Trinity: Lovers

It's a night that mirrors her state of mind. The blue-tinged black of the sky is overcast with grey-edged clouds that race across the sky like armies rushing into final battle, grouping, regrouping and being shredded asunder in rapid movement. The storm gives the raindrops a momentum that exposes them as the little brothers of hail they are.

So very appropriate, Hermione thinks as she pulls the knot of her scarf tighter under her chin.

She's grateful for the sheepskin lining of her parka - suitable for the Russian climate, too warm for England, but useful on a night like this.

Although it's not just the cold that makes her shiver. For weeks after the disappearance of Ron and Harry she had existed in an abyss of gnawing fear, haunted by gruesome images of what fate might have befallen them. Of course in this respect she was off no worse than the other members of the Order, but at least they weren't stuck at Durmstrang, two thousand miles away from being of use. And then had come the stories in the papers, about You-Know-Who's defeat at Harry's hands, based on second-hand reports from a handful of minor Death Eaters who had immediately quit their master's sinking ship to claim forced service under the Imperius Curse. And then afterwards the confirmation from Hogwarts that the prophecy had indeed been fulfilled. And still no word about whether Harry and Ron had survived Voldemort's downfall.

Then, Hermione had believed that nothing could be worse than this mixture of helplessness and dread, but she had been wrong. Now, she understands that knowledge can at times be worse than ignorance, and that grief can lead one to desperate ends and forbidding places. After all, it has led her here.

The mansion in front of her doesn't look like the fortress she'd expected - no heavy stone boulders, towers or battlements, but instead a classical pillared entrance and huge arched glass windows. It is a fortress, however, though one whose defences are based on magic instead of architecture. She feels the power of the wards closing around her, like a pressure chamber. The dull thudding in her ears is the magnified echo of the blood pounding in her veins with reluctant sluggishness, and a sharp, iron-tanged trickle of blood runs down the back of her throat. There is a sudden wetness at her nostrils, and when she brushes it off, the back of her hand comes away with a red smear.

She neither shields nor conceals herself - magical resistance would just increase the force of the wards, and she's aware that at full strength, they would likely crush her into a bloody puddle on the ornate garden path. And of course she has not come here to hide.

With a shaky hand she sounds the bronze bell, whose clapper is cast in the shape of a striking viper.

Only a second after she rings it, the door opens a crack and globular house-elf eyes stare up at her.

"Mistress shouldn't come here, mistress is not wanted, she go, quickly!" it squeaks, wringing its bony hands.

"Oh, but ask her in by all means," a sneering voice rings out from the hallway beyond. It sends the tiny creature into a frenzy of ear-pulling and gesticulating apologies.

Behind the frazzled elf, Draco Malfoy is leaning casually against the balustrade that surrounds the entrance hall, all pale hair and skin, grey robes mirroring his eyes. Only the obsessive air of self-confidence has gone, giving way to a quiet sense of self-assurance as if home was where poise came naturally instead of being a show of force.

And a few months of having the power to kill and torture rather than merely telling first-years to shut up would have an effect too, she thinks bitterly.

"Granger..." He looks almost bemused, taking in her wet jacket and bloody face. "I can't believe you have the nerve to darken our doorstep. Wouldn't throwing yourself in front of a Muggle train be a less painful way of committing suicide?"

Hermione wipes more blood from her nose and stares him down. She hasn't come for the younger monster, after all.

"I'm here to see your father," she states curtly, and takes a further step inside to allow the still-hovering elf to close the door against the wind. Malfoy grins at her darkly.

"Seems you're even more stupid than I gave you credit for, then. Grizzle, take her coat and bring her upstairs."

He vanishes as the elf takes her parka and dripping scarf with a disgusted wrinkling of its pointed nose. It eerily resembles Narcissa Malfoy like that. Perhaps house-elves really do adopt their owners' mannerisms after a few years of slavery, she muses. Kreacher certainly did...

She shakes her head when it looks at her long-sleeved blouse, where the water has seeped through and left damp patches.

"I'll keep that, thank you." She's not going to face Lucius Malfoy in a sleeveless Muggle top when merely standing in his entrance hall makes her feel exposed.

Bowing fretfully with every second step, the house-elf leads her up the main staircase and then off into a small room that contains only a coffee table, some high-backed chairs and a scattering of paintings that resemble full-sized oil illustrations of the sketches in Moste Potente Potions. She eyes the chairs with distrust and stands next to the window until Malfoy returns with his father in tow. Lucius Malfoy wears black and silver and gloves, and she marvels at how alike they look, two pale, alien creatures that evil seems to have drained of colour.

"Miss Granger." The elder Malfoy's voice radiates cool disdain, and his expression matches his tone as he looks over her Muggle clothes, wet hair and bloodied nose. She wipes her face with the sleeve of her blouse, and hates herself for it when she realises.

"We haven't been formally introduced, although I've heard a lot about you from my son, and lately from my... Eastern associates." The aristocratic mouth twists into a downward bow. "Altogether too much, to be honest."

"I know what you are," she replies bluntly.

He leans against the table with that same self-possession she has noted in the new Draco. As if he expects his surroundings to accommodate to his movements instead of vice versa, she thinks spitefully.

"Your much-vauntedknowledge must be vastly overrated then, little Mudblood. If you knewwhat I am, you would never have dared to invade my home."

Hermione shakes her headimpatiently. She is too wet, exhausted and miserable to endure that...creature's... verbal grandstanding.

"I know that you've beentrapped behind those wards of yours ever since You-Kn-Voldemort died. I knowthat Harry took over those Death Eaters he didn't kill outright, and that he has sworn to destroy you. I know that you can't expect anything from theMinistry, given that you're an escapee from Azkaban and a Death Eater, and thatyour own former comrades are after you."

