A/N: Somehow, my beta can find me no matter where I'm hiding. She is one scarily efficient individual. I've been sick as a dog with the stomach flu or food poisoning. Not quite sure which yet. Life likes to kick you when you're down. Doesn't help I also have a possible torn rotator cuff I need to get checked out whenever I stop trying to empty my stomach by force. GLORIOUS!

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard, and Hollowg1rl

Warnings: Not canon. Not even close. Violence. Blood. Evil. So far no Cthulhu, but who knows, the night is young.

Time to Reflect

A Short Story by Corvus Draconis

No one deserves to be hurt, no one deserves to be betrayed.

What comes around goes around, be careful with your ways.

Dr Anil Kumar Sinha

Harry James Potter, father of three, the Man-Who-Triumphed, hero of the Wizarding World, and bonafide Wizard-Who-Could-Do-No-Wrong, had a problem.

It was a big problem— the kind of thing Luna would call an act of kharmatic integrity degradation or some other such airy-fairy strangeness.

Harry, on the other hand, called it an unwelcome disruption to his family life.

The end of the Wizarding War had come with him as the much-lauded hero. Ron, too, had built a fine life for himself on his reputation as the loyal sidekick of the saviour of the magical world.

Luna and Neville warned them that their victory might come with a heavy price tag, but Harry and Ron had over thirty years of nothing but success, multiple victories in law changes in the Ministry for Magic, and an entire Quidditch team of fine children between them.

Meanwhile, Luna and Neville had had two daughters, Xanthe and Anemone, and Anemone, the younger of the two, had been very weak and sickly for quite a few years. Many had thought that she would die. So obviously they were the ones in kharmatic degradation whatever, not him.

Then, when some bounty hunter group had gotten wind of the fact that they supported vampires, their house had gone up in flames. How's that for kharma, right? Harry firmly believed that the Longbottoms were the ones in the wrong, certainly not himself and Ron.

But when some person had sent his wife a "thank you" for her not-so-flattering portrayal in a sports article— Ginny had become terribly sick.

Very sick.

Nothing seemed to cure it.

No one seemed to know anything about it.

She'd miscarried their fourth child— another son— and had nearly died in the process.

To keep her from dying, he'd had to pull some strings and get Hagrid involved, making his case with the forest unicorns to acquire willingly given unicorn blood—

It had worked, for a while at least, but almost a year after, the agonising symptoms had returned with a vengeance.

When he tried to seek out the unicorns for more, Hagrid had shaken his head sadly, telling him that the blood had to be willingly given, and the unicorns seemed to think that Harry had been trying to hide something about the real reason his wife was so ill and needed their blood.

Harry, absolutely desperate to save his beloved Ginny, dove deeply into research in the bowels of the Auror record department. He read until his eyes burned and almost shut by themselves. He read until the tallow candles tried to set him on fire, burned all the way down to their wicks.

Everything seemed to involve the blood of some magical creature— and just like with the unicorns, it had to be willingly given.

Blood of a kirin apparently turned the drinker into a kirin and wiped out all human memories. No, not what he wanted.

Eating the flesh of a mermaid made you immortal but also turned you into a flesh-eating water demon that had to consume mermaid flesh regularly or else age rapidly and die— no thanks.

Cinnabar had this nasty habit of killing you. Nope.

Gilgamesh had apparently lost the plant of immortality to a snake. No luck there.

Immortality wasn't quite what he wanted, however. He just wanted something to cure his wife's disease.

Still— if he could be immortal along with Ginny, that wouldn't be so bad.

The Golden Apples of Idunn had turned out to be a magical apple raised in Scandinavia, the old cradle of the Norse, and it helped with many a dread disease, but not Ginny's.

The fabled ambrosia of the gods lead him to a divine-tasting holy elixir that helped Ginny for all of one day and then she was back to suffering.

Meanwhile, Harry's connections and vaults were running low.

All the healers could tell him was that Ginny was suffering from some sort of ancient magical disease that hadn't been seen in centuries and which they had very little information about, much less anything about a possible cure. In short, healers at St Mungo's had their work cut out for them in trying to devise a treatment to help Ginny hold on while Harry continued to search for a way to save his wife's life.

Harry was willing to pay anyone almost anything to find the information he so desperately needed, but they all just shook their heads. The information, they said, was most likely passed via word of mouth from master to apprentice— not the sort of thing they would ever write down.

Harry wasn't taking no for an answer though— if the healers wouldn't or couldn't find it, surely someone else would.

And eventually they did—he and Ronald had actually managed to find it themselves, buried deep within the goblin vaults, and unsealed thanks to an absolutely determined Harry levying considerable political pressure on the goblins

The blood of an immortal would cure any and all disease.

It seemed that the one with the least possible side effects was the most difficult to find after he and Ron had ensured that their aggressive new anti-vampire laws were enforced to the letter. Kill on sight, absolutely no repercussions. Make the nights safer for them all, or so they had claimed.

No one had connected the anti-vampire legislation to the fact that Harry and Ron would both rather not have certain specific vampires living in Britain.

Vampires that knew— certain secrets that they'd rather keep buried, as it were.

Harry had managed to find a meager cloud of vampires living in the Muggle areas of London, and he'd captured one, bled it, and then destroyed it, taking the blood to Ginny. It hadn't even lasted a minute after the vampire expired—

So, the next one, well, he'd brought the blood to her under a stasis charm.

It did nothing.

Convinced he just hadn't done something right, he and Ron next brought in a live specimen, having made sure Molly was at home with the grandchildren that evening instead of visiting the hospital like she normally did. They'd held the vampire under Imperius, forced it to slash open its wrist and then feed the blood to Ginny.

That had worked for about an hour— and then less, and then less, and even less than that until nothing at all seemed to help her at all.

When the vampires finally realised that something or someone was actively preying on them, they immediately relocated, disappearing as surely as the long-extinct dinosaurs.

Even worse— the vampire blood seemed to cancel out whatever remaining boon the unicorn blood had given. Ginny was becoming even sicker, and Molly Weasley was at her wits' end.

Finally, Ron and Harry devised one last plan to save Ginny—

The one person who had an in with the greatest potions master the magical world had ever known—

There was just that tiny, itty bitty piece of ugly personal history that he dearly hoped wouldn't ruin it all.

"Miiiister. Potter." Snape's voice was full-on scathing and simmering with disgust. "What brings you to our small corner of the world?"

