One

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor the characters within, and I make no profit from writing this. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Many thanks and virtual cookies to astopperindeath for the beta and a million hugs and kisses to my brilliant friend TeahPup for patiently giving me her advice when needed.

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"Stop looking at me," Hermione snarls, glaring at the man behind the enchanted mirror.

She knows he's watching her, even if she can't see him. He is always watching her. Even now, that ever-present gaze raises the hairs on the back of her neck, as if spiders were crawling and burrowing underneath her skin. She should be used to it by now, but then again, she doesn't think it's something that one ever becomes accustomed to.

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The war had just ended. Photos of Harry Potter standing victorious over Lord Voldemort's body in the Great Hall were plastered across the front pages of newspapers, The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler included. Finally, a time for celebration, they said.

But instead of knocking back shots of Firewhisky with her contemporaries and colleagues, a battle-weary Hermione returned to her parents' Muggle home, to the memories of her all-too-brief childhood. She didn't think she could handle the inevitable merriment that would ensue back in the wizarding world.

Upon Apparating to the quaint cottage in which she had grown up, Hermione found the house just as she had left it the previous summer...an empty nest still awaiting the return of its master and mistress. But Mr. and Mrs. Granger were sunbathing in Australia, unaware that their bright, young daughter was now taking refuge in the familiar sights and smells of home after a tumultuous war.

In all the weeks he has kept her prisoner in her old bedroom...a place that now screams confinement as opposed to solace...her parents haven't returned.

And so he found her alone, curled up on her childhood bed, reading Muggle fiction. He gave her a deceptively warm and gentle greeting, and in return hers was full of surprise and bewilderment. Although slightly too thin from being on the run during the past year with the boys, she had nevertheless been ripe, ready to be savored. So young, so sweet, so utterly delectable, he had thought.

As he later discovered, she may have been sweet (in essence if not in temperament), but...despite her youth...she wasn't innocent. No, inside she was a battlefield. There was bitter death and decay beneath the saccharine exterior. And kitty, oh, kitty had claws.

It made his conquest all the more satisfying.

After the initial shock of seeing him emerge from the cornered shadows of her bedroom wore off, after forcing him through twenty questions at wand point ("Constant vigilance," she had reasoned), she was all smiles and curiosity. Until she figured out that something was wrong. That Sirius Black had come back wrong.

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Sirius entreated Hermione not to inform the others of his return yet, lest they overreact.

"But, surely you wish to see Harry?"

"Harry can wait."

She found this a little odd but reckoned he simply wanted time to adjust to being back among the living. So, for the first couple of days Sirius and Hermione remained in the house, reading and eating at leisure, both slowly acclimating themselves to a new post-war life. They kept conversation to a minimum, despite the many questions Hermione had regarding his return. In the past few years fighting and hunting for Horcruxes, she had learnt restraint and had become more reserved. If Harry could wait, then so could she.

Ultimately, his eyes gave him away. He would stare at her heatedly...almost possessively...for minutes on end, regardless of what activity she was currently engaged in. If it had only been desire that she saw in his gaze, she could have dismissed the matter, for what is so strange about a sexually voracious man lusting after a rather attractive, albeit much younger, woman? But there was something else, something darker and more sinister beneath the surface.

Alas, this revelation came a little too late.

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The next afternoon, when Hermione was upstairs rifling through her old school trunk searching for her copy of Guide to Advanced Transfiguration...it simply wouldn't do to let her skills deteriorate...she heard a faint growling from downstairs. At first, she thought she had imagined it; perhaps her insomnia was finally catching up to her. But she heard it again a minute later, growing in intensity and persistence. Carefully, as quietly as she could manage on the hardwood floors while barefoot, Hermione traversed the hallway leading away from her room and slowly descended the stairs. As the backyard terrace came into view, she noticed the door was open.

"Sirius?"

No answer.

"Sirius? Where are you?"

Still no response.

Fear and adrenaline pumped through her veins, heart pounding irregularly loud in her ears. Grasping for her wand, always close at hand, Hermione cautiously moved towards the door, not knowing what to expect. Spotting some vague shapes in the center of the wilting garden, she walked further out onto the deck for a closer look.

She felt like retching at the sight and smell that assaulted her senses.

The fresh, ruby-stained carcasses of assorted animals...birds, rabbits, ferrets, even foxes...littered the bare courtyard. Feathers of once vibrant and varied colors, now soaked in blood and grime, were scattered all over the ground, intermingled with clumps of obscenely matted fur. And in the center of it all was a large, wild black dog, his teeth tearing and ripping into his quarry.