Malfoy's expression does not change during her tirade, though his eyes seem narrower than before.

"I'm here to offer you a bargain," she concludes.

"A bargain?" He sneers down at her. "What would a little Mudblood Gryffindor have to offer a Malfoy? Help from the Ministry? Whatever passes for Dumbledore's protection nowadays? You don't have the authority to offer me either."

She smiles then, a tiny, sardonic smile that's all teeth and doesn't come in any way close to reaching her eyes.

"Nothing like that. I want you to teach me the Dark Arts, Mr. Malfoy, and the Unforgivable Curses. I want you to teach me how to kill Harry Potter."

There is a deep-ringing silence after that, and the echo sounds alien in her own ears. She has never stated the facts so plainly, not even to Viktor.

"Why would you want to kill Potter, Granger?"

Well, nobody's ever accused Draco Malfoy of being the brightest candle on the cake, she thinks. His father throws him an exasperated look that shuts him up.

"Well, Miss Granger, this is certainly an interesting turn of events," the elder Malfoy leers at her. "But why come to us for the Dark Arts? I would have thought that ex-Seeker of yours at Durmstrang was amply qualified in that respect. Surely you could give him one incentive or another to make it worth his while? After all, he doesn't appear to be a wizard of very... discriminating taste."

Heat stings her cheeks and ears at that.

"I asked him. He refused." It comes out harshly because it still hurts. Not the refusal itself - that is something she can almost respect him for. No, it is losing him that hurts.

Malfoy, damned bastard that he is, seems to read her thoughts.

"You left him then? He wouldn't endorse your little quest for revenge and you broke with him?"

Which is actually far too close to the truth for comfort. Viktor had been shocked by her request. A sense of unease always surrounded him when he, or any of the Durmstrang professors, had taught her darker spells. Hermione knows beyond any hint of doubt that Viktor loves her, but in a way, he's always regarded her as a symbol for his allegiance with Dumbledore - an ideal, an embodiment of integrity. And he's never completely understood the ties that bound her to Ron and Harry either. To Ron and Him.

"He believes the Dark Arts would... change me. Damage my personality," she says. Malfoy grins, ferret-like.

"Oh, they certainly would, not that I see why it would be much of a loss. But how about answering my son's question? Potter was your closest friend. Why do you want him dead?"

She glares, nails digging into her palms. "He killed Ron!" A hot lump starts to burn in her throat. "He lured him out of Hogwarts, took him to You-Voldemort, and murdered him with his own hands. His best friend! And you ask me why I want to kill him?"

"Well, it was either Weasley or you, Miss Granger. Shouldn't you be grateful that he chose to let you live?" The cruel mirth flickering in those eyes chills her to the bone.

"I never asked for that! If he had come and asked me, Mr. Malfoy, I would have gone along with him. Even Ron probably would have. But he did not ask!"

"Well, he definitely didn't ask the Weasel," Draco grins, obviously relishing the memory. "I've never seen the dumb sod look so shocked in my life."

It takes all of Hermione's willpower not to slap him like she had back in third year. No, make that punch him. Hard. Which would be decidedly unwise, in front of his father.

"How did you find out?" The elder Malfoy disengages from the table he's been leaning against and sits down in one of the chairs.

Hermione traces the Rune-patterned rug with her eyes to stop herself from pulling out her wand and hexing Draco.

"Two days ago, I was with a Durmstrang team that attacked Antonin Dolohov's eagle nest in Romania," she says. "He told me."

They had walked right into the fortress Dolohov had wheedled out of his vampire allies. It had been practically deserted. They had found Dolohov in his throne room, alone and raving. His Dark Mark was gone, and with it, it seemed, his mind. There were some telltale piles of ashes and a handful of contorted, motionless bundles on the floor around him, and Hermione did not blame the rest of his followers for having run. Dolohov had terrified her ever since their encounter in the Department of Mysteries, but this time, she'd almost felt pity. The long face was pallid and dirt-streaked, with a disturbed shadow around the eyes that almost drowned out his inherent cruelty.

When he recognised her, he'd cursed her as 'Krum's Mudblood whore' and then in a gush of language so filthy that even Durmstrang's arrogant pureblood Dark Arts Master - who had certainly entertained similar thoughts about her before - made to hex him. But then he seemed to forget her entirely and ranted about treason and betrayal of his Master and waved his arm at them where he had tried to etch the outlines of the Dark Mark back into his skin with his fingernails. He kept raving and started to address Hermione as 'Bellatrix', which had given her quite a jolt. She had tried to calm him, playing the role of Lestrange all the while, carefully teasing the few pieces of sketchy - and highly subjective - information out of him that his fractured mind would allow. Luna's murder. Harry throwing himself at Voldemort's mercy, and Voldemort's terms. Harry, bringing Ron into the Riddle House, and killing him there. Playing the loyal Death Eater for weeks, and then assassinating Voldemort and Wormtail in Voldemort's quarters. At that point, Dolohov broke down, wailing over and over again, "Potter, Potter killed the Master."

Malfoy's nose wrinkles in disgust.

"Yes, that little bastard of a halfblood really got lucky. Striking just when the Dark Lord's closest circle was absent, and then moving quickly enough to win the worthless cowards who remained over to his side. They attacked us when we returned - the Lestrange brothers were killed immediately, and if Bellatrix and Narcissa hadn't shielded Draco we'd never have made it out alive. They did not." There is a touch of bitterness humming below that statement, and Hermione fidgets.

"I'm... sorry about your wife."

She's not, really. But Hermione remembers her mother's drained, white face at her father's funeral, the last time she'd seen her before the Order had spirited her away to a safe house to make sure she would not suffer a similar fate as her husband. It's hard to imagine that the same Death Eaters who would wipe out other people's families so mercilessly would care at all about their own.