The sun had just set, and a flurry of ordinary bats had flown out the entrance to the cave to forage. Snape, however, stood at the entrance to the cave's mouth looking as intimidating as ever.

"You don't scare me, Snape," Ron blurted suddenly, holding his wand out in front of him.

"Then why is your arm shaking so much, Mr Weasley?" Snape hissed, his fangs flashing with not even a token effort to conceal them.

Ron grit his teeth together, looking like he was going to cast a spell.

"No, Ron!" Harry hissed. "That's not why we're here!"

"Do tell," Snape said, his voice both velvet and venom. "Why are you here? Use that last strand of my mate's hair to find our new hide-away? Not quite content to drive us out of Britain while you sat on the throne of heroism as the Man-Who-Saved-the-World?"

Snape's robes fluttered, and Harry abruptly realised that they were wings— giant bat-like wings that hung about his body as a leathery cape of endless black.

"We're here to see Hermione," Harry announced. "We need to speak with her."

"Three decades later?" Snape asked, with a curl of his lip. "No card, no owl, not even a Patronus— only miles upon miles of the Prophet proclaiming your streets to be oh-so-safe from the big bad vampires. Did your precious little wife know of your lies, the two golden boys? Did she encourage your lies in favour of the fame and glory?"

"That's not why we're here!"

"Then do tell me," Snape sneered. "Why are you here?"

"I'm trying to save a life!" Harry answered.

Snape's mouth curved in a parody of a smile. "I don't see you as the type to come here, wasting the last hair you stole from my beloved mate's head to save the life of a child or some other incredibly deserving individual," Snape said. "Who then? Is Mr Weasley dying of syphilis? Please tell me that he is."

"Why you fucking bastard!" Ron yelled, starting to cast a spell.

Harry grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard, giving his best mate the eye. "Ron, you are not helping here!"

"Oh, but he's always helping, isn't he, Harry?" a female voice said as a honey-coloured she-bat landed upside down from the cave entrance and greeted her mate with a very deep, expressive kiss— a kiss that transferred blood from her previous meal to her mate, bat-style.

Snape licked his mouth afterwards, his yellowed fangs bared.

The she-bat hopped down, feet flipping around to land, and she folded her wings around herself as her muzzle faded into a human facade— if one skillfully ignored the large funnel ears and ivory fangs.

"I have yet to thank you properly, Harry, Ron, for abandoning me to the tender mercies of the Dark Lord and his minions. The continued torture under Bellatrix' wand was— remarkably liberating with regard to some troublesome ethical quandaries." Hermione's expression was anything but kind. "I do hope your victory was very sweet indeed, and well worth every betrayal."

"We're trying to save a life here, Hermione," Harry insisted.

For a moment, Hermione's face softened, but then her golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Whose life?"

Harry carefully avoided eye contact. "It's Ginny. She's really sick."

"And where was your oh-so-generous bleeding heart when you threw me under the bus, hrm?" Hermione asked, her eyes glowing eerily in the dark.

"Hermione! For Merlin's sake, Ginny was your best friend—" Ron blurted.

"Who so kindly sent me a long letter detailing how she knew exactly what you two had done to me and that she didn't care one whit. She was so glad that I was out of your lives for good this time. She had Harry back, and had him all to herself, and she was going to be famous, wealthy, pregnant, and happy. She made it quite clear that she didn't need me anymore."

Ron hissed at Harry. "I told you to make sure Ginny didn't sent her anything—"

"And she always listens, doesn't she, Ronald?" Hermione said, her fangs glinting. "You were so terribly angry that I'd trusted 'that evil greasy git Snape' and dared to apprentice with him behind your backs that you decided to have your revenge and get rid of me in the most final way possible, sacrificing my life so that you could escape Malfoy Manor. Only, you didn't quite count on Severus finding my brutalised body in time to save me from the very brink of death. So to speak, that is."

Hermione's fangs flashed. "I suppose the alternative was a bit less appealing. And, had I not been Turned, I'd never have gotten to feast on my own torturer, and you would never have gotten into dear Bellatrix' vault unchallenged, would you, hrm? Voldemort wouldn't have been so unhinged by the death of his keystone, his loyal paramour— the only one he trusted enough to be his ultimate living Horcrux: the one to bind them all together. I'm sure that didn't bother you at all, did it, eh, Harry?"

"Please, Hermione, this is Ginny! You're not a murderer!"

Hermione's solemn gaze settled on Harry. "You made me a murderess, Harry, just as surely as if your fangs sank into my throat."

"Just some of your blood, Hermione. Just enough to cure her and I swear we'll be gone. Forever. I swear it on my magic, on my life. Please, Hermione?"

Hermione's golden gaze pierced into Ron.

Harry jabbed him sharply in the chest. "Swear Ron, damn it!"

Ron, reluctantly, swore the wand oath along with Harry.

Hermione gave Snape a look, and he handed her a crystal vial.

Hermione bit her wrist and let the crimson blood drip into a crystal vial before she carefully stoppered it and held it out.

Harry snatched it quickly before it disappeared.

"Oh, and Harry?"

Harry looked at her wide-eyed, so terribly eager to rush back to Ginny that he only listened with half an ear to Hermione as she said, "It won't work if there is any other outside blood in her system."

"Mixing magical bloods is never recommended, Potter," Snape added darkly.

Harry just nodded frantically as he grasped the vial, certain that he now held Ginny's cure in the palm of his hand.

"Do you have any questions, Harry?" Hermione asked quietly. "As this will be the last time you will ever be able to come and see me— now that you and Ronald both are under Oath."

Harry shook his head. "This will cure any disease or affliction?"

Hermione's eerie eyes flashed. "It will, provided it is not mixed."

Harry nodded rapidly.

As the crack of Harry and Ron's Apparition sounded off, Severus wrapped his wing around his mate and hissed softly, pressing his teeth to her neck with affection as his tongue slithered out to gently glide across her skin. "You know they will not listen to the instructions, even instructions so plainly laid out."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "You are quite correct, my most astute husband."

"Whatever she turns into— it won't be human— and she won't likely be happy to see them."

"No sympathy for old friends?" Severus leveled his gaze at her.

