Summary: SSHG, Crookshanks is up to something. But is he really, or is he just being a typical cat?
Beta Love: Dragon and the Red-Nosed Rein-Cat, Dutchgirl01 the Chocolatier, and Commander Shepard of the Great Halls of Tinsel
Sneaky Guest Beta Love: SuperDimples with the Hoard of Pickled Herring
Warnings: Violence, gore, bloody retribution
Questionably Crookshanks
"A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution."
–Hazel Nicholson
"You can't be here, Crooks," Hermione fussed, shooing Crookshanks off the desk where she was almost neck-deep in official parchments.
Crooks meowed as loudly and as offensively as possible, batting a Christmas snowglobe onto the floor in retaliation.
Hermione caught it in a manner honed by thousands of years of generational cat "ownership" and placed it back on the desk. She sighed and continued her industrious scribbling, knowing that yelling at the cat was about as useful as giving a cat the silent treatment. Crooks would treat it the same way—by simply ignoring her.
Crooks had brought home a potted plant one day, and she'd put it on her window, fully expecting it to be defoliated the next morning, but to her surprise, Crooks still hadn't eaten it. Unlike the other poor plants she'd tried to bring home only to have them murdered in short order. It was odd to her because if she hadn't known better, she'd have thought it was one of Severus' favourite plants.
She'd started taking Crooks to a groomer every month. It wasn't that he wasn't grooming himself, but he did have a lot of fur, and he left as much fur on everything else as he did on himself. As he got older, he seemed to start missing a few places. Hermione took him to give him a trim and some pampering, and she swore he liked the groomer more than he did her, anyway. That did sting a little, but at least Crooks didn't complain about going.
Crooks had always been his own cat. She had no illusions that Crooks had any feelings for her other than being the "source of food" and "affection" on his terms whenever HE wanted it. She knew in her head that he preferred her company, but he also preferred the sunny window and the comfy spot under the duvet at night. She just happened to be there.
He did, however, pay the rent in the form of very dead rodents. Rodents were definitely not an issue in her flat. Sometimes the decapitated rats were—disturbingly placed in the manner of Vlad Tepes. She privately thought her half-Kneazle might be sharing the other half of his catch with the notorious psychopathic ruler of ancient Romania.
It wasn't—totally delusional, was it?
Hermione continued to scribble away on her parchments, and her inner cat awareness tingled. Crooks wasn't in the flat—again.
How he had gotten out, she had no idea. She didn't have a cat flap. She didn't leave any windows open for him to fall down a few flights of stairs—and she had no clue how he'd managed to outsmart her wards.
And it wasn't like she had keyed him into the Floo Network.
Cats.
Maybe she didn't want to know.
The pile of Ministry paperwork wasn't going to do itself, and she would take advantage of Crooks not being there to topple them and send them floating toward the fireplace.
She looked to the place she had placed the gift she'd meant to wrap for Severus, but it was missing.
She groaned.
She'd probably find it, two years from now, in a crack in the floor.
Bloody cat.
Severus frowned as tried to find the focus gem he'd set aside as a gift for Granger. It had been a perfect crystal with beautiful striations. It had been hideously expensive, but he'd thought of her the second he'd laid eyes on it. As Unspeakables, they both had them to house their protective wards and spells that activated even if they should happen to be incapacitated. They had ones provided by the Department of Mysteries, of course, but eventually, everyone replaced them with something more personal—something of particular significance to them. That amplified its power, despite the books that claimed it didn't matter.
They all knew it was true.
Could he even presume to know her that well?
They'd worked together as partners for over ten years now.
Saved each other's lives.
Read the other's mind amidst the heat of battle.
Held hands as the other bled out, or at least tried to.
Don't you dare fucking die on me, Granger!
Severus snarled as his partner gushed blood from multiple deep lacerations. Wounds she'd sustained while saving him. He felt the ache of his fangs piercing through his gums in his Dark rage.
Control had always been his strength.
He controlled every aspect of his life with sickening precision.
Granger was a wrecking ball. She came into life like everything mattered, sitting in his chair, moving his tea, and utterly throwing a spanner into every works that he had.
Yet she guarded his back with a ferocity of a lioness. A freaking lioness on FIRE. He could—rely on her.
Trust her at his back.
Trust her.
But if he could not have her at his side—because who in their bloody right mind would want HIM—he would at least do his best to keep her at his back.
He'd torn out the throats of the ones that had hurt her, their blood barely even a smattering of salt across his tongue.
Salt and iron.
He bit his hand, letting his blood drip over her wounds, watching them heal before his eyes. Her eyes fluttered, and she curled into a foetal position, her hands grasping his robes as she smashed her face into his robes with an instinctive curl.
His body shuddered with relief and something else—
Something forbidden.
He smashed his teeth together, willing his fangs to recede.
She would not want HIM. No matter how much his body wished otherwise.
But as his claws oh so carefully pulled her against his body, his eyes closing as her warmth slithered and coiled around his soul, he knew he was utterly damned.
He'd treated her with coldness after that—not because he felt that way but because he had to otherwise he'd make some stupid confession of care that was not welcome or wanted. He'd make a true arse of himself, again, to someone who did not care for him in a way that made for love, in the way that led to his fangs being welcome in her throat.
Arguably, he hadn't had his fangs grow in until some time after Lily was dead—the same feeling of impotent rejection had been real.
He couldn't bear to see it on Granger's face.
"Do you have a problem?!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"We had one assignment go pear-shaped, and you can't even look me in the face?"
"I have no idea—"
"GET OVER IT!" Hermione hissed, thrusting a box into his hands with a shove. "Eventually me, you—someone is going to get hurt, and the only thing that saves us is each other or sheer dumb luck! And I'm putting my galleons on YOU, Severus Snape, and not sheer dumb luck to save me when I need saving; and you best be damned, I'm going to fight tooth and claw for you if by some miracle you forget to duck!"
She stormed off like a tempest with a side of angry Kraken, and Severus stared at the box in his hands. He tugged at the box to release the top and stared.
A perfectly faceted demantoid green garnet lay within a goblin silver setting of interwoven serpents. How—
To find a flawless one was almost impossible!
To have it cut and set in goblin silver, practically unheard of.
When he held it in his hand, he could feel the thrum of it connecting to his magic—perfectly balanced to his energy.
He had no idea how she could have—how she even managed—
They weren't exactly paid a paltry sum as Unspeakables. Well, their particular designation wasn't. There were a fair few Unspeakables who were pretty much just glorified janitors that cleaned up after magical battles and put the housing districts back together. They weren't poor by any stretch of the imagination, but they weren't exactly on par with Hit Wizards or Witches.
But he had procured the crystal for Hermione because—
Because—
He cared about her.
He wanted her to have every chance of survival because he wanted, however selfishly, to have her at his back for as long as possible.
Even as he wanted her at his side for as long as the sun rose and set.
And now that focus was gone.
Missing.
Vanished as if it had never been there.
Shite.
SHITE!
He should have given it to her sooner instead of brooding over the right time. He should have—
He tasted blood in his mouth as his fangs extended and pierced his tongue.
FUCK!
His hand clenched as his claws dug into his palm.
He slammed his hand down on his desk with a thump, willing his controls into place with a grimace. He blinked as he noticed the ancient codex, Roman Elixirs of Might and Medicinal—written in its original Roman Latin—sitting on his desk.
The hell?
He checked his wards—nothing.
No intrusion, not even a blip on the weave to indicate there had been an attempt to get in.
He scanned it with magic.
Nothing.
He smelled it.
It smelled old.
He stood back from it, erected a shield, and opened the codex with magic.
Nothing.
It was the real codex.
What. The. Fuck?!
He bit his tongue again, cursing, this time not because of some fight against arousal but pure confusion as to how, where, and most definitely a greater WHY there was a Roman codex on his desk.
"Are you alright, my son?"
Tobias had his hands steepled as he watched Severus pacing a trench into his hardwood floor.
"I have a problem."
"Did you want to talk about it, or are you simply going to wear a hole in my floor and play silly buggers until I take your blood to figure out the mystery?"
Severus grimaced and placed the codex in front of his father.
