SD: CH176 - WHAT LURKS BENEATH

The Astronomy Tower loomed in the dark like a broken tooth against the night sky. The stone stairs spiraled upward in silence, the way ancient things do when they no longer expect visitors.

Flux — no, Tonks — climbed the last steps slowly, her boots whispering over worn stone.  Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the air itself thickened the closer she came.

Hermione Granger stood by the railing, arms folded, hair wild in the wind, the full moon silvering her outline until she looked carved from ice and shadow. Her back was turned towards her, face tilted skyward like a worshipper at a broken altar.

From behind, Hermione looked almost peaceful.  Still. Eerie.

Dangerous.

Tonks stepped onto the platform and let the heavy iron door sigh shut behind her. Crossing the space between them with deliberate calm, she stopped a few feet away, enough to feel the heat bleeding off Hermione’s skin, the magic humming just under her flesh like a second heartbeat.

Hermione didn't flinch. Didn't turn.

That told her everything she needed to know.

The girl who once flinched at her own shadow was gone. What stood there now was something... else.

Something half-made, half-undone.

"Come to scold me for being out after curfew?"

“Actually, I was looking for you, earlier. But apparently, you were nowhere to be found.”

She paused, and surprisingly, Hermione did not respond.

“I am surprised though, seeing you here,” said Tonks quietly. “I thought you’d be in the forest, what with the full moon.”

Hermione’s head tilted slightly, just enough to show she was listening.

"The moon," Hermione murmured, voice barely louder than the wind. "It’s strange. How it pulls at you."

“And yet, you are yourself.”

Tonks stepped closer, hands folded loosely behind her back, like a patrolman watching an unpredictable animal.

“I am not like the others. I guess, even among werewolves, I am an outlier, though I feel the hunger just as much. I bet you feel it too.”

Tonks watched the curve of her shoulders, the tension in her stance. The quiet trembling just under the surface.

"I feel many things," Tonks said neutrally.

"You're broken too.”

It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t even pity.

It was recognition.

Tonks smiled faintly. A real one, sharp and cold as the winter air.

“What makes you say that?”

Finally, Hermione turned to face her.

The moonlight caught her eyes — gleaming gold where they shouldn’t be, the infection of lycanthropy not just tolerated but weaponized inside her.

"You’re different," Hermione said. "You’re not the same Tonks we knew."

Tonks inclined her head slightly. "That’s a bloody big accusation from what… three meets?”

Silence again. 

The wind howled across the parapets, tugging at Hermione’s hair like invisible claws.

"Why are you here?" Hermione asked, voice guarded.

Tonks shrugged. "Call it... professional interest." She stepped closer, unhurried, until they were an arm’s length apart. 

Close enough for honesty. 

Close enough for betrayal.

"I know you were wondering," Tonks said softly, "why I didn’t follow Harry. Why I didn’t throw away the badge and the leash and stand with him in open rebellion? Especially when those I looked up to, and trusted, are now following him."

Hermione’s chin lifted defiantly. "Following him? Are you sure about that?"

Tonks leaned in slightly. “Are you telling me they are not?”

Hermione’s eyes glowed an eerie silver, shining in the moonlight. “Doesn’t matter what I tell you. Tell me, what do you think? He told you what he went through, and I’m not going to insult you by demanding if you believe him. You do. Anyone with the eyes can see that.”

Tonks said nothing.

“Harry has been reasonably straightforward with us. You are free to accept his offer, and be a part of us. Or, you can just walk away. So long as the oath isn’t broken, it doesn’t matter. But you haven’t. You’ve lingered around.”

“I am just doing my job.”

“Pfft!” sneered Hermione, giving Tonks a condescending look, as if she had just failed to grasp something deceptively simple. While Tonks was confident that she was not being actively legilimized, she still had the uncomfortable sensation of being scrutinized by a powerful and observant intellect that wanted to ferret out her truth. It was intimidating, bordering on unnerving. That a fourth-year, werewolf or not, was able to generate such impulses in her was concerning.

