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fakeyellow · 5 years ago

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Kamilah recounts how she and the others regrouped once Eden/MC became possessed by Rheya. Part 2 of “insane” Kamilah. Part 1 here.

Final Part 3.

Summary: Since the First Vampire’s rise and fall 500 years ago, Kamilah Sayeed has moved into legend, a woman drenched in the blood of thousands.

Rosella has made it her mission to find out why.

An indeterminable amount of time had passed since Rosella’s capture and she found herself longing for Kamilah’s return. Her mind was going crazy with the countless possibilities of what might have happened and her throat was aching with thirst. How long had it been since she’d fed? Had Kamilah forgotten about her?

When at last she heard the sounds of the opening doors, her head snapped up before Rosella tried to contain her eagerness.

Kamilah stepped in, looking as perfect as she had that first time, dressed in that same blood-red suit but for once, Rosella’s attention wasn’t on her. It was on the blood pack in her hand.

Her head followed the movement of the bag as the woman walked near her, her fangs already out in anticipation. She felt the unlocking of one cuff and immediately, she snatched the blood bag with her free hand and began greedily sucking it down.

The bag now empty, Rosella licked the side of her lip where a small amount of blood was before gratefully saying, “Thank you.”

Kamilah, who had been unfazed at her nearly feral display of feeding, seemed surprised at the words of thanks before nodding once. Noticing how the vampire didn’t seem to be in any hurry to re-cuff her free hand, Rosella wondered if perhaps Kamilah knew that she wouldn’t run away even if she was set free (Or maybe it was because Kamilah could kill her in a second if Rosella showed even the slightest sign of wanting to escape).

A silence had fallen over the room and Rosella felt the need to fill it with anything, to get Kamilah talking before she decided she was in the mood to kill her today.

“So, E-,” Rosella quickly changed direction when she noticed Kamilah’s eyes flashing dangerously at the first syllable, “Rheya. Once Rheya had control over a body, what happened?”

There was still so much that had happened between the First Vampire’s resurrection and the beginning of Kamilah’s ruthless campaign that Rosella wanted, no needed to know.

It was silent for so long that Rosella began to lose hope. This was the day Kamilah finally grew tired of her and killed her.

Uneasy, Rosella began to fidget, accidentally letting her wrist come in contact with the rings of UV light emitted by the cuffs. The pain that flared up was instantaneous, so intense that she almost missed the soft words Kamilah began to speak.

—-

Rheya had killed all of the Order of Dawn soldiers down in the chamber before running away, leaving the massive headquarters to the four of them. They sat in one of the many debriefing offices and Kamilah wondered how many vampires must have been killed by plans made in this very room.

The first to break the tension hanging over the room, Lily voiced a similar thought to which Jax darkly muttered, “Too bad most of the soldiers are scattered throughout Europe. Rheya could have killed all of them.”

Adrian looked up at this and sharply rebuked, “Jax.”

“What?” Jax said, throwing his hands angrily up in the air, “We’re all thinking it. The First Vampire’s walking again, she might as well destroy the Order of Dawn while she’s at it. Not that we’ll live to see the benefits of that, but if she’s going to kill us, she better kill those bastards too.”

Kamilah was tired. As one of the oldest vampires in the world, she knew that everyone would be looking to her for leadership in these tumultuous times. She had over two thousand years of experience, and yet it never seemed to get easier, it was never not her. Kamilah felt the oppressive burden of leadership weigh down her shoulders and she closed her eyes briefly, her only sign of weakness, before she snapped to attention.

“We need to operate with the assumption that Rheya and Gaius are going to reunite and return,” she remarked and Lily, already looking pale, swore before sinking down in her chair.

“Kamilah’s right. We need to gather as many vampires as we can. Thanks to Vlad, Rheya has no shortage of vampires willing to join her cause,” Adrian smoothly picked up where Kamilah had left off even as Jax snorted.

“As if she needs willing vampires. She can probably just force them.”

“Jax!” They all turned to the source of the cry, surprised to see that it was Lily, uncharacteristically serious, “I get it. Everything sucks and I want nothing more than to hide in a bomb shelter and wait it out but we need to work on finding a way to beat them. Your Gloomy Gus act isn’t helping at all. Either offer some ideas or just shut up!”

Kamilah nodded approvingly, “I’ll reach out to all of my contacts. We can count on 300 vampires, maybe 400 if they can be convinced of their necessity.”