Tobias rarely ever looked surprised, normally, but Severus seemed to have a talent for making his father contemplate surprise topics. "That is a codex I have not seen since it was written—copied rather," he said. "Last I saw it, it was in Pompeii. Still being transcribed. Doing a bit of light reading?"
Severus winced. "No, I—did you put this on my desk?"
"I have not indulged in archaeology recently, if that is what you are asking," Tobias said.
"No, I mean— was this yours and you put it on my desk because you knew I was interested?"
"My son, I have no earthly idea what you are interested in because you have this unerring habit of not telling me anything unless I take a pry bar to your grey matter, and no, your mum has not been digging in the ash and volcanic remains of the pyroclastic flows of Vesuvius any time recently. She is currently interested in—stained glass."
Tobias' expression showed in wrinkles that he loved his wife but he had no idea what went on in her head.
Severus gawped at his father, his face resembling that of displaced goldfish.
"Most attractive, my son," Tobias said dryly, arching a brow. His eyes glowed crimson for a moment. "No one in my Triumvirate knows anything about delivering you a codex from ancient Rome, however Rada says Lord Nikolai would love to read and copy it if you are agreeable."
Severus made a face twisted in confusion, waved his hand over the codex and made a copy using the pile of parchment on his father's desk and his abused inkwell and quills. The pages floated together, dried, bound themselves up, and laid itself in front of his father. He took the original one and tucked it away.
"You're speaking a little oddly today," Tobias said. "Problems?"
"I bit my tongue."
Tobias' eyebrow got lost in his hair. "Do you need remedial feeding instruction?"
Severus shook his head. "I've had a lot on my mind of late."
"So it seems," Tobias replied, his brows knitting together. "Take the crate by the door with you as you go. A good supply of bloodfruit because your mum worries about your health. And bars for—those strange assignments Madam Bones occasionally puts you on."
"Bars?" Severus echoed.
"Yes, a new thing. Well, somewhat," Tobias replied. "One of Nikolai's contractors developed them to help us blend in, or at least not look suspicious when eating in public. They apparently made faux juice boxes and the like, too. Rather clever. The packaging turns to ash when crushed in the hand, so there is no evidence left behind of our peculiar eating habits."
Severus picked up one of the juice boxes and it looked almost identical to the ones seen in the Muggle stores with colourful fruit displayed on the front and a place to jab a straw. Each drink box had a bright orange cat and a red bat logo curled around the straw port and the text was written in Sang shorthand—making it clear that it was not meant for mortals. There was a case of what looked like "energy bars" too. It was, Severus admitted, quite a clever idea.
"Do they taste, erm, normal?" Severus asked.
Tobias shrugged. "They taste like whatever is on the label. Your mum likes the granola."
Severus realised he really needed to get more in touch with current Sang society if such things were becoming commonplace and he had had no idea of it. "I really need to get out more."
"Or just visit more often," Tobias recommended.
Severus sighed. "I need to go. We have a new assignment tonight."
"Do try not to murder anyone that isn't on the list," Tobias said casually, his face deadpan.
"I will—try," Severus said awkwardly, took the crate, and hurriedly escaped.
"Was that your son I heard?" Rada said as he walked in via the rear door.
"It looked like my son," Tobias said, "smelled like my son, even spoke like my son, but I'm pretty sure it was an alien."
Rada's face pinched with consternation. "Unfortunate. Shall I get the flamethrower or the Fiendfyre?"
Tobias steepled his fingers. "Uncertain."
Sitting on her desk right next to a very dead rodent was a large focus crystal. Or, maybe it was just a crystal that happened to be perfectly usable as a focus crystal. Hermione could only stare at it after vanishing the dead mouse from her desk.
She cast a series of spells on it, but nothing came back suggesting it was sinister. She moved her hand over it, and seemed to resonate against her power with a compatible vibration of magical energy.
She cast an experimental spell on it, placing a shield around herself just in case it exploded.
Nothing.
She stored a spell in it—a minor one that would make it glow if there was a cat nearby.
The room lit up with brilliant light, bowling her backwards.
"Hecate's knickers!" Hermione cursed as she retrieved the spell from the crystal to make the light disappear.
The crystal wasn't just compatible with her magic—it enhanced it!
Hermione checked her wards again.
Nothing.
There wasn't even a brushing of disturbance, and usually if a pigeon lingered too long on her window she could tell.
She looked skyward and then below. "If this is a gift from the gods, thank you."
Crooks rubbed up against her legs and meowed quite loudly, digging a few claws into her socks to let her know that contemplating was great and all, but he was hungry.
That was far more important than whatever she was doing.
The cold was insidiously deep, and Severus heard Granger's teeth chattering violently even with the warming charms.
"This is not the kind of climate I prefer," she signalled with half-frozen fingers. Silent, even as her teeth were chattering.
"Alas, we cannot always be assigned to a tropical paradise," Severus replied into her hand. The touch of skin was intimate but necessary for her to be able to feel the signs as much as see them. She could read them in the dark, and while his vision could pierce through the darkest of gloom, he admired how easy it was for her to read him by touch and motion when even the moon was not cooperating.
He tried to not read too much into it.
Any good partner would do the same.
She just happened to be his.
Liar.
He grimaced.
It was the only truth that could possibly be. That was the bitter truth that Lily had taught him so long ago.
Severus wrapped his warm cloak around her. "Come here. You're freezing."
Hermione tucked in against him as well, and her chilled body seemed to sponge up his heat. While the cold did not affect him as strongly as it would have when he was still mortal, there was something that tickled in the back of his mind that he was giving off heat at all. His "cloak" tucked itself around Hermione snugly like a second skin.
That was—strange.
His Lethifold had shown no desire to tend to anyone but him—a gift from his father to keep him alive and protected from mind magic.
He'd thought his father was overreacting—how wrong he'd been.
If he hadn't had the Lethifold as a constant unobtrusive companion, he'd have likely bled out on multiple occasions and long before Potter had needed to view his memories.
There were, admittedly, a lot of things he'd believed his father was wrong about that—well, weren't wrong at all.
Severus' brows knit together as the Lethifold massaged Hermione's skin repeatedly to encourage blood flow.
Lethifolds understood circulation?
His father was right, he really did need to visit more and learn more about his heritage as a Sang—or at least how to function as a less oblivious vampire.
His father's Triumvirate had him standing side by side with two of the most powerful Sang and heads of Lines, and as he recalled—an ancient one that had first formed when Rome was still breaking ground as a civilised empire. They had lived, loved, and formed an alliance long before Tobias had met his mum.
That kind of history and shared trust truly shamed him.
He couldn't even trust himself to go an entire week without doing something that was—quite arguably stupid.
And here was Granger, snuggling with a Lethifold like it was the natural thing to do in any situation. He wasn't sure if that was a sign of her singular ability to adapt, or simple foolishness on her part.
It was a carnivorous cloak, after all.
Not that you could even tell by the way it was tenderly doting on Granger—
When he attempted to tug on the Lethifold, it reared back and hissed at him, smacking his hand away with its fangy "cloth".
What the—?
He wished his father was there to ask—
He also didn't want his father to be here and see him in all his mortifying awkwardness.
Age and experience made his father a dominating force in his life—one who cast a deep, dark, looming shadow that was bloody difficult to step out of. As a prime specimen of man, his father was never going to be questioned about his masculinity. He commanded respect without even trying, having an aura of power that usually had members of the Undead Nation carefully watching their Ps and Qs lest they end up drawing his attention, let alone his ire.
Severus' closest resemblance to his father was in his ability to terrify first year students at Hogwarts, which was hardly the same thing. Even if it carried over to adulthood.
He was pretty sure that purebloods had nothing on Sang children with a vampire parent or parents who dated back to the ancient Greek and Roman societies—or even older. It did make him wonder what Lord Aku's children had gone through as children. He was considerably older than his father and his father was old enough to make what little he'd learned in life seem like less than a drop of water in a vast waterfall of experience.