"Shut up!" Malfoy snarls viciously. "I do not need sympathy from a Mudblood!"

Hermione jumps at the outburst and nervously fiddles with the wrist button of her blouse.

"But why?" She knits her brows.

"Why what, Mudblood?" Draco interjects. She glares at him.

"Well, it's obvious why Harry went after Y-Voldemort, but why is he so... obsessed... with killing you? I mean... obsessed enough to ally himself with Death Eaters?"

She watches them exchange a look insidious enough to make her toenails curl. The elder Malfoy shrugs daintily, and his anger is extinguished as quickly as it had flared up. The mask of suave superiority falls back over his features again.

"That would have to do with the fact that the Dark Lord insisted on having Mr. Potter's sincerity tested before accepting him into the ranks of the Death Eaters. He entrusted myself, Draco and Wormtail with the task, and we seem to have left quite a... lasting impression on our young hero."

They both look like Siamese curled on the carpet next to their empty cream dish, and a sick heave twists in Hermione's stomach. She certainly doesn't want any details, but it must have been enough to scar Harry's mind. And Wormtail, it seems, has already paid the price for his participation.

"Well, Miss Granger," Malfoy continues, "this is all very interesting, but I still fail to see what I would get out of this bargain you're proposing."

Hermione stares at him in exasperation.

"I'd have thought itwas obvious. If I succeed, your troubles will be over. You didn't have much of a problem worming your way back into the Ministry's favour last time, so I'm sure you'll be able to do it again. Your only serious problem is Harry and his bloody 'army'. And if I fail, well, you won't have lost anything, will you?"

"Very... succinctly put, for a Gryffindor. I confess that there is something highly satisfactory about watching one of Dumbledore's precious, noble children turning to embrace the Dark."

It really hits home, to hear it phrased this way. Before leaving Durmstrang, Hermione had actually for a moment entertained the thought of going to Hogwarts, of unburdening all her sorrow and rage to Dumbledore. But it would have been too cruel. Dumbledore loves Harry, like a son, like an heir, and the knowledge of what his beloved protégé has done would kill him. That is one thing. The other is that, deep down, she's not sure if Dumbledore would not forgive Harry, even for that. That he would not consider Ron's death too high a price for Harry's survival and the fulfilment of his precious prophecy. An unworthy thought, perhaps, but a persistent one.

She bites down on the inside of her cheek and looks down at her toes.

"And yet," Malfoy continues, giving her a sinister smile from under narrowed lids, "I think there should be some more... immediate... reward for expending energy on training one of Dumbledore's creatures, and a Muggleborn of all things."

It actually takes her a while to decipher the look that accompanies the words - cool, calculating, and utterly suggestive. When she does, she can't do anything but gape at him until Draco's decidedly evil snicker pulls her out of her stupefaction.

"Y-you can't be serious!" she stutters and adds, when all she gets in return is a lifted eyebrow, "You despise Muggleborns!" Oh, she hates that bloody flush! "You'd never do - that - with a Mudblood!"

And I can't believe I've said that aloud, she wails mentally. Blast it, Hermione, do you really need to give him ideas?

A toothy grin proves that he's enjoying the situation altogether too much.

"It seems that your History of Magic education has been deficient, or just as slanted as most of what the Hogwarts curriculum has to offer. That, as you so eloquently put it, was actually one of the few things our pureblood ancestors considered Muggles of any use for. Entertainment, and experimentation. Toys, to use, and break, and throw away."

There is a provocative glint in his eyes, more curiosity than challenge. As you are, it seems to say.

"And since Potter has murdered my wife, it seems only fair that I make his Mudblood friend service me."

The mere thought sends shivers of dread up and down her back. He gives her a cold once-over that results in a downward curl of his mouth.

"And I hope you will not succumb to the illusion that I get any pleasure from the thought of your company. Even if you had the proper bloodline, your manners and your appearance in particular would still be severely sub-standard."

Oh thanks, like this was my idea!

It should not sting, because his opinion means less than nothing to her, but it does. And he quite likely knows it.

"Above all else, practising the Dark Arts means transcending artificial limitations - honour, ethics, laws, morality," he continues. "Hatred will take you far, Miss Granger, but not all the way. If you can sacrifice those ridiculous Gryffindorish Muggle morals you seem to be clinging to-" a contemptuous glance ghosts over her heated face, "- this experiment might be worth my while."

Hermione slowly unknots her fists and tries to calm her breathing. Hyperventilating and hysterics won't do her any good. At this moment, she hates Lucius Malfoy almost as much as she hates Harry Potter. Then she thinks of Ron and knows she would pay a far higher price if necessary.

She closes her eyes for a long moment, then nods and very deliberately shrugs her blouse off her shoulders.

~ ~ ~ *** ~ ~ ~

And so it begins. She learns all about 'transcending artificial limitations' and what that can entail when you're dealing with Malfoys. For the first time, she's grateful for having thrown herself at Viktor Krum with such resoluteness immediately after her arrival at Durmstrang, even if back then she wasn't sure whether she was just using him to get over her father's death. It's still bad enough, but walking into this directly out of Hogwarts would have driven her to the breaking point in no time.

She prefers to share Draco's bed, because he cannot make her betray herself as badly as Lucius can. It is disconcerting how she has come to refer to them by first names, in her mind at least. 'Malfoy' makes for a far more appropriate and ominous appellation, but it allows no differentiation, and they are different. Despite their mutual loathing, Draco is still a known quantity. A hateful, disgusting quantity, but not one to spark terror, or self-hatred. Draco calls her a whore - with more reason than Dolohov, she admits - and doesn't affect her. Lucius doesn't call her anything, and manages effortlessly. He wears the same expression to bed with which he curses her on the duelling floor. Probing, cold, indifferent. A creature so alien that hating him would almost be too human a response. As futile as hating a Lethifold, or a Chimaera...