Adrian mused, “Not counting our overlapping connections, I think I can call in around a hundred. Jax?”

Jax gave a tired sigh, but he responded without any dark remarks, “If there’s anything I’ve learned, there’s a lot of Clanless still in hiding. I’d say around 1-200. Not including the Clanless who have already joined my clan.”

Lily added, “I’ll also have Fangbook display an announcement to every user. That’ll be able to get a lot of the younger vampires.”

Adrian eyed Kamilah carefully before he spoke, “There’s still the matter of Rheya.”

And here lay the crux of their situation, the problem that seemed to suck out all the oxygen in the room, the crisis they could avoid no longer.

The First Vampire was walking again. In Eden’s body.

The horror she had felt at that moment was greater than any she had felt in her life and Kamilah had been able to do nothing but dumbly watch as the woman she loved became but a shell for a legend. It felt like her heart had twisted itself into a tight knot and not relaxed since that very moment; how was it that each heartbreak she experienced was even more poignant than the last?

It seemed that when it came to Eden, Kamilah was capable of nothing but failure. She had failed to protect her from Vega, Gaius, Kavinsky, the Order, the list went on and on until her biggest failure yet.

Kamilah felt an urge to run out of the room and just chase after Eden, consequences be damned, but she pushed it down, pasting on an emotionless facade.

At her silence, Adrian continued delicately, “We all saw Eden drink from the Tree but it’s not clear what happened afterwards. Her eyes flashed red like a vampire but she didn’t have fangs. If I had to guess, I’d say Rheya’s possessed her and given Eden her abilities but Eden’s maintained her mortal body.”

They all remained silent after Adrian’s declaration, processing what this meant for Eden. Jax slammed the table in frustration as Lily frantically tapped her leg, her brow furrowed in worry. And then Adrian and Kamilah both looked at each other and said in unison, “Serafine.”

Kamilah nodded, “Serafine’s the only person who might know what happened and what to do.”

Lily perked up, her eyes wide behind the thick frames of her glasses, “Do you think she can maybe do her mind control thing like Jameson and kick Rheya out?”

“Perhaps,” she gave Lily. And seeing how Lily’s despondency completely disappeared, replaced with a fervent optimism, Kamilah envied her this. That she could be so filled with hope after one single word from Kamilah, that Lily trusted her unconditionally. There had only been one person able to pull her out from her feelings of numbness and shame, but she was far from her now.

“But we shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves. Serafine might not know anything about this. We should be prepared for the worst,” Adrian interjected carefully and winced, “As the last resort, if there’s nothing we can do, we need to behead Rheya.”

“What?!” Lily jumped up from her seat, outraged, “So you’re just going to kill Eden?! Just like that?! What if she’s still in there?! You all saw how Rheya faltered for a second! Eden might still be in there fighting for her life! She never once gave up on any of us, but you’re not even going to give her a chance?!”

Jax avoided Lily’s glare of betrayal, “I agree with Adrian. We should still be on the same page if things turn for the worst. We can only kill Rheya using a weapon made out of the Tree, right?”

Adrian nodded and Lily looked desperately at Kamilah, in a fervent plea for help.

And although her heart was screaming at her to stop all this talk of death, Kamilah could not in good conscience fight Adrian and Jax on this. If worst came to worst, Rheya and Eden had to be killed for the greater good of the world… Right?

Feeling as if she were personally signing Eden’s execution warrant, Kamilah finally spoke, “We need to be prepared. But Lily’s right. We have to be careful, Eden may still yet be in there.”

“We can’t give up on her. Not after all she’s done. We kill her when we can’t do anything else.”

Serafine still looked a bit worse for the wear, even though she had long changed out of the tattered remains of her dress from the night of the club massacre. But her spirit was wholly intact and she determinedly kissed everyone on their cheeks in greeting; imprisonment was no excuse for bad manners.

Greetings over, Serafine became grave, “I’ve read through the Book.”

Serafine had been told about Rheya’s possession of Eden and although she hadn’t heard of anything like it, she had volunteered to research the Book. Even in the short amount of time they’d known each other, Eden had made an impression on Serafine, and if there was anything she could do, she would do it.