Fortunately for Severus, his mum had been a mortal woman relatively recently, and that had given him a little sympathy and a taste of normality that helped him figure out where to set his skill bar. It had, however, given him a bit of a complex as a young wizard on what "impressive" actually was when what passed for "normal" in his family was so far out there for the average wizard.
Granger, perhaps, knew the feeling of being stuck in between. Her parents were Muggle dentists, never knowing the true extent of what lay just beyond them in the magical world. While her parents certainly weren't traipsing through the world century by century, they were people ahead of most with a fine education in dentistry. Still, wizarding-kind weren't exactly avid supporters of dentistry any more than the Victorians were, thinking perhaps the tools of such things just as ghastly.
Feeling her tucked against him, though—he wondered how his father had known his mum was the one for him. The few times his father had tried to have "the talk" with him, Severus had fled out the door.
At the time, he'd been all about Lily Evans—utterly convinced that she was the one and that he didn't require a talk from his father to recognise it.
Gods, what a sodding idiot he'd been.
And now—so much time had passed, he felt that going back and asking such a question would surely make the awkwardness a thousand times worse. Severus asking would mean he was thinking that someone—
No.
Granger would never accept him like that.
She was just his partner, nothing more.
She gave you a focus unlike any other.
That was a gift to keep you alive.
She could have gotten us any focus—she gave us a PERFECT focus.
Severus banished away those thoughts. Such things would not help in their current situation.
Granger was radiating heat now that the Lethifold had settled on her, the extra help from the carnivorous cloak doing more to regulate her temperature than any spell. She stirred against him, but seemed to be asleep. All she did was snuggle deeper into his embrace like a tick attempting to burrow its head into his flesh.
His hand curled oh so lightly against her curls, his eyes closing with the exquisite pleasure of her willing nearness. Oh, to have that every day of his life. Lily had never been so close to him. She had never stood at his back casting spells to protect him. She had never been a true partner in anything, even in studying.
She had been, he now realised, exceedingly fickle in every part of her life.
But Hermione—Granger—
He was in so much trouble, presuming to use her given name.
Even thinking it was a bad sign. Thinking it meant he could potentially slip and use it out loud.
But—the feel of her felt right tucked against his body. The delicate scent of her, perfect.
He felt the inexorable pull to her, but he dismissed it as simply desire. Nothing more.
Desire was an annoyance of the body. Trickery of hormones determined pull their victims together to create more—
No, it was bad enough that he wanted her so much, but to even entertain the thought of children? That was a mere pipe dream.
But as her heated body clung to his robes as she peacefully slept, his arms tightened around her, his lips parting in a soft hiss as his fangs lengthened, a deep hunger stirring in his soul that seemed to even eclipse the need for blood.
Suddenly, there was a tremble in the wards they'd wove around their waiting place, and Hermione was instantly awake, alert, and her hand in his to sign.
His vision picked up two of them lurking in the shadows, and just as he saw them, Hermione signalled into his hand, "Two. I'll take left."
He signalled affirmative, and they parted.
He vaguely noticed that Hermione's skill at flowing from shadow to shadow was much greater than before. She'd been practising since her injury unless—
The answer came when Hermione rose up from the shadows in a shadowform, wrapped her hands around the Dark wizard's head and snapped his neck even as he got to the one on the right and took him out.
The Lethifold whipped behind her with an ominous billow before settling. She twitched one finger, and the Lethifold descended on the Dark wizard and began to feed.
And another appeared from a whorl of Dark plasma.
And another.
And another.
They masticated together in a pile of shadows until the Dark wizard was nothing but a memory.
Severus cast the body he had in Fiendfyre since his Lethifold had defected.
"Are you okay?" Severus asked.
The Lethifolds bickered over who got to cling where, and there was a massive flash of bonding magic as Hermione teetered forward.
Severus caught her instinctively. "Granger?!"
Hermione mumbled, disoriented. "What—happened?"
"You seem to have bonded to some Lethifolds."
"I bonded to what?"
"Carnivorous cloaks."
Hermione was silent and more than a little confused. "You can do that?"
"Obviously," Severus replied. "Do you remember what you were thinking as you went after the right target?"
"I don't know," Hermione said with a confused furrow of her eyebrows. She tried to get back on her feet, frowning at her strange disorientation. "I remember wanting to get behind the mark as soon as possible, and suddenly I was. I thought I might have Apparated instinctively. Then, once I eliminated the target, I was just thinking the body had to be disposed of per protocol, and—they descended on the corpse."
She tugged at one of the Lethifolds clinging to her back, but it stubbornly refused to leave. "I've never had a Lethifold. I didn't even know Lethifolds could exist outside of the rainforest. I have no idea where all of them came from!"
As Hermione's stress level increased, the Lethifolds ruffled and there was a surge of Dark Magic and warmth and she slumped, eyes rolling back as her body succumbed to a rise in relaxation.
Severus caught her again, or at least he would have—
Had a Dark cloud of mist not formed around her—a cloud of mist that turned into his father.
Tobias cradled Hermione in his arms, his eyes burning crimson as his fellow Triumvirate materialised beside him, eyes glowing as the shared power between them manifested with a roll of both heat and cold. He hissed, his eyes casting down on Hermione with pinched brows. He noted the mass of collective Lethifolds clinging to her with a raised eyebrow.
Hermione blinked awake and stared up into Tobias' face. "You're so beautiful," she murmured as she reached to touch his face, her fingers drawing against his cheek as if she was trying to determine if he was real or not.
"Sleep, child," Tobias said softly, his expression surprisingly tender.
Her eyelids fluttered as her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped in Tobias' arms.
He handed Hermione over to Lord Rada, and the other vampire swiftly disappeared in a cloud of mist.
"My son," Tobias said with a sombre expression. "We need to have a talk."
Severus stared dumbly at his father and jerked his head in assent.
Hermione woke nestled against Dark warmth and hummed her approval as she snuggled in deeper, feeling very much like lying in on a chilly weekend day in autumn. A low rumbling chuckle caused her to blink and look up, and she realised she was snuggling into a youthful looking man with messy black hair and an amused puckered lip expression.
"You needn't fear me, child," he said. "I am Rada. Serving as your anchor so you do not float away on the waves of Dark that swirl around you. I, Mihail, and Tobias have all been keeping you safe as your body adjusts to acquiring so many new bonds at once. Some are perhaps a little more overzealous than the others."
One Lethifold on her back made a sad, apologetic squeegee noise.
"The Lethifolds weren't a dream then?"
"No, child, they were not."
"I drooled on you," Hermione said with a slight grimace. "I'm sorry."
Rada chuckled. "Don't be. My mate finds it quite amusing as it reminds her of when our first child would fall asleep on my chest and drool away— obliviously happy."
Hermione stared at Rada as strange colours and aura seemed to radiate from him—much as it did with—
"The one who caught me was—?"
"Tobias," Rada said. "We are a Triumvirate of power who share both that and responsibility for our Lines. We sit together on the Council that governs the Sang and the rest of the Undead Nation. Before you ask, we are not a land of ghosts and graveyards, ghouls, and half-rotted corpses shuffling about. Mostly. There are always exceptions to the norm in every society."
Hermione winced. "I think I made a fool of myself to Tobias when I first met him."
Rada smiled. "He thought it was flattering. Most see him and immediately feel an overwhelming urge to rush to the nearest lavatory."
"He causes nausea?"
"No," Rada said delicately. "The other end."
Hermione blinked. "But he's so handsome. His aura was so beautiful. Like yours."
Rada chuckled. "I suspect, and this is only a guess, that the Lethifolds have—adopted you. Chosen you, perhaps. In exchange for anchoring to your soul, which is what they mean to do—they protect you from mental, physical, and magical attacks." Rada tilted his head. "And eat your enemies as well as any stray table scraps."
Hermione blinked. "They ate the Dark wizard."
"So far, at my best count—" Rada said, his eyes flicking upward as if to make a tally. "Fifty odd some at your beck and call."
"Awkward," Hermione confessed. "I never knew they existed— save in books. I accepted they did, but I'd never seen one."
"You probably did," Rada said. "They masquerade as clothing as well as the more traditional cloak. They do love to billow dramatically, though, so if a cloak is on offer for an option, they will choose it."
