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Square #: I

Square #: 1 (Dragons)

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Your Team: Vampires

Prompt: Dragons

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Title: Dragons of Avarice

Author: Corvus Draconis

Rating: M

Warnings: Weasley bashing, obviously, violence, gore

Prompt it contains: "Don't touch that—it's cursed."

Summary: SSHG, Hermione has to move on, not because she wants to, but because the past won't stop knocking on her door.

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Your team: Vampires

Beta Love: Publishing unsupervised, all mistakes are to be blamed on lack of sleep or too much.

Dragons of Avarice

It'll be all right, my fine fellow," said the Otter. "I'm coming along with you, and I know every path blindfold; and if there's a head that needs to be punched, you can confidently rely upon me to punch it.

Kenneth Grahame

The pounding on her door grew ever louder and more demanding, sounding more like the police attempting to flush out an offender hiding away in some random seedy flat somewhere.

"Come ON, 'Mione!" she heard Ron's angry voice raging on the other side. "You can't just hide away FOREVER!"

Hermione opened a box on her hearth, and nestled within was a stone figurine of shimmering opal. A long serpentine neck and great leathery wings curled around a nest made of countless rocks and coins. Hermione grasped it in her hand and felt the soft touch of a palm against her cheek. The ghost of the only one she'd ever want to see on the other side of that door.

His home and the belongings within—gone.

All because of Ronald and Harry.

Because surely as the one who vindicated his memory, it should go to them, it had been decided. Harry specifically.

Of course, Ron was all too eager to "help" him deal with it.

They had sold everything.

Everything right down to the floorboards.

In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Her secret master.

He'd taught her potions and so much more.

Oh, his expression when she first took an Animagus form and appeared as a frosty, extremely adorable, river otter with a delicate ice crown, dragon wings and a tail—

It was the first time she'd seen him smile as he scooped her up, cuddled her against his chest and marched straight to the registration office.

Her species was officially marked as "unknown."

Obviously.

Anything else would have been a guess.

Her breath was utterly pristine, minty fresh and instantly froze just about everything into a perfect ice cube. Her wings were positively dinky, but they still allowed her to fly and, more importantly, helped her to swim and manoeuvre in the water quicker than a blink. Her tail was the colour of the ice flows and the ocean, combining the glacier with the colours of the tropical seas.

He scolded her for being an overachiever, but she lived for that small tug of his lips.

He was so proud of her.

And on some nights, when he returned to the school, beaten and bloody, she would lick his wounds, breathing minty healing upon his skin.

"Insufferable," he muttered, pulling her close to him as his eyes closed. He lay on the carpet by the fire, but he cuddled her like a treasure as his body healed.

The next day, of course, he would yell at her for being out after curfew, give her detention for a month, and then she'd show up for her lessons as usual, during detention.

On her birthday, he would have a cake for her. Once it was a pile of cake-frogs, crayfish, turtles, and fish—all the things her ottery self loved best. He tied a small Slytherin bib on her neck, and she promptly dove in, face first.

It was the least she could do to compliment the chef.

But one night, he gave her the box—

She would know when it was time to open it.

And when he'd died, she tucked it away into the depths of her grieving heart as she buried it within her beaded bag, and she didn't even try to open it. Even when she placed it on the mantle of her first house.

There it remained.

Unopened.

Closed just like her heart to the rest of the world.

Because no one else had truly mattered.

Not her "best mates."

Not Dumbledore.

Not the war.

Not the fall of Voldemort.

Only he—could soothe the yawning void in her heart.

The only comfort she had was imagining Ron as a tasty crab. She ripped into the ones she caught, tearing off their legs one by one, and smashing the shells with her teeth as she devoured the meaty insides.

Harry became the sea urchin in her mind, and she bashed him with her favourite rock repeatedly and noshed on his soft delicious gonads.

Maybe, her old master would have said, she had certain, ah, issues to deal with.

He would have been right.

But now, despite all she had fought for—

Despite her fight for the rights of everything from house elves to goblins, centaur, and vampires—

They had passed the Marriage Law.

Now, she was this object to be owned and fucked against her will.

And, of course, Ronald had immediately rushed in as the white knight who staved off the others to swoop down and marry her himself.

He had all that money from his Order of Merlin and all the galleons from selling off the estate of Severus Snape, which Harry had kindly handed over to his best mate because he "needed it more."

Forget restitution to the goblins, whose bank they had smashed through on dragonback—

"Naw, we gotta rebuild the Burrow. That's way more important than handing it over to some stupid goblins, 'Mione."

So, while Hermione had taken to the seas and dove in search of rare magical pearls and abalone shells to pay her fair share to the goblins, Ron was out living his best life. And now that he'd gone and thoroughly sown his oats in just about everything in a skirt, he wanted to come round and marry HER?

No.