“You wouldn’t be you if you were here just doing your job, Auror Tonks,” said the girl. “It is obvious you have some questions, but you’re hesitant to ask them to him.”

Tonks visibly struggled with the implied question. She wished she could simply say — ‘Well, I think he has feelings for me from his previous life,’ but clearly that wasn’t an option. 

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well for one thing, it is rather curious that you approached me, here, alone on the Astronomy tower, this close to a full moon-lit night. I’m a werewolf and the moon is supposed to make us more… excitable, more than we normally are anyway. And given how you’ve been tracking Harry since the start of term, but never actually confronting him. Clearly, you didn’t want him around when we had this… conversation.”

And just like that, she cuts it. Tonks thought ruefully. She really shouldn’t plan on getting away with anything sneaky around this girl. But while obfuscation was out of the question, a little misdirection might work.

"I can understand his desire to fix this world," she said. "After what happened at the World Cup... how could I not?"

Hermione's mouth pressed into a thin line, her body tense as a drawn bowstring.

"If I were in his shoes," Tonks continued carefully, "I’d have done everything I could to destroy what You-Know-Who built. To save everyone who didn’t deserve to die."

Tonks paused, noting the hunger flickering in Hermione’s face. A hunger normal people shouldn’t wear. 

Couldn’t wear.

"But while I agree with him in spirit, I don’t agree with his methods."

"A bit too late for that, isn’t it?"

Tonks’s hand clenched briefly at her side.

"Maybe," she said, voice tight. "Maybe. But how do we know that his intervention isn’t making things worse?"

Hermione's eyes sharpened. Tonks forced herself to continue.

"In his timeline, the World Cup was a few masked cowards torturing Muggles.  This time..." She exhaled. "This time, it was a planned explosion. A massacre. A political catastrophe that crippled the DMLE."

Hermione’s gaze didn’t waver. “Terrible things happen to people who mess with time.”

"Yes."

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"And yet," Hermione said finally, voice soft but deadly, "the DMLE Director, the Head Obliviator, and your own best friend sided with him."

Tonks flinched internally but kept her face smooth.

"And that’s the other bit," she said. "They shifted allegiance to him quickly. Too quickly."

She let the words settle, heavy as stone.

"Director Bones — who upheld the law like a religion. Emmeline — who survived one war without ever losing herself.  And Hestia — who rebuilt her life around the Order."

“A director that found that her life’s worth of effort changed nothing. An obliviator that found that she was oblivious of the evils happening around herself. And a spy… that found that her purpose was a waste.” Hermione tilted her head. "You think he’s ensnared them, don’t you?”

"Maybe." Tonks’s voice cracked slightly. "He is an Incubus. A creature that feeds on emotions. Twists them. Bends them."

She didn’t mention that she had woken up in her bed, nearly every night since the start of term, dreaming of Harry Potter doing inexplicable things to her body, in ways she didn’t even know. The dream shattered at her waking, but left her behind on a bed wet with her own juices. Just spying on him afar ran the risk of getting wet. 

Was it any surprise she had avoided him like the plague?

"What if... what if by joining him, I'm not helping save the world? What if I’m just exchanging one overlord for another?"

“You know… you might just be right… Just not the way you think you are.”

 Tonks blinked, surprised.

“The Harry Potter I knew for the last three years was a hero. Brave, loyal, yet sneaky and vengeful. Someone who would do anything for his friends, including risking his own life, not because of his ego but because he believed he had to be the one to do it. But this Harry… he’s anything but. Ambitious, ruthless, pragmatic, a control freak even. He’s a schemer, a manipulator and a fighter. When he thinks no one’s watching, he’s got this look on his face… something no sane person would have, or should have, for that matter. No, you are right. Harry, this Harry, is no hero. But he isn’t a villain either.”

This time, Hermione took a step forward.

