Work Text:
Prompt: Hermione breaks into Severus' quarters not realising she's keyed into the wards.
Summary: SRTHG, Hermione is told by her friends that she needs to get the Marauder’s Map back from Snape. She had no idea that the quest would completely change her life.
Beta Love: Superdimples the Suspiciously Dimpled
Breaking and Entering
You know," Shane said twenty minutes later, "I'd feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn't think I was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.
Rachel Caine
She was going to die.
She knew it clearly. She could see pieces of herself splattered across the dungeon floor and walls.
All because of Harry.
Stupid, needy Harry.
“I need it!”
“You heard him!” Ron insisted. “You need to get it!”
“Why can’t you get it?” Hermione hissed. “You’re the one who lost it to begin with!”
“Snape will be looking for us!” Ron said. “We’re doing you a favour by distracting him!”
Hermione scowled. Why was it always her job to unbloodyfuck their mistakes?
Language, Hermione.
Her jaw clenched.
She wasn’t ready.
She hadn’t even tried to actually shift with their extracurricular lessons with Professor McGonagall. What if she messed up? What if she ended up being a toad—forever?
Or worse—
A booklouse.
She’d hate herself!
She could go back, task undone, but Harry and Ron wouldn’t stop complaining. She couldn’t get her homework done without the whinging from both sides to the point where her ears were bleeding.
She sighed, trying to focus. She could do this. She had harboured a mandrake leaf in her mouth for a month without screwing it up. She’d done the meditations.
You can do this.
She grimaced. But what if she didn’t? What if she failed? What if she disappointed Professor McGonagall?
She quelled her nerves by making a fist and pressing it to her sternum and beating upon it. The fluttering in her stomach tried to still and, with a great, tenacious wheeze, finally settled. Hermione focused and pulled on her magic.
Ffffffwwwwfffffffppp!
Hermione flattened herself against the ground with a squeak.
What the—
All her senses were telling her so many things. Colours she’d never seen before in her life—smells she could touch. Heat she could see! Scents she could taste—
She moved forward, and her body propelled itself with smooth speed too fast, and she ended up splatted against the opposite wall.
She made a groan that sounded more like a squeegee sound. She spotted a dark spot on another wall and made a beeline for it, startled to feel like she couldn’t find her hands and yet—she didn’t feel crippled.
How unusual.
She felt someone coming, and she found herself hunkered down in the corner, clinging to the ceiling. While she didn’t question that she was able to, she did wonder what she was—
There was no mirror in the hallway, though, so she had to wing it.
Maybe she was a gecko?
No, she didn’t feel like a gecko.
She was pretty sure geckos didn’t have that many senses.
And she felt… limitless?
When she sensed a group of people coming, she searched for a safer place to hide, driven to conceal herself more.
She saw a slice of shadow, and she immediately dove toward it, disappearing into it with a slight sssllll-pop!
A feeling not so unlike being rolled over by some large rolling pin overcame her, but when she found herself in a room—his room—she could feel the hair on her belly tingling as it rose to attention.
At least, she thought it was hair.
Fur?
What animal could feel through their hair? Weren’t whiskers just sensory hair? She wasn’t covered in whiskers, was she?
When she tried to examine herself, her senses couldn’t seem to make a distinction between herself and her environs.
Strange.
Still, she could move, and she could reason, and she was here in the place she needed to be, even if it was under duress.
And she saw what she had come for— a folded parchment lying stuck between the seat cushions of a very abused settee.
It seemed that while Professor Snape was immaculate in his potions, other things like neatness in his living place, was completely shoved to the side.
Still the parchment stuck out like a sore thumb. She doubted it was forgotten, but—maybe something had called him away. Probably Ron and Harry causing trouble, intentionally or not. She did not approve of breaking the rules. She did not approve of being pressured into it by her supposed friends.
Maybe she should leave and let Ron and Harry guilt her to death. Better that than stealing from a teacher!