"Oh, so—the books aren't right at all," Hermione said.
"No, child," Rada said. "Not likely. There was that idiot Belby who faked being eaten by one and that other wizard who actually was, but for the most part, getting the attention of a Lethifold requires either great effort or greater stupidity."
"Did you just call me stupid, Mr Rada?" Hermione asked with a blush.
Rada laughed. "No, child, never think that. This is not a usual case. Amongst my people, Lethifolds are— and this is not a sexist sort of thing— part of a male vampire's coming of age. They walk into the jungle and come back with a Lethifold. That Lethifold is then given to their mate to protect them from whatever might try to harm them while they are not able to be there."
"Females do not typically go into the rainforest to find one. They have their own feminine rites of passage amongst my people," Rada explained. "Depending on the Line. The Lethifold however, is almost universal for male vampires because they are such insufferable matchmakers. If I were a young Sang and brought a Lethifold to my lady fiancée, and the Lethifold tried to eat her, I would know the match was probably not going to work out."
"Probably?" Hermione said.
Rada smiled. "When you walk about into that jungle, you fight the Lethifold fang and claw until it decides you are worthy of being bonding with, but the ultimate insult— or irony depending on your perspective, is that if your Lethifold senses your true mate, it will bond to them instead. No matter how many years you have been with it previously. Then, if said Lethifold really likes you, one of their babyfolds will adopt your repudiated mate to soothe their ego. That bond, thankfully, does not so easily break."
"Complicated," Hermione said.
"Most things in our world are," Rada said. "There are exceptions, however. Tobias wrangled one of his mate's babyfolds and stuck it to his son to keep him safe, but usually—usually—the finding of a Lethifold is a personal quest of the males of our kind. I am not privy to the female rites. Nor do I wish to know, truly. I'm sure it's something horrifying."
Hermione chuckled. "You don't strike me as someone who's afraid of anything. Even if I have only known you today."
Rada smiled. "Males have forever tried to understand and ignore the strange ways of females, regardless of species. This has not changed in all the years I have been upon this Earth. We just have different names for all the confusion it wreaks across our lives."
"I love my mate dearly," Rada said. "But I do not claim to understand her now any more than I did when I first mated her. She is a mystery that always keeps me guessing. She always has the perfect outfit for every occasion, while I can barely put on a vest and manage to match the trousers. I miss the days when all I had to deal with was a toga and sandals. Far less—buttons."
Hermione chortled.
"Is she here?"
Rada shook his head. "No, she is off in the Americas pounding sense into an American Council. They are a—much younger generation. Prone to repeating the mistakes we have long since learned to avoid yet are still too proud to admit that maybe we have certain rules for a reason. In the end they can choose to listen or not, but—we can only hope they don't manage to self-immolate themselves before sense is found. She is not there to force them, only to give examples."
"Why do I feel so safe with you—not to be rude but—I normally don't just wake up next to a strange man and feel okay about it?" Hermione said.
"Fair, I think," Rada said with a smile. "Bonding to a Lethifold is a unique symbiosis. Amongst the Sang is it normal-ish. We are already Dark. But to create that bond with someone not Sang—they do a little house cleaning, so to speak. They—change some things to make you more compatible."
"Like—" Hermione trailed off. "Stepping out of a shadow or rising out of it?"
Rada smiled. "Yes, and like seeing our auras which— I believe is a Lethifold trait that is not commonly shared. They must really like you. As to this level of comfort—I can only guess that it is an increased compatibility of auras of magic or—energy in general. Our presence is helping you to regain your strength from the bonding process. Unless you happen to attract even more—then who knows."
"Thank you," Hermione said. "I'm sorry if I have inconvenienced you."
Rada shrugged. "I would, however, offer you something more permanent to give you access to more support and understanding for your change in situation."
Hermione tilted her head, her face a question.
"Your work on the bloodfruit hybridisation has given us a great gift," Rada said. "You have allowed us to taste the flavours of our youth and to take them with us in public."
"You knew that was me?" Hermione squeaked.
Rada chuckled. "Yes. Why did you start that project if I might ask?"
Hermione blushed. "You'd laugh."
"Perhaps, but I laugh at myself as much as everyone else. Humour me," said Rada.
"There was a—vampire at Slughorn's dinners. Sanguini. He often seemed so alone. We had off conversations when I was schooling there," Hermione said. "He said how he wished he could taste the flavours of his people long dead. I—I made his old recipes a project if only for me and for him. I transcribed the old Dacian recipes, filled my parents' kitchen with them. Invited him over to sample them. He charmed my parents, of course, but he confided that not all of his kind could eat such things. Blood and bloodfruit were the only options on offer. I wanted to help him. His people. So he gave me seeds from the fruit, and I began to experiment using some reading I'd done from my father's books on genetics in plants and herbology. So it became sort of a holiday project. He'd visit and sample and recommend changes, and I'd do them—blindly, seeing as I don't eat blood. And after he helped my parents during the war, we agreed to try and make it a—side business. Lucky for me, the trees grow to maturity really fast, so the entire project was possible without having a lot of land."
Hermione smiled. "I recommended portable more Muggle food packaging that could hide in plain sight. So, I retain rights with Sanguini, and another company pays handsomely to harvest and supply the juice and other products. I remained, what I thought was safely anonymous. Not because I didn't want anyone to know but—I know what it's like to be different and want so badly to fit in. I wanted to give that to the people he cared about."
"And yet, you became a Hit Witch," Rada observed. "You could have gone anywhere. Done anything with such profits, yes?"
"I guess, but—" Hermione squinted and turned her head. "After the war, I realised I needed to help keep the kind of people that made my life hell as a child away from other children so they don't have to go through what I did. No child should carry the weight of being held responsible for the fate of the entire magical world. Prophecy or no. You can never get that innocence back."
"And your partnership with—Sanguini?" Rada asked.
Hermione frowned. "I was an idiot. I allowed Molly Weasley into my head, and she convinced me that I should give Ronald a chance. She insisted that we were meant. One night, when Sanguini and I were supposed to meet, Ronald came knocking on my door and said he wanted to talk."
Hermione sighed. "He kissed me, and then I saw Sanguini standing there in the doorway. He looked so pale. He left immediately. I kicked Ron out. I realised at that moment that what I wanted wasn't Ron. I may not have understood exactly what it was that I did want, but watching Sanguini leave killed something inside me. I didn't realise until I kicked Ron out that he'd brought along a cat carrier. You see, he'd managed to find Crookshanks, my cat. I'd lost him during the war."
"That's why you became a Hit Witch," Rada said.
Hermione gave a humourless laugh. "It helped in the decision. I felt so dead inside. Assassination felt like a natural progression."
"Pragmatic," Rada commented.
"There was a note on Crooks' tag—" Hermione recalled. "If you need me, say my name."
"You never said it?"
She shook her head. "I said it. Shouted it. Screamed it. Cried it—he never came. I'm sure my parents' neighbours thought I was yelling at some random Italian."
Rada blinked. "Sanguini?"
Hermione nodded.
"He never told you another name?"
Hermione frowned. "No I—I don't remember any other name."
"Are you sure?" Rada checked.
One of the Lethifolds slithered up the side of her arm and thumped its cloth against her head, tiny filament tendrils of magic burrowing into her temple.
"When you are ready to be with me, my love," Sanguini said as he pressed a gentle kiss upon her lips. "All you need to do is say my name, and I will cross hell and high water to be at your side."
"I want to cook for you," Hermione said. "Come by Sunday?"
"Of course," Sanguini said with a smile. "I look forward to it."
"And what name should I call in my need for you?" Hermione asked.
Sanguini's breath tickled her ear. "Mihail."
"You have got to give Ron another chance!"
"Are you mad? He bloody well KISSED me! In front of the man I ACTUALLY love!"
"You and Ron are meant!"
"I am so bloody TIRED of hearing the word MEANT!" Hermione cried. "We aren't meant anymore than you and I are!"
"So you're going to go fuck a bloody leech?"
Hermione froze in place. "What did you just say?"