During the nights, she upholds her part of the bargain. During the days, Lucius teaches her the Dark Arts.

~ ~ ~

The Imperius Curse comes to her easiest, though it's the hardest of the Unforgivables to master. But then she is, as Remus Lupin has once proclaimed, the most talented witch of her generation. She practices on the Malfoys' house-elves, in fits of self-contempt, but the old Hermione shines through occasionally when she has the bewitched and fitfully flitting creatures give their masters a piece of her mind.

Lucius tells her of Enid Baddock, not an Auror when she cast Imperius to evacuate a houseful of panicking witches and wizards during a Welsh Green stampede, and who died in Azkaban for her pains. Hermione registers the attempt at manipulation, yet ponders the meaning of 'unforgivable' and perfects her technique.

Two nights later, she casts it on Draco, who begs her forgiveness, quits the bed and spends three hours in the manor's kitchen scrubbing pots alongside the house-elves before managing to throw the curse.

Afterwards, he splits her lip and takes her in vicious retribution, but Lucius doesn't command her to practice Imperius again.

~ ~ ~

The morning she first successfully uses Avada Kedavra on a garden gnome, she runs off, hides in a remote corner of the gardens, and cries herself into near-unconsciousness, oblivious to the patch of Snapping Woodcress that bites her hands bloody.

She remembers Ron catapulting grumbling, living gnomes over the Weasley garden fence, beaming over his shoulder at a bemused Harry. The lifeless, leathery lump on the prim grass of the Malfoys' lawn makes her feel as if she'd cast the curse at Ron's memory.

It is Draco who finally finds her and reaches out to pull her up and waits for her to heal her fingers before escorting her back.

That afternoon, Lucius Curses her for hours.

~ ~ ~

She almost holds her own with the advanced combat spells, thanks to Viktor Krum and the Durmstrang faculty, but balks at Conflagro or any other Burning curse more advanced than Incendio.

She ignores Lucius' taunts about her father's death for days, until he Petrifies her and launches into a detailed and excessively gruesome narrative about just what Conflagro does to the average Muggle body. When he lifts the curse, she incinerates the antique walnut cabinet behind him in a flare of rage, without a wand.

He just quirks an eyebrow and tells her that she will spend the rest of the afternoon assisting the house-elves in the restoration of his heirloom. The stress of recreating ornate woodwork from ashes reduces them to worn-out husks no matter how much magic she tries to pour into them, which leaves her with the headache of the decade and guilty enough to cry.

"Did you kill my father?" she asks while shedding her clothes in the bedchamber that night.

There is a flicker of sadistic amusement evident in the way the corner of his mouth curls upwards.

"If you really want to know, ask me again," he says.

She lets his arms encircle her body and allows him to guide her to the bed. She does not ask again.

~ ~ ~

Cruciatus, while being the easiest of the Unforgivables to cast, turns out to be the worst to truly master. In part, this is because he insists on demonstrating it on her. And keeps demonstrating it when she does not reciprocate. It's a vicious circle - she refuses to try it on house-elves or gnomes, and can't bring herself to properly cast it on him. Oh, she can throw the Curse like a whipcord when she's half-mad with pain and rage, but she can't sustain it. Her brain turns into something sponge-like that soaks up the pain and is transformed into a soggy, useless mass in the process. She starts to shake even when she's alone, and knows that if she doesn't go crazy under the strain, Lucius will eventually kill her in disgust. He starts to look at her as if she were a Horklump, or a mouldy tapestry infested with Doxies.

Draco frowns at the sight of her clammy skin and grey, pained face when she stumbles into his room. He sends a house-elf for a glass of cooking brandy from the kitchens and forces her to down it. The taste is vile, but it warms her insides. He comes to kneel behind her on the bed and pulls her back against his naked body, lifting her hair off her neck to rest his chin on her shoulder.

"You're a hopeless idiot, Mudblood," he whispers into her ear.

Well, she's not really in a position to argue with that, is she now? At least a lecture is preferable to... other things, particularly since he seems to be inclined to keep his hands off her breasts for a change.

"Let me tell you a story, Granger," he murmurs against the damp skin behind her ear.

And he does. He tells her about Ron's last hour and Harry's role in it, in graphic, lurid and thoroughly gleeful detail. She can feel how much the memory excites him against her lower back, but her mind is too numb to explore the implications. It's a narrative with the effect of a Basilisk's gaze. Slowly she turns to ice under his hands, mind poisoned by vile images, until he releases her and pulls up the covers and tells her to go to sleep.

That night, they lie back to back, keeping as much distance as possible. Even through her closed lids, feverish visions blossom in front of her eyes, burning away the tears before they can even begin to form.

The same visions blur her sight when she faces Lucius over drawn wands hours later, and for the first time she maintains the curse, through a haze of rage. None of her weak attempts have ever drawn a cry out of him, but this one does, until the hallway rings with his screams and she gradually remembers where she is, and who. She trembles as she calls off the spell and looks down at the crumpled body at her feet.

It takes almost a minute until he manages to draw himself upright, a minute in which Hermione alternates between terror - Oh God, he's going to kill me! - and the impulse to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, not because of him so much as herself.

Oh God, what did I do to myself?

It feels a bit like cracks in an egg widening and bits falling off until all that's left are pieces of shell on the ground. She wonders if Harry took that very same step into darkness when he cast the curse on Lestrange, long before he finalised the journey on the fateful day he went to Voldemort.

An overwhelming desire for retribution flickers in Lucius' eyes for an instant, pain being the worm in the apple of self-control it is. But then he just brushes a speck of dust from his sleeve with a faintly shaking hand and asks:

"What did you see?"

Rage bubbles up inside her again until she trembles.

"You know what I saw," she spits.

A twist of those haughty lips.

