XII

XII

Severus, what do I do? she thought desperately as Cedric led her to a seat between Harry and Ron at the Gryffindor table. The smells of eggs, toast, sausage, and bacon wafted up to her. Scents that had once made her mouth water now made her stomach turn. They were so strong that she could taste them on her tongue. They tasted like dirt and ash.

Snape's voice echoed softly in her mind. You are faster than they are, Hermione. Pretend to eat. Hid the food in your napkin. Drop it on the floor. Otherwise, you'll have to cough it back up right after breakfast. Pretending is easier.

A grimace ghosted over her face as she slid onto the bench between her friends. Cedric remained behind her, his warm hands resting gently on her shoulders. She felt some of her anxiety ease knowing he was near. He must have told Harry and Ron what to expect. Neither of them made any sign that her new appearance disturbed them. She could see Ron's brain working furiously to match this new Hermione to the girl he'd known.

"I'll meet you at the door after breakfast is over," Cedric whispered in her ear. Hermione watched with nervousness as Cedric retreated to the Hufflepuff table. He chose a seat in her line of sight and smiled warmly as he pulled a plate of eggs toward him. The world shimmered emerald as a group of Seventh Year girls moved to crowd around him. She felt her muscles tense and fought the urge to drop into a predatory crouch. Her breath rumbled through her chest, begging to form into some feral snarl.

Get away from him, she thought angrily. She pushed her will forward, feeling it expand away from her. There was a jarring sense of power as she realized half the school was now subject to her every desire. At that instant, all she wanted was to stake her claim on the brown haired boy with the crystal blue eyes. Stay away from Cedric. He belongs to me.

The air around her grew stiflingly hot before she drew back with a snap. She watched intently as the girls around Cedric scoot away nervously. Those who had sat under her will when she'd made her demands did the same. En masse they shifted away from the Hufflepuff Seeker. A satisfied grin twitched her lips, and her eyes settled brown.

Cedric caught her eye and quirked an eyebrow at her. He followed her gaze around the room, and he noticed for the first time how everyone had unconsciously moved away from him. He stared, his lopsided grin returning with vengeance. He covered his mouth with his hand as he tried to stifle back the laughter that threatened to erupt from him.

"Feeling okay, Hermione?" Harry asked around a mouthful of toast and kippers.

She turned to her friend and searched his face as if she'd never seen it before. Her new eyes took in the dark, nearly blue-black hues of his hair. Flecks of gold seemed to sparkle in his green eyes. His skin was tinted brown from being in the sun. Freckles dusted lightly over his nose, all but hidden beneath his glasses. His cheeks were flushed slightly pink, and his lips were full and tinted like coral.

Her inspection lasted only a sixty-fourth of a second. She felt a rush of love as she took in his familiar features. "Much better, but Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey think it will be a while before I'm completely healed. Sev...Professor Snape agrees."

"Did it hurt? Getting stung so many times?" Ron asked from beside her.

She hated having to lie to them. But this part, at least, would be close to the truth. "Loads," she said, making a pained face. Ron nodded, his hair flopping over his face.

She turned her new eyes on Ron. His hair was flaming orange and appeared longer than she remembered. It settled over his eyes and fell down below his chin. His face was paler than Harry's and more than dusted with freckles. He had more than she'd ever noticed with her old eyes. He smiled mildly at her, showing thin, bright pink lips and slightly crooked teeth. His brown eyes reflected like burnished brass beneath long lashes.

Her gaze wandered back to the Hufflepuff table. Cedric was still watching her, his blue eyes keen. He raised one eyebrow and laughed so softly that only she could hear it. He was still sitting alone near the end of the table, watching her.

Harry's voice drew her attention once more. "He told us, you know. What you'd look like. Ced's been in the library almost as much as you lately, looking up stuff about vampyr mosps and things. He was really worried about you."

"Yeah," Ron piped up, the sound muffled by the food stuffed in his mouth. "Dumbledore let him stay up in our common room until they found you. I kinda felt bad for him, he didn't sleep for so long."

A quizzical expression passed over her face. "Really? That was sweet of him."

Ron snorted into his pumpkin juice. "Sweet! Damn it, Hermione. The guy was a mess. He wanted to go after the thing as soon as he found out about it. I'm surprised he hasn't stormed the dungeons already."

"Why would he do that?" she asked softly. She felt dizzy. Her head was spinning. She had a horrible vision of Cedric, pinned against the wall with Snape's hands at the younger man's throat. Part of her didn't want to hear Ron's answer. That part that was tied irrevocably to Severus Snape.