"You've had a crush on that sodding leech for years. The pervert has you so mind-fucked you can't tell he's only here for—"
"He was my FRIEND, Harry!" Hermione yelled. "A true friend when I needed one the most. What came after the war was a natural progression that happens when you realise your friend means much more to you than that. He NEVER did anything inappropriate!"
"See reason, 'ermione! Ron and you are MEANT to be together, just like me and Ginny!"
Hermione whirled on him. "We are NOT—"
"OBLIVIATE!"
Hermione blew back to crash against the wall with the sheer force of his anger-fuelled spell.
"You're not even going to remember his ruddy name," Harry said implacably. "You belong with Ron."
"I'm not interested, Ron."
"Of course you're interested!" Ron exclaimed, thrusting a bunch of half-wilted cabbage roses into her arms. "Or maybe you're just not interested in girly kinds of gifts. That's okay. We can get down to it directly." He leaned in with an open mouth.
MMROOWWWWFFFFSSSTTT!
Crookshanks hissed, raking his claws down Ron's face and sinking teeth into his nose.
"Bloody hell!" He threw Crookshanks against the wall. "What does it take to get rid of an ugly beast like you!"
A dark black aura formed around Hermione's body as tentacles shot into Ron and flung him hard against a wall. Her brown eyes had turned violet and were literally glowing with fury. "You fucking WANKER!" Hermione hissed.
"OBLIVIATE!"
Hermione, stunned, fell to the floor, the aura of malevolent darkness fading away to nothing.
"You alright, mate?"
"I don't care WHAT mum says! I'm not kissing that FREAK!"
"Ron, come on—"
"She had TENTACLES!"
"It was just illusion magic!"
"No, you make it so she don' remember nothin' and I'm tellin' mum it isn't WORTH it! I'm not having kids with THAT!"
"You swore that this is what you WANTED! That you two were MEANT!"
"No one meant to fuck that!" Ron said mulishly.
"You had me help you just to walk away?"
"You're not going to tell ANYONE, are you 'arry?" Ron growled. "You're in this just as deep as me."
Ron huffed, turning his back as Harry fumed in impotent fury. He clenched his fists, the knuckles turning white as he aimed his wand at Ron's back.
"OBLIVIATE!"
"Mihail," Hermione whispered, tears flowing down her face.
A dark cloud of bats swirled as Sanguini appeared, a haunted look on his face. "H-Hermione?" He had a certain orange feline in his arms.
Crooks meowed and jumped down, making himself at home like this particular palace was also his and more his and especially his.
Hermione trembled as the Lethifold un-suctioned itself from her head.
Mihail scooped her into his arms, crushing her against his chest as she sobbed into his brocade. "My love, I thought you had renounced me."
Hermione clung tightly to him. "I didn't remember! I didn't —I couldn't remember your name."
Sanguini blinked in confusion, his eyes locking with Rada's. Their eyes glowed together as they made a frantic exchange of memories and images.
Sanguini's jaw clenched, fangs emerging as his hands trembled in rage, dark claws stretching into full talons as he pulled Hermione to him. "No one will ever take you from me again, beloved. I swear it."
His eyes glowed a deep, pulsing crimson as tendrils of power leaked from his eyes.
"Care to share the whole story with the rest of your Triumvirate?" Rada enquired casually, staring at his claws as if they were absolutely fascinating.
The red anger slowly seeped away from Sanguini's eyes. "I am such an idiot. The orange menace kept coming to me and meowing like I should visit, but I—I thought he was just being a cat and didn't understand that she didn't want me there."
"Mm," said Rada, blinking slowly. "Well, I'll enjoy giving you much heckling over it for a few hundred years or so."
"How much do you remember of us?" Sanguini asked, looking at Hermione.
"The time in school, the fruit—the business—your angry expression when Ronald kissed me."
Sanguini winced.
"My love for you—and the terrible coldness after you left."
"I kept waiting for you to call my name—to give me some sign that you wanted to talk to me—I left because I knew if I stayed I would have broken the boy's neck," Sanguini admitted.
"Don't leave me again," Hermione whispered. "Please."
Sanguini's arms wrapped more tightly around her. "I will love you until time itself has lost all meaning." *(PD,S3)
An aura of Dark radiated from her body, tentacles of Dark plasma whipping out from her body. "I remember—everything."
He stared into her eyes, his hand brushing against her cheek as they glowed. "I would offer you my Lethifold, but it seems to have already defected."
One of the Lethifolds affixed to Hermione's back turned a distinct maroon colour.
"Will you be my mate, Hermione?" Sanguini asked. "Stand by my side through ages untold. Hold my secrets as I hold yours. Bear the weight of the centuries before and to come. Share with me both duty and responsibility but also a deep and abiding love that shall never abandon you. I can only offer you all that I am, all that I could be and was, the strength of my brothers of blood and power, and the promise that you shall never be alone again."
His cheek brushed against hers as his fangs glinted. "Do you accept me, my beloved? Will you bend your neck to my fangs at last, and take my blood as yours?"
Hermione smiled at him. "That depends."
Sanguini's eyes flickered with uncertainty.
"How do you feel about Lethifolds?" She tilted her neck to him.
Crimson tears slid down his face as his fangs met her throat.
Severus jolted as his father walked back into the room. Tobias had left mid-conversation, and now his lips were stained with blood and a dried smear of blood graced the side of his neck where a claw had dragged across it. He shooed a certain orange fluffball off his seat and sat down.
"You—Turned someone?" Severus whispered.
Tobias' fangs bared, eyes glowing, but his head jerked as less of the feral look faded. He blinked slowly. "It was required to anchor her power to the Triumvirate as equal anchors. To not do so would be an imbalance of our power and weaken the whole."
Severus averted his gaze to not offer a challenge to his father by accident. While his father had never hurt him, the last thing he wanted to do was test boundaries when Tobias was running on instinct and deep in the Dark power he shared with his Triumvirate. "You share all Turnings?"
"No."
Severus looked up, confused.
"Most of our lines automatically fall under the other's power equally. Only the ones that add significant power to one of us where one of us may be required to temper it should the other fall."
Severus blinked. "Did mum—"
"No," Tobias said, his eyes glowing. "She is fearful of my Triumvirate, and her power is not so imbalanced that it would require an anchor split three ways."
"Mum is not a coward," Severus said.
"I did not say she was," Tobias replied. "To fear the unknown is a natural reaction. It is what you do with it that matters. If we did not fear, we would not avoid many things that would do its best to murder us. That she fears my Triumvirate is natural. It exists to keep those who would challenge us eager to reconsider."
"So, you just gained more power," Severus said.
"Significantly," Tobias said, power leaking from the corners of his eyes.
"Do they have any choice in the matter?" asked Severus, his fist clenching.
"Of course they do," Tobias said. "Unless someone has committed a crime against the Sang, Turning is voluntary and desired. Who wants to be bound eternally to someone who whinges about it every day until the sun explodes?"
"What happens if they refuse to be bound to your Triumvirate?" Severus asked.
"They die," Tobias said somberly.
Severus jerked his head up.
"They die of natural causes," Tobias explained, raising a brow at his son's strange anger. "They would not be Turned if their power was great enough to unbalance us and they could not accept such conditions. You would know this if you'd spared a moment to speak with me those many times when I asked you to."
Severus winced, turning his head away.
"Something is clearly bothering you more than usual," Tobias observed. "Far more than the habits of your father's Triumvirate. Or does this have something to do with the fact you gave your father's Lethifold to your partner?"
Severus flinched. "Partly."
"She was cold."
Tobias stared at him.
"You gave a Lethifold to someone because they were cold."
"Yes."
"Giving a Lethifold to someone is an offering of courtship," Tobias said, deadpan. "You gave the Lethifold I gave you to protect you to someone, technically offering her MY courtship."
Severus paled. "What?"
"When a Lethifold initially bonds with you, it assimilates or tastes your power," Tobias said. "This allows it to figure out who is the most compatible to you via whatever other senses a Lethifold has. When you give a Lethifold to a potential mate, it decides if they are compatible and either stays with them or tries to devour them. One is endearing, the other a problem. In giving the Lethifold I brought back from the Jungle to keep YOU safe, you basically gave her the test to see if she was compatible not only to your own power but mine as well—mine and that of the two men I have shared power with since before the Romans had an empire."
