fear," Flitwick said dolefully as he bowed his head to the forlorn student gazing at the ghost of Helena Ravenclaw. "Many suffer crushes for her, and the Bloody Baron was not the first nor the last."
Hermione frowned. "This is—normal?"
Flitwick shook his head. "Not common. It sadly seems to happen in cycles with Helena's moods. She is normally quite aloof, but to those that are also lonely, there is almost an understanding. An unfortunate connection that lets one think of possibility."
Hermione sighed. "Her tale was always terribly sad. I always thought her being trapped here with the man who killed her, even as a ghost, would be a torment as poignant as rolling a boulder up a hill in Tartarus."
"A ghost is a being that could not let go," Flitwick said heavily. "Unlike Peeves, who is a malicious prankster yet not so much a memory of a living being but a poltergeist, ghosts are never changing, unable to move on, let go, or forgive. They are frozen from the moment of death, and much like the portraits, can only be what they were. Never more."
Flitwick took in a long breath and smiled. "How are our ley lines treating us?"
Hermione tilted her head, and a small ley zipped out of her hair bouncing off a few sets of armour before disappearing down the hallway. She chuckled. "They are content for now," she said. "But you should inform your students that trying to tamper with or tap into them is more than dangerous. Leys seem playful and happy, but they atomise those they do not respect."
"Weren't you?" Flitwick asked.
Hermione smiled. "Yes. But when they like you, they put you back together. Changed forever from what you were. The echo of me remains much like your ghosts. Only, I evolve to the whim of the leys. To stagnate—is to die."
Flitwick shook his head sadly. "And what of those innocents who touch a ley?"
Hermione bowed her head, her eyes filling with ley blue light.
They are devoured.
Her mouth did not move, but her voice was perfectly clear in his head. Clear and echoing with the imprint of countless voices.
"I will make sure I remind the students," Flitwick promised, his eyes widening.
Hermione blinked, and she said nothing for a time, her curls moving as if by the wind as ley energy zapped back and forth between the strands like lightning through a volcanic cloud.
"Thank you, Headmaster."
Hermione walked through the leaf-covered green, smiling as the scent of damp leaves reminded her of what made Hogwarts bearable in her student years. It was her favourite season of the year. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the leys whispering throughout the area as they distributed magic along their patrols. The main leys sent many "ley wyrms" out on errands, and now that she was around to free them from entanglements and guide them to places that needed them, the magic in the area was much stronger. The Dark Forest was retaining its protective magic, and one of the biggest signs of rebalance was the return of the unicorns and the eviction of the Acromantulas.
Hagrid had them piled in and outside of his hut, and Flitwick had not been amused at all. He'd called the Department of Regulation and Management of Magical Creatures and had them all moved to their natural rainforest habitat in Southeast Asia.
Hagrid had not been the least bit accepting of this, letting it slip that he hadn't given them the enchantment to survive in Scotland just for them to be shipped back to Asia.
During the resultant kerfuffle, Hagrid had attempted to put them back in the forest, but the leys had long since learned what belonged in "their forest" and promptly fried them all.
Every single one.
Hagrid had tried to guilt trip Hermione over the demise of his "friends" but Hermione was not the same witch that had once been easily swayed by copious waterworks and a pitiful sob story. The leys had devoured her and reconstructed her into a greater part of itself—a part that could be its eyes, ears, and mouth to assist it better.
She simply stood there as the leys anchored to her body, channelling bolt after bolt of pure magic into her and then having it leave her body to arch out over the forest in a net of protection. She said nothing, even as the air around them smelled of ozone, her body held aloft as magic shot from her body to the ground and away. The forest grew lush and green, the dryads returned, and the sacred hinds filtered through the forest, blessing the forest with bountiful normal deer in which to hunt.
As her feet touched the ground once more, energy crackled between her eyes. Do not test us, Rubeus Hagrid. We have watched your many crimes against our lands, and no one who binds their own kin to a tree has the right to claim the right of understanding of what is natural in our forests. We were here long before you were born. Long before this place had a name.
A vivid bolt of lightning suddenly struck Hagrid's hut, and a hundred-some random animals fled the stone building through the windows, doors, and cracks. Magic energised the stone, ash, and more, creating a thick masonry grout and filled in spaces, stacked stones, wood, and tools on racks, patched the missing tiles on the roof, and cleaned the creosote from the chimney as a noxious dark cloud escaped via the floo.
Perhaps, start taking better care of your home, and you will find your loneliness eased by people being far more willing to come visit you. Hermione's eyes faded back to their normal brown, and Hagrid sobbed his way back to a clean hut.
The Ministry officials promptly checked the box marked "disposed", shook Hermione's hand, and left.
Hagrid hadn't spoken to her since. For some reason.
"Leymaster," Magorian greeted, bowing his head respectfully.
"Magorian," Hermione said, smiling, giving him a polite curtsy since she didn't have the forelegs to do a proper centaur bow.
They grasped forearms together.
"Join us at the fire for dinner and stories," he invited. "The foals are always eager to hear tales of your adventures with the leys."
Hermione smiled. "It would be an honour. Leys are such gossips."
Magorian laughed and they walked together into the deep forest.
As the bell jingled on the door, Severus looked up. He had to squelch a hiss when he saw who it was, even after the distinctive feel of her had hit him long before the door even opened. The very sight of her caused a hundred different instincts to surge within him, and none of them were even remotely appropriate for Hogsmeade apothecary professionalism.
He'd greatly enjoyed hearing about how she'd turned Hogwarts upside down. Many people of the "old ways" mentality believed that their ways were the very oldest of ways, but who could question the wisdom of magic itself?