The goblins currently had her vaults locked down under goblin contract—to keep her assets safe from fortune hunters.

But they weren't filed under the name Hermione Jean Granger.

They were in the vault of Ice Queen the Diver, Pearl Finder, Terror of Abalones. Shk'dina'falahf.

Good luck finding that one, you greedy redheaded wanker.

Of course, on paper, her old vault was still there, and that was where her pay went, but then the goblins would swiftly move it into her real vault, leaving only a single knut behind each time. And an official-looking parchment that stated "all deposits would be garnished until Hermione Jean Granger's debt to the Nation was paid in full." It looked wonderfully official and it was written entirely in Gobbledegook, sealed, and signed by goblins—it just wasn't real.

But anyone else wouldn't know that.

No one paid enough attention to goblins to earn their trust.

No one but Shk'dina'falahf.

And for every sea treasure she brought back after her debts were paid in full, she allowed the goblins to find the buyers, take their cut, and put the rest in her secret vault.

Which they did quite gladly.

Hermione didn't have any desire to become some sort of unwilling broodmare to freshen up the Weasley genetics. Why he couldn't be happy with his legions of fan witches was beyond her.

They were perfectly willing.

She was not.

Why did that seem to make her more appealing to him as a wife?

He'd tried to track down her parents, but she was thankful, for once, that they were enjoying their new life in Australia. They remembered her again, and they had eventually conceded that she was probably right to do so, but they had decided to stay in Australia—as Wendell and Monica Wilkins.

They did give her a great amount of grief at the absurd name.

She blushed and had to agree.

That hadn't been her greatest moment.

But it seemed that Ron was no longer content to respect closed doors. She could feel him forcing his spells against her wards—and he wasn't alone. He was bringing others in to help him in his quest to ensnare her into marriage.

Hermione grasped the opal dragon in her hand tightly just as the front door was blasted open. Ron promptly barrelled in, his wand pointed in many directions until it focused straight at her.

Just as her body faded into nothingness and the opal dragon carving clattered to the floor.

"NO!" Ron yelled angrily, rushing up to take the dragon figurine.

"NO, Ron!" Harry cried. "Don't touch it—It's CURSED!"

Ron's grasping hand curled around the figurine, and the figurine shattered, burying its fragments into his skin, and Ron screamed in agony as his body jerked, twisted, smouldered, and tore, bones growing and realigning, tendons popping, muscles tearing and regrowing as he screamed and screamed.

Until his screams turned into roars.

Until his body fit the room—and then suddenly didn't.

Until he burst from the home, his already enormous draconic body still growing.

Ron roared as a pair of huge wings burst outward from his back as bones and blood and slowly flesh started to creep together to form the webbing in between. He let out a shrill draconic scream, belching gouts of fire uncontrollably.

Only the first blasts were not just pure flame.

Tiny razor sharp slivers of cursed opal showered down upon his compatriots, embedding into their screaming bodies, and then they too began to change, their bodies mutating and transforming out of control until every house in the area was flattened into great piles of rubble.

Muggles screamed and fled in terror.

Some used rifles to shoot—

And the dragon that had once been Ronald Weasley ate them alive, tearing them violently to pieces and gulping them down.

As the terrified residents scattered and ran for their lives, the multiple cracks of Apparation sounded off like gunfire as dozens of Unspeakables arrived along with waves of Oblivators.

Spells shot out as they blinded the newly transformed dragons, and they forced them to the ground.

"LOCK THIS PLACE DOWN RIGHT NOW!" Amelia yelled at the top of her lungs. "OBLIVIATORS, MOVE!"

"MA'AM!" the agents yelled as the entire town of Cokeworth was consumed with the blazing light of a massive Obliviate spell.

Hermione opened her eyes to see sunlight flickering over the waves and the smell of seawater and salt.

"I expected you sooner," a familiar voice rumbled.

Hermione choked on a sob as she saw the familiar cascade of black hair. She ran toward him, and flung herself into his embrace.

"Sweet girl, I told you to open the box."

"You said to open the box when the time was right," Hermione said in between hiccups. "But you were dead, and it was never the right time!"

Severus rubbed her back as she sniffled and snuffled into his robes. "I am far too old to be murdered so easily, dear one," he tutted.

"You should have given more specific instructions," Hermione murmured.

"Meet me after I die on the beach where you first discovered the glory of abalone?" Severus asked, a soft smile tugging on his mouth.

"Yes!" Hermione said, smacking his chest with her hands. "That would have been better."

"I think it would have ruined the entire genuine grief plan that protected me from being discovered," Severus said.

"I hate you so much," Hermione muttered into his chest.

"Tch," Severus tutted, soothing her cheek with his fingers. "Whatever can I do to make up for this unexpected SNAFU as the Americans say?"