"My son is perhaps wiser than I tend to give him credit for."

~ ~ ~

Apparently, Lucius considers her mastery of Cruciatus as a rite of passage and sets out to prepare Hermione's 'mission'. She assists him with a series of Loss of Substance Charms to allow her free movement through the Riddle House and its formidable wards. Ancyente and Advanc'd Charmes is a fascinating read, many of its spells being attributed to the great Merlin himself, and Hermione actually mourns having to abandon that particular book - the library of the mansion is worth dying for. With Draco, she brews an Invisibility Potion, and an Emulgation Solution to keep charms and potion from interfering with each other.

On the last evening she spends in the manor, Lucius gives her a dagger in an elaborate silver sheath whose design calls to mind his infamous snake-headed cane. His fingers linger on the hilt, as if he were about to give a part of himself away, and reluctantly so. When she pulls it from the sheath, the blade shimmers in a warm grey, like smoke transformed into metal. Hermione, who hates weapons and feels a thrill of unease every time she picks up her root knife in Potions, admits there is beauty in this one.

"Why, thank you, Miss Granger." He gives a mocking bow, and she realises that it must be his own work and design. It does mirror him - ornate, elegant and deadly.

"Athametum," Lucius explains and she gasps, remembering the metal's lethal properties from Transfiguration class. The poisonous smoke of burning asphodel root, transfigured into magical steel. There aren't twenty Transfiguration masters in Britain who could accomplish that, and of those not a quarter actually would.

"You never know with Potter and the Killing Curse," he adds. "All you have to do is break his skin with this, and prepare to dodge one last curse, and it will be over."

That final night she spends repeating curse after curse in her mind, fingers wrapped around the Athametum dagger, alone. And for the first time since she's set foot into the manor, she wishes she weren't.

~ ~ ~ *** ~ ~ ~

Finding Harry is surprisingly easy. Hermione Apparates outside the Riddle gardens, casts her charms and downs her potions. The Emulgation Solution has turned out well - all she feels as side effect is a tingling sensation in her toes and fingertips. The wards that throw a spiderweb of white lines over the doors and walls of the house don't give a twinge as she moves through them. She dodges Walden Macnair in a corridor, observes Morgan Avery casting dishwashing charms in the kitchen, and only truly realises she's intangible on top of invisible when a teapot levitated through a corridor by Augustus Rookwood glides right through her forehead.

Harry himself seems to have taken over the rooms that once belonged to Tom Riddle's grandparents, and later to Voldemort. She finds him in the suite's living room, which is empty of all furniture apart from a heavy bookcase lining the wall. She can only see his back as she glides into the room, but even if the hood of his Death Eater cloak weren't down to expose the disorderly black hair, his stance alone would have identified him to her.

Hermione swallows and feels tears prickling in her eyes, and then a more substantial prickling in her nerve ends alerting her to the fact that the magic is about to wear off. She ghosts behind the cover of one of the floor-length curtains. She can't use her wand in a discorporate state - she'll just have to wait it out.

When he puts down the book he's been fidgeting with and walks over to one of the windows further down from hers, she realises how different he looks. Older, colder, and without the liveliness that has always coursed through Harry like an undercurrent in his blood. His appearance calls to mind the pictures of school-aged Tom Riddle that she came across while researching Voldemort's background for Viktor.

As soon as she's visible and solid enough to feel the gold-threaded brocade curtain scratch against her cheek, she draws her wand. The Killing Curse nudges at the back of her mind, but she resists it - she can't bring herself to attack him from behind like that. She wants him to know what is happening.

She points her wand and murmurs, "Reducto!"

He gives a surprised yelp as the curse slams him against the windowpane hard enough to leave spider cracks. But he regains his balance quickly and whirls round, wand ready and blood trickling from his nose.

"Caeco!" he casts in her direction and Hermione steps out of the shadow of the curtain to face him even as she blocks the Blinding Curse.

She can practically see the jolt of surprise that runs through him. His wand lowers, and shock, horror and vulnerability flit across his face in quick succession.

"Hermione."

Her own wand never wavers as she takes another step forward.

"You didn't expect me to drop by?" she asks with deceptive sweetness as his eyes scan her warily.

"You shouldn't have come."

"Why not?" she snaps. "Don't you have enough control over your Death Eaters, Harry?"

His eyes harden and his face closes off as vulnerability is replaced with anger.

"If Dumbledore sent you-"

"Oh, believe me, he didn't. Stupefy!"

"Protego!" he hisses, and then, "Get out of here before I take a leaf out of Dolohov's book in the Department of Mysteries."

"You mean-" she slashes the air with her wand "-Fragmentum?"

He ducks away, but not quite quickly enough. The thin purple flame whispers over his side, and there is a dull crack which sends him stumbling back with a pained expression. That was one rib at least, probably more, she thinks with a sick, eager feeling.

"What in Merlin's name-"

"I'm going to kill you," she cuts off the question. "Did you really think you could betray and torture and murder my best friend and I would not come after you?"

He flinches, and a pained expression ghosts over his face until he suppresses it viciously.

"Do you really believe I did it for the fun of it?" There is an edge of despair to his anger.

Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Harry?

"I had no choice. Dumbledore was less than useless, and Voldemort would have come after each and every one I cared about until he got me. I could not condemn another one to Luna's fate - or your father's." His wand comes up, insidiously quick. "Expelliarmus!"

"Protego!" Her wand trembles in her hand, but stays put.

"So you decided to kill them yourself?" she asks furiously. "Imperio!"

Let go of your wand, now! she orders mentally, and then "Reducto!" when he staggers under the impact. He throws off the Imperius even as he falls back, with a furious mental slap that sends her reeling. But the strain shows on his face. He's got to be holding back, she thinks. He did not defeat Voldemort with minor spells like these.