It didn't surprise him one bit that Granger would sacrifice herself to the ley lines to stabilise them. No one else would've thought—well, none that would have dared come back.
The destruction of Hogwarts had done more than simply tear down the walls, it had also freed the ley magic that had been subjugated since Hogwarts had first been created. Give it about, oh, a few centuries or so of slavery, and one might begin to understand why it had vapourised multiple people before finding Granger.
And to those that even remembered the old ways, they knew that magic did the choosing, not people. Granger hadn't been raised to it, but she had clearly embraced its decision and design. And much like him—she had to accept that magic didn't want them to die just yet.
Perhaps, in this case, not ever.
Ley magic was no longer content to have a mortal caretaker—the last one they had died and left Hogwarts to keep them firmly under its thumb.
Severus had been slightly, or rather more than slightly, amused by it all because it meant that if the Board of Governors or the Ministry attempted to go against magic's desires, then both magic and Granger would leave, leaving their magical school utterly bereft of magic.
Wouldn't THAT be amusing?
Severus' body went rigid with mortification as his traitorous Lethifold floated over to glom Granger straight to the face.
And Granger laughed, giving the carnivorous cloak a hug and a dance as though the Lethifold was leading. The Lethifold in turn dipped and swung her around like she was his partner at a grand society ball. When the Lethifold pulled her up, she smiled, magic trickling from her eyes in a way that made Severus feel uncomfortably aroused.
He'd always been attracted to powerful magic, and there it was right in front of him, merrily dancing with his Lethifold.
It shouldn't have surprised him that Granger wouldn't bat an eye at being flirted with by a Lethifold—but did she actual realise the Lethifold was doing its avid best to court her for HIM.
Lethifolds were absolutely shameless. They wanted loving partners and a coupling that eventually would provide fertile ground for babyfolds. It was the price one paid for the bondage, erm, bonding with the Lethifold. They would do their damndest to protect their partner from attacks both mental and physical, but if you happened to be a lonely male Sang—
Your formerly loyal, dutiful Lethifold became a ruthless matchmaker.
This was, admittedly, normally a welcomed sort of phenomena for the Sang. They were a very long-lived species, and finding your mate was complicated. You could, if you didn't care much about permanence, form a bond like any mortal, couple, and enjoy life together. But one's "true" mate would always be an undeniable holy grail. For them—you would be able to produce living blood, and so would they for you. You would never need to find yourself crawling through life together contemplating throwing yourself into the mortals and risk exposure for what you were.
And if you DID manage to find that, and you were previously "married" then what?
Oh, sorry, you knew this was only temporary—
On paper, sure, of course they knew if you were honest and up front. If you were Sang, surely they knew how biology worked, but—
But, try to tell your partner of anywhere between a decade to centuries long that it was over—
Worse, if you married a mortal—
The drama was even worse.
If you hadn't Turned them, of course they were on a limited, finite life in which to live.
If you did Turn them, and then you sauntered off with your "true mate," you would leave the one you left behind to decide if they could find a way to live with being less than a true equal in the relationship.
Going away gracefully and the "peaceful transition" of "temporary" life partners was so much drama.
Thankfully, most Sang chose to have fleeting dalliances over long-term ones. The older ones knew the risks better than the young, but the young—
Well, it didn't take much looking into his own youth to see the fallout of making bad decisions.
Lily had always believed that Severus' family was abusive, but that couldn't be further from the truth. His father had truly loved his mate, and that was evident in that they'd had Severus at all—something quite impossible for Sang that didn't. The times Lily had asked him how things were at home, Severus had just cryptically replied.
It didn't help that some of his more poignant memories were of his father yelling at his mum about putting Severus at risk by telling him stories about being in Slytherin at Hogwarts and how he'd love going to a magical school. Filling his mind with dreams of "the magic" of the magical world.
Severus never doubted that his parents loved each other or him, but his mum was Turned. She was young. Compared to his father, she was but a child in experience, even though she was technically an adult.
And she had wanted her son to experience what she had—the glory of being in Slytherin.
She had filled Severus' head with her experiences and sent him off to school with grand dreams of the esteem and power of her old house. Tobias had vehemently disagreed. He said she was being unreasonable in putting her son—THEIR son—in a place where he would find no support for his species. No help if something happened that spurred on his blood lust, no blood to calm his emotional or hormonal imbalances caused by being around a throng of mortals that all had blood rushing through their bodies. No access to elders to ask questions about problems that were not typical of a mortal.
And his mum had pulled the one card that caused Tobias to compromise.
She had started sobbing.
Tobias had agreed that Severus could stay in Hogwarts if and only if Sanguini was allowed to visit regularly.
There was only one problem—
Severus didn't trust Lord Sanguini.
He hadn't been raised with the Sang. His Mum wanted to ease into Sang society. She hadn't been ready to dive into the society and structure of an immortal world.
So she convinced Tobias to give her more time—
Time for her to adjust and for their son to grow up knowing what the mortal world was truly like.
Only his experiences were not the same as hers.
Severus was not from a pureblood family with wealth and privilege being on the table for all to see. What power or influence Tobias may have had in the Sang world did not apply to the Wizarding one—the world that thought him a mere Muggle.
Insignificant.
And Severus was so swayed by these ideals of the Wizarding World, he began to view his father as weak and magicless because he'd never seen his father do magic.
He avoided Sanguini.
He avoided asking his father—anything.
Instead he talked to his mum.
And he'd hear his parents argue, and he'd internally blame his father for it. His mum had wanted the best for him. Tobias had wanted him to leave Hogwarts.
He became the villain in his head—the Sang but a story that wasn't real.