Ron and Harry would argue it was theirs to begin with.
But was it? Really?
She was already guilty of breaking and entering—and there was the map, or at least what she thought was the map.
She cautiously crept toward it to get a better look, but her senses were showing her the flow of magic in the parchment like shifting veins moving across it. She saw it form letters in energy as magic shifted on the surface—or perhaps under it. As she neared, though, something rose from the back of the settee.
A blanket?
It moved toward her, and there was a plunk of warmth as it touched her, and she felt a shiver of heat move through her body.
Hermione had never felt so—seen.
The blanket wrapped a part of itself around the parchment and pressed it into her body.
Hermione slowly wrapped around it and tucked it away.
There was a noise at the door and the blanket swaddled her in one fell swoop and wooshed toward the fireplace—
As Severus Snape entered his chambers dripping with something vile as he headed directly to his shower, he didn’t even notice that his Lethifold failed to greet him.
Hermione found herself smooshed against someone’s chest as arms went around her.
“Hello,” a voice rumbled, his voice heavily Slavic.
Hermione looked around with all her strange and new senses and found herself looking at a bearded gentleman with curious and warm eyes. His hand moved across her body, and she felt safe and protected.
“I am Nikolai,” he said as if having a guest show up and slam into him was perfectly normal. “And you, dear child, are in my home. Do you need a safe place to be? Are you in danger?”
Hermione found herself ejecting the parchment from her body into his hands.
He took it curiously, passing his hand over it. His blue eyes turned red, and his fingers made complicated gestures that made his fingers seem as though they were a blur. His eyes narrowed, and he pressed his fingertip to his upper cuspid and let a drop of his blood fall on the parchment.
Names swirled over the parchment like angry ants, and Hermione watched the people of Hogwarts moving around as names. She’d never seen it activated. Harry and Ron had always stashed it away whenever they saw her. When she had held it, it had always been blank. Any spell caused the parchment to insult her. Now, she knew.
The parchment was a map. Anger caused her body to tremble, and she felt what she thought was her hair standing straight up all over her body. She was suddenly very, very hungry for—meat.
Nikolai bit his wrist, his blood rising in bright scarlet. “My blood will ease your hunger. Alas, I do not have a spare available cow.”
Hermione found herself latched around his wrist, and while she didn’t feel like she had a mouth, she did follow her instinct and let her body wrap around his arm, shoulder, and his most important offering that smelled wonderful and—delicious.
“I will be your darkness, child,” he murmured, running his hand over her as one would stroke a cat. “I will be your shade and your safety and home when all the world seems to turn against you.”
She heard him murmur to her in languages she didn't know, but as his blood somehow transferred into that part of her that hungered, she began to understand them.
He would be mother. He would be father. He would be her safe place against all that would threaten her. Yes! This was what she wanted. To feel safe. To feel welcome. To feel—wanted in the same space.
Instinct told her that this being wanted the best for her, and that was something she hadn’t experienced at Hogwarts. Her parents—loving in their own way—were dentists. They didn’t understand the magical world, nor were they able to take part in it. They could never see the magic as Hermione did, and she could never let them see the school. They could never have a conference with her teachers and take part in her education.
She was pressed against his body, and she relaxed, her hunger abated—somehow—and she felt her body instinctively mending the wound he had made on his person.
“Feel better?” he asked, his eyes were ice blue again, warm as ever.
She nodded. At least—well, she thought she nodded.
She could feel his warmth and affection as his hand gently passed over her back.
She purred loudly.
Maybe she was a cat? No—she didn’t feel like a cat.
She purred anyway. If she could purr, then she would purr and enjoy it.
She sensed someone arrive in the room, and she stilled.
“Something you would like to share with the Council?” a deep voice rumbled.
“I adopted a Lethifold,” Nikolai said. “She’s also a witchling from the magical world.”
“When were you going to tell me?” the other man chuckled.