“What did you find?” Adrian asked, and Kamilah let out the smallest of sighs, thankful he had asked first. She’d been fighting not to betray her impatience the entire morning although Serafine’s keen eyes already seemed to have picked up on her eagerness. If it had been any other time, Serafine would have poked fun at her old friend for finally having found a woman she truly cared for (no wonder Eden hadn’t seemed interested in Adrian and Jax).

As it was, Serafine focused back on the tome in her hands, “I found several instances of vampires taking control over weaker vampires they had Turned, which isn’t exactly like Eden’s case but similar.”

“And?” Lily asked, bouncing on her heels with excitement, “were they able to regain control of themselves?”

Serafine hesitated, “Well, in one case, they tried destroying the body of the maker and controller.”

“And?” Adrian prompted.

“Both the maker and the controlled dissolved into ashes.”

“What happened in other cases?” Kamilah quickly asked, moving on from the unfruitful example.

“The controlled person died in every single instance."

A bleak silence fell over the five of them until Serafine spoke up again, “But these were all vampire vampire situations. It might be different with a Bloodkeeper. She has mental powers that these vampires most likely didn't’ have.”

Jax scoffed dismissively, “Yeah but we’re dealing with the First Vampire.”

And cynical though his words were, nobody could deny the truth in them.

Serafine wasn’t a particularly optimistic person but seeing just how broken and hopeless they all looked, she felt the need to speak, “You said Rheya faltered for a moment, right? That’s a good sign that Eden was even able to evoke a physical response. That means she’s still in there, she’s still fighting. If you can get me close enough to touch her, I may be able to help her.”

Kamilah nodded in thanks but Adrian still seemed unsatisfied.

“If it doesn’t work…” he trailed off.

Jax answered for all of them, “She dies.”

—-

A/N: I’m an idiot and I need to be studying but I can’t get this idea out of my head. There’ll be one more part to this.

#playchoices #kamilah x mc #kamilah sayeed #adrian raines #lily spencer #jax matsuo #serafine dupont #my writing #bloodbound

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plotbunny-hutch · 6 years ago

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Hermione Granger and the Firebird 4/4

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

Nagini.

Nagini is . . . oh, boy.

So, previously on Hermione Granger and the Firebird: the Giving Cup, Helga Hufflepuff’s sacred goblet, once used to bind alliances and give strength to the weary, is dead. Before that, it did its damnedest to tear apart Hermione and her Hunt–and it nearly did. Viktor and Ron came close to killing each other. Mila, Darina, and Aleksi aren’t talking to each other. Tihomir is . . . well, he’s being Tihomir about it, which means that everyone keeps an eye on him when it’s his turn to cook. Tiho’s dad thinks a little baneberry in the tea adds variety to family meals and keeps the kids on their toes. Sirius won’t leave dog form.

Oh, and everybody has Horcrux nightmares.

So, running low on sleep and patience and general sanity, the Hunt makes a stopover in Godric’s Hollow. There’s an old Order safehouse there. And Harry has never seen his parents’ grave, or the place where he was born.

Okay, and Hermione wants to meet Bathilda Bagshot and maybe gloat a little about the Wiltshire Smythe/Devonshire Smith thing. Wouldn’t you?

Now, in their youth and excitement to be done with this damn Hunt and finally get some sleep in a proper bed and never talk to their fellow Hunters again at least until they get really bored, our brave heroes make an elementary mistake. They split up.

Harry doesn’t really feel like visiting his parents’ grave and having a lot of feelings in front of a bunch of Bulgarians, even if he did kind of save their lives and even if they do feel indignation on his behalf both loudly and frequently. They’re proving to be awfully handy in a scrap–but they’re still Hermione’s friends, really, not his and Ron’s. Viktor, meanwhile, has some serious shit to say to Ron, and Mila, Darina, and Aleksi have some serious shit to say to each other.

So, with Hermione and Sirius in tow, Harry heads for the graveyard. Viktor takes Ron out to the safehouse’s broom shed to see if they can salvage enough brooms for the Hunt. Viktor and Tiho are the only ones old enough to Apparate, and Tiho isn’t great at Side-Along. Only a few hastily-enchanted Portkeys and some serious cardio have kept them ahead of the Death Eaters. The remaining Bulgarians set about fixing dinner and checking wizarding radio for news.