"Any understanding I may have had expired when I got that letter and my two supposed best mates created laws to make killing me perfectly legal," Hermione said. "Suddenly the warm, welcoming family wanted me dead. Somehow, the sin of having apprenticed with you was more of a betrayal despite the fact it saved our lives so many times. Somehow— even with the memories you gave Harry—he still didn't bother to correct anyone about the notion that he and Ron were heroes. He didn't stand up against Ron when he accused me of being a monster. He even tried to have our child killed for being "an unnatural horror"."

"Who's an unnatural horror, Mum?" a lithe vampire she-bat asked as she dangled from the cave's mouth.

"Why, we are, my darling," Hermione said. "If rumour is to be believed."

"Oh, well, better an unnatural horror than a natural one," she said, shrugging. She hopped down and wing-embraced her parents.

"Thea, is your homework done?" Severus asked, brows furrowing.

Thea gave her father a cheeky fanged grin. "Of course, father."

"You know, we do defy the rules of most vampires," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Vampires do not have children, if you believe the books."

"And have I not admonished you about taking gospel truth from the written word, hrm?"

Hermione smiled at him, all fang. "I'm not quite as bad as I used to be. Let's see— effective immortality. Check. Nocturnal proclivities. Check."

"Spontaneous combustion in sunlight?"

"Don't be silly, father," Thea said, frowning. "Sometimes I like watching the sun rise."

"You also took two whole decades to get out of your adorably fluffy batling stage," Snape said, scowling.

Thea beamed cheekily. "Not my fault that my parents are ageless and still managed to have me. I'm thoroughly enjoying my childhood."

Snape sniffed. "All three decades of it."

Thea gave him a snuggle and a chittering lick on the jaw. "Love you, father."

"Hn," Severus replied. "Don't you have a baby brother to pin down and groom?"

Thea gave her father one more lick on the muzzle and then flew deeper into the cave as a warm rush of magic signalled her passing into their "home" that was so stealthily hidden amongst the domain of ordinary, garden-variety bats.

"She spoils Talon silly," Hermione chuckled softly.

Severus nuzzled her. "Trust me when I say that his childhood is everything mine was not, and that is definitely not a bad thing."

"And the long, insufferable childhood?"

Snape tilted his head. "It only happens once. Why not enjoy it while it lasts?"

Hermione snuggled into him. "I love you."

"Do you, now?"

"Mmhmm."

"According to some, I must have dosed you with an unforgivable potion to enslave you to my cause."

"Consider me quite happily enslaved," Hermione said warmly. "Mind you, things seemed much grimmer back when it felt like I had no choice in the matter, but I choose this now. This is my choice." She gazed at him fondly. "But do not think I would not have still made the choice to be with you, after all was said and done."

"Hey, Uncle Shevruss," a small voice said as a tiny tug on his wing exposed a small toddler with blonde over blonde curls.

"Hello, Anemone," Severus said, eyebrows raised. "Have you managed to lose both your mother and your father again?"

The little girl grinned, showing off a lost tooth. "Yes!"

"There you are, Anemone," Luna said, giving her offspring the patented motherly stare. "What have I told you about wandering off, hrm? Someone could see you, and they might be Muggles or worse, wizards or witches."

The little girl frowned. "I'm not afraid of humans."

Snape gently nudged her. "One should always be cautious when it comes to humans, little one."

"But auntie and uncle don't fear anything!"

"We fear many things, my dear," he corrected her. "We simply work around it."

Anemone pouted. "Mummy says you're very brave."

"And they are," Luna said calmly. "But being brave does not mean being oblivious to danger."

"I'm not obwivious," the child pouted, her bottom lip sticking out.

Severus had a honeycrisp apple held in one wing spur, and the excited child squeed with happiness, snatched it, and ran back into the cave at full tilt.

Luna sighed. "She has way too many Grindlepoofs in her head at this age."

Severus and Hermione exchanged glances.

"Oh, don't be like that," Luna chided them. "You had them at her age too."

Hermione puckered her lips, the expression made a little strange by her fangs. "I must go," she said after a while. "I need to make sure the wards are up to full strength on mum and dad's place before a little diversion to certain old haunts."

Severus gave her a look.

"I will be careful," she promised, rubbing one wing against his.

Severus gave her a curt nod, his worry carefully hidden behind his umbral gaze.

Hermione rubbed one cheek against his, spread her wings, and launched into the air, disappearing with a crack.

"You needn't worry," Luna said casually. "Kharma is long overdue in this case, but it does always manage to find a way."

Snape tilted his head, silent.

"I think tea sounds wonderful," Luna said, heading back into the cave. "Well, as long as Neville isn't making it. I love him dearly, but he just can't shake the Zunduwisks around heated water."

Snape wrinkled his nose.

"I'm sure you're still wondering why you saved our lives that day," Luna said randomly, "but I find I'm rather glad you did. I have so much more time to search for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and I don't have to worry that I'm going to die long before it happens. Mind you, very few people would fancy being burned alive in their own home, so I'd imagine you thought it wasn't very sporting to let them succeed. On the bright side, I make a fabulous pot of tea, and I do like to share."

Luna skipped away into the cave, her pale, cream-coloured wings drifting behind her in a way that seemed far more whimsical than Snape's standard of intimidation cubed.

Snape licked his fangs. Only Luna and Neville could somehow Turn as a vampire and end up preferring vegetable 'blood' over mammalian plasma. Thankfully, there were not vampiric vegetable victims out there— thank the gods for that.

It was probably well and good considering Neville didn't like the sight of blood at all, having passed out a few times when either Severus or Hermione gave their batlings their blood-meals.

Their spawn, however, couldn't help but point out that the standard vegetable blood concoctions Neville had made for his family (when mixed with beet and tomato) looked eerily like real blood. Neville had plugged his ears (quite comical considering their size and shape) and proceeded to sing loudly, "La-la-la, I can't hear you, la-la-la!"

The irony that the Snapes shared a large cave residence with the Longbottoms, of all people, and their friendship was as thick as clotted cream.

Still ripe with the usual odd Luna-isms, but thick nonetheless.

As Snape followed Luna into their cave abode, he caught one pesky little batling who was trying to escape into the night without his sister. The batling pouted as he dragged him in a wing embrace back into the cave.

Parenthood.

Sheesh.

Hermione arrived at the Burrow just in time to see Ronald and Harry deliver the "cure" to their beloved Ginny— wasting no time in asking important questions.

The old Hermione, she realised, would have rushed in and demanded they pay attention, but that Hermione had died the night her former master had given her the choice of evils: live as a vampire or die as the Dark Lord expected. She had chosen life.