“I just did,” Nikolai said, radiating smugness.
“You are insufferable,” the other man said as he bit his wrist and held it out, saying something in a language Hermione didn’t know, but she felt his aura and liked the sound of his voice. She extended herself over and bridged over to his wrist and took his offering. He, too, whispered words she didn’t understand at first, but as his blood trickled into her system she found her awareness and knowledge expand.
“I shall be your night, child,” Aku murmured. “I shall be your moon that you may always find your way.”
Hermione lay comfortably over the two amazing beings that decided she was worthy of love. How could she refuse such a wonderful offer?
Hermione walked into the dental office and smiled as her mum waved at her.
“How was school today, love? Your father is doing a root canal. Who knew vampires could have bad teeth?”
Hermione giggled. “Well, maybe they were Turned and had bad teeth at the time,” she guessed.
Her mum shrugged. “That’s a long time to live with bad teeth.”
“Think of the idea of dentistry even a hundred years ago,” Hermione said.
Her mom stared at her. “That makes me uncomfortable.”
“Probably why most vampires haven’t gone to a dentist.”
Her mum gave her a hug. “Learn anything new in that fancy school?”
“I attached a pylon to the grid today!”
Her mother gave her a puckered expression.
“I—” Hermione blinked. “I wired a power thing to the, erm, power place.”
“I’ve realised there will never be a time I fully understand what you’re learning and doing, but I am glad we can now be a part of your life,” her mum said.
Hermione smiled. “Lord Nikolai and Lord Aku said you can always sneak in a watch from time to time.”
“Oh, no, dear,” her mom replied. “That seems a little too—what’s the term? Helicopter to me. I know you are doing the best you can. I’m just glad we can see you doing well, now. Oh, your friend was in the dryer again, mixed in with your father’s unmentionables.”
“Oh my god, Walter!” Hermione cried, rushing off to the house to rescue the Lethifold from his favourite embarrassing hangout.
Mrs Granger giggled and went back to sorting the dental paperwork.
Lord Aku paused his walk through the blood fruit grove and tickled one of the shadows, and Hermione flopped down on his head from above with a purr.
“Hello, child,” he said with a smile as he peeled her off his head. “Why are you hiding in the grove?”
She transformed into her human form and gave him a hug.
“Lord Matthias said there was someone or something stealing fruit from the grove, but he couldn’t see it on the CCTV footage,” Hermione said.
“So you decided to fold yourself into a pocket dimension and see if anything fell out?” Aku asked.
“Was I? I thought it was just a shadow—” Hermione said.
“Lethifolds are inter and intradimensional travellers,” Aku said. “When you tuck yourself into a shadow, it may or may not actually be visible to others, but that is how you disappear from the view of others.”
“Oh,” Hermione said with a smile. “You always have something new to learn.”
“I’m old,” Aku said.
“Father Nikolai says that’s not an excuse,” Hermione said cheekily.
Aku chuckled. “So, have you figured out who or what is stealing the blood fruit?”
Hermione slumped. “It’s like—they just disappear right off the tree. Then Lord Matthias finds, erm, vomit like someone tried to eat them and made themselves sick.”
Aku frowned. “I find it hard to believe anyone who lives in the Nation would be—so wasteful.”
“Father, I doubt any of the Council would let that go if their Lines did something like that,” Hermione said. “Could it be accidental magic? Of a child? The fruits are the special ones that taste like actual fruit, but they are still bloodfruit.”
“Possible,” Aku said. He tilted his head with a growl, his eyes turning red. He had her in his embrace and moved her to his back, stepping in front of her with a snarl while his hand slashed outward faster than the mortal eye could see.
A cloak fluttered to the ground, and Hermione fell on it in her Lethifold form, thinking it was an intruder in her territory—snarling and bristling and enveloping it with her body.
Aku’s hands curled like a vice around the throats of one Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. “I don’t recall inviting you to our Nation, mortals.” His lips pulled back from his elongated cuspids as he cracked his neck.