And when Potter and his fellow toerags started to find him any and everywhere—he kept it secret. He didn't want to leave behind the world he'd used as a shield against the truth: that he was different. That he'd always be different. That he was the child of vampires, and one day he would die and rise again—if he survived long enough for his body to properly handle it.
And by the time Severus had finally had his true epiphany—the moment of his "death" via Nagini—he had well and truly fucked up any chance of a good relationship with his father.
He then understood why his father had been so adamant that he live with access to his own kind—not by some feeling of superiority but because without it, he was as oblivious as his mum to Sang society and needs.
And he'd almost killed someone in his blood hunger when he rose from death.
Truly, he was a horrible example (or a great one) for what went wrong when Sang children were allowed to forget they were not actually human.
Granger picked up a tiny phial of a very specific potion whose label was written in Latin.
Severus frowned. Why would Granger need such a potion?
"Is this what you need, Walter?" Granger said, her voice warm and bright.
Walter?
A Lethifold slithered off her shoulders and tapped the phial.
Hermione smiled. "Okay, you needy thing," she teased. She walked over to him. "I believe this is what I need."
Severus stared at her.
She plucked out a few coins from her Lethifold's "pockets" and placed them on the counter. "This cover the cost?"
"Yes," Severus said dumbly.
She smiled again. "No one ever said that being adopted by a Lethifold would be so itchy."
The Lethifold on her shoulder seemed to slump guiltily.
She popped the stopper, daubed some on her hand and then massaged it into the back of her neck and shoulders. Her skin was red and somewhat abraded where the Lethifold attached itself to her.
"I can—assist you," Severus said somewhat awkwardly.
"Would you? Normally, I'd wait, but it really itches!" Hermione said gratefully.
Severus daubed some on his hand and drew it across her raw skin, his mouth twitching as a feeling of soothing warmth spread from her skin to his. Magic tingled between them, and it filled his chest with a poignant resonance that was every bit as painful as it was pleasurable. He continued to spread it over her skin until her reddened back, neck, and shoulders turned pink and then to a more normal colour. As he did so, he noticed how magic seemed to arch between his fingers like static electricity. Her skin seemed to both crack and mend as the energy rippled, almost as if it was trying to figure out what normal was and be that and then changed its mind.
"The leys are still trying to decide what to leave me as," Grander said with a chuckle. "It makes adapting to a clingy Lethifold a little more complicated."
"Are you—familiar with the habits of Lethifolds?" Severus asked tentatively.
"I am," Granger said, "getting more familiar as the days pass." She patted Walter as one would stroke a cat, and the Lethifold purred and then affixed himself back to her neck and shoulders with a velcro-like sound. "Mihail has been very kind and patient with me. He is doing his best to help me—adjust. Though, I suppose, I'm doing my best to help him adjust to—me."
"I'm surprised," Severus confessed. "The Prophet would have everyone believe you are to be wed to a certain Weasley. Not that I put much stock in idle gossip."
"Very few people bother to get to know me," Granger said with a shrug. "They think they already do. They listen to stories. They make them up. As for Ronald—we get on about as well as fire in a library when it comes to family ideals. And, he doesn't agree with magic's claim upon me. He claims I'm just making it up."
"Weasley should know, considering how often he tried making things up," Severus said dryly.
Granger laughed. "Of that I'm quite certain."
The door jingled again as someone tall blocked the afternoon sunlight, and Granger turned, her face brightening.
"There you are, my love," the figure purred with a voice of pure velvet. "Did you get the balm you needed?"
"Yes," Granger said. "Master Snape was kind enough to apply it. I couldn't wait."
"Tch," the man replied as he walked into the dim light and embraced her. "He makes the best potions on both sides of the pond, and I do not blame you for wanting to get the balm on quickly."
He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers, gently brushing her skin.
"How did your meeting with the Board of Governors go?"
He rolled his eyes. "Bureaucracy in any form is much the same," he said. "Fortunately for me, I have years of experience."
"Centuries, more like."
"Technicalities."
Severus suddenly felt his brain kick in as he realised who was courting Granger.
Lord Sanguini.
Not just one of the Sang but one of their Council.
Severus flinched as the vampire lord slowly, tenderly placed a kiss upon her neck. A gesture of trust on her part and possession on his. To another vampire, the meaning was clear.
Mine.
While Sanguini was not one of those olden vampires who remained stuck in the past in which they were created, he had power accrued from countless years, and now that Severus had Turned, he could feel it.
He should have gone to him as his father had arranged. Asked him questions. Allowed him to mentor him. But he hadn't. He'd wanted to be normal. He'd shoved alien feelings and needs into a box and hidden it away—hidden it so well, that he'd deluded himself into thinking he was just like everyone else.
Sanguini's eyes glowed crimson, his fangs lengthening as he nuzzled her neck. "You smell wonderful."
Hermione flushed, playingfully shoving him away. "You just want my blood."
"Mm," Sanguini agreed. "That and more."
"And did you convince the Board?" Hermione asked, trying to put her suitor back on track.
Sanguini ran one finger along his bottom lip. "They have agreed to allow my visits seeing as you leaving the grounds would have magic following you."
"You put them in a vice?" Hermione accused him with a laugh.
Sanguini tilted his head. "Someone has to. It's not like I am making them piss themselves like our oh-so-intimidating Tobias."
Hermione frowned. "Tobias is very kind to me. Patient. So is Rada. I have no idea why."
"Well, we will be stuck with each other for a long time. Strife seems rather unwise," Sanguini said with a chuckle.
Hermione shook her head. "I doubt the Board wishes to acknowledge they really have no choice but to parlay with the Undead Nation."
"Unless you plan to sever our bond and leave me a wretched heap of despair," Sanguini said.