Severus trembled, his fist clenching. "How do I fix this?"
"You cannot."
Severus' face twisted in pain.
"The bond between a Lethifold and its bond mate is a sacred thing," said Tobias. "Its selection is beyond our understanding but it is never wrong. She must be bound to our lines because that compatibility is rare enough we cannot risk her death if she so wishes to join her power with ours."
"I love her," Severus blurted.
Tobias frowned. "Have you told her?"
Severus was silent.
Tobias closed his eyes. "I see." His lips moved into a flat line, and that line turned downwards as the muscles in his jaw twitched. "How could you not? In just one touch, I knew she was special. I did not realise how special until Mihail released his memories from the cage of his wounded heart."
Severus saw something flicker in his father's eyes.
Malevolence.
"That will be dealt with, soon enough."
Severus, realising he'd missed something akin to the large elephant in the room, fidgeted. "What does Granger have to do with—"
"A mortal whelp erased her memories of him," Tobias said, his voice a bare whisper—a sign of his greater anger clenched between his sharpened teeth. "Memories of feelings. The memory of his very name. They set her up on a path of grief, framing her so Mihail would see her engaged in a kiss with another man while deep in their courtship. She is the one responsible for devising the new bloodfruit products our Nation uses in the outside world. It was an act of compassion—a young witch who wanted to help a friend."
"Their partnership grew into more. Slowly. As it should have been. But before he could Turn her, catastrophe shoved a dagger in their backs with the blade of betrayal implied or inferred, and then the scutum erased her mind of him, leaving her only feelings of pain and abandonment."
Tobias' fangs were bared and visible as his ire rose. His fist clenched, and crimson dripped from where his claws dug deep into the flesh of his palm. "So, she fled, her heart broken for a reason she had no idea, and she became an assassin."
Tobias's eyes glowed. "Only to fall into the arms of my wayward, oblivious son, who couldn't even admit to himself that he felt the pull, the Obsession. Yet, he gives her a Lethifold in some twisted joke of fate that would bring her back to her mate with the additional twisted drama in that he loves her but didn't bother to TELL her."
Severus' eyes widened as a crimson fire blazed from the corners of Tobias' eyes. He felt the phantom fingers clench around his collar as clearly as if it truly happened. "How could you deny her the bond her very body would crave in just one touch when your very eyes bled for her?"
Severus gawped, choking as though his father's iron grasp was truly around his neck. "I—hhk—I never bled for her."
Suddenly that pressure around his throat released, Tobias' eyes wide, his mouth parted in disbelief.
"Bare your neck to me," Tobias ordered, his voice like tortured steel under intense pressure.
And perhaps for the first time in his life, Severus Snape yielded without question, turning his head to the side a scant second before his father's fangs met his throat as he sought the memories that could never be obliviated—the memories carried in the blood.
"No no no no, don't you bloody die on me, Professor!"
Severus lay flat on his back, staring blankly into space as Hermione pounded on his chest giving him CPR. Blood ran in rivulets from her many wounds, but she was an entity of mingled fury and desperation.
With every thrust of her body's full weight over her crossed hands, she crushed into his rib cage in order to force his heart to beat, and every thirty compressions, she gave him a breath. With each pound, an aura of Dark formed around her, sending spiky tendrils out into the air like the tentacles of an octopus hunting for food.
And her bleeding wounds continued to ooze, unable to heal. A carved slash made by an evil knife bled fresh blood down her arms, mingling with his, and even as it did, his blood slickened on her hands, seeping into her own cuts. With ever desperate compression, her tears mixed with her blood, and she poured both her heart, magic, and tears into keeping him from death.
"IMPERIO!"
Ron's furious face came into view as Hermione toppled over Snape's bleeding body. The growing aura of Darkness faded, but her magical intent, blood and tears continued to mingle with her one-time professors. Even as his blood healed her as it joined with her body, hers entered via his wounds in equal measure.
"You get up right now! We're going to help Harry, not the greasy git!" Ronald hissed at her, and Hermione's body jerked upward to obey, her mind blank, eyes vacant.
As the pair left the Shrieking Shack, Severus' body jerked and convulsed, his eyes opening with a startling red glow replacing his normally black eyes. He screamed, newborn fangs extending from his gums, coated with their own birthing blood as they tore new channels from his flesh. His hands clenched, claws growing from his fingertips as they gouged into the floorboards, leaving small spirals of wood in their wake.
His hand went to his neck where Nagini's fangs had entered his flesh, but while it came back red, his skin was healed. His hand felt his chest and arms, and again, while red with drying blood, no wounds remained to tell him how he had survived Nagini.
He stared at his arm, and it was coated in a tarry black goo that seemed worse than ink and smelled of foul decay. His pale skin was flawless—not even a scratch and even more confusing: unMarked.
The hated Dark Mark was gone.
"The bloody fuck?" Severus managed, his brain far too confused to even use more than profanity to communicate in more than grunts and primal proto-language.
He clutched his chest, feeling a strange vacancy there—a vibration that told him something was missing. Something very important. Like the niggling tingle of a task left incomplete. The ominous feeling that his soul was somewhere else.
A soft gurgle escaped his mouth as he realised that the chasm was not the absence of Lily in his mind. He couldn't even—remember what had kept him chained to her memory.
But this new ache in his soul rattled him because he had no idea about what should be there.
He trembled, letting out a terrible scream that made the citizens of Hogsmeade think the Shrieking Shack would never stop being haunted.
"I'LL FUCKING TEAR HIS THROAT OUT!" Severus screamed, his body bucking violently against his father's iron grip. While a small part of his mind was deeply thankful for his father's presence, the rest of him was fighting him with everything he had to track down Ronald fucking Weasley and end his miserable existence in the most painful way possible.
His father held him with a grip of titanium, and he ignored his struggling son's attempts to kick, bite, maul, and otherwise escape that grasp. Finally, Severus broke into a choking sob and clung to his father with a shaking body.
Crookshanks hopped into Severus' lap and opened his mouth, and a tiny babyfold the size of a pocket cloth cocked its "head" to stare at Severus and then zipped up to attach to his back.
Tobias' eyebrow raised. He embraced his son even as the wounds his son had caused to him healed. His eyes glowed malevolently. "Their time will come, my son. That I can promise you."
A tiny trickle of sanity returned to Severus as his brain fired and he growled.
"Their?"
Harry came home to Grimmauld Place and let out a weary sigh. Auror work had long since become a never ending fight against a constant stream of people who wanted what they wanted and didn't care what they had to do to get it. Ginny had finally had enough and left him for a newer, younger Quidditch player, and Ron was doing his very best Sirius Black eternal bachelor impression, bedding any witch who crooked her wand at him as if to spite Molly's dream of him one day settling down, marrying Hermione, and giving her a bunch of redheaded grandbabies to fuss over.
Harry grimaced.
Everything he had done hadn't led to a life of domestic bliss and a large, happy family.
Even Ron, who had enlisted his aid to get Hermione to "see the light" and marry him, had given up on her, claiming she was a bloody freak and that he wanted nothing to do with her.
He hadn't seen Hermione since he'd Obliviated her that last time in order to erase Sanguini from her mind so she would go back to Ron.
He'd had to do it the first time to keep her from running back to the Shrieking Shack to save Professor Snape—
The other times, well, it just got easier and easier.
But every time he'd done it, Hermione had rejected Ron for some other reason (or person) and he was forced to give her a refresher.
Then one day—she'd simply disappeared.
Completely.
He'd tried to trace her, but it was like she had somehow turned invisible. No tracking spell worked.
And then Ron—he'd had to Obliviate him to forget about that strange Dark aura around Hermione that night and get back to convincing Hermione to marry him, but instead—
Ron had decided that rutting with other witches was far more rewarding.
Had his story about wanting to settle down and have a family with Hermione because they were meant been just—a lie?
Grimmauld felt strangely cold.
Harry stoked the fire and warmed his hands.