A small sound of distress pushed its way up and out of Hermione's constricted throat, alerting the beast to her presence. His head swiveled from his prey towards the noise. Something that could pass for a grin on a human face flitted across his canine features, but on the dog, his teeth smeared with red, it very nearly looked demonic. He began to slink over to where Hermione stood frozen in place.

"St-Stay away, Padfoot," her voice quivered.

She hastily backed away into the house, wand still pointing out towards the dog, now advancing on her with a positively predatory air. Intent on protecting herself from the approaching canine, Hermione tripped over the doorframe and collapsed backwards, her breath rushing out of her lungs in one fell swoop.

Padfoot took this opportunity to leap onto the woman splayed out before him, pinning her shoulders to the ground with his paws. His bloody drool pooled at the side of his maw, threatening to fall onto her face, and Hermione cringed, trying to push him off of her in vain.

Sucking in more oxygen and regaining the use of her mental faculties, Hermione grasped the wand by her side and pointed it up towards the beast now hovering over her. Before she could so much as Stupefy him, however, he suddenly, viciously gashed her arm with his claws, causing her to cry out and reflexively drop her weapon.

Panic, swift and fierce, swept through her entire being, as the young witch genuinely began to fear for her life. Self-reprimands and a hundred hysterical questions flitted through her mind, too fast to keep track of them all.

Why didn't I tell anyone he was here? Why didn't I investigate his reappearance more thoroughly? Where are Harry and Ron? What are they doing at the moment, now that I'm seconds away from becoming pudding for a crazed Animagus? Oh, gods, I wish I had gone to Australia to see Mum and Dad. Will they ever remember having a daughter if I die before removing the memory charm? Are the neighbors home? Will they hear me if I scream?

As Hermione's inner monologue continued, Padfoot could smell his bitch's fear and relished it. He lowered his snout and swiped his tongue across her cheek, leaving behind a thin, long trail of scarlet saliva. The dog's actions reoriented Hermione, snapping her out of her paralysis, and she renewed her struggles to shove him off of her. She received a warning growl and a small nip by her neck for her efforts.

Just when she thought her predicament couldn't possibly worsen, she felt something hard and insistent growing and pressing against her leg. Despite the dog's previous admonition to her, she started thrashing even more upon discovering this new threat, tossing her head back and forth.

"No... nononono NO!"

Unexpectedly, she felt the animal above her begin to shift, bones grinding and realigning themselves, muscles reshaping and moving as the creature's legs, arms, and torso elongated, tongue and canines and ears and claws receding. When it was all over, Hermione found an entirely nude Sirius Black still covering her petite form and trapping her beneath him.

"Hermione..." He released a throaty groan right next to her ear, then swirled his hot tongue, still coated in the blood of his repast, in the crevices of the sensitive organ.

A terrified whimper escaped her as she assessed the situation. She tried to sound assertive when she spoke, but her voice broke pathetically in the middle of her command.

"Sirius... Get off."

Hermione gasped as Sirius bit her neck hard enough to leave marks and then tenderly licked the wounds.

"Stop!"

A deep, dark chuckle answered her as the volatile man leaning over Hermione ran his hands over her lithe body, caressing her in a poor imitation of intimacy, pushing up her tank top until it rested beneath her clavicle and above her breasts. His hands drifted lower until his fingers found purchase in the zipper of her jeans, and he aggressively pulled the pants down her legs and over her feet. She continued to kick and flail her limbs, trying to slap his hands away with her one good arm as he groped and fondled her cloth-clad breasts. Spotting Hermione's wand lying uselessly next to her injured arm, Sirius picked it up and, with a muttered spell, forced her hands above her head with invisible restraints, then vanished her top and bra.

Glancing behind him and seeing the open door, its distorted windowpanes reflecting the horrific scene taking place in the kitchen, Sirius drew Hermione up off the floor and effortlessly flipped her over his shoulder. He kicked the door closed behind him, the glass windows rattling, as he made his way into the parlor room, where he gently eased the squirming, snarling witch onto the blue and gold striped chaise longue. He lowered himself to lie in between her legs, teasing his angry, rigid cock against the soft cotton covering her mound.

"Sirius, you're not thinking properly! Get a hold of yourself!" Hermione yelled desperately.