Hermione let out a squeak as her body disappeared completely. Aku looked down to where she had been tussling with the cloak and saw—nothing.
Suddenly he felt something envelop his head.
Ron and Harry screamed as Aku’s head and shoulders disappeared making it look like he was a walking dissected person missing a head.
“Daughter, it is hard to be appropriately intimidating when your head is missing,” Aku said. “Can you please tell Nikolai we have—guests?”
He felt the heaviness leave his head as Hermione floated off to find her other father.
Aku shrugged his shoulders. “Now, where were we?”
Ron and Harry smelled of urine as they pissed themselves.
Aku tched. “This is normally Tobias’ domain. Welcome to the Undead Nation.”
A solemn bell sounded off from the city’s centre.
“I believe you are about to meet a few important people very soon.”
“Why is our daughter twirling around in the dryer with Walter?” Nikolai asked.
“I believe she is trying to distract herself from murdering her ex-friends who only came to the Nation to steal back the map she brought you when she arrived here,” Aku said.
Nikolai offered Aku a glass of bloodwine. “Help me drink this before I change my mind and murder children.”
Aku sighed and took the glass, drinking. “You did Obliviate and blood bind their memories,” he said. “They will not threaten her again. Even if it is only in words and stupidity.”
“Yes, but I remember what they did, and I hate when our daughter cries,” Nikolai muttered.
“Does the Slavic overprotective father need a cuddle?” Aku asked.
“Yes,” Nikolai muttered.
“Come here,” Aku said as if he was put out and enfolded Nikolai in an embrace, though if it was comfort or a manner of restraint, he wasn’t saying for sure.
Nikolai heard a strange thumping noise and lowered his newspaper to see his Lethifold daughter floating by, a small parade of happy mimics following her. They ranged from mail boxes, chests, and DHL boxes, all with happy, gaping, fanged mouths and tongues hanging out as they pursued her.
Nikolai raised an eyebrow and put the paper back to read it.
“The sausages are in the freezer,” he said casually, taking a sip of his blood coffee. “Don’t eat Aku’s. He’s very defensive of his sausage.”
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the trail of mimics following his daughter back to another room, each happily nomming on a string of sausage as they shadowed her.
Severus smiled as the headmaster was coming unglued that his favoured little Potter and his thirdhand tumour no longer had the gifts they’d been unfairly blessed with.
Nothing had pleased him more than to have Potter and Weasley foiled, and it was especially pleasing when it was more than just himself enjoying it. And since no one was even noticing that Granger was missing, it proved to him that Albus’ favour had been very narrowly focused on Potter and Weasley.
Despite the two dunderheads being found lacking, morale in Gryffindor was surprisingly high. Those like Longbottom seemed to think his peers hadn’t been following the rules, and more still seemed to think it was a relief that the know-it-all was no longer there, making them look and feel like fools.
So, perhaps, they didn't not notice Granger was gone, but were instead happy about it.
Minerva, however, wasn't. She was convinced that her little cub had transformed into something and was stuck in the form somewhere in Hogwarts. She roamed the halls meowing as if it was echolocation, hoping to find her wayward cub.
Severus, however, knew she was fine.
One, the map was gone from his chambers, and there was only one way that could have happened: him moving it or Granger had found it as he had intended. Two, his Lethifold was missing, and there was only one thing his Lethifold was good for other than dumping him out of bed when he’d rather be buried under the warm covers and otherwise micromanaging his life—it was protecting what he cared about.
What the Lethifold cared about. It was questionable if the Lethifold cared about him, save for tolerating his presence because the house elves brought the creature food. He couldn’t even remember where he’d gotten said Lethifold.
He had no doubt the Lethifold had taken Granger to someplace safe. It was—a feeling, nothing more. Some awareness of a place hidden behind far too many other memories. He usually didn’t feel inclined to believe positive feelings in any way, but a part of him seemed to insist that Granger was safe.