(The news, by the way, is not great. There seems to be a roving band of young radical terrorists on the loose, staging Death Eater attacks through the countryside in order to continue their lawless spree: three ex-Hogwarts students, expelled by order of the Minister, and a gaggle of foreigners, one of whom rather eerily matches the description of international Quidditch sensation Viktor Krum. If you happen to see any of these hooligans, seek cover and report your sighting to the Ministry at once.)

“I know you care very deeply for Hermione, and you are very good at apologizing,” Viktor says over a pot of old broom polish, “But between apologies, I do not think you are very good at being her friend.”

“James and Lily were family,” Sirius says, barefoot in a snowy graveyard, holding Harry while he cries and Hermione looks awkward. “I shouldn’t have left you. Not with Hagrid, not with anyone, I never should have left you.”

“I hate what I said to you, and I know I can’t ever make up for it,” Mila says to Darina and Aleksi. “But it’s killing me to see it drive you two apart. Please don’t let me being stupid wreck this. It’s good for you. And I want you to be happy more than I want you.”

“Hm,” Tiho says to the stewpot.

“I’m . . . going to give you two a moment,” says Hermione, inching off stage left as Harry and Sirius weep on each other.

The Hunt is changing her. It’s happening faster all the time. She used to be able to spend all day in the library; just the thought of it makes her itch now. The others complain and pick at blisters around the evening campfire, and get distracted in mid-conversation, and slug about in the morning. Hermione has walked across half of England in the last three weeks, and she feels like she could run forever.

But she can’t, because her Hunt needs her to stay close. So she doubles back and forth along the trail. She does her hand stretches and picks idly at the hilt of her sword. Hermione can be patient.

Well, she tries, anyway.

Bagshot House is close, so close, and she knows that the boys will only be bored if they come with her. She spares a guilty thought for Aleksi–but no, he’ll forgive her, if she takes lots of notes for his capstone paper and maybe writes him an introduction letter.

So she goes to Bathilda Bagshot’s house, which is obviously a terrible idea. She has a lovely time over tea, gloats only a little bit about the Smythes, and takes lots of notes for Aleksi’s capstone paper. She says her goodbyes to Bathilda Bagshot, a sweet old witch who doesn’t seem to get out much, and sets off down the street.

Which is when the Aurors pop in and Stupefy her.

Hermione wakes up wandless and, more horribly, swordless in one of the Ministry’s charming detention cells. It might even be the same one she was held in after the Tottenham Court Road attack.

“Seriously?” She shouts at the ceiling. “It takes you thirty bloody minutes to respond to a Death Eater attack in the middle of London and two seconds to pick up a delinquent student in the arse-end of the West Country?”

Which is how she discovers that she is officially no longer a student.

Oh, she thinks, in a distant floaty sort of way, this is what being dead must feel like.

“Focus on your studies, dear,” her mum had always said, sternly, and “Don’t you ever jeopardize your future,” her dad had always said. They worked so damn hard to give her a good life, and this had always been the deal: you work hard enough to make opportunities possible, and we will make them happen for you.

Mum, dad, I’ve been expelled. Hermione could die of shame.

She reaches – stops – drops her hand into her lap, empty. No sword. Right.

She looks at her hands for a minute: gloved in scars from fingertip nearly to elbow. Callused from sword drills. Dirty under the fingernails. A splinter, dug into a callus where she can’t feel it or reach it with her teeth. Empty.

She keeps her eyes on her hands when the Aurors come in, when they manacle her hands and walk her down the hall towards the trial room.

She’d stopped studying Muggle maths in primary school; she’d kept up her science reading, because it was interesting and because it helped her spellwork, but she hadn’t taken proper Muggle exams in ages, and would Hogwarts even give a transcript as proof of enrollment? What are her options? Does Hermione even have options anymore? Or has she thrown them all away like an idiot, waving a wand and toting a sword and swanning about like a hero when there are no heroes––

It is at this point that a minor hell breaks loose. Historians would later sit down and agree that, more or less, this is what happened on the thirtieth of October, 1995:

In Godric’s Hollow, Hermione’s Hunt became aware that they had lost their Huntswitch. A panicked wizarding househusband (Reginald Cattermole, age 47) shouted at Harry and Sirius as they crossed the street in front of his house that he was calling the Aurors. The two sprinted back to the safehouse, where a brief consultation with the radio-operating group clarified that they were all wanted fugitives, at which point Ronald Weasley, age 15, said “Where’s Hermione?”

At approximately 2:10 p.m., the Hunt mounted their hastily-repaired brooms and began the long flight from Godric’s Hollow to London with all haste.