He didn't hear Ron in his bedroom copulating with some random witch, which was pretty odd in itself. Ron never did bother using a silencing charm.
An owl hooted from the back of one of the armchairs, and Harry approached it, taking the scroll. The owl screeched and took off.
He unrolled the parchment and stared at the message within.
Notice of Immediate Termination
This is official notice that Aurors Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley are hereby terminated by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement by order of Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Wizengamot for their use of Unforgivables and Obliviation against Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, and Lord Sanguini of the Undead Nation. The direct extraction of memories was submitted as proof of said crimes in the absence of Messrs. Potter and Weasley.
If the above-mentioned Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley do not turn themselves in to the DMLE upon receipt of this notice, they will be considered fugitive targets by the Department of Mysteries and the Hit Squad will be authorised to use deadly force against them.
Seal of the Wizengamot, Britain
Seal of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister For Magic
Harry staggered backward as the glowing letters floated in the room, rising up off the page as the parchment set itself to flame, leaving only the order itself floating in magic. He ran up the stairs to where Ron had claimed the upper rooms.
"RON!"
"RON, WE HAVE TO GO!"
He busted open the doors, one after another, frantically calling his mate's name.
He finally got to the last door, flinging it open—
To see a young man with messy black hair crushing a wheezing Ron's throat with inhuman strength and a wicked set of claws that seemed to belong to a dinosaur rather than a man—just as the pitiless, red-eyed Sanguini used a Dacian falx to slash his abdomen open with one stroke and then his neck with another. He then took a sharpened stake and shoved it up his rectal orifice and through his body to emerge through his mouth.
Ron twitched, his body not quite getting the memo that he was supposed to die.
"Thank you for reading the letter."
Harry whirled as brutally cold fingers clamped like a vice around his neck. Harry stared into the glowing, inhuman eyes of a vampire lord, and he lost all control of his bowels and bladder in an instant.
"I am Tobias, father of Severus," Tobias said with a baring of clenched teeth. "You and your best mate have interfered with the sacred bonds of my people. You have wounded the then-future mate of one of my Triumvirate and the mate of my son. For that alone, I would have your head on a platter served like that of the Baptist unto King Herod—as would be right for the wrongs you have wrought."
Harry saw Sanguini drip blood into Ron's gawping mouth, even as he was bleeding out. Both he and his companion wiped their blades on the bedsheets before sheathing them with practised, almost ritualistic movements of muscle memory.
"They said dead or alive," Tobias said with a baring of fangs. "Why not both?"
He bit his hand and shoved it against Harry's face, covering both his nose and mouth. Harry gasped, and the blood passed into his throat as if alive, with trickles of Dark plasma curling up from it.
For an instant, Harry was reminded of Hermione's distinctive scent, even as absolute terror shot through every nerve and cell of his body along with the power of the vampire lord's blood.
"I look forward to a long, one-sidedly torturous future with you, mortal—" Tobias' lips curved into a cruel smile. "But not for long."
"Blood of our blood," Tobias intoned. "Flesh of our flesh. I bind you, eternally, in service to your masters. You will cross land or sea or walk through the very fires of damnation to do our bidding."
Tobias sank his fangs into Harry's neck and drank him down.
Harry's eyes promptly glassed over, his soul knowing only pure terror.
Molly awoke to find a lop-sided Christmas tree in her living room, the top of the tree strangely tilted back as if the tree was screaming. It was decorated quite tastefully, yet some of the ornaments featured portraits of her youngest son and his various lovers.
"Arthur, did you bring in this tree?" Molly called, frowning slightly.
Arthur, yawning and rubbing his eyes, walked out into the Burrow's main room. "Oh, that's a fine-looking tree. Top seems a little wobbly, though."
"You didn't get it?"
"No," Arthur said, eyeing the tree in question and taking note of the many images of their son with several different females. "Looks like the twins weren't wrong about Ron carrying on with all those witches," he added.
"He told me he was going to marry Hermione!" Molly protested.
"Not in this lifetime, Mollywobbles," Arthur said with a sigh. "I saw how those two got on. Like oil and water with a touch of Fiendfyre."
Arthur pointed to the presents under the tree. "Maybe the twins wanted to give us a happy Christmas since they couldn't be here this year."
Molly wrung her hands.
"Come on, let's open some of them," he invited as they sat down with the presents. "No one is here to tell us no."
Neither of them noticed the two shrivelled-looking ball-shaped growths on the tree's lower trunk.
Hermione woke in a cocoon of comfort and did not wish to move save for the fact that a certain orange furball was sticking his paw up her nose as best he could to convince her that feeding him was most definitely priority number one. She narrowed her eyes at the offending feline, and a Lethifold scooped him up, dumped food into his bowl, and plunked him down by it.
Crooks meowed, offended that said food did not come from his proper slave, but that didn't stop him from eating it.
"That's not a cat," Severus murmured into her neck. "It's a small furry demon after your soul to make you his slave for all eternity."
"My soul is already claimed," Hermione said with a chuckle as she snuggled into his chest.
"Hn," Severus said as he drew a claw across his neck. "Best you make sure mine doesn't swan off."
Hermione chuckled. "I never thought of you as insecure," she said as she latched onto his neck with a hum.
"Or me?" murmured Sanguini as he pressed his mouth to her neck in a kiss from behind.
Hermione licked Severus' neck after she was sated, and she rolled over to give her other insecure mate a kiss. "You most of all. You've always seemed so—on top of everything."
"Nothing is more mentally tortuous than thinking you finally found the one, only to lose them—even if it is only in their head," he said, pressing his hand to her cheek and brushing her curls with his fingers.
Hermione took one hand and wrapped Severus' arm around her waist even as she snuggled into Sanguini, the pile of Lethifolds moving over them like a joint duvet of comfortable warmth. "I feel so lucky."
"Lucky is not the term I would use for the trauma inflicted upon you," Sanguini said somberly.
"I am, though," Hermione said. "I have two beautiful mates that I don't have to feel guilty about loving individually. I don't have to lose them. I don't have to worry that they're fake. I can feel their love for me—I don't think you understand how easy it would be to deny that your feelings were real, even if you told me to my face that they were. If I didn't have this bond that shares your feelings and reassures me that I'm not hallucinating, it would be so easy to write this off as fantasy. But—it feels so right to be with you."
"It's easier to—convince yourself that you're not good enough. Worth it for someone else. Especially when you've been told all your life that the Dark is something evil and something that makes you flawed along with the stigma of being a Muggleborn, it's hard to feel accepted for what other people fear. Though, I suppose, you know that well enough."
Sanguini pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Dear one, you will never be inadequate to me. I am relieved that you could accept my Triumvirate as well as you did. Most cannot or will not give such a thing their trust—set against lifetimes of a bond between three such as we are."
"I feel your love and trust for them. The history. Who better to watch your back when I cannot be there to do it?" Hermione said.
"So pragmatic, my dear assassin," Sanguini said.
Hermione chuckled. "Maybe that is a part of you that was left with me. That is what you do when things go truly wrong. Is it bad I find myself grateful that you may have given me a life-saving skill set as a parting gift?"
Sanguini harrumphed. "Not so parted now, I hope? My heart would not survive rejection at this point."
"I'm afraid you are both stuck with me," Hermione said. "Me and about fifty Lethifolds strong."
A few babyfolds cooed and dove under their parent-a-folds.
"Erm, and some change," Hermione added. She huffed. "Tobias says that the bond to your Triumvirate will help keep the Lethifolds busy doing various tasks, so I don't have to be the only one keeping them out of trouble. That's quite a relief. And a bit comical watching the babyfolds mess with Rada's hair."
Sanguini snorted. "I am never letting him live it down. His mate even took photographs."
"How is it that you could trust yourself in the arms of three powerful Sang when you'd only just met them?" Severus asked.
Hermione stilled, her finger moving across Sanguini's chest in invisible runes. "They felt trustworthy. I felt safe. Protected. And I could see their truth—their auras matched; they were so beautiful. And your father is very kind. Very concerned for me. I could feel how much he wanted to help me, if I would only let him."
"And you just—did?" Severus said, boggling. "I can't even do that, and he's my father."