"Hermione? You really don't know?" asked Harry. He tried to catch Ron's eye when Hermione shook her head. He knew Cedric wouldn't want her to know...not this way. But there was no stopping Ron's mouth once it got started.

"Ced's in love with you, 'Mione."

If Hermione thought her head was spinning before, she had no way to describe what was happening to her now. Ron's words were echoing in her brain. Cedric's face was blurring her vision. The world around her glared black...red...orange...green...then finally purple. She saw spots and felt the world fall away from her.

"Hermione!" Cedric's voice rang in her ears as she fell. Her body smacked against the stone floor of the Great Hall. It gave way beneath her, cracks radiating out from where most of her weight landed. Her eyes glazed over, and her thoughts went blank. Her new body fought against the feeling of powerlessness and uncertainty, but her mind could not hold on any longer. This was what it felt like to faint.

The reverberations from Hermione's fall echoed through the dungeons until it shook every bone in Snape's body. He felt the uncertainty that ran through her and dropped the bowl of beetle eyes he was holding. His head snapped upward, staring through layers of rock and mortar. Without mercy, Snape invaded the mind of the nearest student and watched with terror as a crowd formed around Hermione's still form.

A howl erupted from his chest as he ripped himself from the child's mind. He was moving before he consciously made the decision. He moved with inhuman speed and grace, taking the dungeon stairs three at a time, a blur to anyone who looked his way. They had waited too long. The Blood Claim was draining her body of what life it held.

Cedric watched in horror as Hermione's body seemed to fall in slow motion. The castle seemed to shake as she hit the stone floor, her head bouncing with a sickening crunch. He jumped from his seat and climbed over the table, knocking plates and glasses aside as he went. The Ravenclaw table met the same fate. Cedric pushed people out of his way and stepped in plates of eggs and butter as he walked across the table.

He fell to his knees next to Hermione; surprised to see Harry and Ron move out of his path. Wide cracks opened in a web around her body, and the floor was sunken in a few inches where she lay. Unseeing eyes, tinged with purple, stared up at the enchanted ceiling. He pressed his palm against her forehead, tilting her head backwards and exposing her neck. His eyes swept over her form and, for the first time, caught sight of the pale white scars at the juncture of her throat and shoulder.

His fingertips traced over the scars as his mind whirled out of control. Thoughts moved so rapidly that it was difficult for him to keep track of them. Faint footsteps echoed in his ears as a growing dread fell upon him. With the impact of a rogue bludger, the truth hit him. He lost his breath and felt as if cold knives were stabbing his chest.

Heavy, black boots filled his watery vision as the Potions master pushed students out of his way in order to get to her. He dropped to his knees opposite Cedric, a dull cracking echoing through the stone beneath him. Cedric's eyes snapped upward and latched onto Snape's face. His eyes were a shale gray rimmed with black. His usually pale face was nearly transparent. His thin lips were drawn back over his teeth, where slight fangs glittered pearl-white in the filtered light.

"YOU!" Cedric snarled, unconsciously pulling Hermione closer to him. He felt the blood rush to the surface of his face, felt the room burn hotter than the pits of hell as he stared at the monster in front of him. "You did this to her!"

Snape glared back at the younger wizard, his teeth clenched in fury. "I made her what she is, but you are the one who did this to her," he hissed, jabbing his finger in her direction. "You force yourself on her, torturing her with your blood, and she resists. She resists to the point of madness!"

Hermione's form twitched on the floor between them. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she began thrashing on the floor. "She's having a seizure!" someone in the crowd shouted. Cedric looked around for Harry. They stared at each other for a quick moment, a silent message passing between them. Harry began pushing people backward; demanding that they clear out the hall so the teachers and Healers called from St. Mungo's could get to her.

"Fuck all," Snape muttered, his eyes darting from side to side. "They've called the Healers already. I must get her out of here before they arrive. It will be too obvious for me to carry her out of the room. They will follow me."

For an endless moment, Severus and Cedric stared at one another. Hermione's thrashing was lessening, and she was lying motionless on the floor with froth at the corners of her mouth.

"Do you love her?" Severus hissed quietly.

Cedric nodded. "More than you, you bastard!" he growled.

Severus let the comment go as he grabbed at Cedric's wrist. With a silent Accio he summoned a knife from the table nearby. "You love her? Then save her," he said flatly, staring into the younger wizard's eyes as he drug the knife over the pulsing veins of Cedric's wrist.