Hermione placed a hand on his mouth. "Don't be ridiculous."
"It could happen," Sanguini said with a pout. "Though I would rather not be in the receiving end of such tragedy."
"You are impossible," Hermione accused as she placed a tender kiss upon his lips, she then took an apple out of her Lethifold and stuck it in his mouth.
Sanguini gave her expressive eyebrows but bit into the fruit, his eyes glowing slightly.
"Sorry, he's insufferable," Hermione said silently to Snape as she picked up a few more bottles of various things up, setting them a neat line on the counter.
"Would you like to open a standing order?" Severus asked, noting some of the bottles.
"That would very convenient," Hermione replied.
"You may add them to my account," Sanguini said, "and you may add Hermione to it in case she requires anything."
"Mihail!" Hermione hissed. "I can buy my own things too!"
"You would not need such potions if not for me," Sanguini said. He ran his fingers against her chin. "It is both my duty and honour to take care of you. "And my pleasure as well."
"You could charm the shell off a turtle, Mihail," Hermione complained half-heartedly.
"Mm," Sanguini purred. "And other things."
"In public?" Hermione gave him a mock shove. "You're horrible."
"Or very, very good," he said with an utterly masculine smirk.
"How did I ever entertain being with you?" Hermione said with a huff, turning her back to him.
Sanguini pouted. "Do I not please you?"
"Don't fish for compliments, you vain thing," Hermione chastised.
Severus grimaced slightly at Granger's casual ease with Lord Sanguini. She accepted so many things despite the harsh lessons of the war. While he had grown bitter, she had opened her heart to a vampire lord and magic itself. He admired that. Envied it.
And all those fears he'd had—those prejudices against Sanguini, his belief that he was just another power-hungry overlord. All of it was based in the blinders of the people he had chosen over his own. While he had desperately clung to the illusion of humanity and being great within the confines of mortality, Granger had chosen to sacrifice her humanity to aid magic.
What chance did he have of impressing someone like her?
Or—to swallow his pride against Lord Sanguini?
THUMP!
Sanguini dropped a wrapped bundle on the counter. "For some light reading, child," he rumbled lowly, his head turning much like a cobra following a flute. "I'm sure you'll find it quite—fascinating." His eyes slid over to Hermione as she danced with two Lethifolds.
Sanguini's eyebrow raised. "Perhaps you should start with chapter seventy two."
"I'm sorry," Severus said suddenly as Hermione was whirled away by dancing Lethifolds. "I should have come to you. I should have listened to my father. I was so focused on making my mum proud of me that I let myself forget what I was, and I looked for reasons to mistrust you. To judge you, and then wish I was anything but what I was."
Sanguini watched Hermione twirl around the apothecary, obliviously happy. His jaw tightened ever so slightly, but he cracked his neck with a movement. "While I certainly appreciate the apology, someone needs to apologise to you. However, that is not my business as you have made quite clear."
"Can we go for fish and chips?" Hermione asked, laughing. "I have a sudden craving for them."
"Will they be wrapped in a newspaper?" Sanguini asked, frowning slightly. "Extra greasy?"
"Oh please," Hermione said. "That's the best part!"
Sanguini laughed. "Your cravings are my command, my love. I even have my toothbrush to satisfy your fastidious designs upon my fang enamel."
Hermione threw a Lethifold at him, and the cloak squeegeed down his face.
"Such insolence," Sanguini said, peeling the Lethifold off his body.
That Lethifold tussled with the other, fighting for the right to attach to Hermione's back. They hissed and growled like two tomcats on a fence, and Hermione gave Sanguini a thoroughly confused look.
"It must be your radiant warmth," Sanguini mused. "By the end of the week you will have at least fifteen."
Hermione grimaced. "I'll need a lot more tonic."
Sanguini kissed her knuckles. "I will provide." He reached over and peeled the invading Lethifold off Hermione, and the clingy beast made a whimpering sound as he pried it off his future mate.
"Is this normal?" Hermione asked. "That sound is heartbreaking."
She opened her arms, and the Lethifold promptly leapt into her embrace.
"Silly thing," she cooed. She stroked the back and gave it a gentle kiss on the head. "I'll see you the next time I visit. Take good care of Master Snape, okay?"
The Lethifold seemed to sulk, but it touched her cheek affectionately and then very reluctantly slid back over to Snape, hanging from his back like a lead-weighted funerary curtain.
"Thank you, Master Snape," Hermione said with a smile. "I appreciate the hard work you put into your potions and the quality."
Sanguini snatched the crate from her hands and moved to the door to open it.
"Overachiever," Hermione tutted as she moved by him.
Severus felt a pang of something akin to pain in his chest as he watched them go.
Plip.
Plip.
He touched his cheek and his fingers came back red.
Severus stared at his crimson-smeared fingers. "Fuck."
"Father," Severus said as he stood outside the door to his parents' door.
Tobias, his eyebrows arched into his hair and his lips pursed into a line, said, "You look like hell, my son."
"I feel like it," Severus confessed.
"You had best come on through," Tobias said, gesturing inside with one hand.
As Severus walked in, a tiny ley wyrm had a bloodfruit in its "mouth" as it zipped past him and away with a giggle. "HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!"
Severus blinked.
"Hermione was visiting. She has the leys working on a way to energise the bloodfruit grove for us so they do not have an off season and contain a bit of magic to replenish those of us who can make use of it. Apparently, the wyrms love puzzles."
As Severus moved into the more comfortable sitting room, he saw his mum had changed the decor again. Now, instead of the more stately but modern sitting room, the entire room had gone Tudor save for an infestation of glass bluebirds everywhere.
It was a strange sense of—weird.
He poked one of the bluebirds on the side table.