Hermione slumped into him. "Fifty percent better communication and fifty percent don't leave me again."

Severus touched two fingers to her chin and turned her head up to look at him. She gasped as she saw blood pool under his eye and then trail crimson down his face.

"Is forever alright with you?" he rumbled. There was just a hint of fang in his smile. Nervous. Unsure. If Hermione hadn't been so attuned to his expressions, she'd never have noticed. Yet, even as she looked into his eyes—beneath the slight hint of crimson in his black gaze, there was vulnerability.

He wasn't sure what she'd say.

"When were you going to tell me you were a vampire?" Hermione asked, her expression seeming heavy as her gaze went down.

Severus grimaced, his hand going to touch the trail of blood tears from his face. "I was hoping it would at least give me the courtesy of breaking it to you before I started bleeding so very unattractively."

"Why are you bleeding?" Hermione asked. "You've never looked the part of a vampire before."

"Oh, to condense the vampiric biology of eons into a few words—" Severus said with a wince. "When—" He sighed, straightening his shoulders. "When our rather unique biology senses its mate, we start to produce blood. Copiously. So much so that it oozes forward into our tear as a sort of—well, to a vampire it would be an unmistakable sign of compatibility. Proof that I would be able to provide sustenance for them for all the days of our lives together. I'm sure it looks horrifying to you. Like I have some raging Ebola infection."

"It's just—you never did before. Why now?" Hermione asked.

Severus let out his breath slowly. "You're mature. Physically. One does not bleed for a child. No matter how we might suspect we might in the future, the proof is in the blood. And, I suspect Albus would not have approved of such a thing happening before his death. He would have done something horrible to try and break it. And—I may have broken his neck."

Severus startled as Hermione slammed into him, hugging him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes.

Hermione trembled in his arms, and then it was her turn to startle as his cloak moved over her arms and then affixed to her back. There was a rush of heated magic, and her entire body jolted just before a sensation of relaxation hit. Her body slumped into his as her eyes closed.

"Impatient git," Severus muttered at his traitorous Lethifold. "Couldn't you at least wait for the talk to be finished?"

If a Lethifold could stick out its tongue, Walter did his best approximation by flipping a tip of his red, fanged underbelly toward him as if giving him the two-fingered salute.

Lethifolds.

They'd protect you from the mind-probes of a rampaging Dark Lord and the annoyance of the sun, but then they'd swan off and bond to your future mate before you could even explain yourself.

Severus sighed. He was going to need more tea.

And blood.

Maybe blood in his tea.

Bother.

Severus opened one eye as a squeaky bundle of draconic otter snuffled his face and plunked a sea urchin on his nose.

"Early risers will be punished," he mumbled, snuggling her tightly against his body, sending the poor urchin tumbling off his face.

Walter whisked the urchin to the nearby tidal habitat and returned for cuddles and blanket duty.

Hermione squeak-snuffled him, apparently happy with the outcome.

"Murdering Potter's gonads again?" Severus asked.

Hermione sounded off like a squeaky balloon.

"I'll take that as a yes."

The paper lay on the bedside table, or rather, pieces of it. Hermione had taken her teeth out on it, but the front page news that rogue Aurors had been found guilty of invading a private residence and were cursed into a form befitting the mind of the first person to touch something from the house—

The Ancient Curse of Greed Lays Waste to Corrupted Aurors!

Dragons lay waste to Muggle residences in London!

Strangely, no one had blamed Severus for the curse as it was rooted, very deliberately, on the trait of greed. It could only pass to one whose heart was laden with it to another of the like.

Ministry In Panic as Greed Plague Spreads

Hermione shoved her head under his hand because he'd stopped stroking her fur, and Severus' lips tugged into a half smile.

"You needy creature," he complained, even as snuggled her close.

Even as his hand moved across her warm fur, he felt the bond between them resonate. Warmth and love pooled inside his body like a sleeping otter-dragon curled inside his chest around his heart.

Her tiny crown of magical ice radiated a kind of hoarfrost that seemed to seek him out and possessively lick across his skin. As it did, his skin seemed to shimmer, and skin was replaced with shining draconic ice scales that were then covered in a thick rolling coat of layered otter fur. Even as her traits rolled over him, Ottermione sprouted very impressive vampiric fangs.

"Tsk," he tutted, drawing a claw over his neck to draw blood.

She squeaked and licked at the offering as his hand lay over her body. "You're insufferable," he said.

"Only we could be a mated pair of vampiric draconic otters," Severus said with a huff.

Ottermione transformed into her more human form, a they snuggled together with content sighs of bliss.

All was well again and as it should be—well, except for those greedy bastards who ended up turning themselves into dragons.

But that—

That wasn't their problem anymore.

Severus pressed his nose into Hermione's hair and smiled.

Never again.

And they lived otter-onically ever after.

Squeak!