Double Vision

Double Vision

Flashback.

"Draco?" Hermione looked deep into her lovers’ eyes, wondering what she saw there.

"I’m sorry." No words were said, the silence was heavy, weighing down on her shoulders.

Then she saw it. The black Mark tattooed on his inner forearm, a snake emerging from the mouth of a skull.

"You bastard," she whispered. "You broke your promise."

"Hermione, I-"

"You said you loved me." Silence. "Get out." With a shaking hand she pointed towards the door.

"Hermione!"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!" she screamed at him. "Get out of my life!"

He backed up slowly, an unreadable expression playing across his face. "Fine. Turn me in. Send me to Azkaban. Tell them all, Mudblood, if you live that long." He spat, whipping around and out the door.

"I won’t tell," Hermione whispered at his retreating back. "I would never tell."

The present: three years after Hermione’s graduation from Hogwarts.

Hermione. Hermione. Hermione.

"Hermione!" Ron shook his wife awake, watching her eyelids blink open.

She’s so beautiful, he thought. She’s as beautiful as she was the day I married her.

"Draco?" she mumbled, and Ron froze.

"I’m Ron, remember?"

Hermione blinked a few more times and rubbed her eyes. "Morning, Ron," she said, a mix between fatigue and cheerfulness. "What is it?"

"You were talking in your sleep. You started crying and screaming, insulting someone, saying, ‘get out of my life, you broke your promise’, again and again. Are you all right?" he sounded concerned.

"Did I say anything else?" Hermione turned white, and grasped Ron’s shoulders tightly. "What did I say?"

Ron gave his beloved an odd look. "No. Nothing coherent."

Hermione lay back on the pillow in relief. "Good."

"Why are you so worried?" he asked, concerned.

"Nothing. It’s nothing, love, just a nightmare. I feel like some coffee." Hermione got up, stretched, and padded towards the kitchen.

Ron just stayed there, frozen in one position. He’d lied. All through whatever dream she’d been having she was yelling the same thing: "Draco." Ron could never forget Draco, though he tried to. It brought back too many memories…

* * * * *

Hermione poured herself some coffee and sat down at the table, cup warming her hands. That dream had shaken something loose inside her, something she wanted dearly to forget. But how could she forget Draco Malfoy? She’d loved him, once, and he returned her love by betraying her and everything she lived for. So how come she still thought about him, not with fear and revulsion, but with compassion?

Forget him, Hermione. He’s gone. He’s in the past. Just forget.

* * * * *

"You have served me well, Draco, even better than your father." the words slid from the Dark Lord’s slippery tongue, enticing and repulsing all at once.

Draco shivered. He could still never get used to the sound of his master’s voice. "Yes, my Lord."

Voldemort arched his long fingers thoughtfully, his gaze boring into Draco’s skull. ‘I now have a task that will seem like childsplay to you, and I think you might enjoy it very much."

"What is it, my Lord?"

"It is a normal raid – you shall go with one other of my followers. This couple is a key point in my plans. One Ronald Weasley, Deputy Head of the Department of Wizarding Games and Sports, and his Mudblood wife-"

Draco’s blood froze.

"Hermione Weasley. I believe they were in your year at school, no?"

"Yes, my Lord." Draco said in a flat tone, trying not to show his reluctance. Oh, God, anyone but her – but if he protested, Voldemort would use it against him. Voldemort probably already knew about his relationship with Hermione, and this mission was to make the Dark Lord sure of his follower’s loyalty. Draco wasn’t even sure of his loyalty – he would kill anybody but Hermione, and enjoy it. Anybody but Hermione. He’d almost managed to forget about her, destroy her memory completely, but the Dark Lord’s words had brought it all rushing back.

"I will be watching the headlines." Voldemort gave a slight smile, one that paralyzed most with fear, even his own followers.

"Consider it done, my Lord."

* * * * *

Draco looked at himself in the mirror. Who did he see? Did he see a wizard honestly serving the Ministry, living out his life rich and alone?

Did he see a Death Eater living a double life, a lie, who went out every night in black robes and a mask to kill and torture Muggles, Mudbloods, and Ministry officials?

Did he see Draco Malfoy? Did he see the person, the one behind the mask, the one with wants and needs beyond material values? Did he see a human being?

Draco looked at himself in the mirror and saw a pale man with pale blonde hair, deep shadows under his eyes. He saw a man who enjoyed killing, got a thrill of adrenaline from seeing his victims suffer, was filled with ecstasy at the sound of his victims’ screams. He saw a man he hated, a man he couldn’t face every day because he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He saw this man in the mirror and put on his mask so as not to see it anymore, and left to do his duty.