Her first few months had been a blur of hunger and need, and her first vicw, ironically, had been her torturer: Bellatrix Lestrange. She had fallen upon the witch like a starved, rabid animal, caring not for the danger or previous pain by her hand. She had slashed open her neck with her elongated wing spur and then lapped the crimson up until there was nothing left.

Bellatrix' face was frozen in utter disbelief in death— and none had suspected vampire because vampires sank their fangs into necks.

Hermione, however, had been far too hungry to use her fangs nor even realise who she had just eaten. Had it not been for Severus as a trusted figure, former master, and sire to pull her from the blood hunger— she would have become less than a beast that had no drive but hunger and no ability to know when that hunger was sated.

And there was the irony—

In driving out the older and more experienced vampires, all that were left were the young and inexperienced. Those were easily rounded up and murdered— and then there was no one left to guide the newly Turned.

The vampires that remained in Britain were young and had no guides, often feral or close to it. They were beasts or less than beasts, serving only their savage hungers and never regaining that part of themselves that was an intelligent, rational being.

The wise among them had soon left Britain behind— not that British wizardkind realised exactly what that would mean for them. Other countries that still kept with the old ways scoffed at Britain for their foolish, idiotic, short-sighted laws (at least in their opinion) that destroyed the delicate balance between day and night, diurnal and nocturnal.

It had taken a year, perhaps a bit more, for Hermione to feel like herself again, slightly longer to feel like she could be herself after her body had twisted and transformed into that of a giant bat-thing— the mark of Severus' lineage. There were vampires that were far more fair of face, but if Hermione's ability to literally tear apart her adversaries, threats, and bounty hunters was any sort of proof—

Well, she was reborn as a survivalist.

Perhaps, she was always one.

Then again, Anemone and Xanthe, Luna and Neville's children, thought both she and Severus were positively huggable— and who could say no to such insufferably cute batlings?

Their batlings thought humans were ugly. No fangs, no fur, no wings— completely unattractive.

Hermione and Severus hadn't taught them that— but that was what they believed.

Hermione thought Severus was absolutely sexy. She loved the points of his yellowed fangs— a colour that would have her dentist parents diving for the tooth bleach. His ribbed ears with those cute little tufts.

Was she panting?

Hermione shivered.

Trust had ultimately been what saved her. Her trust in her one-time master that he would never hurt her, that he would be there to guide her just as he always had.

Without that powerful bond of trust— bad things happened. Vampires invariably went feral, both in the mind and in the body. They became less than what they were mentally and more than what they had been physically. The trade-off, however, was hardly equal in the end.

Odd eating habits aside, there was an unforeseen advantage to having vampires around. The crime rate was dropping rather dramatically in New Zealand— not because they were killing them but because rolling the minds of their prey allowed them to both feed without the obnoxious screaming but also to plant suggestions like, oh, phobias to any and all criminal practices. A trigger-happy gun lover would suddenly have a strong fear of bullets, shells, and all other exploding projectiles. A knife user would suddenly have a great fear of metal blades of any kind.

Severus had narrowed his eyes at her when there was a strangely dramatic rise in wooden and plastic cutlery purchases in New Zealand, to which Hermione could only give him her biggest and best fanged smile.

It wasn't to say that the criminal element couldn't find a way around such suggestions, but it only put them on the radar for lunch, supper, or midnight snack and a new round of improved suggestions— like taking up Arctic ice fishing, basket-weaving, knitting, cleaning litter from public areas, volunteering at homeless shelters, soup-kitchens, and helping the elderly and infirm.

Their daughter had suggested to one particular snack that he should paint over the graffiti on one building only to have forgotten to specify a place— the "poor" bloke had spent over a month painting over unwanted tags all over Christchurch alone.

Who knew it had been such a prevalent problem?

Severus had no idea.

Hermione figured graffiti was everywhere— oh well.

Back to the issue at hand, erm, wing.

Ginny Potter was being given a rather unique tonic to help her condition— and Hermione could easily smell that there was more than one different kind of blood in her system.

Vampire bat, thank you very much. The nose knows.

They hadn't even asked anyone if someone ELSE had tried anything new to help her. No, they simply assumed that they had been the only ones so clever, so devoted.

As Ginny's colour began to improve, Charlie Weasley came in with Bill, cheering that Ginny looked much better and that the fresh donation of unicorn blood they had acquired was most definitely working this time, despite Bill's earlier doubts.

"Excellent, the unicorn blood worked! I told you, Bill!" Charlie cheered. "See, my lack of interest in pretty witches was a real boon for us!"

"We should get her back to Mungo's to make sure she's okay," Bill said decisively.

"No!" Harry snapped. "She's going to be fine. Look, Ginny's already looking better than she has in well over a year. Just let her rest, yeah?"

Bill frowned at his brother-in-law. "Harry, I really think—"

"She's fine, Bill!" Ron butted in, attending at Ginny's side and taking her hand. "Everything is going to be fine."

Bill looked to Fleur, who was eyeing a crimson lipped rim of the cup on the nightstand.

Fleur swore fluently in rapid-fire French, and Bill nodded to his wife, trying to hide his growing alarm.

"Come on, Charlie," he said. "You can visit our place and spoil the nieces and nephews for awhile. We'll leave Ginny to her husband and our baby brother for now."

Charlie frowned, puzzled. "Hey, little sis, are you feeling okay?"

Ginny, her cheeks practically rosy, smiled up at him. "I haven't felt this good in forever."

Charlie gave Bill another look, and scrunched his eyebrows in confusion when Bill gave him a look that said he needed to leave— now.

"Well, you take good care of my little sis," Charlie said, feigning cheerfulness.

Bill, Charlie, and Fleur exited the room quietly.

Harry enthusiastically embraced his wife. "I'm so glad you're going to be okay, Gin!"

Ginny hugged him tightly. "I'm so hungry, I could eat a whole hippogriff with a double order of chips."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. "Let's just start with a bit of your mum's egg and potato casserole, yeah?"

They were so busy smothering Ginny with love that they didn't notice a familiar shadow dangling by her feet from the huge oak tree in the garden, nor did they notice the strangely hungry look that Ginny was giving them.

One large roast beef, two slabs of bacon, a whole potato and egg casserole, an entire pitcher of milk, a sack of oranges, and the entire bowl of buttered sprouts later, Ginny was still hungry.

