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Azazel is not someone, or something, who can be easily tied down. And that's coming from Hermione, a girl whom even an international superstar known for his impossible feats, could not secure.
"We had a great time together, but he's a Lothario. I didn't want that for me….plus, you know….the Brimstone Dimension thing." The witch voted Most Likely To Succeed At Everything, raised a cup of steaming tea to her lips as across from her Ginny Weasley did the same. The pair of young women were relaxing in Hermione's book lined parlour, commiserating about their woeful love lives, as they did at least once a week. They always had something new to talk about on that front, because they were always being disappointed anew. If it wasn't Ron Weasley refusing to grow a spine or Azazel vanishing into thin air, then it was Atomic Samurai trying to slice up Arthur Weasley or Yuri Karkaroff exploding Ginny's Seven Evil Exes. There is always some drama afoot if one happens to be a beautiful young lady, and of course, none of it was their doing.
After replacing her cup on its pretty, book decorated saucer, Hermione followed her thought process further down the route it was on. "I'm also willing to entertain the idea that he may have been abducted by one of the various mutant-hating organisations. He may currently be being experimented upon. That is a distinct possibility. He lives an extremely perilous life. I wish he would learn to stay in one place and just relax."
"Yeah, but then you wouldn't like him," Ginny, her stomach rumbling, accioed some chocolate out of her friend's secret stash and onto her lap, where she flipped open the lid and began to munch. Her coach would hate what she was doing, if she knew. "Like, if Sam hadn't horribly misheard what my dad said, or Yuri didn't punch Dean in the face for no reason, then I wouldn't like them either. It's about taking the bad with the good." Mmm, praline.
Hermione, her eyes turning more than a little green with envy, watched the other girl eat, the summer sun streaming through her bay windows, splashing against the back of her chintz chair and gilding the air. After a moment or two of contemplation, she rose to her feet, swift and sudden.
"That's it, you've convinced me. I'm going to pull a Bella Swan and aggressively wait for him to return until he does." Going over to her writing desk, Hermione pulled towards herself a sheet of stuffy business parchment and began penning a letter. Once she was down with it, she took out a sheet of much more friendly and fun parchment, and penned another letter, and then several more. Azazel was telepathic to a very high degree, so she needed to do something he couldn't ignore. Something that would force him to man up if he ever intended to attempt this rarest and most difficult of acrobatic feats.
With her friend's back helpfully turned, Ginny began scarfing more and more of her 'secret' cache of chocolate, the boxes flying across the room into her hands two by two, as the animals went into the ark. "Whatya scheming, 'Mione? I can already tell that it's going to be good."
Scritch scritch scritch went a quill.
"You'll see."
📣🐉📣
"Hi, Charlie. Do you have a dragon for me?" Hermione Granger (and her overnight bag) stood proud and eager before the bad boy dragon conservationist out in the middle of nowhere, Romania. He was the one she'd been writing to on friendly parchment, and he'd agreed to show her some dragons, because if there was nothing he liked better after looking after and studying dragons, it was showing off dragons.
"I do. She's in pen H. H for Hermione. But maybe you first want to relax and recoop after your trip? Romania is lovely at this time of year. Grab a butterbeer and just chill with me for a moment, man." Charlie (Charles to his girlfriends) Weasley asked, around a grin. The pair stood on the porch of the group cabin for the dragon-lovers, a large, luxury wood cabin that came complete with all the amenities, including a massive dinner table and dining room, and a porch for enjoying sundowners to the dulcet tones of dragon mating roars.
"Hmm…" Now, Charlie Weasley was very good looking, which is why his mother always wanted him to cut his hair, so he'd be less so, and less Hermione's type in particular - that being red in some fashion. "Okay. But just a quick one."
'Just a quick one' turned into four or five as the pair caught up over delightful gossip and the baby photos of Ron that Charlie brought out of his own infinite chest of holding.
"And this is Ron in the bath-"
"There sure are a lot of bath photos. Why do parents enjoy these so much?"
"For embarrassment and blackmail purposes, I assume."
So, it is a rather tipsy Hermione who stumbles down the darkening paths of the dragon conservatory. Conservatory? Zoo? Pound? Nature reserve? Nature reserve! That's it. She stumbled down a cleally marked dirt path bordered by trees and thick, luciously green and grey undergrowth, following the signs that each had a series of letters on them.
A →
← B
← H →
However, tragedy struck when a path cut by a bear through the shrubbery confused her just after she chose to weave right in order to reach pen H. The path straggling through the trees was almost as wide as the one she was on, and she couldn't see very well, due to butterbeer and the setting sun.
"I thought this trail would be shorter…" she muttered, as the dark trees, cast into sinister silhouette by the blood red sun crashing in slow motion towards the horizon, closed in.
Only to open up suddenly, pines and firs keeping their distance from something lurking in the midst of them.
"…Wow. What is that?"
A creature stood in the middle of a glade littered with bear and other animal carcasseses. A creature which was most certainly dragon shaped if not a dragon, standing as high as the tops of the trees. It's thick red tail lashed, and steam poured from its red nostrils, it's red eyes fixed on the tiny, buglike entity that had just wandered into its secret den. Why do they always take that path?
It's then, when the thing's jaws began to winch open to reveal needle teeth, that Hermione realised that the dragon was not confined in a pen. Whoops.
Fumbling for her wand as the beast began to charge, Hermione's butterbeer-compromised mind stuttered on one spell and one spell only.
"Win Gar Dium Levi Ohhh Sa!"
It didn't do nothing. The dragon shot it's head forward, it's jaws a bear trap ready to snap shut on a frail young woman.
"Oh, did I pull a Ron?" Hermione studied her wand, and giggled.
The Red Lord, first wizard, King of demonic mutants, the greatest teleporter in the world, 'Satan', the one who arm wrestled Mephisto and won, Mr Loverboy, father of Nightcrawler, lover of Mystique and several million other women, The Best Dressed Man Alive, (along with a long list of other titles honours, and feats) chose that moment to reveal himself, bursting out of a ballet whirl of red and black smoke at the point of the dragon's head where skull met spine, his long and evil swords already moving through their arcs, his fabulously deadly tail acting as a counterweight to keep perfect balance.
"Ha! Go to hell!" The one and only Azazel hissed, driving his blades through the dragon's flesh and bone in a shower of blood and gore. Dressed in his signature exotic black high collared suit, he appeared like a badass version of certain dark wizards Hermione was familiar with, the ones so pureblooded they could employ muggle dress without compromising their distinctly anti-muggle stance.
Down on the ground, where she was being showered in viscera, Hermione did a little dance and called out to her long-lost boyfriend. "Az! I love you, you red prat! Don't get hurt or I'll hurt you myself!"
BAMF! The man, charming as charming could be, appeared beside her and teleported her out of the range of the severed head of the dragon, which crashed to earth with a quaking boom. "I know it, baby. And I'd love it if you tried. Could be fun." He said, flashing his sharp black eyebrows and pecking her on the lips as if no time had passed since they last saw each other.
"I thought you were dead, or captured, or something."
The man threw his sleek head back and laughed, dagger canines glinting in the dying light. "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Numerous times. I was merely out grabbing milk, my dear. But I'm back now, with the best deals."
"Yay!"
The duo performed the classic romantic 'dip and kiss' while the glade around them turned into a stinking, spongy swamp of blood.