"Don't get me wrong," she hisses through clenched teeth. "I could forgive you for striking that bargain with Voldemort. But you didn't tell us. Don't you think we would have understood?"

He looks up, eyes blazing with a fury that constricts her throat like a strangler's hands. "Fragmentum!" he spits and the flame darts over her shoulder as she rolls away.

"Asked you? What was I to ask you? 'Ron, Hermione, would either of you mind being handed over the Dark Lord for a spot of torture and public execution so I can save my worthless life and establish my credentials with the Death Eaters?'"

"But that's exactly what you did!" she screams, and is surprised to hear her voice ring with as much sorrow as anger. "You had no right to sacrifice Ron - it wasn't your choice to make. Do you have any idea what it did to me?" She aims her wand and lets every bit of hatred and guilt seep into the cherrywood and its unicorn hair core. "Crucio!"

The curse takes him to the ground, making him thrash and bite down cruelly on his knuckles to stifle the screams.

"Stop it!" he grinds out around tears and bleeding, bitten fingers. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

She does. It's nothing like she had hoped for, no sense of satisfaction or just retribution. Outside the atmosphere of cloistered, refined evil that is Malfoy Manor, the abyss of inhumanity in that curse reveals itself.

"I saved your life," he answers her question in a tired whisper when he's able to speak again. "I can't be sorry for that."

"I am," she says and slips her hand into her robe pocket for the dagger. She has to end this. It hurts both of them too much.

Before she can even pull the blade free, his eyes fall on the design and widen in pure shock at the sight.

"No!" It comes out almost as a whimper. "God, Hermione, please tell me they didn't get you, too." His lips turn almost blue with terror.

She makes a bitter face. "No. I went to them. You killed Voldemort and snatched his pet Death Eaters afterwards - who better to teach me enough Dark magic to counter that kind of power?"

"Those Death Eaters only follow me because they can't do without a master to run their lives, or because they believe I have to be Voldemort's heir to have defeated him, or else they just hope I'll intercede for them at the Ministry. No, there's only one reason I'm still here. I want the Malfoys. Dead. After that, it doesn't matter what happens."

"I don't care," she replies quietly. "The Malfoys are not responsible for what you did to Ron."

He stares at her with a white, adamant face and eyes so dark they're almost black.

"You're not going to stop me, Hermione." And this time, she's not quite fast enough. He's used his little story to move his hand towards his wand and now he grabs and points it in one fluid movement. "Imperio!"

It pulls her under like a bathtub full of warm treacle - relaxing, sticky and with a sweet tinge at the corners of her consciousness. Drop the knife and walk away! his mental command rings in her head, and the urge to run is almost irresistible, to be elsewhere, anywhere but in this cold, hateful place with its cold, hateful master.

Panic sears through her head. He's always been better than her at resisting Imperius, even back in their days in Dumbledore's Army. And then the thought that he dares to assault her like this after what he's done to Ron almost takes her breath away. The anger helps to pull her mind out of the morass a little, and she shakes her head wildly to throw off the last glutinous strands. She cannot fail now!

"Imperio!"

This is her best friend, so why would she need a weapon or a wand in his presence? She loves him, always has, always will. He wants her to go to Hogwarts and be happy, so why doesn't she just let go of...

Hermione lets out a frantic, high-pitched scream that rings painfully in her own ears and disrupts the onslaught of happy thoughts. She's lost the knife, but there is still cherrywood under her fingertips, and then the word comes out of nowhere, and the power from sheer rage. "Conflagro!"

Harry's scream echoes hers and the Imperius calm shatters with the impact of a bucket of ice water.

"Aqua!"

When the haze has vanished from in front of her eyes, Hermione sees that one of the curtains is still burning and the window Harry has been standing in front of is blackened and cracked. Harry himself is doubled up on the floor, robes and hair dripping wet from the counter spell, his right arm torn and singed. Dark smears of grime and ash mar the side of his face.

Hermione Accio!-es the dagger and comes to kneel beside him. Pain and helpless rage are warring in his expression, but his wand lies just out of reach.

"You've got Lestrange and Wormtail. It'll have to be enough," Hermione says, almost gently, and watches in detached surprise how searing anger blossoms on his face.

"I didn't kill Pettigrew!" he yells at her. "He was with me, helping me! He re-calibrated the wards around Voldemort's quarters so he couldn't call to the Death Eaters for help." His voice hitches with pain, whether from injury or memory she can't tell. "When Voldemort realised it he enveloped him in a fire globe and burned him. Even if I'd been fast enough, I had no idea what to do." He looks over at his wand. "He gave me his wand so I could fight without the phoenix core connection. Walnut and Thestral hair - there was nothing but ashes left of mine. And of him. Apart from some molten silver."

His laugh burns in her ears like bitter poison.

"You want to know how I defeated Voldemort? I didn't. He defeated me! I threw everything I had at him, and it hardly even made him flinch. And then he cursed me until I couldn't even move. I was terrified that he'd Crucio me to madness or drag me out to make an example for the others, but it just amused him that I went to such desperate lengths and still failed. No, he said there'd be only one appropriate curse to kill me with."

She stares in confusion as he props himself up on one arm and uses the injured hand to shove his robe out of the way and to painfully undo the buttons of his shirt. A scathing remark dies a sudden death on her lips when the black cloth slips off. It reveals scorch marks and blisters down the right side of his chest, and a lightening bolt shaped scar right over his heart.

Hermione feels her mouth go dry with shock and the hairs on her neck and arms stand up on end.

"Oh my God! But... how...?"

"Oh, yes," he sneers. "It's exactly what it looks like."

"But V-Voldemort - he destroyed your mother's protection when he used your blood at his resurrection..."

"Yes, he most certainly did." He looks up at her coldly. "I got it back. I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out."