"Your mum's latest obsession," Tobias said with a sigh.
"I thought she liked Egyptian figures," Severus said.
"That was last year," Tobias replied, tossing his son a bloodfruit. "Eat. You look like rubbish. Are you not feeding well?"
Severus grimaced. "When I can."
Tobias closed his eyes. "I know you have not embraced our ways very well, but getting enough blood by whatever form you can is important."
Severus stared at the bloodfruit in his hand. His stomach growled, but he couldn't get his fangs to descend, and he stared at the fruit awkwardly.
Tobias sighed heavily, opened a drawer, pulled out a large bore straw, and stuck it into the fruit for him. "Eat."
Severus brought the straw to his mouth and blinked as the fruit tasted like the juice from a pear, but his stomach seemed very happy with the offering.
Tobias cocked his head at him, and Severus always thought it resembled a raptor eyeing its next meal. "Hermione suggested them for your mum to get over her hangups of sinking fang into anything in front of—anyone but me. A simple solution that surprisingly worked."
"These taste—amazing," Severus said with wonder.
"Hermione accidentally discovered that infusing ley magic into the grove gave the fruit the flavour of normal food, though, apparently it is a lot like those magical jelly beans. Sometimes you get broccoli when you really want apple," Tobias said with no little amusement. "She's tweaking for more predictable results." Tobias chuckled. "It helps those of our kind that cannot stomach normal food even in the smallest quantities."
Severus found himself licking his lips in appreciation. "Amazing."
His father nodded. "Now, what brings you to our home?" he asked.
Severus sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingers on both sides. "I have a problem. Well, another problem."
"Contrary to popular belief, I cannot read your mind without taking effort," Tobias said. "Do tell."
"I've been having—certain urges," Severus said hesitantly.
Tobias stared at him, unblinking.
Severus fidgeted under that umbral gaze. "Desire."
His father didn't even move.
"For a—woman."
Not even a blink.
"And maybe a man as well."
Tobias tilted his head. "May—be?"
"I cannot be sure," Severus admitted. "I—have never felt desire for anyone after Lily."
"Your fascination with that Evans girl was always—quite mind-boggling," Tobias commented.
Severus flinched. "She was beautiful. Kind."
"For a year, perhaps." Tobias tilted his head in the other direction. "And then she was only a pretty girl with a singularly unattractive personality."
Severus looked down.
"Mum said she was a nice, pretty girl, and I should take good care of her," he said defensively.
Tobias narrowed his eyes. "I rather doubt she meant you should forever."
"I just wanted the dream—the greatness mum always talked about," Severus said, looking miserable.
"We all want a dream," Tobias allowed. "But it must also be based in reality. Your mum has a dream of what she considers a wonderful life, but she has not had hundreds of years in which to judge what makes things important to an immortal. In many ways, I have indulged her too much. My love for her makes me soft on desires to learn things slowly. To learn without the blood memories. To retain the wonder of a mortal perspective, but I fear it has hindered her in many ways. I should not have allowed her to remain ignorant. I let my heart override my mind and experience, and for that, I can only apologise for my failings. I should have been more the leader of the Sang than a father or a husband."
"You think you failed?" Severus scoffed. "You tried to tell me. You lead me to water. I am the one who refused to drink. Instead I chose to drink in all the stories mum told me. The greatness of Slytherin. How I would be certain to excel. How I would be so much better with my talent. I desperately wanted to be that person she thought I could be."
"I am to blame for that."
Severus' head snapped up as his mum walked in. she was wringing her hands, a sure sign of her nerves.
"I'm truly sorry, Severus," she said with a pained grimace. "I have failed you in so many ways. I wanted to live vicariously through my son, and in so doing, I crippled him. I—I only realised it now that I finally got over my fears and accepted some of the blood memories."
Severus blinked. "You've never—"
"I was afraid, Severus," Eileen confessed. "Of losing myself. Of losing my humanity. I wanted you to live the life so I could prove to myself that I could still be human, too. And I failed you. I gave you dreams that were not realistic. I didn't trust Lord Sanguini or any of the others—This relationship with Tobias and his Coalition. It scares me. I'm frightened of them. Of that power. I'm frightened I will not be good enough to keep him. Not powerful enough. I'm frightened of that history. I'm afraid I'll be passed around and shared—"
Tobias' expression changed to absolute horror. "I would never—"
"I KNOW, Tobias!" Eileen wailed. "I know it. I do, but I keep thinking it. I keep—"
Tobias squeezed his eyelids together and then when he opened his eyes, they were deep crimson. His claws dug deep into the chair, sending small spirals of wood to the floor.
Eileen screamed and staggered backwards in terror.
"Father—this is—this is DARK MAGIC!" Severus yelled as he fought to unwind the bindings. "Tom Riddle used this to root the blood prejudices in his knights—to keep them all unhinged and obsessed. I spent years attempting to devise a potion to cure it!"
"How do we deal with it?" Tobias asked. "I cannot use my powers," he hissed. "Your mother made me promise—"
"We are a right fucked up family!" Severus snapped. Then his eyes widened as he suddenly remembered something. He gnashed his teeth onto his Lethifold and hissed, "Find Granger. Bring me back the blue potion on the top shelf!"
The startled Lethifold promptly zipped off, breaking one of the windows as it went.
Severus fought to keep his panicking mum from struggling free of his embrace. "Mum, calm down. We're not trying to hurt you."
"GET YOUR BLOODY HANDS OFF ME YOU IMPURE FREAKS!"
"The house wards have been raised!" Tobias growled. "I'm trying to bring them down!"
Dzzt!
ZZTT!
ZZTTT!