Safe from Albus. Safe from the Dunderhead Duo.
He wasn’t sure why it was so important, but something in him had insisted that he do something to ensure her safety. She’d already saved her mates from a harrowing gauntlet of tests Albus had set up to guard the Philosopher’s Stone. She’d been stoned by a basilisk and had survived only by wisely looking around the corner with a mirror instead of looking at a basilisk straight on. She’d been turned into an anthropomorphic cat after a botched Polyjuice—a perfectly brewed Polyjuice but a wrong species hair.
This year, however, had brought in Dementors of all things—all on the hunt for the infamous Sirius Black.
Now, Hagrid was under fire for having “lost” the same hippogriff that had taken a chomp out of Draco.
Potter and Weasley had disappeared one night, quite literally, the same night the hippogriff had. Coincidence? Snape was hardly one to believe in such things. Whatever had happened to the duo, however, had left them babbling, mumbling sacks of potatoes that jumped at the slightest shadow. Not very Gryffindor—but then, perhaps, the houses hadn’t always acted out their more noble qualities in years, centuries even. The Dementors weren’t exactly making anyone act normally. The children were terrified of them, and the adults weren’t exactly any better.
Potter was basically trying to pick out curtains with Lupin, desperate for any and all information about his mum, and the wizard wouldn’t even tell Harry the truth about why he had to drink the vile potion Snape himself had brewed to keep Lupin from losing his mind and going on rampage.
Dumbledore had come to him demanding Snape hand over the annoying little prank parchment, but Severus answered him with infuriating honesty by saying he had no idea where it was. Someone or something had removed it from his quarters while he was showering the stench of a thousand rancid farts off himself.
And there was nothing wrong with having his wards recognise what his wayward, do-gooder Lethifold wanted to allow in so they didn’t get vapourised trying to enter, right?
Apparently, Albus didn’t like what he’d found out after interrogating Snape and raking his mind with a fine-toothed Legilimency comb; rather, he didn’t like what he couldn’t find out.
Severus shook his head. When Albus’ favourite Gryffindor had reappeared out of nowhere wrapped like a spider’s future dinner swaddled in moonbeams instead of silk, the headmaster had no one else he could blame for it. The two miscreants admitted that they had stolen a hippogriff and went looking for their friend to force her to give them a magical parchment—not to rescue her, no, but to get their parchment back. They answered every question with startling truth and detail—in front of all the staff.
Albus couldn’t cover it up. It felt good to see Albus squirm.
Though now they would be taking turns giving those two detention for the rest of the term. Glorious.
He wasn’t sure what the rest of the term would bring Hogwarts or the two troublemakers that seemed to live to get away with things, but a part of him was content because at least he had done his part to ensure Granger was safe.
Why did that even matter?
That was an answer he didn’t know. If he knew himself, he wouldn’t give himself the answer unless it was necessary.
He sighed. Bother.
Years passed, and for once, Severus felt less chained to his misery. With a strange settling of accountability, Potter was getting what he deserved, not that he was being punished unfairly, but he was being caught like anyone else and punished for his deeds, whatever he did, if they broke the rules.
There was a sort of cathartic bliss in that—knowing that students and staff were feeling like justice was being served rather than skipping over the chosen few.
Walter would return from time to time, and he’d bring his ladyfold (or at least that was what Severus told himself) with him. They would chase each other about his chambers and sometimes cling to his back together, but then, almost as suddenly as they arrived, they would swan off to explore the castle or disappear altogether.
Sometimes, he would collapse into bed, and he would feel them pulling the duvet over him and settling in next to him, radiating warmth that drove the chill from his bones.
Alastor Moody had a problem. A really big problem. Somehow, Barty Crouch Junior had gotten the drop on him and shoved him in a chest. The only reason he remained alive was for his hair. Now, wandless, hungry, and wallowing in his own waste, he felt his prison being moved.