* * * * *

The roads were cold and icy, sleet whipping at his face as he left the manor grounds so he could Disapparate. He flicked his wand once and appeared at the door of the house of two particular Death Eaters that he knew very well indeed. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had followed in their fathers’ footsteps as well, and well they were not bright, they were loyal.

His cronies silently accompanied him as Draco Apparated at a cozy, two-story house situated outside of a small town called Whittenshire. It’s Hermione’s, all right, he thought with a heavy heart. It has her mark all over it. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and thought of ice. Ice to make him cold, to make him forget. I am ice.

"Come on," he beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle. They were both home, it was only around eight-o-clock – warm lights shone from the windows. They walked up to the door and Draco calmly opened it, looking around the hallway in amusement. It had Weasley’s touch, all right. Crabbe and Goyle had decided to smash some of the things in the living room, shattering vases and lamps with beams of light from their wands. Draco didn’t – let they babies play with their toys.

Hermione was in the kitchen, washing dishes, and Weasley was at the table reading the Daily Prophet.

Goyle knocked on the wall as they entered. "What, not going to say hello to your guests?" he said wickedly.

Just as Weasley jumped out of his chair in shock and horror, drawing his wand from his pocket, Crabbe hit him with the Cruciatus Curse. Weasley screamed and hit the floor in agony and Hermione tried to help him, but it was too late.

"Imperio," Draco whispered, pointing his wand at her.

For a moment Draco’s mind was split between two scenes. He remembered himself, Crabbe and Goyle facing off Hermione, Weasley and Potter. They’d done it so many times, it was branded in his mind. On one level he could see the old scene, them all perhaps in their third or fourth year, fighting in the hallway or during class. On another level he saw Crabbe standing over Weasley, Weasley screaming in pain, himself with Hermione just in his control, about to make her do whatever he pleased, Goyle standing to the side and laughing. It was double vision.

But Potter wasn’t here. Potter was dead. Draco had been the one who captured him, brought him to the Dark Lord. He could remember Potter’s face when he’d realized who’s caught him.

Hermione, still in shock, thought she recognized that voice. That soft whisper, with just a hint of sorrow behind it. She saw the hand holding the wand, the pale hand with the slender fingers that she had loved so much, that she had said were beautiful.

"Draco!" she said, just before the curse hit her.

"I can’t believe you didn’t recognize me before this, love," Draco purred, circling her like a cat circling a mouse that knows it’s going to die.

"You – cant –" she managed to gasp out from around the curse.

"I can’t? Darling, I am," Draco gave his wand a careless wave and Hermione drew her own wand, fighting all the way. "Crabbe, stand aside," Draco said.

"C-c-crucio," the words were wrenched out of Hermione’s mouth and Ron screamed again.

Soon the amusement began to pall, however. Draco flicked his wand again.

"Ro-n!" she yelled, tears streaming don her cheeks. ‘I-I’m sor- sorry. Ava- Avada – AVADA KEDAVARA!" Draco forced Hermione to say it, and green light flashed from her wand towards Ron.

When Hermione’s eyes cleared, she was pointing her wand at her husband’s corpse. Draco lifted the curse, and she collapsed.

"MALFOY!" she screamed at him. "I hate you! I hate you! How could you do it? Kill me, kill me too…" she started to sob.

Draco looked down at her and the ice melted. How could he have done that…? To put Hermione in that much pain?

"Hermione."

"I told you to get out of my life before and I meant it." Hermione said in a dangerous tone. Her voice broke. "I loved you."

Draco turned on his heel and walked towards the door. "But you loved Ron more, didn’t you?" he threw the words behind him. ‘Come on," he told Crabbe and Goyle. "The Mudblood’s not even worth killing." They walked down the hallway and out the door, slamming it.

As soon as he was outside the house Draco fired the Dark Mark into the air, watching the snake unravel in the skull’s jaws. The Dark Lord would punish him for this, maybe even kill him. But Hermione had a chance. He had ruined her life, but she still had a chance.

I ruined her life like she ruined mine.

* * * * *

Hermione sat on the kitchen floor, staring at the tiles. Shock. That’s what it was. But why had Draco let her live?

"The Mudblood’s not worth killing."

No, it wasn’t that. Could it be that he still cared?

"You loved Ron more, didn’t you?"

She did. She knew how much she had hurt Draco by it, by not being true to him, but she did it anyway. She had taught him that love only ends in pain.

She’d ruined his life. Now he could go on neither side, having betrayed both. His fate was sealed. But Hermione had a chance.

She had a chance.