The smell of ozone filled the air as magic arched in through the house, tearing the wards down as easily as rice paper walls in a raging typhoon.
As the energy tore through the wards, the familiar roll of Sanguini's power blew in as a cocoon of Lethifold dumped Sanguini and Hermione out into the room.
Sanguini bit his hand and slammed it down onto the floor, Lethifolds moved off Hermione as they pinned Eileen to the wall.
Hermione tossed a phial over to Severus, and he grabbed it in mid-air, uncorked it, sniffed, and then forced it to his mum's mouth.
"No! No! NOOO!" Eileen screamed. "I won't—I won—MMGHF!"
More and more Lethifolds piled in, gathered from some unknown summons, and they swaddled Eileen thoroughly. Then, some of them split off as the sounds of Eileen's scream caused Tobias to lose focus and try to fight his way to her. They tackled him to the floor.
But Tobias was no mere vampire, and he was calling power from pools deep within himself for one purpose alone—to get to his mate.
Sanguini snarled and extended his hand to Hermione, and the moment they touched, her power merged with his, and he brought down the wards to allow assistance to arrive.
As the wards crumbled down to the final layer, a surge of Dark power pulsed as a throng of emaciated vampires and their equally Nosferatu-looking lord ported in.
The very definition of skeletal remains with just a trace of skin pulled tight over bone.
And that lord took his elongated finger daggers and slid them through Hermione's ribcage and into her heart without waiting, without a speech—without mercy.
Hermione choked and gurgled as blood oozed from her mouth. Her ribs cracked, and the vampire pulled her heart out of her chest with a snarl, allowing her body to drop onto the floor.
Sanguini crumpled immediately, his face frozen in anguish and shock, blood trickling from his mouth as though he himself had suffered the same fate. Tobias, through the haze of his concern for his mate, seemed to realise he'd been distracted for a reason just an instant too late, and he, too crumpled to the floor, twitching, blood oozing from his mouth like his Coalition bondmate for thousands of years.
And as the true reinforcements arrived, the leader of the invaders, licking the blood off his fingers even as he crushed Hermione's heart in his fist, raised the wards just in time for help to arrive in earnest.
"I will drink down every drop of your power, Tobias," the shrivelled vampire said with a sneer. "You and your beloved Coalition have weighted the Council towards peace and prosperity for too long. Protecting the mortals when WE should be on top. Pfft. Well, the long game was always my strength, and mortals were always too eager to protect their wealth over their integrity. Your little sow was so weak and cowed to her family's every need—until she met you. You just had to rescue her. Throw a spanner into the works, but they'd already hooked their insidious little spell into her."
"At first I was annoyed, yeah? Thought it didn't take, but when it started to settle in after you Turned her, it was even better. Torturing you to leave your beloved people behind—so they came to me in their distress, and I was only too happy to convert them to my cause."
"You were so devoted to easing your weak little piglet into OUR world, you let her bind you to promises that kept you from finding the truth in the blood. It was so perfect."
"Then Sanguini—fell for another fucking mortal, and I knew if I could get her 'ere with you, I could take down the lot of yeh, all in one easy throw. I just 'ad to give 'er a little freedom from the yoke—enough to make yeh all think you were doing her some great favour. And you brought down the wards so your little friends could come ride to the rescue. All I had to do was wait."
He smiled darkly, and it was not a comforting kind of expression on his monstrous face.
"I will take the power of your Triumvirate and dominate the Council," he said. "Then I will kill everyone who opposes me. And those that don't will be bound to me in blood. Our kind will be on top again. As we were MEANT to be!"
"LANGLOCK! PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! INCARCEROUS!"
An irate and seething Eileen Snape rose behind him as the bodies of his slaves fell to the floor from Severus' wrath, all at once, as if they'd been decapitated by piano wire. She bared her fangs, her eyes glowing red.
"Rejoice," she snarled. "For I have now gotten over myself and your fucking curse!"
She seized his head and jerked it violently to the side of his shoulders and buried her fangs deep into his neck, tearing out his throat and throwing him down to land in a heap. His blood spread across the floor as his slaves fell to the floor, their bodies twitching spasmodically.
"Granger," Severus gasped, cradling her in his arms, his fangs bared in agony. His hand tenderly brushed her hair back. Blood streamed from his eyes and trailed down his cheek and splattered on her face as he clutched her to himself in despair.
He took Sanguini's still hand and placed it in Hermione's, even as he held them both together. His entire body trembled as the sobs tore through his soul.
Zz.
Zzt.
ZTZZT.
Hermione's crushed heart flopped on the floor.
Severus stared at it in horror.
It flopped around like a fish and then twisted into a ley wyrm. It's form completely that of one of the ley's guardian messengers.
ZtZZZt!
The cavity in Hermione's chest arched as ley energy entered her body between the remaining muscle and flesh.
The ley wyrm floated over and buried itself back into Hermione's chest, curling up into a tight ball as tiny miniature ley tendrils sprouted out of its body, anchoring back in her flesh as it turned into pure energy, creating a weave that mended the gaping void into a pulsing energy heart. The ley wyrm yawned and closed its "eyes" and stilled within her, its entire body pulsing with energy where blood would have flowed, and as it pumped, the energy solidified into flesh as the wound closed.
Hermione let out a sharp gasp as her eyes flew open as Sanguini and Tobias echoed it.
The surrounding wards collapsed as the Nosferatu-master's last blood painted the floor, and the remains of the Council practically folded itself into an origami crane to land in the room with a thud.
The wrathful Council remnants all bit their wrists, shoving them into Tobias and Sanguini's mouths one by one, and others did the same for a messy-haired vampire whose youthful face was a bit pale even for a vampire.