At approximately 2:30 p.m., an alleged Death Eater (Amycus Carrow, age 52) spotted the Hunt in situ and loosed spellfire, shooting down Darina Dimitarova, age 16.

Alexi Nikolov, age 16, and Mila Ganina, age 17, immediately dove to render aid; on finding Dimitarova badly injured, Alexi cast a yet-unidentified Dark curse; Carrow’s dismembered body was later found by Muggles in Dunkeswell, Yarcombe, and Chard.

After a brief argument, Ganina remounted her broom and rejoined the Hunt while Nikolov stayed to administer emergency healing.

At approximately 3:30 p.m., while flying over Salisbury, another Death Eater sighted the Hunt, heading towards London; after consulting with Peter Pettigrew (age 35, widely believed to have been possessed by You-Know-Who, age indeterminate due to spectral status), Bellatrix Lestrange, age 44, gave chase by broom with a squad of junior Death Eaters.

At approximately 4:00 p.m., Sirius Black, age 36, peeled off from the Hunt to engage the pursuing Death Eaters, shooting down three before a third struck him with an artritoma curse, forcing him to make an emergency landing.

At approximately 4:15 p.m., while flying over Epsom, a small force of wizards and witches formerly associated with the vigilante group known as the Order of the Phoenix rose to engage with the remaining Death Eaters; one, with a hex later described as a repurposed cooking charm, dispatched Lestrange.

The leader of the nominal Order force (Kingsley Shacklebolt, age 42) made it known to the remaining Hunters that Voldemort had announced his intent to attack the Ministry of Magic. Spurred on, the now united force (numbering about thirty) made for the Ministry to oppose him.

At 4:36 p.m., a blasting hex brought down the gates of the Ministry, opening the way for a large force of Death Eaters, as well as a small pack of werewolves.

In the ensuing combat, another blasting hex caved in the passage between the Ministry detention cells and Trial Room 3, nearly killing Hermione Granger, age 15, and her escorting Aurors.

At 4:41 p.m., the Hunt and the Order descended on the scene, pincering the Death Eaters between the broom-mounted force and a small band of Aurors rallied by Percival Weasley, age nineteen.

At 4:53 p.m., Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter, age 15, found Granger half-trapped beneath rubble (and by all reports extremely cross) and levitated her free. Weasley and Potter attempted to dissuade her from joining the battle while unarmed; in reportedly strong language, she insisted on finding her weaponry, then.

At 4:59 p.m., probably guided by some arcane Hunt magic, Granger discovered the Sword of Gryffindor (bonded to her some eleven months previous) bound with gleipknots in a Ministry holding cell; reunited with her primary weapon and with little hope of recovering her wand in a timely manner, she then joined battle.

At 5:07 p.m., Death Eater reinforcements arrived on the scene with a Peruvian darkness hex cast simultaneous to a choking, noxious fog.

With the majority of the defending force struggling to breathe and outlook grim, Granger did something extremely inadvisable with the Sword of Gryffindor which cleared the fog, resulting in distinctive scarring and hair loss patterns on survivors of the First Battle for the Ministry, as well as a permanent scorch mark on all the walls of the Ministry Atrium at a height of roughly seven and a half feet.

Fog cleared, it became obvious that Pettigrew, clearly possessed by You-Know-Who, had taken the field.

At 5:15 p.m., Gryffindor’s Sword in hand, Granger rallied the defending force for a charge at the remaining Death Eaters. Both sides took heavy casualties; the defending force retreated deeper into the Ministry

At 5:28 p.m., defending morale, faltering at the failure to completely repel the Death Eaters, was bolstered by the arrival of reinforcements from Hogwarts: the full complement of teaching staff (less one Severus Snape, age 34, who as a double agent was at the time embedded in the invading force) as well as several students who had begged, borrowed, or stolen their way into combat. Rubeus Hagrid, 65, was accompanied by a number of magical creatures which later proved instrumental in defeating the Death Eaters during the three-day Siege of the Ministry.

At 7:34 p.m., another large-scale blasting hex caused a number of internal collapses in the Ministry, killing some dozen members of both forces and dividing the defending force in two. By strange accident, much of one defending force was of an age to have fought the first war against Voldemort; the other was primarily at or below the age of adulthood and included Granger and what remained of the Hunt.