At first she had distracted herself with lots of vigorous sex, making Harry think it was the most wonderful time of his life, but the ferocious hunger didn't ever seem to ease. At first she thought she was just thirsty until she drank all of Lily's pumpkin juice— an entire barrel— right down to the bare wood.

She'd polished off the entire bowl of tuna salad, even drank the condiments, and then she started working on all the foodstuffs in the pantry. Nothing seemed to ease the painful gnawing in her stomach. She had a splitting headache to boot, and no potion was helping.

When a chilling shiver went down her spine, she looked up, her face all stained with blueberry juice, to see a honey and black bat-thing clinging to the Burrow's ceiling.

"Feeling a bit… peckish, Ginevra?" Hermione asked, her funnelled ears twitching.

"YOU!"

"Me." Hermione answered.

"You did this to me!"

"No, I can assure you, I did not. Had I done it, you would never have survived the bite," she said. "I tend to— lose control when my emotions are involved, and there are so many unpleasant emotions involved with you. Besides, you didn't exactly wake up buried under the earth after a transition, now did you? Scraping at the earth frantically, thinking you were going to suffocate, not realising that you can't possibly suffocate when you don't breathe. When all you know is the gnawing, burning hunger, deep in your bones, and you desperately want to feed on the one that you have the strongest emotional ties to. But I knew exactly what I wanted when I awoke," Hermione said. "Blood. You don't seem to know quite what you want, do you, hrm?"

Ginny's eyes were filled with hunger, their normal deep brown colour tinted with a strange yellow.

"You knew this would happen to me."

Hermione's muzzle wrinkled into a sardonic smile. "Yes, but it was not because I didn't warn Harry and Ron exactly what not to do with your cure."

"What warning!" Ginny demanded.

"Willingly given vampire blood cures all ails— the key is that it must be willingly given. Seems your husband-love and youngest brother tried various other bloods to help you. Unwillingly and Imperioused, different species, long before they decided to come to me for help. You see," Hermione said, "I was their very last resort. The last and final evil they hadn't yet tried."

Ginny stared at her painfully. "Speak plainly, Hermione."

"Having problems with your higher brain function?" Hermione asked. "Such a pity."

She unfolded her wings and flipped down to land neatly on her feet.

"Vampire blood is a strange thing, Ginny. It's not like human blood anymore than blood is sand. What flows through us, despite what we eat, if a sort of wild magick. When used to Turn, there is a reason the Sire drinks the initiate's blood completely. There must be little to none left to make the transition easier— less painful, less fatal. Now, when used for healing, the blood must be given willingly, which I did if but for your children's sakes. But if you should have any other conflicting blood within your body of a magical nature when it is consumed, the two bloods would instantly go to war with each other. Now— say your older brother, Charlie, gave you some unicorn blood. That is blood of the purest animal of the light (and I do mean this literally as in daylight). My blood is the very elixir of the night—" Hermione smiled grimly. "Rude, really, classifying us as Dark, evil creatures to be killed on sight. I wonder, who could have done that?"

Hermione scratched one ear with a wing-spur. "Look. I'm not a homewrecker," she said. "There is one solution to your current predicament. You can be Turned by a vampire, or you can take your chances with whatever horrific thing all that mixed blood will do to you. Mixed magical blood, Ginevra, please don't put words in my mouth. Real magic blood, not some prejudiced pipe dream."

"You want me to drink BLOOD?!" Ginny screeched, her eyes wide with horror.

Hermione's chuckle sounded strange coming through a muzzle. "What do you think you already drank? Tomato juice?"

Ginny started to hurl all over the floor in instinctive response.

Hermione shook her head. "Ginevra, do you think your brothers just gave you potions? That was blood that you drank. And fairly often, I would judge by your— unique odour."

Ginny glared at her.

"Oh, don't give me that look. I'm a vampire, Ginevra. I can smell blood." Hermione gave her the eye.

"Those are your choices," she said. "Try to deal with the results of whatever mixed blood cocktail you have going on or else agree to be Turned."

"By you!" Ginevra hissed furiously.

"No, actually. You would have to be Turned by a vampire that is bonded to Britain as his home. Mine is no longer here due to being forsaken by my own homeland." Hermione leveled her gaze. "So sorry, I can't help you with that."

"I can't— I won't be a blood sucker! I won't be hunted down and killed like some monster!"

Hermione used her wing thumb to comb back some of her thick mane of curls. "There are worse things."

"Get the hell out of my house!" Ginny screamed.

Hermione smiled then, and it wasn't kind. "This isn't your house, Ginevra. You cannot force me to leave it— however, since you are so determined to be stubborn, I will leave you with a parting gift."

Hermione put a flask of crimson liquid on the kitchen counter. "This is some of my blood. It will stave off the hunger for a time. Long enough to try and find someone to Sire you should you find yourself— slipping. But I warn you— wait too long and even it will not help you. Even vampires do not tolerate the uncontrolled amongst themselves. It endangers all of us and thus is not something they can afford or support."

Hermione's wing thumb tapped the flask. "Just remember, Ginevra. When I most needed a friend, you and my best mates chose to cast me aside and leave me for dead. I'm offering you a safe way out— it is not an ideal way, but it will save your life and the lives of your family."

"Get out! GET OUT! GGGEEETTTT OUT!" Ginny screamed.

When Ginevra opened her eyes again— the kitchen was empty. Only a delicate flask remained on the counter— glistening with crimson red temptation.

Ginny tore open a huge watermelon and hastily devoured it, shoving her face into the broken pieces with a cry of pure despair.

Murders In Knockturn Alley Have Aurors Scrambling For Answers

Head Auror Harry Potter is standing by his proclamation that who or whatever is picking off criminals in Knockturn Alley is not a rogue vampire. Vampires, which have been freely bounty-killed for the last few decades, are rumoured to be alive and well in Wizarding Britain (so to speak), but the old vampire hunters have long since dried up and gone out of business— millions of galleons having been paid out to line their coffers in "the good old times."

Frantic whispers have suggested that perhaps a demon is loose in Knockturn Alley— as all of the victims have been partially eaten.

"I seen it for myself!" confided Nettie Adler, the owner of the Naughty Mermaid, a favoured Knockturn Alley pub. "I went out back to the rubbish bins and found old 'Dung lying out there starkers, with huge chunks of flesh missing off 'im!' The memory seemed a bit too much for Madam Adler, who abruptly turned green and lost her breakfast all over this reporter's new dragonhide boots.