Suddenly, his containment jarred, jostling him around as the chest fell, and he heard through the walls growling and screaming. After a lot of thumping and jostling, his jail quieted. He heard a low voice casting a spell, and light cascaded down from the ceiling.
Snape’s pale face and black hair painted a distinctive portrait. Two dark shapes zipped down the hole and swaddled him, floating him up out of the prison as he cursed, “bloody Snape! You fucking Death Eater! You want to finish me off? You fucking coward!”
Moody was dumped on the floor as a hurried cleaning spell washed him off and a blanket thrown over his shoulders. He found himself staring at not only Snape but Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flickwick, and the entirety of the Hogwarts teaching staff.
Snape extended a wand to Moody, wide end first. “Your wand, I believe.”
Moody snatched the wand up and immediately shoved it into Snape’s neck. “You are a Death Eater.”
“By all means,” Snape said with no smile. “Murder the one who saved your life.”
It was said after Alastor Moody murdered Severus Snape in cold blood that Severus had seemed perfectly calm as his body fell to the ground. His colleagues had been horrified as two dark shapes fell upon Snape’s corpse, and he vanished as if he had never been there.
Alastor, however, started bleeding magic out of his nose and mouth as the Life Debt to Severus Snape demanded his pound of flesh for murdering him.
Barry Crouch Questioned As His Supposedly Dead Son Appears At Hogwarts Pretending To Be Alastor Moody
Alastor Moody Disappears After Murdering Severus Snape In Front of Hogwarts Staff, Accusing Teacher of Being a Death Eater
“I find myself in a rather interesting situation, Mr Moody,” a tall, pale man said as he leaned to the side on his stone throne. Long black hair framed his face, and his blacker than black eyes glowed an ominous crimson from within. “Normally, I tend to take someone stupid enough to attempt to murder me by the throat and introduce their face to the wall and the floor until both are at least three shades darker red; however, this situation seems rather different. Because of your little crusade to murder me, I am free of my forced enslavement of Albus Dumbledore and his little closet Dark Wizard Voldemort.”
At the word Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, carrying a disturbing baby-looking creature, showed up with a wand a-ready—
The pale man moved faster than the eye could see, forced Peter’s head to the side as he sank fangs in and drained him, then bit his hand and pushed it over Pettigrew’s mouth, causing him to swallow. As he did so, a darker-skinned man with a distinctively Babylonian beard took the baby-creature and placed a glowing crystal to its forehead. Wisps of soul and magic poured out of the creature’s nose, mouth, ears, and every pore until the crystal both glowed and shifted as if a Dark liquid dwelled within.
“You never could resist an excuse to condemn the eternal soul to musical torture,” Lord Matthias said.
“Thanatos and Hades will be ecstatic,” Lord Aku said as he tapped the crystal and listened to the screams. “I know I am.”
Alastor swallowed hard as he realised he was surrounded vampires—vampires that didn’t give a flying fig about who he was or what he believed.
“Now,” the man who could have been the Snape he knew if he’d grown longer hair and multiplied his intimidating factor by a thousand and then threw in extra dragon or two for flavour. There was no insecurity about this man—none of Severus Snape’s insecurities dangled for Alastor to pull on and heckle to get him to break.
Not that he could, anymore, seeing as his magic had literally escaped his body after he tried to break a Life Debt by killing the one who had saved his life—
Aku placed the glowing crystal in a velvet-lined box and closed it, latching it. He handed it to one of the silent guards with a jerk of his head, and the guard took it, bowing as he backed out of the chambers. He did not attempt to look up or make eye contact with any of them.
Alastor knew what that meant—
These people, whoever they were, were powerful, either by reputation or true power, and judging how they had just ended the Dark Lord Voldemort in about five seconds—true power was far more likely.