Injured but still mobile, Ronald Weasley assumed the role of strategist to the Young Defenders, orchestrating a series of guerrilla attacks on the invading force throughout the remainder of the night. Meanwhile, Granger determined by Hunt magic that the remaining Horcrux was mobile and within the Ministry but mainly stayed in the Atrium with the bulk of the invading force.

(“Bets that he’s wearing it?”

“Ugh.”)

At sunrise on the 31st of October, the latest strike force is returning from their predawn raid.

“Bagged a werewolf!” One of the Gryffindor upper-years brags. Hermione thinks of Professor Lupin with a shudder.

“Did you sleep at all?” Viktor’s hand is warm on her shoulder, only a faint tremble showing the strain of the last three weeks. Had it only been three weeks? It felt like an eternity since she sat across from him in his uncle’s library and said I’m doing it with or without you, but please let me do it with you.

“A proper Huntswitch doesn’t need sleep.”

“Hah. After year and a day of training, maybe. You have been Huntswitch three weeks.”

Cheeks burning, Hermione looked up at him. “Well, I don’t have the luxury of time. I’d better be a proper Huntswitch now or we’re all doomed.”

“Doomed? Now I know you have not slept.” Viktor grinned at her fondly. “Hermione Granger is never doomed.”

“Pff.”

Light down here in the shattered Ministry has gone strange, blue witchlights clashing with cheery mock-electric fixtures on the blink. Cormac McLaggen and Katie Bell have broom-lamps for night flight pinned to their robes, casting dark orange beams in whatever direction they face. Shadows are confusing and colors are wrong.

“Go ahead, Ron,” Hermione says, when everyone has assembled and for some reason is looking at her. Ron’s the one running this meeting. What are they looking at her for?

“Er, right. So this is us, near as we can figure,” Ron marked their rough map of the Ministry, “And most of the Death Eaters are still in the Entry Hall, with You-Know-Who. There are two exploratory forces here,” the holding cells, probably freeing or killing prisoners, “and here.” The Department of Mysteries. “We think the Order are fighting them there, Angelina saw spellfire before she doubled back.”

“How many are left in the Entry Hall?”

“Forty-odd, last count. Could be more coming any moment. And we’re thirty-two.”

“Thirty-one; I don’t want Tiho fighting with that concussion.”

“Thirty-one.” Ron rubs his nose, lost in the map. Then he looked up. “How do you feel about brooms?”

“Not great.”

“Oh, then you’ll love this.”

Hermione does not love this. Whatever wizarding storybooks say, wielding a sword from broomback is an absolutely terrible idea; even more so when you have someone else riding sloth grip underneath you.

“It’ll slow us down, but it’s the only way to get everyone in the fight,” Ron had said, glowering at his figures as he scratched in the earth exposed by shattered cobblestones. “And with our shock troops, you won’t need to be fast.”

Now, Ron is fifteen, and his grasp of Muggle combat theory is shaky at best. When he says shock troops, he literally means shocking troops; students of apparating age who show up in the middle of the invading force, grab whatever elbow is handy, and apparate across the room, deliberately splinching their passenger along the way. Which is a pretty shocking experience. The twins are experts and manage to teach the trick to a handful of others; the remainder are picking it up as they go.

Meanwhile, the broom riders are providing cover fire and targeting the werewolves, who the shock troops don’t dare apparate close enough to bite. And Hermione, with Viktor on sloth grip steering because he’s probably the only one who can manage it, is near the end of her Hunt.

“I think he is wearing it,” she shouted down to her pilot, “Every time he moves, it–,” and then she claps eyes on Nagini. And she knows.

“Bloody fuck, another living one.”

Here’s the thing about living Horcruxes: being one is pretty damn miserable. Harry describes the first fourteen years of his life as one long low-grade migraine, blurring his vision and making things like sports nearly impossible. He doesn’t wear glasses anymore. And that’s not considering the emotional and spiritual feedback, the constant internal struggle of a self against another self. Hermione can’t imagine how strong he is to have survived that and still come out, at the bottom of it, a really decent person.

But other things can happen to a living Horcrux, stranger and darker things: Parseltongue in a boy who has no blood link to any known Parselmouth, a well of power stronger than any fifteen-year-old wizard really ought to be, the willpower to survive even a partial Dementor’s Kiss.

