Chapter Text
In an alley in London a woman appears from nowhere. One second the rats are fighting over something dead and forgotten and the next, they’re scurrying away from the crackling pop of the fabric of space ripping apart just enough for a woman to materialize.
If you were to walk past the mouth of the alley, I’d wager you’d see nothing at all. A force beyond your control would simply whisper the suggestion to not look , and seeing as brains are incredibly impressionable, you’d simply walk on by. Not even in your periphery would you see the woman in the alley waving her wand and transfiguring her entire outfit into something else. Something more blendable, something like what you’d be wearing after dusk on a walk home through London.
And she’s good too, she knows exactly how to make her clothes look like yours, because despite waving a wand and appearing from thin air, she was raised amongst you. So when she steps out of her alley and into the slow flow of foot traffic headed toward the Tube, not a single person bats an eye.
***
Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, one third of the trio destined to save the world, was on the run. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to disappear since the disaster of the Battle of Hogwarts, and she doubted it would be the last. But every time she leaves, it gets harder to convince herself to come back.
Typically when things get hairy and Hermione found herself back at the top of Voldemort’s wanted list, the Order would put her up in one of their safe houses. This time was different. It was one thing to be wanted, to see your face on posters plastered to every single available surface in Wizarding London. It was another thing entirely to be hunted. For the first time in the three years since Hogwarts fell to Voldemort, Hermione was being actively pursued.
Why, you might wonder, was Voldemort suddenly so obsessed with capturing Hermione, specifically? Her darkest secret fell into the hands of the enemy, and now they wanted her to pay for being who, and what, she was: an incredibly powerful muggle-born witch, that also happened to be an ultra rare, highly coveted, unmated omega.
Before, Hermione could live knowing that if she were ever captured, she’d still die at the end of whatever torture she’d endure before death’s sweet embrace. She could endure anything as long as there was the promise of freedom into eternal nothingness. Now that she had emerged and her secret was out, they’d never kill her. Not when she was more valuable alive.
As for her willingness to go along with Voldemort’s plans? Nothing an Imperius Curse couldn’t fix. Hermione shuttered to think that that was the least assaulting of the ways in which Voldemort could force her compliance.
So, no. Hermione would not be allowing the Order to place her into a safe house. Not when she knew that the Order had a rat. Someone had to have told Voldemort and his Deatheater enforcers her secret, so she’d rather risk hiding on her own than allow the rat to leak her location.
For months, Hermione had played it smart. She’d been moving locations every two days, using the barest amount of magic to prevent any magical traces from finding her, and moving almost entirely by muggle transport. She’d been drinking scent-blocking potions and heat suppressants every day. She hadn’t spoken with anyone in the Order, not even Harry, the one person she could trust, the one whose darkness seemed unafraid of her own. Her plan was working well.
Hermione’s lucky streak came to an abrupt end in a street market in Germany. She was looking for potion ingredients in muggle Munich, unable to source them from any magical shops lest she find herself face to face with a Deatheater or Voldemort sympathizer.
Herbs were easy to come by in muggle markets, and sometimes she could even find rarer ingredients in oddity or Wiccan shops. But Hermione had been looking for this particular ingredient for three different cities now, and was beginning to think she’d only find it in an apothecary.
As she was turning out of the market to head back to the muggle apartment she’d been paying for in cash, her shoulder was violently checked by a large man attempting to catch his wayward child. Hermione felt herself careening for the ground, and without being able to use any magic to cushion the fall, she gritted her teeth and braced for impact. Luckily, the fall itself didn’t hurt her more than some superficial scrapes, but when she stood from the ground and felt liquid seeping from her pocket, she knew something was terribly wrong.
Rushing into the nearest public toilet, she dug her enchanted clutch from her pocket and reached her arm down inside. Cursed. She must be cursed, because her entire stash of scent-blocking and heat suppressing potions had managed to shatter into a mess of glass and fluid. Had Hermione forgotten to cast a protection spell on them? Surely not. And yet she was well and truly fucked.
Not being able to hide her scent was akin to casting a Patronus, both were directly unique to her, both of which would have her enemies appartating right to her doorstep. If she was scented by the wrong person… if someone were to realize who she was, innocent or not… yes, she was fucked.
What choice did she have? In less than twelve hours, her scent would be permeating the air, and while she wasn’t likely to go into heat anytime soon (not without a compatible alpha to trigger it), she didn’t like leaving things to chance. She would have to risk apparating back to London long enough to restock her potions and then begin a new trek away. Maybe this time she’d head to the United States.
It was a risk, but maybe going back to London would be unexpected enough to keep the Deatheaters off her trail until she could escape the city again. It had to be less risky than traveling the world via plane, train and automobile, hoping no one magical scented her or recognized her.
She didn’t even go back to her rented apartment before disapparating.