"Mmm, 'Mione, let's put that trap of yours to better use, shall we?"

He trailed his mouth across her neck and up towards her lips, leaving rough, wet kisses along the way, finally reaching his goal, at first gentle and then prodding. Hermione refused to open her mouth for her assailant, glaring at him so vehemently she could have turned him to stone, so he bit her lower lip until he drew blood. She yelped in pain, giving him the entrance needed.

He invaded her mouth as one hand alternately squeezed her breast and teasingly pinched her nipple, and the other delved beneath her knickers to insert first one, then two fingers into her tight, dry heat. He shoved his digits in and out of her resistant cunt, gradually increasing his pace, deliberately brushing against her g-spot each time and all the while stroking her clit with his thumb. Sharp pain and unsolicited pleasure enveloped her as she involuntarily bucked against his hand, and she just wanted it to stop it's all too much I didn't ask for this why is he doing this oh please no make it stop.

Feeling herself grow embarrassingly wet and hearing the sick squelching noises coming from her damp pussy, Hermione moaned into Sirius's mouth in humiliation and despondency. As his tongue mimicked the actions of his fingers and he ground his groin against her, his pre-cum coating her taut, pale stomach, she began to cry in earnest, a sob trying to make its way past Sirius's ministrations.

"Shh... I'll make it good for you, my sweet, sweet girl," he whispered, drawing back to look into her eyes, transparent in their misery and filling with unshed tears.

The gentleness he was now displaying was so at odds with his previous rapacious behavior that Hermione didn't know what to make of it. Briefly, hope that she could stop Sirius before he got any further flared hot and bright in her chest. Then, through the blurriness of her tears, she saw that same dreaded darkness clouding his grey orbs that she had observed in him before.

"No... Please..."

Sirius smirked, his eyes glinting in a truly alarming fashion. He brutally ripped off Hermione's last remaining defense, positioned himself, and thrust forward. Hermione screamed.

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He cherishes her like she is an earth-born goddess come to savage the remnants of his soul. After all, she was the one to unwittingly bring him back from the place in-between with the force of her longing, by harnessing her innate magic...and, oh, how beautiful and pure her magic had been.

It doesn't strictly matter what she was longing for. All he needs to know, Sirius tells himself, is that the gods have seen fit to bestow him with renewed life, that it was him whom her subconscious chose as her mate.

Thus, like the goddess he knows she is, he clothes her in translucent robes of gold, glinting and glittering in the sunlight that emerges through the small charmed window. Unbreakable glass and impenetrable wards, of course. He takes every precaution to keep her with him, because she's a powerful witch even without her wand.

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She hates the pet names he calls her. Sweet girl. Princess. Poppet. Mine.

She is none of those.

But he doesn't listen. He won't listen.

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She isn't a victim. She asked for this. She asked for me. Words he tells himself in the dark of night when he's pumping in and out of her unwilling flesh.

The scratch marks tattooing his arms and face belie these suppositions.

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Bruised. That's how she feels, like an overripe peach squished and prodded until all that's left is a pulpy mass of flesh.

She doesn't know why Harry and Ron haven't found her after all this time. Has it been months or years? She can only assume that Sirius must have placed a modified Fidelius Charm on the house. Or maybe they just don't care, a malicious voice tells her. Is it hers, or his?

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"Let me go, Sirius." Her eyes aren't hopeful, though, not anymore. They're dull, sapped of any conviction. She knows well enough by now.

And when there is no answer, she becomes furious, whether at her own helplessness or at the monster who has trapped and caged her, Sirius isn't sure.

And so she throws her things across the room at the gilded mirror, and she tears at the wallpaper, at the throw pillows, at the expensive linens. It doesn't matter. A quick Reparo will fix everything later that night, right before he takes her.

And she screams and rages and curses the fact that the damn mirror won't fucking break!

And she shrieks, mahogany curls flowing wildly around her like the snapping serpents of Medusa, "STOP LOOKING AT ME!"

And Sirius, watching calmly from the room beyond, thinks, Never.

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One day, soon, Hermione will smash the mirror.

And she will destroy Sirius Black.

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End Notes:

"The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that 'When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is "the most horrific woman in the world" ... [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth.'

"Medusa's visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a 1978 issue of Women: A Journal of Liberation. The cover featured the image of a gorgon, which the editors explained 'can be a map to guide us through our terrors, through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women.'" (Source: Wikipedia)