Harry was a Horcrux for fourteen years. Nagini has been for going on eighteen, though Hermione has no way of knowing that. She does know, as she knows it is her prey, that something is very wrong with this snake.

It’s big, for one, bigger than any natural venomous snake; it moves with a near-human intelligence across the field, striking at shock troops and occasionally catching one.

(Hermione can’t look at the falling troops, can’t look, can’t let herself watch)

“Okay,” she shouts at Viktor, “New plan. Kill the snake.”

But of course, she’s a Horcrux, nearly indestructible; no spellfire on earth will kill her. Maybe Fiendfyre could, but Hermione can’t make Viktor burn her friends along with her enemies. She just can’t.

Her hand goes to the sword. Right. End this like it began; the old-fashioned way.

In a maneuver that will define wizarding warfare for the next century, the two barrel down from the air. Viktor casts a binding hex, trapping Nagini for a few crucial seconds as he pulls up and Hermione falls from above like a star, like a dying phoenix, sword burning in hand.

When she wakes, there is ash. Flakes of charred cloth and broomtwig float down around her; indistinct twitches and moans happen at the edges of her vision. She can’t seem to make her hands let go of the sword, awkwardly angled half-under her.

Oh. And there’s Harry. And Voldemort.

Voldemort wearing Peter Pettigrew is a horrible sight. He moves wrong, and breathes wrong, and looks awful around the edges, like bits of him are fading in and out of existence. He looks – bubbling, like a cauldron about to blow. Hermione should know, she’s been Neville’s potions partner for years.

And when he speaks, everything in Hermione twitches to end him.

She has been hunting pieces of this man’s soul for sixteen months; now he stands before her, fatally weakened by blow after blow, harried as by hounds, torn as by arrows. The Hunt burns in her. It wants blood. It will not be denied.

She is not sure how Neville is there, but he is, scrabbling through ash and rubble to pull her from the blast zone that was Nagini. He practically shoves a potion down her throat, and then another, and then he dumps another one over her head when she can sit up. She’s vibrating now. She needs to kill it. Her throat’s not working right, but she looks at Neville and the sword and Voldemort, who is still taunting Harry, and he understands. Neville has always been good at reading people.

They stand, boy and girl and sword, and they walk: slow, painful shuffle-steps muffled by ash. The twitches and moans are clearer now; they are people, or what’s left of them. Hermione doesn’t look. She just walks, firmer with every step, leaning on Neville whenever she wobbles and still gripping her sword.

Never drop your sword, Gyorgi says, though your hands bleed. He would be proud.

And now Voldemort has cast a spell, and Harry another, and the two meet in the middle.

Your wand has a brother, Ollivander says. Once there was a phoenix that gave two feathers, only two in all the world.

This is Voldemort: he has never, not once in his life, looked aside from his goal. He has not wavered; he has not strayed. When fled, he chases. When pushed, he pushes. Hermione sees him, the horrible twisted bubbling back of him as he throws every inch of strength into pushing against the brother-bond, and she sees what he could have been. Sometimes you just get a wizard born for the Hunt.

But he’s wrong, twisted in every way, barely even a person anymore; the Hunt is all that’s left of him, hungering endlessly, ravening without cease. And Hermione is a Hunter too.

Together, Neville and Hermione lift the sword. Almost gently, they thread it between the third and fourth ribs of a man who was once Wormtail and is now the eighth Horcrux of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry’s brother-bond holds the man who tried to kill him once and failed. Harry’s brother-bond holds him until his bones are all that’s left. It’s almost gentle. No blowback. No death-throes of a divided soul fighting to live. Only the end.

Hermione is very tired. She would like to sleep now.

She startles awake in the Hospital Wing.

“Hush now, dearie, it’s over. It’s over.” Cool hands on her forehead and where is her sword–

Hermione is very tired. She would like to sleep now.

She startles awake in the Hospital Wing.

“Hey, easy. Easy. Hermione? It’s me, it’s Ron. You’re all right. We’re all okay.” And then, yes, her sword is there, hilt familiar as her own skin. “Here, Madam Pomfrey said not to let you have this, but I think she’s bonkers, who wouldn’t want a sword in your shoes. Or, er, hospital gown.” The words are helping; she focuses on them, pins all her attention to that voice. “So, er, it’s been a few days. More like a week, I reckon. Er. You did it. Personally, I mean. You killed Voldemort.” There’s a pause, and a wet sniff. “Congratulations?”