“What shall we do with this one?” one of the pale ladies asked, looking at her nails as one would a stray cuticle. “He has attacked one of our lords with the intent to kill. It matters not that he did not ultimately succeed.”
“As I have said,” the man that was both Snape and more than Snape said. “He had done me the favour of shaking off both geas and other enslaving entanglements as well as forcing me back into my more pleasant self.”
Someone snorted into their hand somewhere in the room, and Snape’s eyebrow raised.
“Tobias, you have dealt with this mortal in your human guise, so we must seek your opinion on what is appropriate in this case,” one of the other females said.
“He is a fool,” Tobias said, his voice a rumble, but he was a created fool. The same kind of fool that I was created to be—a slave to an emotion set on the memory of a woman for whom I pined for like some Obsessed fool who did not have the wisdom to realise I was not bleeding for them.”
He levelled Moody with his crimson eyes. “Tell me, mortal. Do you still feel the righteous anger to your once wife, or do you grieve like a man whose love had preceded him in death? Or do you struggle to even remember if you ever even had a wife?”
Alastor frowned, his brows knitted together. “Wife? I ne’er had a wife.”
Tobias stood and walked toward him, and as he did, his features changed, His hair shortened and became more dishevelled. His teeth seemed less perfectly feral. His eyes were black but human. “And what is your first impulse, Alastor Moody?”
Alastor saw Severus Snape in front of him, but for once, he had no instinct to attack him. No rage rose to his itching hands, begging to strangle him if need be. “I have none,” he said, his voice strangely quiet.
Snape narrowed his eyes and returned to his seat, his features returning to the taller, long-haired version of himself. “My opinion is to give him to Nikolai and allow him to be deconditioned completely. Then, and only then, will his magic be returned to him where he will be given the choice of making a life for himself out of the Wizarding World or rejoining it in whatever punishment will await him.”
“You would give him back the magic he used to slay you?” one of the other men asked.
“As I said, Advardus,” Tobias said. “I would have him rehabilitated and judged ready to be reunited with his magic, not before. I trust Nikolai. Do you?”
Lord Advardus waved his hand dismissively. “I trust his skill and his opinion.”
“All in favour of allowing this mortal to be relinquished to Lord Nikolai’s care?” Lord Maksim said.
Every lord and lady’s eyes glowed red ominously.
“You are to be given a chance to unfuck up your life, mortal,” Lord Radu said. “Do not make me regret not sticking a knife into your spine.”
Alastor swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
Years passed, and Alastor found it was like living in a foreign country, only he could understand the language. New customs, laws, areas, and technology proved that magic could exist with technology and Muggle science. It was hard to swallow such revelations, even when they were right in front of him.
Alastor’s eyes widened as he saw a woman suspended in what could only be energy plasma, floating as though she were a whale in water, her hair moving out from her head like sentient wires seeking a place in which to interface.
“Energy grid flux in area seven,” one of the men standing by a glowing crystal. He ran his fingers over some sort of layout written in the air.
Energy shifted and moved, and plasma moved around the woman. A ley beast emerged from the woman’s chest, and it took one of the leylines and moved it in its mouth, carrying it to another place and then tapping into place with its tail before coming back to her. It burrowed back into her body like a serpent in the sand of the desert.
“Area seven stabilised,” another voice said. “Grid is secure.”
“Pylon in receptacle,” said another. “Rotate.”
“Rotating—”
The large crystal moved upside down, and the pointed facets moved into a pronged setting in the ceiling as energy prongs set into it.
Bzzztttfffzt!
“Pylon installation complete,” someone announced. “Tests complete.”
Amelia Bones took a book and placed it on a pedestal in the center of the room.
“What is that?” Alastor asked.
“Trace to the other Horcruxes,” Amelia said.
“Hor—” Alastor frowned. “You can’t be serious. Someone split their soul multiple times?”
Amelia gave a tight smile and nodded to the man by the pedestal.
“Collection grid initial scan engaged.”