She has, to be honest, figured it out at the same instant she saw the second scar.

"Oh God. Ron - Ron did that? For you? Even after everything you..."

He throws his head back and laughs, laughs until tears stream from his eyes, but it's a laugh that is more than a little bit mad and the tears are anything but humour.

"You're right, I didn't ask Ron for his consent. But he gave me his answer anyway," he forces out, still stretched out flat on his back, eyes staring up at the ceiling. "And afterwards, banishing Voldemort's spirit was simple - remember the Exorcising Charm Flitwick taught us when Peeves smuggled in that gang of Poltergeists at Moaning Myrtle's Deathday party?"

Hermione just nods, head bowed.

They sit there in silence, while the shadows of late evening slowly creep in through the windows. At last he pulls himself up to his knees and looks pensively at Pettigrew's wand without making any move to reach for it.

"You really should do it, you know." He nods at the Athametum dagger still clutched in her fingers. "I have the feeling we're both going to regret it if you don't." There is something desperately tired in the fine lines around his eyes. Even Dumbledore, for all his years, never struck her as being this old.

"No." She carelessly drops the dagger next to him. "For good or ill, Ron wanted you to live. I won't go against his last wish." She gets up, tears she can't remember crying trickling down her face. Having all meaning leeched out of her existence, or what's left of it, hurts almost as much as thinking about Ron. Not to mention the knowledge that her ordeal at the Malfoys' hands was in vain. There never was a need for the Dark Arts. Perhaps there never is.

"You're not forgiven. If I ever have to see you again, I will kill you."

She turns and walks towards the exit, straight-backed and unhurried, wondering if a curse will strike her down in mid-step. It doesn't come, nor does anyone try to stop her on the way out. Outside the anti-Apparation wards of the Riddle House she pauses for an instant only. There really isn't any other place to go, and the least she owes is a warning that no, despite everything, Harry Potter is still alive. She'll just have to face whatever will flow from that.

~ ~ ~ *** ~ ~ ~

This time, Hermione only takes a few steps up the familiar garden path. The pressure of the manor's wards is bearable here, and she's still shaken from the duel. They'll come to her once they register her presence.

And they do, Apparating a few feet away and walking up to her. She looks into Lucius' expressionless face, and even through the numbness that has settled over her ever since Harry's revelation, a strange shiver runs through her body.

"Is he dead?"

She shakes her head and watches his face harden even further with a surprising lack of trepidation.

"He bested you?"

Another shake of her head.

"No. I bested him."

"And you came back to tell me that?"

"You have a right to know."

"Gryffindor fool." It comes out softly, without the usual ring of disdain, but there is a wrathful tension underneath the calm. For the first time, she realises that he had actually staked his hopes on her success.

"Draco?"

"Yes, Father?"

"Take care of this... failure." He turns away, and pauses. "You may do it quickly, if you wish."

Coward, she thinks spitefully, and Draco draws his wand, and then the world... implodes.

It feels as if someone had stabbed a needle into the magical balloon of wards that surrounds the mansion and its grounds. All that tight pressure evaporates in one dry, mind-shattering crack that forces tears of pain to her eyes.

So when she notes the black figures taking shape around them, her first blurry thought is 'Ministry raid'. It isn't, of course.

A chorus of "Expelliarmus!" rips the wands from Lucius' and Draco's hands. Draco is staggering on his feet beside her, and when Hermione recovers enough to see clearly again she notices that Lucius, too, is shaking, face contorted in agony, with a trickle of blood running from his nose. He must have cast the wards of the estate, she realises, recalling her Defence against the Dark Arts lessons. Breaking them will rebound on the caster.

One of the figures appears behind Draco and a hand twists in his hair, pulling back his head. A wand is laid against his exposed throat, its length transforming into a serrated blade. Draco freezes, eyes glazed over with panic, and so does Lucius. Having about a dozen wands pointed at him did not bleed the resistance from his posture, but this does.

In complete disregard of the wands, Lucius rounds on her, pale eyes flaring.

"You brought them here, you little-!"

A cool voice she hoped she'd never hear again in her life answers from behind them.

"She didn't, Malfoy. She just left behind your handiwork for me to use."

Harry is still in the singed robes she left him in, but the injuries are gone. He holds out his hand with the remains of Lucius' Athametum dagger. The sheath is blackened, the ornate silver design molten.

"A magical gift to trace the recipient, and an artefact with the same magical signature as your wards to explode the protection of this place. Quite simple." He shrugs. "Voldemort taught me that. It was how he planned to get through the defences of Hogwarts - he wanted to use me to get his hands on something Dumbledore had crafted. Too bad he didn't trust you enough to let you in on it. So don't blame Hermione - she couldn't have known."

"She should have killed you!" Lucius hisses, adamant control beginning to crack at the seams. Harry nods in agreement.

"Yes, she should have." He looks at the Death Eater restraining Draco, and back to Lucius. "If you fight, Jugson will kill him." The cowled wizard nods with an expression of glazed admiration on his face. A small, twisted smile slithers over Harry's lips. "Of course, if you don't fight, you'll make it so much easier for me to kill you."

Hermione has never believed in Divination, but now the foreboding clogs up her throat. This is her doing. This should never have happened.

Her hand slips into her pocket for her wand, but a muscular, black-clothed arm closes around her throat and cuts off her breath. She makes a strangled noise and stabs blindly backwards with her elbow. It elicits a growl, but the chokehold increases and the wand is pulled out of her fingers and thrown aside. A voice cuts faintly through the dull pounding of blood in her ears.

"Don't harm her, Macnair. Keep her out of the way, but if she's injured, you'll die."

Amidst disaffected muttering, the Death Eater releases her throat, grabs her wrists and pulls them up behind her back. It still hurts, and Macnair's wand and the executioner's axe in his belt dig into her spine uncomfortably; but it's preferable to choking. He drags her a few steps back, away from Draco.

