Twice Bitten ~ COMPLETED

Chapter 24 ~ A Little Surprise

Two hours later, Victor returned. There was blood on his suit and he looked sated.

”Did you get them all?” Adam asked, kissing the vampire and tasting the blood drying on his lips.

”All except Aden,” Victor replied, sitting down at the table. Adam joined him, sitting on the vampire’s lap and entwining his arms around his neck.

”Did she get away?” Adam asked him, surprised.

”Not exactly. I did catch her and was about to rip her throat out, when I noticed something different about her heartbeat. There was another very, very slight pulse beneath it. Not a real heartbeat . . . yet. But she carries another life inside her. I believe she is pregnant,” Victor replied. “I couldn’t bring myself to take her life.”

Adam raised both eyebrows.

”Mercy, Victor? I never would have believed it,” Adam said to him softly.

Victor shook his head ruefully.

”Neither would I,” he agreed.

*********************************************

Neither Harry, Ron nor Hermione said a word about the wizards’ short stint as vampires, though Ron wasted no time telling both Harry and Hermione how he spent his last day in Vashti’s lair and his narrow escape, bragging horribly. They were in Harry’s room and spent the day visiting graves and leaving flowers to make up for missing the actual funerals.

Hermione listened, her face frowned up with distaste as Ron described to Harry every jot and diddle of what he did to the girls and what they did to him. Hermione’s encounters with Snape had not been that way at all. She hadn’t done anything to the wizard except kiss and touch him during the sex act. Ron had gotten the full treatment. He even buggered Aden.

”Ron, you’re a pig. How could you do that?” Hermione said to him furiously.

”Is that a bit of jealousy I detect?” Ron asked her smugly.

”No! Of course not. But four girls at the same time?” she said to him, flustered.

”Bet Snape never did that,” Ron said to her, even more smugly.

Hermione didn’t say anything, but it kind of bothered her Ron had shagged the four young women. They were all very pretty, if shallow. But randy wizards didn’t give a damn about shallow.

”If Adam ever catches you, Ron,” Harry said warningly, “he’s going to cut off your nads.”

”He can’t cross moving water. I’m completely safe,” Ron said.

”I don’t know Ron. He might be able to cross it now. He’s less vampire than he was. His eyes were almost completely brown the last time I saw him,” Hermione said, hoping to make Ron worry a bit.

But it didn’t work. As far as Ron was concerned, he was the new Stud of Hogwarts, if not the wizarding world. He was almost positive he was the youngest wizard around that got some M/F/F/F/F action. That made him almost unbearable. Hermione couldn’t stand the little smirk he constantly wore now.

“What about you and Snape?” Ron asked her.

”There is no me and Professor Snape,” she said shortly.

”Oh. The old ‘shag and run’ eh?” Ron said to her meanly.

”No, it’s just that our situation has changed,” Hermione said tightly.

Ron studied her for a moment, a slight frown on his face.

”I think either you realized you made a big mistake letting Snape stick his cock in you, or he dumped you the minute he turned mortal again,” Ron said.

Harry groaned. This was going to get ugly.

”It’s more complicated than that, Ron. There are other things to think about now,” she said to him loftily.

“Hell, there were important things to think of when you let him shag you!” Ron shot back at her. “Such as killing Vashti. That’s where your focus should have been, Hermione. Not on what Snape was hiding in his trousers.”

That was it. Hermione stood up and whipped out her wand on the startled wizard.

”Expelliarmus!” Hermione cried, blasting Ron across Harry’s room then storming out, slamming the door behind her.

Ron stood up a bit dazed and looked at Harry, who was shaking his head.

”You deserved that, Ron. Hermione’s kind of hurt about Snape, though she’s not saying anything,” Harry said to the red-head, who limped over to the bed and sat down.

“She should have expected to be hurt, Harry. That’s Snape she slept with. Snape isn’t boyfriend material. At least with me I would have paid attention to her afterwards. I wouldn’t have shagged her and then acted like it never happened,” Ron said. “Besides, I think she’s a bit jealous that I did fine without her and got plenty of action on my own. I outdid Snape.”

Harry blinked at him.

”Ron, if that’s what you think, you need to go to St. Mungo’s and get your head checked,” Harry replied. “You’re not in competition with Snape. You and Hermione weren’t going to be together anyway. You knew that.”

”She still could have let me get a shag for my efforts at least,” Ron grumbled.

Harry looked at Ron, his eyes dark.

”Hermione’s right, Ron. You are a pig,” he said.

*****************************************

The Pensieve Hermione sent to Kingsley Shacklebolt did the trick. The Auror, who now served as the Temporary Minster of Magic had always suspected there was more to the story that what seemed obvious. Snape had suffered so much for the Order . . . to go through all that just to betray Dumbledore made no sense to the wizard. He immediately issued a full pardon and offered a reward of five thousand galleons to anyone who could return Snape’s body intact so he could be given a hero’s burial.

Imagine his surprise when Snape himself showed up at the Ministry to collect the reward.

”I’ll pass on the burial, thank you,” the wizard purred to the stunned Auror.

Eventually, Hogwarts reopened, but not until the following term with students testing to find out whether they could move ahead a grade or not. Luckily, Hermione got wind of the tests beforehand and spent much of the summer with Harry and Ron hitting the books, making sure they would all be in their seventh year when they returned. She was absolutely horrible, taking Harry’s and Ron’s wands and actually binding them to their chairs, only letting them up to eat and for bathroom breaks every four hours in the final week. She had to Accio Ron twice as he tried to make his escape.

Needless to say, they all advanced.