“Harry is a monster. And I am — we are his. He has shown us the Light, the true reality that lies ahead on this path. And none of us are delirious enough to ignore that stark truth when it stares at us in the face.”

“How do you know he isn’t just manipulating you?” Tonks all but yelled.

Hermione smiled. “You know, after you left that night, Madam Bones presented a unique perspective of Harry’s actions. She claimed that Harry has shown a surprising degree of patience and concern about you. And it definitely isn’t because you are Hestia’s friend, or an Order member, or even a Black, or a metamorphmagus. And yet, he has stayed away from charming you, unlike all of us.”

“All— so he did ensnare you?” 

“Of course. He has ensnared us all, with the truth,” said Hermione offhandedly. “Well, everyone but me. I was already into him long before this incubus business. But I’m digressing. Madam Bones claimed that his frustration at your death — in his time— was bleeding for anyone with the eyes to see. She even suggested that he might… that he shared something deep and personal with you, and that is the real reason he refused to be heavy-handed with you.”

That hit harder than any spell.

Hermione tilted her head, watching her carefully. 

"That’s why he treats you differently," she said. "That’s why he makes excuses. Looks the other way. Because you mattered to him once. Maybe you still do."

Tonks closed her eyes briefly, the ache under her ribs sharp and raw.

"Even if… even if you’re right,” she said softly. “I’m — I’m not that woman."

"No," Hermione agreed. "You’re not."

And somehow, that hurt more.

“If you were, you wouldn’t be here, spying for Professor Dumbledore. You wouldn’t play this game of shadows with him, not after he came clean with you. You… you wouldn’t come searching for me now when you know he’s not at Hogwarts.”

“Hermione —”

“But it doesn’t matter,” said the clearly psychotic girl, ignoring her. “So long as you understand one thing.”

Tonks saw it happen before her instincts even processed the warning. A shift — not a ripple of robes or a turn of stance — but a deformation of reality itself.

Hermione’s body began to change.

It started subtly: a tightening of muscles under skin, a ripple of magic too dark, too wrong, for Hogwarts to contain.

Her right side twisted grotesquely, bones creaking and reshaping with a sickening fluidity. 

Flesh hardened into mottled gray hide. 

Claws sprouted where slender fingers once flexed. 

The arm elongated, sinews pulling taut, fur exploding in wild patches.

Her face — once human — split at the jawline, one side retaining the delicate, sharp features of the brightest witch of her age. The other side... 

...became a snarling, lupine monstrosity, fangs glistening under the bleeding light of the full moon.

And behind her — behind her where the parapet should have been — 

Reality broke open.

The stone railing warped, cracked, and then simply... ceased. In its place, an open abyss yawned — not black, not void, but something worse.

A wall of necromantic energy, thick and viscous as tar, oozed outward, dragging darkness into the world like a living, breathing thing. It clung to the stones, to the air itself, smothering the silver light of the moon until the tower was plunged into a world of grays and blacks and screaming silence.

It wasn’t simply dark. 

It was absence. 

Negation.

An open wound where existence bled away into nothing.

Hermione's two halves — the girl and the monster — stood on the knife’s edge of that abyss, utterly unfazed.

She smiled.

A beautiful, terrible thing.

"Harry is my sole reason for living," Hermione said, her voice layered — two voices at once — one human, one inhuman, her human side curving her lips sweetly while the wolf-thing sneered beneath.

The abyss behind her pulsed once, rhythmically, like the beating heart of a corpse.

Tonks didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

Her training screamed at her to act — to draw her wand, to shield herself — but something older, something colder, whispered instead:

No. Watch. Remember. Understand.

Hermione took a slow step forward, claws scraping against the stone, her human foot stepping daintily next to it.

"I love Hogwarts," she mused lightly. "Learning magic. Making new friends. Exploring my sexual appetite."

The air grew heavier with every word, as if the castle itself strained to bear the weight of her truth.