Known victims of this horrifying rash of brutal murders are: Mundungus Fletcher, Tyrus Payne, Gregory Goyle, Ardelia Sallow, Darius Dankworth and Edna Spinster.

With the supposed end of vampiric activity in Wizarding Britain, many are turning to Head Auror, Harry Potter, to assure them that this was indeed true. In response, Auror Potter has asked us to remind everyone that vampires have no interest at all in consuming flesh, as blood is their only form of sustenance.

Fearful murmurs of shock and disbelief in conjunction with a rising body count in Knockturn Alley has spread into the neighbouring Diagon Alley.

Businesses in both Knockturn and Diagon Alley are suffering, and many of the shops are pleading with the Aurors to solve the situation before nobody, not even the workers, wants to come there.

When Harry came home after a long day of trying to track down the bloodthirsty monster that was terrorising Knockturn and Diagon Alley, he got a frantic Patronus from Ron. He Apparated to Ron's house in London and arrived to find a bloodbath. His children, home for holidays, were screaming and whimpering, having lost all coherent reason as they sat, bloodied and maimed, on the floor, cradling their wounded bodies. Ron was holding his arm shakily as blood trickled down it— a deep bite having taken out a chunk of his flesh.

"Ron! What the hell happened here, mate?"

"It was Auntie Ginny!" Rory and Liza moaned from the floor. "She said she was hungry. We went to get her some food from the pantry and—"

"She went totally mental," Ron said, shuddering visibly at the memory. "Said she came here looking for Lavender. Then she tried to attack the children! I got off a few spells at her and she tried to take off my bloody arm— told me I just smelled too good. When she— took a big chunk out of my arm, she changed, mate. Physically, I mean. She looks—"

"Looks like what, Ron?"

"Got this ruddy long horn sticking out of her head and these bloody huge fangs, mate. Her hands were twisted into razor-sharp claws and her feet are hooves, Harry!".

"Wha—?" Harry stammered.

"Gin's a sodding demon-monster-thing, mate! My sister is a bloody monster!"

"She can't be a vampire!" Harry yelled. "She wasn't bitten first!"

"It wasn't a vampire, Harry! She didn't look like that git Snape or even git-lover Hermione at all. She looked like— I dunno how else to describe what she looked like. It was bad, Harry!"

Harry shook his head adamantly. "Not our Ginny. She would never turn into a monster!"

"Yeah, well I never thought Hermione would choose life with that greasy git instead of dying. Death would be better than living with HIM, so apparently my sister can turn into a monster too! Can't trust girls at all!"

Liza, Ron's thirteen-year-old daughter, glowered darkly at him. "I'm telling mum that you're an arse-face, dad."

It was only then that Harry realised that Ron and the children were still bleeding, and he quickly set to work casting healing spells to help them out. He began to struggle when he realised the bleeding wasn't stopping. "We need to get you all to Mungo's now!" Harry said. He placed a hand on each child and gave Ron a glare. "NOW!"

Crack!

Harry and the two children were gone.

Flesh-Eating Beast Contagion Spreading Chaos and Woe

Fear and panic are spreading now that a strangely contagious curse of sorts has afflicted the victims of the mysterious beast that has been stalking Knockturn and Diagon Alley. The original beast has, fortunately, killed most of its unfortunate victims, but those who managed to survive the initial attack have started to undergo some rather disturbing transformations, throwing themselves at any and everyone to sate their ravenous hunger for human flesh.

The description of the beast has varied somewhat, but a few descriptions remain essentially the same: it looks like a twisted vampiric unicorn and it eats human flesh rather than merely drinking blood.

Master Healer Vincent Kale has discovered there is only one cure for the condition: vampire blood from a willing vampire blood donor who lives in the same homeland as the infecting beast. Unfortunately, due to the last few decades of persecution and remorseless bounty hunters, vampires in Great Britain are extremely scarce, and those that remain have no pity for those who forced them to live underground or else be killed on sight.

Victims of the rampaging beasts are now demanding to know how such a horrific creature came to be, but the answers, so far, have been not been forthcoming.

Memo

From: Arcturus Bandicoot, HBOY

To: Department of Mysteries

Sanguini has volunteered to donate some of his blood, but we can only take a few vials a week due to the way his particular species operates, so all of the minor children are being treated as we can, including those outside of the DoM. Adults, however, can only be treated if there is blood to spare, and there has been precious little to spare. We have been forced to limit to DoM agents who have been out there fighting the beasts in person. Everyone else should take care to avoid travelling at night unless absolutely necessary.

Please be aware that our few contacts with the few remaining vampires must be kept absolutely confidential, as their lives depend upon us after that ridiculous bounty law. The pandemonium of late is only making things worse. Quarantine of all surviving victims upon identification is absolutely critical to avoid further spread of the beast contagion, folks.

The cure will slow things down, but provided we keep our children safe until the source-beast is taken out. Hogwarts has offered take in the children whose parents have been infected, which definitely helps. I think we should be able to obtain enough donated British vampire blood to cure the parents— eventually. Until then, stay safe, and take care to keep your loved ones inside and well-protected, especially at night.

"Minerva, you are completely spoiling my children," Severus said as the elder witch cuddled in a winged embrace on the ceiling.

"Well someone has to spoil your children and be around to do so," Minerva said with a sniff, using one wing to scratch her silvered bat-bun that pulled away from her ears.

She jumped down from the ceiling and transformed into a silver tabby— a tabby with distinctively un-feline bat wings.

"Freak of nature, you are."

"Pot, meet kettle," Minerva meowed sweetly, beginning to groom herself.

Hermione nuzzled her mate. "You love her. You wouldn't have saved her life otherwise."

Severus huffed. "There is some irony that to save her life from those who despised her for being an open vampire sympathiser I had to Turn her, and yet somehow she ends up as the world's only batcat."

Hermione grinned. "I think she's positively adorable."

Minerva purred.

The older and younger batlings hanging from the ceiling squeaked in fervent agreement.

Severus sighed. "I suppose you are both quite sufferable."

Hermione smiled, rub-squeaking against him. "Maybe after I was done getting over, well, everything."

Severus looked at her with a tilted head. "It was to be expected that adjustments would take time. You needn't feel as if such things took longer than it should."