Crimson blood oozed from the gash on Cedric's wrist. Severus squeezed his wrist to force more blood from the wound and pulled it toward Hermione's mouth. He pressed the bleeding flesh against her lips and waited as droplets of blood dripped into her mouth. Cedric's heart pounded furiously, and he could sense the lightheadedness that was threatening to overwhelm him. He watched his blood drip between her pale lips and prayed that it wasn't too late.

Hermione felt as if she were floating. There was no air in her lungs, no thoughts in her mind, no being in her body. She was nothing and everything at once. Vague images flashed before her consciousness, faces of people she knew but could not name. People she loved but could not touch. She felt empty, hollow fear coursing through her.

She fought to return to her body, to those faces she could sense but not see. The fear anchored her to her mortal form and the faces pulled at her like tethers. The struggle to return was taxing, more than she could handle in her insubstantial form. If she had a voice, she would cry out in pain and frustration. But she was silent. No voice in her throat...

And then, with a jarring yank, her anchor found purchase and the tethers around her pulled with superhuman force. She no longer felt the sensation of weightlessness. She was too solid, too real. Pain crashed through her skull and radiated through her back and limbs. She could hear voices pounding in her ears in a high-pitched drone. It seemed as if her mind jump-started, and she found her control over her body.

She opened her mouth to scream and felt her lips brush against warm, wet flesh. Her tongue contracted and pleasure erupted in her brain as she registered the sweet taste of blood in her mouth. It was a taste she had thought of a thousand times, a taste that matched a smell she could pinpoint anywhere in the world.

Her lips latched onto Cedric's wrist and sucked greedily at the warm blood that flowed down her throat. She blinked as the purple-white film disappeared from her eyes and the world turned crimson. Her sight focused above her where Cedric and Severus were bent over her body. Severus was holding Cedric's wrist against her lips with one hand and a knife in the other.

The sight was too much. She felt her body cringe at the sight of the knife in her maker's hand and the look of dazed consciousness on Cedric's face. She wrenched her head to the side, smearing Cedric's blood along her cheek, and began coughing up as much of it as she dared.

Hermione pushed her way up from the floor until she was eye to eye with Severus. Her eyes were pinwheels of red and black as she glared at him. His eyes had tinted blue with happiness at seeing her recovering. She snarled and bared her teeth at him, snapping at his outstretched hand.

"Get away from me!" she snarled, backing away into a crouch. "How could you? How could you do that," she pointed at the still oozing wound on Cedric's wrist, "to him? To me!"

"I had no choice, my love," Severus whispered, still reaching out towards her. "You would have sunk into madness if I hadn't. And it was not against the boy's will. He offered it freely."

Hermione growled so fiercely that the rafters of the Great Hall shook. The students who remained backed against the wall in fear. Harry and Ron grasped Cedric's arms and pulled him to the side, away from the pacing lioness that was Hermione Granger. Blood smeared the floor, dripping into the cracks that spiraled out from the impression of her body. The smell threatened to overwhelm Hermione.

"Listen to me clearly, Severus Snape. I am no longer the replacement for your simpering Madeline," she hissed angrily. She paced to and fro before him, clenching her fingers into claws as her muscles tensed beneath her marble skin. "You are my maker, but I am no longer yours. Do not touch me again, with hand or mind, unless you wish to be torn to pieces. I am done with you!"

With that, she forced her hatred, her anger, and her dismay into a burning thought that consumed her mind. She glared at him; at the face she had once loved more than any other, and pushed that thought out with all of her might. She watched as his eyes grew wide and his body sank in upon itself as her thoughts overwhelmed him. He fell to the floor, covering his face with his hands, and wailed like a dying animal.

She turned her gaze to her friends, to Harry, Ron, and Cedric. Her vision faded to clear as her eyes regained their normal, roasted honey color. "I am sorry, I truly am," she whispered, straightening from her crouch. "Know that I love you all, no matter where I go or what I have become. I will miss you."

With that, Hermione turned and ran from the Great Hall. The oak front doors banged open as she pushed them out of her path. Her feet didn't seem to touch the ground as she ran with all of her strength from the only place she'd ever felt truly at home. With a gentle bound, she vaulted over the castle wall and felt the protective wards ripple over her as she landed on the other side. She sprinted down the lane and into a grove of trees on the near side of Hogsmeade.

Her new form found easy foot- and finger-holds in the bark of the trees as she climbed to their highest branches. From the top of the trees, she could barely see the outline of Hogwarts against the morning sky. She knew it was there, knew the shadow and form of each tower and parapet, but saw nothing but the dilapidated ruins any Muggle would see if they came upon the castle. The burning began behind her eyes as she wept for her lost home, her lost friends, and her lost loves.