She'd rather do anything than watch this, but her position actually leaves her no choice at all.

Harry steps forward, keeping himself out of the circle of wands aimed at Lucius, ignoring Draco completely. There is a look on his face that sends trickles of ice water down Hermione's neck.

"What would hurt you more, Malfoy?" he asks with deceptive calmness. "To watch your son die in front of your eyes, or to die knowing what I'll do to him once you're gone?"

Malfoy's cold eyes narrow just a little, and his face assumes a familiar, lazy disdain, like a big cat that may be locked up in a cage, but knows that its claws can still swipe through the bars to leave a passer-by bleeding.

"You should be much better equipped to answer that question than I am, Potter," he drawls. "It's the kind of question the Dark Lord would have put to your father seventeen years ago."

There wasn't a lot of colour in Harry's face to begin with, but what little there was drains out at these words. Even his knuckles turn white around his wand.

"Crucio!"

He holds the curse until Lucius writhes on the floor and screams are pulled from his throat as reluctantly as if they were fishbones extracted with rusty tweezers.

"Yes, I think I will kill you and keep your son," Harry says after listening for a while, blank-faced, before calling off the curse.

"Yes, you would," Lucius hisses through clenched teeth, and takes a couple of hasty breaths to bring his voice under control. "Because you're still so deadly afraid of me that you can't close your eyes for an hour without waking up screaming."

Judging from Harry's reaction in the Riddle House, Hermione realises that this is probably not far from the truth. He doesn't rise to the bait, though.

"Yes, Malfoy, keep telling yourself that while you burn in hell or go to haunt that manor house of yours," Harry replies coldly and gives Draco a pronounced side glance that makes Hermione want to cry in despair. "But don't bother waiting for your son. It will be a long time before I allow him to follow you."

He raises the wand again, very slowly, torn between the desire to kill and the urge to prolong the exhilarating moment of triumph. At that moment, Hermione realises that this is a man she has never seen before. She wonders whether Tom Riddle ever stood there like that, showing a familiar face to his friends but hiding beneath it the damaged soul of a monster. She wonders whether Harry had been planning this even as he revealed to her the truth about Ron's sacrifice on that floor in the Riddle House.

He's gone, her inner voice insists, and her conscious mind replies, I know. She cannot let it happen. This is her responsibility, and someone has to stop it.

Hermione thrashes wildly in the Death Eater's grip one last time and then slumps forward bonelessly. Macnair, Harry's threat obviously still ringing in his ears, releases her wrists to stop her from falling and catches her around the waist. As carefully as possible, her liberated fingers crabwalk down his side until they come to rest on the wand stuck back into his belt. She knows it's risky to use another wizard's wand, particularly if it's still attached to said wizard, particularly for a complex spell, but there's no time.

I'm the most powerful witch of my generation, she tells herself as her fingers curl around the unfamiliar, thick wood.

"Imperio."

The word comes out in a low whisper, but her mental voice cuts like a knife. Let go of me! Drop the wand! Sleep!

Macnair groans and drops her like hot metal, swaying with heavy-lidded, unfocussed eyes. Hermione grabs the wand and aims it at Harry. He shakes his head at the Death Eaters who make to transfer their attention - and wands - from Lucius to her, and instead envelops himself, the Malfoys and them in a pinkish, magic-repelling bubble. Then he throws her a lopsided grin that is so Harry it almost cuts her heart out, and points the wand back at Lucius.

Oh no you don't!

And suddenly the adrenaline shock wears off and her mind works clearly again, like clockwork, with the same half-meditative clarity that has sailed her through countless exams. A Repellant Bubble is impervious to magical attack... quite like Malfoy's pressure wards... so you penetrate it without magic, without direct attack. It's like a puzzle whose pieces are falling into place. She looks at the meticulously pruned Singing Willow trees at the far end of the garden, and calculates. Arithmancy is her speciality, and Magicmathics one of its easiest fields.

She pulls the axe from the belt of a still-stunned Macnair, checks her numbers one last time, and Banishes it with all the force she can muster, away from herself, towards the tree.

"Deccio!"

Not magical, not remotely directed against the shielding spell, the weapon hurtles through the air in one straight line from her hand, through the bubble with Harry at its centre, and towards its goal, the Singing Willow.

It doesn't have enough momentum to make it to the tree, but it makes it through Harry's chest.

The pink bubble vanishes even as he's thrown back in a swirl of black robes and reddish-black liquid, and then he slumps to the ground like a bundle of wet, discarded rags.

For several seconds, nothing happens at all, as if someone had cast Petrificus over the garden. Then the Death Eaters retreat, their wands disappearing like candles being blown out at night, and then they themselves vanish, one after the other. The one holding Draco is the last to Disapparate, trembling as he does so, and when Lucius takes a tiny step towards his son, Hermione sees the thin line that marks Draco's throat, nothing more than a brush stroke of ink above the collar. Then Lucius catches him, and the front of his grey robes begins to turn black and the light breaks, and shatters, in colourless eyes.

She understands now the reason for the Death Eater's fear. She knows Lucius Malfoy, and knows he won't leave a single one of them alive after today. Her eyes ghost over to the bloody mess behind the Malfoys - alive and dead - and away immediately.

Hermione sinks to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, eyes screwed tightly shut. It is better this way. This is her fault, all of it, and if she doesn't have to see, it's maybe not real. Of course she's too clever, too clever to believe that, but it's a nice, warm and comforting thought.

She leans back, purposefully shutting out the footsteps, and she thinks of Ron and of an innocent infant fallen from his mother's lifeless arms, a child that has grown up to become something special, and then something else entirely.

If only the light that floods even through her closed lids wouldn't remind her so much of Harry's eyes...

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~