Hermione sighed. "I know that— it's just— I felt like I should have had more control."

"More control after having been tortured by the most twisted, insane Dark witch on this side of the pond? After being transformed into a creature that craves life in a very literal sense?"

"It's debatable if she was considered living, Severus," Hermione said, licking her fangs. "Looking back, she tasted strongly of salt."

He eyed her. "Good thing you weren't going to die of a heart attack, hrm?"

Hermione fffted.

"Mummy? Why would you eat someone you didn't like the taste of?"

Hermione hugged her youngest batling to her and gave him a good grooming. "Unlike you, my darling, I wasn't born to the life. I was brought into it, incredibly hungry and very— well, irrational."

Her youngest didn't seem to understand completely, but he smiled up at her anyway. "I'm glad you're here, mummy."

Minerva mrowled. "We all are, laddie."

"Mum?"

"Yes, my love?"

"If you hadn't been Turned, you wouldn't have had us. Does that mean you didn't want us?"

"Nonsense," Hermione laughed. "Regardless of circumstance, I would always want you both."

The batlings chittered happily. "Phew!"

Hermione gave Severus a very private, knowing look, and his expression softened as he gazed upon her. "Do you truly mean that?"

Hermione gave him a look. "Of course I meant it."

A haunted look passed across his face, but then his clawed hand tenderly brushed against her muzzle. "You are something special."

"We knew that, daddy," their youngest crowed, pouncing on his back and clinging there. "Mummy is the best!"

Hermione chuckled, nuzzled her mate and gave him a gentle lick before grooming her son's ears and head. He sputtered and wing slapped her playfully. Hermione looked up and saw the sunrise starting to drive their diminutive cavemates to retreat back into the cave. "Time to get ready for bed," she said. She snuggled them both before shooing them off to prepare for bed.

"Mum," Thea said.

"Hrm?"

"Is Britain going to be alright?"

"Eventually, love, yes."

"How do you know?"

"She's not Turned," she replied. "Eventually, her abused body is going to either give out trying to be both human and beast or else someone is going to stop her rampage. If they do, all those infected by her will revert. The head of the beast, they call it. Many legendary old curses ended when the first was taken out."

Thea pondered that for a while. "I doesn't sound like the science grandma and grandpa talk about."

"Alas, it is not, sweetling. Magical conditions are quite complicated. They are both infectious and curable— or not— depending on a great number of factors."

Thea shrugged. "But, if they hadn't left you to the one witch, you'd never have had us."

Thea sounded more worried, despite her earlier reassurance.

Hermione nuzzled her daughter. "Thea, believe me. I and your father would have found a way. You and Talon would have come along, all the same. May a little later, but it would have happened."

"You're sure?"

"I'm completely sure. Mind you, your father may have taken some convincing on his part."

Thea stared at her father, and he gave her an arched eyebrow. "You don't love, mummy? I mean.. Back then?"

"Very much," he said.

"Then why would you need convincing?"

Severus shook his head. "Life and love is complicated, daughter. You will understand in a few decades when you start attracting suitors that I don't immediately murder on sight."

"Severus!" Hermione exclaimed, laughing.

Talon popped his head in from brushing his fangs. "Daddy is going to murder someone? Can I watch?"

"No!" Severus and Hermione said together sternly.

"Aww," he muttered, going back to brushing his fangs.

Hermione gave Severus an amused look before shooing her daughter off to clean up for bed. The sounds of her splashing in the hot spring-waterfall mixed with her singing to herself came shortly after.

Severus' ear twitched at the sound of singing, wondering where she picked that up.

"Grandparents," Hermione said. "They introduced her to the wireless— and mum's fascination with popular musicals."

He sighed. "Grandparents are built for spoiling and introducing odd things. At least they are still around to do so. They are getting quite old for Muggle humans."

"The nutrition potions you made for them help, I think," Hermione said. "At least their health is outstanding."

Severus nodded. They deserve a long and healthy life and to be able to enjoy their grandchildren. However long that may be."

Hermione smiled. "I appreciate that you care enough."

He brushed her cheek. "It matters to you and the children, so it matters to me. It is not every lifetime you find two people willing to accept a magical daughter and then a magical daughter with a few dietary lifestyle changes with a chaser of odd physical transformations."

Hermione looked thoughtful. "They've always accepted the best and worst of me. Even when I recited the definition for words for the first few years—"

Severus snorted. "You're still reciting," he ribbed.

Hermione harrumphed and made a face, made all the more wrinkled by her bat muzzle and nose.

Severus lowered his muzzle to hers, giving her a gentle rub with his muzzle as he licked her ear fondly.

Hermione squeaked with pleasure and then grinned as the sounds of their spawn having a raucous splashing contest in the bath filled the abode they had crafted with both magic and love.

"I love you," she said.

Severus' face, which seemed even more severe in vampire bat appearance, softened at her words. "No regrets?"

"Nothing that kharma hasn't already taken care of," Hermione said with a calm smile. "No regrets. Not anymore."

He embraced her with his wings, pulling her close. "No more for us, my love. No regrets, only life. Only the moment. The here and the now. Our children and us, our sufferable friends, the family we have made for ourselves and those that refuse, despite all sense, to abandon us."

"I may not have realised it back then, Severus," Hermione said. "But you had instantly captured my mind with your first speech my first year. The heart took a bit more convincing, if only because you were so good at being a total git." She looked at him with a sly, mischievous smile.

"We all have certain things that we excel at," he replied with a smirk.

"Perhaps a demonstration is in order," Hermione said suggestively.

He arched a brow, and it twitched slightly. "Oh?"

"Of course— if you're not up to it—"

Severus bat-napped his mate and flew into the bowels of their domain to demonstrate exactly how much he excelled at a great many things.

Ginny hadn't had such a good night sleep in years.

Ever since the "cure" she had healers poking and prodding her day in and out to make sure she wasn't reverting. She always had an Auror nearby watching her every move. She couldn't even take a ruddy shite without the damned Auror there to watch all because she'd slipped out just that one time…

She was allowed to go back "home" again, but home wasn't HER home. She was back at the Burrow, thoroughly warded into an isolated part of the house like the bloody ghoul in their attic.

Her parents— Molly especially— watched her like a hawk, never once leaving the house without putting up a great many high-powered security wards. While her father, once, almost, let her out on good behaviour, her mum came rampaging and drove him away from the wards and changed them to lock even him out.