"Move Rada to his Coalition," one of the elders snapped. "Take care to keep them in physical contact."
"Dismember Nashuja's body into tiny finch-sized pieces and feed the Lethifolds with them, but put the bastard's head on a PIKE and mount it in the centre square!"
Hermione touched Severus' cheek, her finger brushing lightly against the trail of blood tears on his face. "You were bleeding for us?"
Severus could only nod dumbly. "You have a ley wyrm living in your chest."
Hermione smiled. "You should see what's taking the place of my liver."
Severus stared at her.
Hermione's expression was serene as she tilted her head to the side. "Only if you mean it."
As Severus' fangs sank into her waiting neck, he drank deeply, and as he did, tendrils of ley energy surged out of Hermione's body as the great howl of a massive energy beast echoed throughout the Undead Nation making hair stand on end, cats turn into bristle brushes, hellhounds burst into flame, resident ghosts gain a solid form and smack into walls, and a large flock of vampire finches spontaneously shed all their feathers in a catastrophic moult and stared forlornly up at the high branches of the bloodfruit trees.
As the beast moved through, a great and impressive ley line anchored itself to the heart of the Nation and spread a network of weblines across the sky and under the ground
The beast sang like a whale, then the ley resonated, sending even more anchors out.
"Tobias!" Eileen cried, cradling her husband with a sob. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry!"
Tobias stared at her, his hand engulfing one side of her face. "You have nothing to be sorry for, love. The one who did this to us is no more." He smiled smugly. "And that was a beautiful throat ripping if ever I saw one."
"I second that," Sanguini said as he managed to prop himself up. "I respectfully request a full consummation of our mating bond so this does not happen again."
Hermione slid her eyes to look at him. "Planning on another megalomaniacal coup?"
"Why wait?" Sanguini asked.
"Here, in front of my bluebirds?" Eileen complained.
"Hn," Tobias rumbled. "Do not worry. I will have you much too busy to notice." He gave her a seriously heated look. He drew his claw across his neck in invitation, and for the very first time, Eileen descended upon him like a starving Lethifold.
The gathering of Lethifolds, having dealt with the bodies, all looked around as they considered their life choices.
"Where did all the Lethifolds come from?" Lord Maksim asked.
"The Lethifold Network?" Lady Antonia suggested.
"We have one of those?"
"We do now."
Lord Maksim puckered his lips.
A cluster of ley wyrms floated in, wrapped around Sanguini, Hermione, and Severus and disappeared in a whorl of ley energy. As they left, small tendrils of ley energy shot out into each of the remaining Council members, and bright blue energy leaked out of the normally crimson eyes.
A tiny miniature ley wyrm the size of a pinky floated over to Lord Maksim and bit him on the nose experimentally, causing his hair to rise up and praise the ceiling.
Maksim puckered his lips as Lady Brunhild plucked the cheeky wyrm between her fingers, stroked it, and sent it on its way with a tiny squeak.
The rather plump Lethifolds all scurried away to find where their "providers" had disappeared off to.
Lord Nikolai examined Rada with a tutting noise. "I swear you three are so much drama." He stuck a plump bloodfruit on Rada's fangs. "Drink up. Doctor's orders."
"Yes, dad," Rada said, rolling his eyes.
"I don't think I can move," Hermione complained through a yawn as Sanguini tucked her against him.
"Might be normal for the newly Turned."
"You're just as newly Turned with my ley energy floating inside you," Hermione said with a chuckle.
"I don't have a ley wyrm taking the place of my vital organs," Severus pointed out.
Hermione chuckled. "Just your non-vital organs then?"
Severus attached himself to her neck in reply.
Hermione flailed and flopped against Sanguini in surrender. "Mrrrr."
"Did someone inform the ley lines that it shouldn't be possible to walk out a door here and end up at Hogwarts and walk out the other and be in the Undead Nation?" Severus asked.
"I'm not telling," Hermione said with a smile. "What the Board of Governors needs to know is that they can either accept that this is the new normal or I stay at the Nation all the time, and the ley lines follow me there."
"That will be a fun meeting," Sanguini said wryly. "Seeing as somehow our home is both at Hogwarts and in the Nation simultaneously."
"It's why Hogwarts is such a magical place," Hermione pointed out. "The leys were just not allowed to do what they wanted or even needed to do."
"The Council is hardly going to complain that magic itself wants to stick around the Undead Nation," Sanguini said. "Nor its citizens."
"I'm sorry," Hermione said suddenly.
"Whatever for?" Sanguini asked, his brows furrowing.
"I thought you were teasing me about consummating our bond so quickly, and I placed you in danger."
"Beloved, you could not possibly have known. My desire was as hypothetical as it was true," he said. "We knew you were bound to the leys, at least in theory, and they would not take kindly to you dying on them, but we have had peace in the nation for hundreds of years. Nashuja was always the master of the long game, and he proved yet again that he was never to be trusted. We have our Coalition, but the members of the current Council, save for a few, are bound in adversity like family. Nashuja was from Minoa, and he never quite fit in after his people fell to obscurity. He ran an underground smuggling ring in Birmingham for centuries, staying out of the Nation because he saw it as a gathering of the weak, and I think he got used to being the top dog in his niche but was no longer content to keep it there."
"His Line is—distinctively twisted," Hermione said delicately. "Why?"
Sanguini sighed. "Have you ever seen the old silent movie? Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens? I have no doubt that F W Muranau had met him at one point in time and took a horrid fascination in him. If not in truth at least in looks. In myth, they love to seat the birth of vampires in Romania, but Nahuja was far older than that. Most of our Lines are—those of us that remain."