Hermione smiled. "He reminded me of you."
Severus' eyes widened. His shoulders trembled, and he scooped her into his arms with a loud sniff.
"I love you," she said. "We may have had to fast track our courtship, but it helped that Tobias gave me memories of a time when you'd punched a hellhound in the face as a baby."
Severus, mortified, attempted to hide his face in her curls. "I am—working at it, slowly. Letting my father teach me via the blood. I resisted him for so long, and I cannot remember why."
Hermione stilled.
"What?"
Hermione let her breath out slowly. "I think I know why."
Severus frowned. "Please enlighten me."
"Your mum never showed her trust in your father in front of you," she replied. "Those acts of intimacy always happened behind closed doors. My parents were always very open about their love for each other. Even when they argued, they never went to bed angry, and they always made sure I understood that just because they didn't agree, it did not mean they loved each other any less. I have the feeling that most pureblood family dynamics weren't quite so open."
"Most families are not so blessed, no," Severus said.
"I've been very lucky in my life," Hermione admitted. "But I'm so glad I have you both to share it with."
Severus placed his forehead to hers.
Hermione bolted out of bed. "Shite, I have to go Christmas shopping with your mum!" She flew towards the door at high speed as the Lethifolds changed into clothes around her and schlicked her hair into order in a fluid cloud of frantic grooming. She was out the door in a flash.
Severus slumped back onto the bed. "What just happened?"
"Females," Sanguini said with a chuckle.
Severus groaned. "I hope this doesn't become normal. My mum does not need to be corrupting our mate with—witchy female things. She's an assassin."
"Look at the bright side," Sanguini said. "I get some alone time with you."
Severus turned pink as the remaining Lethifold on the bed covered them both.
"Ah, the Triumvirate's little whore."
Hermione stilled as she waited for Eileen to complete her purchases.
"Passed around like a common harlot," the man said scornfully. He leaned on the wall of the store's frontage, and his lips curved down cruelly. His power spiked, poking at Hermione's aura, like one taking a sharp pin to a balloon.
Hermione set her jaw but said nothing.
"Did you fuck you way across their cocks until you settled on Tobias' son? Did they sample you and enslave you to their blood? Did you think you actually had a choice? Did you think you ever had a choice? You're just a mere slave that is far too stupid to realise you've been caught in their web. Did they give you a drop of their blood to make you believe you had actual power of your own?"
Hermione's eyes began to darken ominously, a slight tinge of crimson flashing around the rims of her irises.
"Oh, is the little slave getting angry?" he mocked. "You just don't want to admit you are nothing but a pet. A hound to be called upon to sit on their lap and fetch their news. To bark whenever strangers come to the door. Fit only to be kicked around by those better than you."
Hermione grit her teeth together.
Suddenly, the man's "cloak" detached from his back and floated over to Hermione, snuggling up to the other Lethifolds gathered there.
The man's jaw trembled angrily, and claws emerged from his fingertips. "Gamo tee mana su, vlakas putana!"
Hermione stood, as four rakes of his claws brutally slashed across her face.
Her eyes closed, and dark tentacles formed in her shadow, rising up around her body like the splay of an octopus. The tentacles hissed and mouths formed with Darkness dripping from each one. The Dark rose out of her hair like serpents—forming into a mass of writhing shadow snakes.
Her fingers extended like raptor talons made of the purest shadow. Black inky plasma dripped from the claws.
"You think the Triumvirate is there to give me power?" Her voice was but a whisper of overlapping voices. "They are my anchors. They. Keep. Me. From. Using. It."
Her hand closed around his neck. Her talons dug into his flesh, and she squeezed. "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves."*(E:tM)
Suddenly, Hermione's eyes flashed red, and she dropped the offending vampire flat on his arse. "You will not use me to suicide, Andronikos."
She turned her back and walked away.
His lips pressed into a line, his fangs lengthening as his claws descended. He leapt toward her back with a hiss.
A Dark shadow materialised and caught him as Tobias took the other vampire's head between his fingers and squeezed. "It is a different time than your birth, boy. If you had truly wished for death, you would not have raped a priestess of Aphrodite in Her own temple. Your torment is pre-ordained, and you will not be thralled just so you don't have to work at it—and now, because of your actions today, every Sang upon this world with a Lethifold will know of your duplicity."
Then, with an unnerving smile, Tobias slapped a self-stick Christmas bow on Andronikos' head and shoved a box of Wizarding children's toys into his arms. "Now, go be suitably festive and give children these gifts for free and spread the cheer of the season with no attempts to escape or commit sabotage. If you hurt an innocent, I will feed you your own balls, one after another, regrowing them if I have to, until it stops amusing me." Tobias gave a long blink. "And I am a Roman. It will never stop amusing me."
Andronikos jerked his head in a bow and took the box and scurried away with all due haste.
"Was that really necessary, my love?" Eileen complained half-heartedly as she gathered her packages up.
Tobias and Hermione turned to her wearing the exact same expression. "Yes."
"It's very creepy when you do that," Eileen said with a chuckle, extending a plush bat to Hermione.
One of the babyfolds took it with a tiny squeak of love, snuggling with it before diving back under the parent-a-folds.
"Thank you," Hermione said cheerfully, no sign of her black cloud of oppressive domination anywhere to be found.
"You should join us for lunch at the cafe," Hermione said. "Eileen is convinced that she will die without a Christmas pudding latte."
Tobias raised his brow. "Do I not provide for you, my love?"
"Yes," Eileen said. "And no."
Tobias' face wrinkled with the confusion of every male that had ever tried to understand the females in their lives without an operational manual, a quick start guide, and the quick reference handbook.
Hermione smirked, giggling, and they all walked to the cafe together.
The cafe became strangely empty as a mass line to the loo formed shortly after Tobias entered the establishment.
"I can definitely see where Severus gets his intimidating classroom demeanour," Hermione commented.
Tobias frowned. "Do you truly find me intimidating?"
"No," Hermione said warmly, "but I have a feeling I am far from normal as my very first words to you were 'you're so beautiful'."
Eileen chuckled. "What is with that ridiculous man dressed as a Christmas elf in the main square sitting on some large shelf?"
Tobias smiled wickedly. "Justice and cathartic sadism. He has a long time of being passed from Line to Line doing whatever they wish him to do. I believe that was Lord Aku's doing. He does love his Christmas oddities."
Eileen sipped her latte with an arched brow.
"Next year it will be Lord Maksim's turn," Hermione offered.
"Whatever did he do to deserve so much—ire?" Eileen enquired.
Tobias' eyes flashed briefly. "Obliviated our daughter-in-law and kept our son from her embrace in the depths of his Obsession. Then, he Obliviated our daughter-in-law again to erase Mihail from her mind so she would go marry his idiotic best mate."
"Now, I want to kick him between the legs," Eileen growled.
Tobias grinned. "Lord Aku won't mind if you do."
As Severus, Hermione, and Sanguini lay curled up together on the slightly-adjusted couch in an under-Lethifold cuddle, Crookshanks hopped up onto the mass, kneaded the Lethifolds into position, and flopped down to nestle beside Hermione, his fluffy ginger tail flipping back and forth. The Christmas tree shimmered and glowed cheerfully in the dark room, and a vast array of festively-wrapped gifts lay waiting for the morning's shenanigans.
Tobias and Eileen were on a second settee enjoying a relaxed cuddle, and Rada and his post America-travelled mate snuggled with each other on the nearby chesterfield. The tree glowed as the fire in the hearth burned merrily with soft crackles and pops.
WHINNNNEE!
A young hellhound pup complained bitterly about the unfairness of life at the foot of the settee. Around his neck were red and green lava-proof ribbons.
Hermione reached down to scoop him up and dragged him under the warm Lethifolds.
Crookshanks swatted down his Christmas catnip stuffed carrot and proceeded to maul it to death, clawing it furiously.
"I love you," Hermione said, happily snuggling with her comfortable mates.
All was as it should be.
Crookshanks licked his teeth in satisfaction.
After all, if you want to get a job done right, you send a cat to do it.
(Jingle bells ringing)
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
(malevolent laughter)