"But without Harry?" Hermione's smile widened, splitting her human face into something almost as monstrous as the wolf’s. "I don't see myself continuing."

The abyss behind her churned, and for a moment, Tonks thought she saw shapes inside it — faces, maybe, or memories — all drowning, all forgotten.

"And the one thing," Hermione said, stepping closer, the corruption of her body more pronounced with every inch, "the one thing I find more intolerable than a world without him—"

Her human eye gleamed gold.

Her monstrous eye gleamed silver.

"—is a world that permits the existence of anything, anyone, that allowed him to be taken from me."

The last word came out in a snarl, half-human, half-wolf, all hate.

Tonks watched her, stone still. She could feel the pressure in the air — magic so dense it compressed her ribs, made breathing a deliberate, painful act.

She understood, then — with a clarity that burned. 

Hermione Granger would tear reality apart itself if Harry Potter fell.

She wasn’t exaggerating. She wasn’t making a threat.

It was a vow. As binding and inevitable as gravity.

Hermione’s body began to smooth again, the monstrous half shrinking, bones clicking back into place with grotesque ease. The necrotic energy slowly slithered back into the abyss, the portal sealing behind her with a sigh like a dying breath.

Within moments, the tower was as it had been — stone, moonlight, wind.

And Hermione Granger stood there, whole and calm, brushing dust off her skirt as if she hadn’t just exposed the apocalypse lurking inside her skin.

Tonks exhaled slowly.

Hermione had not lost control. She had revealed it — chosen to reveal it — to her.

A message.

A promise.

Tonks tilted her head slightly, studying the girl who wasn’t a girl anymore.

"Noted," she said coolly.

Hermione smiled sweetly — that same terrifying smile.

"Good," she said. “So long we are in agreement.”

And turned back to stare at the moon as if nothing had happened.

Tonks stayed a moment longer, breathing in the cold that wasn’t quite natural anymore. Somewhere far below, the lake shimmered like spilled mercury.

"You asked why I stay," she said finally.

Hermione didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

"Because even if Harry is right," Tonks whispered, "someone needs to remember what it cost."

She turned her head slightly, just enough to catch Hermione’s reflection in the tower’s glass — a silhouette of rage, loyalty, and inevitable war.

"I will stand watch," Tonks said. "And when he falls... when you all fall... someone will be left to tell the story."

Hermione smiled faintly — not cruel, not kind.

Just inevitable.

"We're not falling," she said.  "Not this time."

Tonks almost believed her.

Almost.

She turned and walked away without waiting for permission, boots silent against ancient stone, the cold biting deeper with every step.

Above, the moon watched in silent judgment. 

Below, the world waited to burn.

The iron door creaked shut behind Tonks, and silence claimed the Astronomy Tower.

Hermione remained where she was, the cold wind pulling at her hair, her robes, the lingering necromantic magic whispering at her back like a memory that refused to die.

For a long time, she simply stood there, staring up at the pitiless stars.

And listened.

Not for footsteps. Not for voices. 

But for the faint, hollow echo of something breaking. Something you didn’t even realize you carried until it was gone.

It was quiet now.  So very, very quiet.

The stars burned overhead, hard and distant. The moon glared down with merciless indifference.

Hermione wrapped her arms around herself. For a moment — just a moment — the rage that had flickered so easily to the surface earlier trembled in her chest, raw and unspent.

She didn’t feel angry. Or sad. Or anything else she thought she should feel.

Only... stillness.

The kind of stillness that follows a funeral no one attended.

Her fingers tightened slowly around the stone parapet.

Tonks had left. Not with rage. Not with betrayal.

With resignation.

And Hermione knew why. Because whatever battle Tonks had hoped to fight tonight had ended before it ever began.

There was no saving Hermione Granger.

Not anymore.

Not really.

Far away, the sounds of rustling of trees whispered. Her mind drifted — unbidden — to another night under the moon.

Another rooftop. Another shattering.