A beam illuminated the book on the pedestal.
“Scan complete. Energy signature locked.”
“Intiate fetch.”
“Fetching sequence engaged.”
Beams shot out of the book in seemingly random directions, and Alastor felt a pressure in his head as though his ears were going to pop. He heard something like a scream along the lines as they seemed to tighten. The pressure grew harder and harder until his brain felt like it was going to liquify.
Then—pop!
The beams snapped back into the grid, and a rain of objects fell at the pedestal’s feet: a goblet, a diadem, a ring, a locket, a giant snake, and Harry Potter fell in a heap together.
“LOCK DOWN CONTAINMENT!” someone yelled.
Leys formed into a prisonlike web around the pedestal and the Horcruxes, keeping them paralysed.
“Unspeakables, assist the lockdown!” Amelia snapped.
“Ma’am!”
People scurried around Alastor as he realised that the great secret of the Dark Lord’s immortality had just come crashing down—and Dumbledore had nothing to do with it.
Tobias walked over to the washing machine and dryer, grimacing as he unlatched the dryer. He reached into the open hatch, his hand and rummaged around. He felt his hand curl around something warm and a little too alive to be cloth and tugged.
Hermione purred at him as he cuddled her, and Walter slinked out of the open dryer door and floated off to find a laundry basket to burrow into. He pulled Mihail’s pants off her “cloth” with a look of consternation.
“Will you ever grow tired of throwing yourself in with the drying laundry?” he asked.
Hermione rubbed her belly cilia against him affectionately before she shifted back into human form, sinking into his embrace with a warm smile.
“It’s Rada’s turn to pick what we do for date night,” Tobias murmured. “I’m certain it will involve the beach, long walks, and chasing seagulls.”
Hermione grinned. “I love when he’s happy.
“Rada loves when he’s happy, too,” Tobias said, his brows knitting together.
“You do, too,” Hermione accused, smiling.
“As you say,” Tobias murmured as he pressed his lips to her forehead and then dipped his head to rub his cheek against hers.
“My parents are playing board games with Alastor tonight, so we have a perfect date night,” Hermione suggested.
“Oh? Who knew the old Auror would find such peace in the mundane solving of who killed Mr Boddy in the library with the candlestick?”
Hermione grinned. “They are fun games!”
“We shall agree to disagree.”
Hermione placed a kiss on his nose tip. “Your first idea of courtship was two Dacians trying to take you out with all due prejudice.”
“I am Roman,” Tobias said, his lips puckering. “Their tenacity was inspirational.”
Hermione giggled. “Your tenacity of courtship was inspirational. Serenading me from the garden as all of my fathers were there to stare at me.”
“One man to impress each father,” Tobias replied. “It seemed rather even.”
Hermione hugged him, chuckling. “I don’t think my mum had any idea what was going on. Even living here in the Nation, her reaction to anyone bleeding from the eyes is a hospital treatment with heavy antibiotics, not to surrender her daughter to a vampiric courtship.”
“Good thing we had Rada to charm her into an accepting haze,” he said.
“He is rather convincing,” Hermione said, “and he never steals the duvet.”
“Tch,” Tobias tutted, dipping his head to kiss her. “Shall we go?” He offered his arm.
“We shall,” Hermione replied with a smile. “Let’s go, Walter!”
The Lethifold zipped over and attached to her back with a squeaky velcro sound.
Rada greeted them as they appeared at the Apparition point with a frantic wagging of his tail and a tennis ball in his mouth, and Mihail had a beach umbrella decorated to look like a Christmas tree, a festive blanket over his shoulder, and a picnic hamper in his other arm.
As Rada blazed the trail to the beach, Hermione changed into her Lethifold form, and she and Walter chased the golden retriever down to the beach.
Tobias and Sanguini exchanged glances, then ran after them, chasing their slippery mate to their beach date.
And they lived blissfully unDumbledored ever after…
(jingle, jingle)