The Fallen Angel of Light

The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.

-Revelations 12:9

"I have walked in the Darkness," muttered Harry, his eyes placid and cold.

Hermione frowned. "What do you mean Harry? What darkness?"

"In every soul," he said. "There is the Light, and there is the Dark. The Darkness is the part of the mind that most dare not go. I have ventured into the Darkness, and I am afraid I cannot come back."
She knelt down beside him and pulled the tousled hair from his eyes. "Harry, calm down. Now, start over."

Harry merely smiled. He had a look of madness on his face that reminded her of Hamlet in a production she'd seen last summer. It was a cunning insanity, the kind that gave you power over others.

"I've never wanted to do anything but good my entire life," he said. "But then I met him, and I hated him so much..."

"You mean Voldemort--"

"Don't be stupid, Hermione."

She drew back, cautiously. "Then who--"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You're missing the point."

"Sorry." Hermione bit her lip and waited for him to continue.

"He was everything I couldn't be. He had heard the Darkness speak, and he knew. I could see it in his eyes every time we fought. I felt like Adam, the fruit of knowledge dangling in my face."

Hermione was worried. Harry never spoke this way. He seemed intensely philosophical which was odd for a boy who typically spoke about quidditch and...well, quidditch

"He was teasing me," Harry whispered. "He knew I wanted it. I wanted to know."

"Know what?" she asked. She checked herself as he glared. "Sorry."

"I wanted to touch the Darkness. I wanted him." Harry closed his eyes in reverence. "And then he kissed me..."

Hermione clutched the arm of his chair and bit back words on her tongue.

"And I kissed the Darkness. And it was beautiful. I drank his poison, and he understood me. He knew I wanted more."

He paused. "He changed when we were together...when I touched him. He became my Light while I tasted the Darkness on his lips."

He opened his eyes. They burned with a strange new light or rather an absence of it. He seemed lost in the memory of passion. "I loved him, and I hated him more than anyone else in the world. He was complete Darkness except to me. I could taste his hate as I took him against the wall, and I loved him for it."

"Harry, what's gotten into you?" Hermione pleaded. "You've become something horrible."

He smirked. "Perhaps."

She moved away from him. "Why would you want Darkness?" she asked.

He stood and gazed into the fireplace. "I wanted to test myself. I wanted to experience Darkness...so that I could appreciate everything I loved even more. I turned to the Darkness in order to truly gain Light."

She shook her head in horror. "It doesn't work that way, Harry. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I knew they would try to stop me. I didn't want them to think I couldn't handle the Darkness."

She grabbed his shoulder. "I think it's obvious that you can't!"

"See! I knew you wouldn't understand." He pulled away. "I almost wish you could talk me out of it."

She paled. "Out of what?"

"Always questions with you, isn't it?" he snapped. "It's too late anyway."

Hermione started to protest when there was a quiet knock at the door.

Harry's eyes lit up. "It's him."

She glanced at the door. This wasn't right. This wasn't Harry...not anymore. He carried himself differently. He was confident and sensual.

The door eased open, urged forward by slender white fingers.

"My sweet Light," Harry chirped, rushing toward the other boy. "Draco!"

Draco seemed timid, fragile. "Harry," he muttered faintly.

Harry wrapped his arms around the slim waist that every girl in Hogwarts would envy. "My love," he whispered, running his hands through Draco's fine blonde hair. "I've missed you, my darling."

"I've missed you too," Draco said. His voice was soft.

Hermione faltered. Did they really love each other?

Draco gazed up at Harry with affectionate longing. He wrapped his arms around Harry's neck and smiled. It was the transparent look of love found in an emotionally defunct boy.

Harry gripped his lover tightly and kissed him. Hermione could see that Harry was indeed in love, but it was the way one loved so passionately that your partner became the object of all desires. It was a destructive love.

The kiss had grown a bit too intense, and Hermione suddenly felt very awkward. She walked over to the fireplace and sat. She could see their reflection in the black windows. The fire's glow distorted the picture.