She remembered the panic. The wild dash through the Forbidden Forest. The broken, wretched howl that split the night when Professor Lupin, kind, tired, broken Lupin, lost himself to the curse.

She remembered the claw that caught her shoulder. The curse that grazed her bones. The hot, sick terror as magic and disease crashed into her veins, rewriting her in ways she couldn’t understand.

Back then, they had called it a miracle.

Back then, Dumbledore had clapped her gently on the shoulder and smiled and said:

"You are still yourself, Miss Granger."

She had believed him. For a while.

How naive she had been!

She had believed that goodness was enough. That hard work and loyalty and compassion could solve anything. She had believed... so many things.

Now?

Now she stood on a tower older than nations, feeling the hunger of the curse twisting in her gut, feeling necromantic magic stain her blood blacker with every heartbeat.

Now she knew that the world didn’t want to be saved. 

It wanted to be dominated. Bent. Broken. Or else it would do the same to you.

The girl who had feared bad grades more than death was gone.

Killed not by Lupin’s claws. Not by Voldemort’s war.

But by the slow, inevitable erosion of hope.

Hermione opened her eyes again.

The stars wheeled overhead, ancient and silent.

What would the old Hermione think, she wondered, if she could see me now?

The answer came easily, without pity.

She would be afraid.

Not of the lycanthropy. Not even of the necromantic taint.

She would fear the certainty. The ruthlessness. 

The knowledge that if Harry fell — if he was taken from her — Hermione Granger would not grieve.

She would burn the world for it.

And she would not apologize.

She let go of the stone railing slowly.

Somewhere deep in the castle, a clock chimed the slow, mournful stroke of midnight.

Tomorrow would come. Lessons. Lies. Smiles. From those that loved Harry. From those that feared him. From Harry himself as well. 

She knew that there was something wrong with her. Something that sprang from the necromancy that twisted her lycanthropy. The necromancy that made her vulnerable to Voldemort’s influence.

She knew that deep down… Harry was hesitant around her.

Oh he loved her. He bedded her nearly every night. She was part of his Inner Circle.

But there was that slight bit of hesitation. He might have thought that he was being careful, but she had seen it. And despite it, she had let it — let this pantomime of normalcy continue.

But she knew. Under the skin. Behind the smile.

She was not Hermione Granger anymore.

Not the way he remembered her. Not the way he wanted her to be.

And when the time came — when the world demanded another sacrifice from Harry — they would learn the price of what they had made her.

She turned from the parapet, her shadow trailing long and black behind her.

The moon watched her go.

And this time, it seemed just a little afraid.

............................................................................

NECRO-BEAST – HERMIONE GRANGER

 Age – 17

AFFINITY

Transfiguration — 71%
Charms — 57%
Martial Magic — 43%
Dark Arts — 52%
Psychomancy (Occlumency) — NA (Dual Mind)
Psychomancy (Legilimency) — 14%
Runecraft — 35%
Magical Analytics — 58%
Necromancy — 49%
Hemomorphics — 41%
Lycanthropy (Hybrid) — 100%
Alchemy — 38%

PERKS

LIBRARY OF KNOWLEDGE
An ability that makes it possible for a clear recall of knowledge from memory even if the information perceived in the past was not consciously acknowledged at that time.

FRACTAL CORE
Hermione Granger is not split. She is symmetrical in two directions.
Her body, mind, and magic have been recursively encoded — one half optimized for logic, the other for instinct; one for humanity, the other for predation.
Where others transform, she superimposes. She is both equations and hunger. Both girl and abyss.

AFFLICTIONS

EVENTUALITY LOCK
The system does not lie. And it agrees with her. Hermione Granger’s psyche has been entangled with too many contradictions — loyalty and wrath, humanity and monstrosity, logic and madness. She cannot be cured. She can only be delayed.

Her soul is locked into a path of progressive fracture. No known ritual can halt it. The system has accepted this as inevitable.

..................................

END OF BOOK 4 - TRIWIZARD TROUBLES