Gods, her mum was so fucking paranoid.

It wasn't like it was her fault that she had attacked those people.

She was a good person! She had a life! A family!

Her mum just figured since they sold off almost everything they had to buy her access to the blood she needed for a cure that they had the right to keep her under duress.

Even her children treated her like some kind of pariah.

It was all Hermione's fault.

Hermione was British. Her blood should have cured her completely! Everything else she said was a trick— a dirty lie.

That wasn't blood at all. It was some sick potion that evil git made for her to look like blood.

Ginny's thoughts focused on her former friend.

Hermione's fault.

Her.

Her!

HER!

She didn't even notice how her body had jerked to life, twisting, contorting into a terrifying shape that looked like a deranged, murderous unicorn with fangs. She threw herself repeatedly at the walls, the door, the window.

Blam!

BLAM!

Over and over. Over and over.

Molly and Arthur exchanged resigned and worried looks as they tended to their grandchildren.

Lily looked up to Molly and handed her a picture she had watercoloured. "Nanna, will my mum ever get better?"

"I hope so dear, but—" Molly anxiously peered out the picture window. "The laws have driven most of those who could possibly offer a cure out of Britain. Those that know she fully supported them being made— well, the cure doesn't look very easy to come by."

"Couldn't you just buy it?" Lily asked.

"We tried, dear," Molly said. "It's… complicated."

"But, I want my mum back! She took us out shopping! She took us to the best parties! You just sit at home and scowl at each other."

Arthur and Molly sighed together. "We simply cannot afford to go out to parties now, and your father is out there working really hard to make a good living for you and your brothers."

Lily wrinkled her nose. "It doesn't sound like a good living to me."

"A life when you have a loving family and a roof of your head and food on the table is not a bad living, young lady, and it's about time you stopped moping about thinking everything can be bought with lots of money."

"But Mum said—"

Molly gave the young witch a look that wasn't particularly friendly, and the young witch immediately clammed up, her eyes going very wide.

Arthur looked at Lily and sighed deeply. "There are some things you cannot understand without a certain amount of life experience, and this is one of them. There were events that put certain things into motion— and your mum, dad, and your uncle were a part of those terrible things a very long time ago."

"Now, your mum grew up with the best we could give her, but had a lot of years in-between your brothers and sisters to keep the career that she loved— the same career that gave you a lot of those wonderful things that you desire. The kind of life she wanted was not what she had as child, and she did a lot of things to make you think she'd never had to make any sacrifices in order to provide a better standard of living for you."

Lily stared down at her plate of "food" with obvious disgust— used to far "better" things than boiled sprouts, mashed turnips and meager offerings of meat. "Could we please have a salad?" she asked hopefully.

"Of course, dear," Molly said, quickly getting up to make one. She chopped the lettuce and vegetables neatly with her kitchen knife. She placed the salad in front of Lily, and the little witch frowned.

"Where are the dried cherries, candied walnuts and bleu cheese?"

Arthur sighed and stood up. "I think it's time to have a lesson."

"I'm not at Hogwarts right now, Grandfather."

"All the better reason to have a lesson," Arthur said. "Come, it's time you learned that food does not appear magically."

"But—"

"Now."

Lily frowned and stood up, following Arthur.

Molly quietly cleared the table as the pair left, and hours later, young Lily returned with a plump trout in a net. It wasn't terribly huge, but it could definitely feed a hungry mouth. Under her arm, she carried a basket of freshly picked salad greens from the Weasley family garden.

Lily shyly shuffled up to her. "Nana, could you teach me how to prepare the fish?"

Molly exchanged significant glances with Arthur. "Of course, child."

There were no more complaints from young Lily Euphemia Potter.

That night, she dined upon what she had caught herself and she finished every bit of her salad without cherries, walnuts and bleu cheese.

Come Sunday and every Sunday after that, whenever the grandchildren were home, Sunday became the official Weasley family fishing and fry-day.

Original Beast Vector Ginevra Molly Potter Escapes High-Security Wards Due to Son's Freak Burst of Accidental Magic

Ginevra Potter, having been quarantined until recently after being identified as the original vector of the infamous Beast Plague of Britain, has escaped due to her son. Albus Potter's selfish (albeit accidental magic-induced) desire to have his mother back home again— the one thing no manner of ward can truly protect against due to its chaotic and random powerful emotion-fueled nature.

The Weasley family is being hounded by the outraged wizarding public due to them having been permitted for any reason to hold such a dangerous individual in home quarantine instead of a more heavily-secured ward in St Mungo's or Azkaban after the chain of murders and subsequent infections that made the past depredations of notorious werewolf Fenrir Greyback look like a children's garden party.

Despite protests that the children needed at least some contact with the mother, the Wizengamot has absolutely refused to allow her to be returned to the custody of her family following her eventual recapture, reasoning that the children could not be trusted not to free their mother yet again, accidentally or otherwise.

Widespread suspicion that favouritism towards the family of Head Auror Harry Potter may have had a great deal to do with such previously unheard of leniency has made it extremely difficult for Auror Potter to concentrate on relocating the extremely dangerous escapee who also happens to be his wife of thirty years.

Rumour has it that even the hit wizards are refusing to take on the case due to the high risk of being infected by Ginevra.

All attempts to track Ginevra's current whereabouts have reportedly been met with dismal failure.

Her son, after having released his mum, now suffers from the unwelcome realisation that his favoured parent has abandoned him, apparently without a thought. Many have written owls to the DMLE demanding that the teenaged wizard be labeled a delinquent and forced into public service so he might learn how he has destroyed countless lives with his selfishness, but the Wizengamot stands by the fact that accidental magic is just that. There is, they said, no child who remembers their loving parents who would not have wished exactly the same.

Even so, it has been reported that the young wizard has been getting hate-spewing Howlers almost non-stop from all the victims of his mum and all those she had infected.

At any rate, the DMLE asks all citizens of magical Britain to remain extra vigilant until Mrs Potter's recapture. All persons who believe they may have information regarding the current location or activities of Ginevra Molly Potter are encouraged to contact Head Auror Harry Potter immediately.

A/N: Being sick sucks. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next one should be relatively short and contain the story's conclusion, provided I don't come down with the plague. This was meant to be a one-shot detour to get stuff aligned in my head. It didn't quite work out— never does. Big thanks to The Dragon and the Rose for staying up past her expiry hour to beta this fic.