She thought of a bible verse she remembered reading as a kid...before she had become an atheist.

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.

She has become a haunt for demons.

Revelations 18:2

"Harry," she said patiently.

Harry broke the kiss and looked over as if surprised to see her there. "Oh yes...I assume you know each other," he teased.

"The love of your life?" she replied. "Unfortunately, I do."

Draco leaned against Harry and stared at the fire.

"There's no need to be rude," Harry snapped.

"I'm sorry I haven't really warmed up to Malfoy after years of his taunting. He's been a complete arse, Harry!"

Harry frowned. "Hermione, you're my friend," he muttered. "But if you ever insult my Draco again, I'll kill you."

She knew he meant it, but she had to keep trying to get through to her friend. "Harry, what has he done to you? You seem so malicious and unnatural."

He laughed. His voice was soft and envenomed. "Draco has done more for me than any other person I may have considered my friend."

She paled. "You can't mean that."

He turned away.

"You need to get out of the Darkness before--"

"I'm already too fare gone," he said. "I can't just become the person I used to be. I've been tainted. I cannot return to the Light. I can only watch it from the Darkness."

She moved toward him. "Just try, Harry...please." Her hand rested on his wrist. "Seek out the goodness. I know it's there. The boy who would be willing to die for the people he loves."

"That boy is dead," said Harry. "Let me ask you, Hermione...is it more heroic to die for the ones you love or to kill for the one that loves you?"

She frowned. The secret lying behind his words would have evaded Ron, but she knew better. "You tell me, Harry."

She tore the thin sleeve of his shirt, revealing the Dark Mark. Draco winced as it ripped.

"I knew it," she cried.

Draco looked distraught.

"He put you up to this, didn't he?" she said, pointing at the blonde. "Voldemort's slut, luring you into bed and luring you into servitude."

Draco clutched Harry's arm. He seemed just as surprised as Hermione. "Harry--"

"I do not serve Voldemort," Harry told her. "I rule by his side."

"That is not a mark of an ally," she said. "It's the mark of a slave."

Harry looked away in disgust.

"And you, " snapped Hermione, turning on Draco. "How dare you seduce Harry on to some recruit list! If you loved him, you would have left him alone. Now look where you've gotten him!" She shoved the Dark Mark in his face.

"I never wanted this!" Draco burst out. Tears rolled down his cheeks. "Harry...I told you not to--"

"Not now, Draco."

"I told you not to go to him!"

"I love you, Draco."

"You're going down a path that won't allow you to love me, Harry. We promised that we wouldn't give into the Darkness."

Harry pulled the other boy against him. "I don't care what happens. I will have you, Draco, and I don't care who I have to hurt to keep you by my side. I won't give you up just so I can keep my moral record."

Hermione moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked her, his eyes still fixed on Draco.

"I need to talk to Dumbledore," she said.

"About what?"

She frowned. "That's none of your business."

"Don't tell me you were going to betray me, Hermione," Harry purred dangerously. "Friends wouldn't do that to each other." He walked over to her and cupped her face, his hands resting against her jaw.

She looked up into his eyes, full of defiance.

"You're no friend of mine," she whispered.

Crack.

Her frail body dropped to the floor, her neck broken.

"I forgive you," Harry said softly. He started toward the door. "Draco?"

The other boy stood over the corpse. He seemed pale and frightened. "I'll be there in a moment, Harry," he muttered.

Draco waited as the door clicked shut before squatting to look into the corpse's glazed brown eyes.

A wicked smirk flickered onto his face. He stroked her hair, smoothing her sweater and smiling. He lifted his face to the sky in reverence.

"Lay her in the earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring."

Hermione had to be removed. She was far too clever for her own good.

He stood and slipped through the door. He would spare Harry the pain of killing his friends if he could...but it had to be done by Harry if the separation was to be complete.

Only after submitting himself body and soul to the Dark, only then could Harry truly love Draco. And they would walk in the Darkness together.

...for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.

2 Corinthians 11:14