Sanguini stroked Hermione's hair away from her face. "Nashuja and his Line did not always look so, but during the time of the great plague, his numbers grew. He sent his people out to feed on everything, and he spread the plague with him. Both from himself and his people and from the rats he had a sort of affinity to. He did not have an affinity to magic, but he did have a crude form of telekinesis, telepathy that was more attuned to animals than people, and a sort of invisibility. And those powers grew strong as he took over the plaguelands at a cost. The more he gorged himself, the more twisted he became in both figure and form. Those he Turned changed with him, warping them into his likeness and under his influence. And he had the ability to subvert other vampires by draining them completely and then forcing them to feed on his accursed blood. And through the blood of those he drained, he gained command of his victims' power, forcing both Muggle and magical slaves to do whatever he desired. While he himself did not have an affinity for magic, he could command those that could through the power of his blood. But—he had to drain them completely and feed them his own blood. So there is no doubt at all that every vampire under his power was subjugated by him. His slaves could not Turn others. Only he could."
"That—is horrifying," Severus admitted. "But how is it that I never felt the spell upon my own mother until that night?"
"She was ensorcelled before you were born. Before Tobias even courted her. It grew within her even after she was Turned—turning her innermost fears into an overwhelming anxiety. It drove Tobias to shelter his mate—even from himself. To probe deeper—would have caused still more anxiety, and by the time he would have wanted to, he was bound by his promise to her to never use his powers on her—not knowing that her very desire for such a promise was already rooted in the growing curse within her. A curse her own family put upon her to make her fear 'the monsters'. Yet, it backfired on them because she married and mated Tobias before it fully swayed her into paranoia—but it gave Nahuja a way to cripple the Triumvirate in a way that was so slow and insidious that none of us ever noticed."
"Until I managed to get Eileen to take blood from the bloodfruit using a straw," Hermione noted. "The fruits had a touch of the leys upon them—just enough unfiltered pure magic to shake up the hold of her curse and for her to question her own paranoia."
Sanguini nodded. "It upped Nahuja's timeline, so he had to move quickly lest he lose the opportunity to murder Hermione while she was still mortal."
"Only she wasn't," Severus observed. "She had already been transformed by the leys."
"Nahuja wasn't magical in a way that could respect what that even meant," Sanguini said with a sigh. "Even amongst our people—we had no idea what that truly meant until she shared blood with us. Vampires do not tend to throw themselves headlong into vapourising magic as a matter of principle."
"To be fair, I don't think our Hermione is a normal example of what magical folk would do, either," Severus said. "Nor are you."
Sanguini raised a brow. "Do tell."
Severus grimaced, the skin around his eyes wrinkling. "I was horrible to you for most of my life. Yet, you tolerated me when you should have used my face to scrub the walls."
Sanguini shrugged. "I am too old to hold grudges against the young's more youthful transgressions. You had apologised. You were attempting to make reparations. And you did smother us in about fifty-some odd Lethifolds. Some would call that—overkill for a courtship gift."
Severus flushed. "You know as well as I that I hadn't meant to call that many on purpose."
"Whether you meant to or not is immaterial," Sanguini said with a laugh. "Whose mate can possibly boast of getting so many Lethifolds as a courting gift? Even if you did have to brew them a digestive potion afterwards. Who knew Lethifolds could pass gas?"
Hermione buried herself in warm Lethifold to hide her utter mortification in newfound status as Lady Lethifold.
"Why do I get that moniker when Severus is the one that called them?"
Sanguini laughed. "Because you are the one wrangling them, my mate."
"So not fair," Hermione complained.
"Besides. Carnivorous Cloak Caller is quite a mouthful to say," Severus said dryly.
Hermione grunted and pulled his arm around her as she snuggled more tightly into Sanguini. "Mmph."
Pounding on the door from the Hogwarts side caused Hermione to burrow deeper into her mates' combined embrace.
"'Mione!" they heard an unwelcome voice call out from the other side of the door. "Come on, yeah? It's time for us to get married!"
Severus and Sanguini traded Dark looks as they silently gestured to the offending door, and the clutter of dutiful Lethifolds went floating over to "answer" the door.
An instant later they heard frantic screaming and then a muffled "Aeerr, maybe I should'na 'ave let ye in without one of dem wee papers."
And they lived Lethifold-ically ever after… (babyfold squeegee across screen)
In a bright room at St Mungos, Harry frowned as his best mate screamed bloody murder as the healers tried to pluck countless teeth out of Ron's remaining flesh, most of which had been skillfully shaved down to the muscle.
"I told you not to go without an invitation, you ruddy idiot," he swore under his breath.
One of the healers coaxed a hungry babyfold off Ron's spine. "'Ere now, little guy, let's get you something more healthy to nosh on," she cooed, moving the babyfold to the large haunch of cow sitting on another table.
The babyfold resisted a little until it rested on the tasty haunch, and then it tucked in hungrily, grinding away at the meat with clear enthusiasm even as his many tiny brethren munched away at their vastly more appealing new food supply.
"Master, what are we going to do with the Lethifolds?" the young healer apprentice asked, frowning slightly.
"They can be used as an effective method of wound debridement," his master replied as she gently peeled another babyfold off Ron's body. "They normally excrete an antibacterial saliva as they eat that also numbs the pain."
"But why is Mr Weasley still screaming?"
"He seems to be strangely immune to the effects," the master-healer theorised.
As the healers continued to work on Ron, Harry began to fill out the massive pile of paperwork as to what exactly had caused his best mate to leave his post without warning and end up at Hogwarts only to subsequently land himself in St Mungos with a body full of Lethifold teeth and countless feeding babyfolds.
"What. An. Idiot," Harry muttered as his quill worked furiously.
Fin… or is it? (eerie pumpkin lantern glow)