Dark Allure

When they got home, Hermione didn’t waste any time getting in the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. She never bothered saying goodnight to her parents anymore. It’s not that they wouldn’t respond, but she just grew tired of the token answers that they gave her to atone for how they really felt. She was a freak and she always would be. Oddly she really didn’t mind.

Sitting on the edge of the bed she waited to hear their movements downstairs that signaled they had gone to bed. Once she heard that tell-tale groan of the house settling, she stood and walked to the window. After opening the window, she let her package of books drop to the ground below and prepared to join them. One handy thing that she had learned growing up is that her room was in the attic and the window faced away from the street- therefore no one noticed or cared that it didn’t have a screen on it.

As she climbed out of the window, she paid special attention to her journey through the large tree next to the roof. When she was younger she used to have flashbacks of the movie PollyAnna where she would fall from the tree and be crippled for life. Unfortunately she figured that her parents probably wouldn’t give her the great going away party that PollyAnna got and wherever she went she didn’t figure that she’d ever come back from. Therefore she knew to be especially careful.

Once down from the tree, she brushed the bark off of her pants and looked for her package. She found it plopped right on top of some of her mother’s pink tulips. What a shame. Hermione tried to feel guilty and couldn’t seem to find that feeling enough to enflame it. Last year, Crookshanks had pulverized her entire garden of tulips in search of a lone gopher. Despite the fact that he’d gotten the gopher, her mother had been livid.

Speaking of Crookshanks, where was he? She looked around, eyes skimming over the back yard for a fat lump of orange fur. Oh, there he is. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Crooks had become something of a popular cat with the la femmes in the area. He was currently next door with Tinker Belle, Mrs Avant’s white Persian.

Finally admitting that she’d have to do her exploring on her own this time, she tread quietly across the lawn and out the side gate. She headed straight for the old playground a few blocks down. The place was rarely used anymore since the community she lived in mainly housed more mature individuals who had already sent their kids packing decades ago and children weren’t really welcome. Taking a quick look around, she ducked inside the small playhouse and then pulled out her wand.

“Lumos.” She pulled out the first book which was thick and covered with a leathery crimson material. She gripped her wand tightly as the book seemed to arch in her hands when she opened it to the first page. Although she’d seen much worse in her Magical Creatures book, she still couldn’t help feeling very uncomfortable when her books moved.

Once she had the book open, she just sat there. Despite it's thickness, she couldn't seem to turn any pages. Instead there seemed to be a red handprint on the yellowed paper and immediately, she shuddered. It was red enough to be blood and some places around the curve of the palm were almost black...suggesting that the hand had been dipped into a signifigant amount of blood rather than a shallow wound. How ironic that she'd paid so much for a disfunctional book with only a bloody handprint, weren't there any pages to this thing?

"Touch it..."

Unsure if the sound had come from outside the playhouse or in her own mind, she froze. Although logic told her that she was being silly, she felt an anxious tingling in the back of her neck. Her eyes never left the book in her hands. Such is the cowardice of a Gryffindor alone. Before Hogwarts, she'd always done that when she was scared. Through a combination of completilltillness and a repeditive chant of "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real," she could handle anything.

Bloody hell, while on one hand she knew that when a strange male voice whispers touch it that she should typically run, she also felt the impatience and curiosity that had compelled her to purchase the books to begin with.

It was that same curiosity that now motivated her hand to align with the one on the page. The hand print was much larger than her own and for the few seconds before her skin met the bloody print, she reasoned that the 'writer' must have been male. There was one thing that she knew for certain, whatever was going to happen when she touched this book, couldn't be taken back. Everything she knew would change. Did she really want to risk everything with the threat of something she couldn't predict?

With the answer in her mind, she pressed her palm hard against the bloody print beneath her fingers.


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Slight cliff there. I need some more reviews so I know that I'm doing something right or wrong. If you've been wanting to flame me, go ahead. I'm learning to realize that bad reviews are better than none at all. ^_^

Any preferences regarding the pairings? I'm building plot into it, but I fully intend for this to be plum full of smutty wonder. Any unusual requests?

Review Responses:

Anon (08/25/04) - Don't worry. I have no intention of making it Hermione/Harry/Ron. Alas (for all those "Good" girls out there), I like the bad boys. There will be a flashback sequence with the horrible pairing of Snape/Lucius/Bellatrix but the final pairing should be Snape/Hermione with a sweet twist of angst in the end involving Lucius (no character death, I like semi-happy endings.)