And then, oh no, he’s crying. Ron’s crying. “I–I thought I killed you, I thought I sent you off to die, Hermione, and you’re – you’re –,”

“‘m l rt.”

Sobs. Well, honestly. Hermione clears her throat and tries again. “‘m ull-rht. Ron.” And it hurts, but she grabs his hand anyway, because that’s what being a friend is.

It takes a few more weeks before she can even walk far enough to visit Viktor in the next bed. Ron had insisted that they be installed next to each other, apparently, which Fred or maybe George had whispered to her with a wink at the end of a big group visit. Most of the shock troops had come through all right. The broom troops had actually been worse off, at least those still in the air when Nagini had gone up like a dying star. Muggles were calling it a sewer explosion.

Viktor is alive. That’s probably the best that can be said about his condition. He might walk without a cane someday, one of the nurses from St. Mungo’s had told her with a sympathetic look. He isn’t quite up to speaking yet, but on a nice overcast afternoon when the sun isn’t too bright, he likes to sit with her and hold hands. Hermione sees many more awkward letters full of Feelings in her future, but right now, she can’t quite bring herself to care.

Oh, Fudge is dead, by the way. Some Undersecretary defected to the Death Eaters and killed him during the siege. She’s still at large, and so are at least two high-profile Death Eaters. But most of them are dead.

Hermione doesn’t let herself know any more than that. She’s going to be at least half a year healing from these last three weeks, Madam Pomfrey has told her in no uncertain terms. She’s made her first kill (has in fact killed her first kill several times, depending on how you count it) and the Hunt is sated for now, but it still lingers in her. It would be so easy to choose this prey, to say yes and run what’s left of her feet to rags after them. So she doesn’t.

There are letters for her. A devoted throng of second-years headed by Colin Creevey are screening out howlers, but that leaves so much silent mail. Strangers thanking her for saving the Wizarding World. Foreign governments (oh, that’s Mila’s mum’s handwriting) offering her sanctuary (she did sort of technically invade the Ministry, didn’t she?). Hunters in the Americas congratulating her on her first kill and welcoming her to the Hunt. All sorts of people. Oh, and a letter from her mum.

Viktor thumbs a tear off her cheek and gently takes the letter out of her hands.

There are funerals. Lots of funerals. They never get easier.

“They want to give us Orders of Merlin,” Harry says, standing awkwardly at the foot of her bed, not really sure what to do with his hands. “For killing Voldemort, you know. You, me, and Neville. I made sure they knew who did it,” he says, defiant. Harry has never wanted to be a hero. Heroes do too much standing alone for his liking. Harry would much rather stand with his friends.

“Okay,” Hermione says, kind of at a loss. “Do you think they’ll still make us take our OWLs?”

Harry blinks at her and then starts to laugh. Then she does, too.

“Seriously, I haven’t studied at all.”

“Well, if they won’t give us an extension for saving the world, I bet we can retake them next year.”

Next year. And the next, and the next. Hermione has a sword on her hospital nightstand and scars on her fingers. She’s still not quite sure where her wand is. She’s been absent from school for two entire months and might still technically be expelled. But with all those years stretching out before her, free from Voldemort and Death Eaters and fucking Horcruxes, Hermione feels rich.

They talk about prophecies at the Order of Merlin ceremony, and when Dumbledore finally recites the damn thing even though she warned him not to, Hermione could just scream.

Divination. Ugh.

But the medal looks nice enough on her chest, opposite the strap of her baldric, and she’s finally healed enough to stand and walk around for a few hours without aching, so she even mingles a little. But then Viktor waves to her from a nice corner seat, Mila and Aleksi and even Darina beside him. Hermione tows her boys over to sit with her Hunt and gossip and tease each other about Mila’s dashing new facial scar and Viktor’s wheelchair biceps. Between that and the finger food, it’s not a bad evening all round.

So long as they don’t replace that ugly fountain with a statue of her, Hermione thinks she might even chalk this one up as a win.

There’s so much that Voldemort does not know, so many powers beyond his comprehension. He knows nothing of love, or friendship, or compassion. He doesn’t really know very much about Dementors and brother wands. The power of a good sharp murder stick is also foreign to him.

But above all else, he does not know the power of Hermione Granger.

THE END

#harry potter #au #canon divergence #hermione motherfucking granger #you know nothing lord voldemort

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