During the summer, Snape suffered through several award ceremonies and two assassination attempts, which he handled quite well on his own in a nasty way that really discouraged anyone else from trying to take him out. When the Aurors came to pick up one of the bodies from Spinner’s End, which seemed to be turned completely inside out and still shuddering, two of the officials threw up where they stood. Snape shrugged.

”There’s a reason I’m the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” he said simply.

Investigation proved the assailant had been a low-level Death Eater named Jugson, who had escaped the Final Battle and was obviously looking for a bit of glory for himself. Unfortunately, all he found was death at the end of Snape’s wand, and a nasty death at that. The other assailant they tried to piece back together but never did find out who he was. Snape had run a bit amuck with the Sectumsempra spell. The assailant had actually got a few pokes with a knife in, cutting up the wizard’s arm badly before Snape managed to subdue him. To say he had been angry was an understatement. The dead wizard looked as if he’d had a few goes on a meat slicer and then a wood chipper.

Hermione read about the assassination attempts in the Daily Prophet with mixed emotions. She didn’t want the Professor to die, but at least he could have ended up in St. Mungo’s for a couple of weeks.

But he was in the papers so much, that Hermione could see that it really would have been difficult to have any kind of private relationship with the wizard. Paparazzi were following him about, Death Eaters watching him and who knew who else. Quite possibly she would have become a target herself. Harry went through a lot of this same hoopla, and Ron to a certain extent but Hermione got very little coverage because she didn’t offer much when asked questions and didn’t reveal everything she’d done and experienced. She didn’t want to be famous. She just wanted to get on with her life. So she purposely downplayed her role.

Ron got a book deal and was working with Rita Skeeter of all people, but both Harry and Hermione refused to sign releases until they saw the finished product. Still, Ron got a hefty advance. He was also paid a visit by Snape one night, who made it quite clear anything about vampirism was to be left out of the book or he wouldn’t live to spend a single galleon of his money.

After reading what Snape had done to those assassins, Ron believed him. Besides, Harry and Hermione would deny it as well, so he didn’t have any proof. Well, he thought he didn’t. If he went back to Iraq, he would have seen the proof in Aden’s rounded belly.

Actually, Aden now resided with Victor and Adam. She returned to her village, but once it was found out she was with child she was driven out in disgrace, despite having wealth. She wandered in the desert until she found the crevice, climbed down it as best she could and returned to Adam and Victor’s lair, planning on letting the vampires end her life.

But, to Aden’s surprise, Adam offered to take her in and be the baby’s “Fairy Vampmother.” Victor settled for being an uncle. The truth was neither Adam or Victor would ever have children of their own, and being that the child was conceived in Adam’s domain, he felt a bit of responsibility, and it was the perfect opportunity to lavish love on a child, though he still would string Ron up by his balls if he could get hold of him, “Deadbeat Dad” now added to his list of grievances.

“Besides, the baby will probably be a wizard or a witch, and is going to need guidance and teaching, Aden,” Adam said as he fondly rubbed her belly, Victor looking on. “I’ll see to that.”

He hoped it would be a little girl. He also instructed Victor to mark Aden, since that would bind them. Aden had no problem with that, since Victor was quite handsome and an exquisite lover. It was the possibility of him killing her afterwards that was the problem, a problem that was neatly taken care of by accepting his mark. Now they were all one big happy family.

Aden was helpful also in that she could go to market during the day. People soon learned to leave her be after Victor visited several troublemakers in the dead of night and warned them to be respectful of the pregnant young woman, or he’d be back. He made sure to show his nature as well. Soon people were whispering Aden was protected by Djinn and treated her with reverence whenever the richly dressed mother-to-be entered the village. Adam added a set of stairs leading up to the crevice to make it easier for Aden to enter and leave and promised to get her a camel after she had the baby.

Victor was quite happy with the arrangement, although he loved Adam very deeply. But now he had a female to indulge himself with when it suited him. Adam was happy too, because he now had someplace else to send Victor when he was randy and didn’t have to stand for the blonde vampire's pouting when he played the “I have a headache” card. And Victor still regularly menaced the new “blood cows.”

Some things never changed.

******************************************

The new term at Hogwarts began, and Hermione saw Snape for the first time since Iraq on Sorting night. He sat at his usual place on the dais, looking as diabolical and unapproachable as ever as he watched the Sorting, applauding politely at the proper moments. Their eyes met once and Hermione quickly turned away.

Snape however continued to watch the witch with hooded eyes as much as possible. Hermione had been quite the bright spot in those last dark days, one he couldn’t seem to turn off. Despite all that was going on around him, he found himself thinking of her in those few quiet moments he had, a raging erection accompanying them.

“Gods damn it,” he’d snarl, drinking down a Deflating Draught, only to have her creep into his dreams when he’d sleep. Then it was off to the medicinal stores to drink down a Dreamless Draught. If this kept up, he was going to over-medicate himself. What a mess.

The wizard had been a bit surprised that Hermione didn’t show up for one ceremony where he was involved, even when Harry and Ron were part of it. He was certain it was because of his presence. He was even more surprised that she accepted her medals in absentia, letting Minerva McGonagall or someone else collect them. She certainly didn’t fit the normal Gryffindor “craving for attention” mode that most from that house suffered from. But he had always known she was different.

Now she sat at the Gryffindor table purposely ignoring him. Well, she was in her seventh year now, and was the Head Girl. No doubt she would be taking his Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts course . . . and Harry of course since he wanted to be an Auror. But Hermione being Head Girl meant something else as well. That they would be meeting at night during rounds during the week . . . if he occasionally altered his course.

And of course, he would.

That would be quite interesting.

**************************************
A/N: Thanks for reading.