A/N this was a one-shot written for the awesome Heeley that I posted on Tumblr and have decided to post on here as well. Let me know what you think.
For those that like fan casts mine for Louis Travers is Pedro Pascal.
Roughly pushed to the floor Hermione felt the shock of pain shoot up her knees from where they impacted the unforgiving ground. She was breathless, cold and so, so close to giving up, she just wanted this to be over. She had lived the last year desperate for it to be over, only the worst was just beginning.
"Look" Travers barked next to her and she raised her head to attempt to comply. He had become increasingly erratic since they had left Hogwarts and her gut told her to do what he said, as he seemed to be losing his grip on his control.
Her face searched fruitlessly but she didn't know what she was looking for, she wanted to ask but the words wouldn't form, her throat raw from suppressed sobs, she had seen too much that day, seen too much in general.
"Here" he commanded huskily, pushing her face towards the floor, she started with the rough contact, but she didn't flinch. She was tired, bloody and oh so broken, but she wouldn't give him that. He could treat her as rough as he intended and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of her fear.
His grip on the back of her throat didn't relent and her eyes refocused to assess her environment. The slim carpet of the floor was doing nothing to protect her knees from the rough stone underneath, belatedly she realised the room was a study of sorts.
She had been dropped to the ground right before a large desk, that was pushed against the far wall of the room and in front of her, the floor was littered with… parchment… lots and lots of parchment. Some ripped up, some crunched into tiny balls, some even had the appearance of being burnt, whatever state the pieces were in, it was everywhere.
With shaking fingers she picked up the piece closest to her, she hesitated briefly, waiting for some admonishment but none came, it must have been this he wanted her to see. She turned the paper over in her hands, wincing slightly at the crimson-tinged smudge she left in the top corner, not that her captor seemed to care. He had let go of her neck and had backed himself against the far wall, breathing heavily with his forehead resting on the top of his drawn up knees.
Dragging her eyes away from the besmirchment she was sure she would pay for later her eyes drifted down the page that was covered in thick veins in a mottled pattern indicating this one, like all the others, had been balled up at some point.
An involuntary gasp left her throat as she stared into familiar eyes, reaching forward she picked up a ripped page only to see the same thing again, the pose was different, unless she was mistaken the sketch was older. Feeling her chest constrict her movements became frantic as she fell forward onto her hands, rapidly turning over piece after piece.
More and more of the same.
"Now you understand" his voice from the corner sounded older, full of self-loathing and desperation.
"No" she implored weakly. She didn't understand, she couldn't fathom this whatsoever.
He moved then, from the far wall over to her side, his movements were slow and deliberate. For all her early thoughts of bravado, she couldn't contain her wince when his large hand was placed on the middle of her back. As he leant against her to steady himself before he used his other hand to move hers out of the way, searching amongst the pile.
"This one is the most recent I think" his voice was almost embarrassed now as he pulled a sheath from beneath the others and pushed it into her unwilling hands.
She didn't want to look, but she didn't want to feel that hand on her neck again so she complied. She recognised this one immediately, it was outside the Lovegood home.
As she stared at the paper as if it held the answers to the universe he detached one of her hands that gripped the page and pulled it around his waist.
She didn't move as he began to noiselessly sob, too rigid to react.
It was a strange thing to see yourself through someone else's eyes. Her wayward hair looked matted, her expression tired.
Her eyes hadn't changed, it would appear he always drew them the same.
He gripped her tightly as he turned his back on the Dark Lord, being all too aware of his mercurial temperament he wanted to get out of there before he changed his mind.
As her feet tripped repeatedly over the debris littering the floor he moved his hand from her shoulder, belatedly realising his grip had been tight enough to bruise and moved his hand around her waist to pull her into his side.
She said nothing, she didn't even cry, she kept her head up the whole time.
Now that she was here, standing right beside him he felt more lost than he had for years. He had never really planned past this point, the goal was always to have his hands on her, tightly, making sure she wouldn't be able to get away again.
When they arrived outside his townhouse he pushed open the door and dragged her inside, before cutting his hand open and activating the deeply entrenched blood wards. Protections that had been placed on the family home generations before, and added to with each new head of the family.
His chest seized when his need for strict concentration ended and he found her standing behind him, eyes wide, bloody face, broken bones. That image, that perfect image had been burnt into his mind forever, it was finally time.
Getting what he wanted hadn't been half as difficult as it should have been. There were whispers that his Lord was half mad now, not that it helped them any. His fall into insanity only meant that the benevolence and pain from their once glorious leader were dished out with greater frequency, but with less reasoning.
Still, he had been a little more than half mad himself for too long, he had enough grasp to show what he needed. For the last two years whenever the Lord invaded his mind he let him see more, let him creep his sticky magic, further behind his retinas with each go.
Like the ghosts that were left behind from the creatures of Azkaban that ate away at his mind during his sleeping hours, his Lord's messy fingerprints lingered in his mind, burning away his lucidity.
It was worth it.
When it was over he got his nod, he got his desire.
When he saw the Potter boy struck down relief swept through his whole body. He was a man with only fingers left gripping him to a cliff, he would not have survived Azkaban again, could barely survive the days in his townhouse without giving in to the twitches that unwillingly animated his digits, to the phantom chills that prickled at his skin.
When he watched the bespeckled would be hero breath his last he searched for her. He watched the hope that had burnt in her eyes be snuffed out in a moment, he had waited so fucking long for this. So long for those eyes that sang her feelings in swathes of warm chocolate to turn to blank lifeless umber.
He sighed, the warm contented sigh of a man who had just sat down to a picnic on a warm summer's day. He barely saw the broken bodies and devastation around him, he had other banquets for which to prepare.
The battle was brutal and bloody like they always were. No matter what went on around him he never lost sight of his primary objective.
The pink hooded jacket she was wearing made his lip curl, though not as much as when the Weasley boy touched what was not his. Thankfully he was not in an environment where he was expected to show any restraint.
He hadn't seen her fight, not properly anyway, not as a woman. She had a lot more fire than he had anticipated, he found he liked that.
When his arm had burned he knew instinctively that he would see her, he never questioned how the instinct was usually proved right. He had often considered the old magics that might have been at work behind the scenes. Wondering was fruitless, he would need her blood to prove anything, he would need to be more patient.
After the pull of forced apparition he found himself outside the Lovegood home but before he had time to make sense of his surroundings she darted out of the house and into the open space. He cast the most impenetrable shield he could utilise quickly and shot it at her back. The modified charm having the added effect of looking like he had struck her.
He would have preferred to immobilise her properly but with Bella and the wolf here he would take no chances.
When he had time alone he questioned his sanity constantly, his second stint in Azkaban had been problematic, to say the least. Having seen her, really seen her, to then to be dragged away had made him climb the walls, literally. He spent every day with blood coated fingers as he clawed at the outer stone wall, metaphysical blood covered fingers lurked behind twitching eyelids as he tore down the walls within his own mind.
He sat, and he waited, unsure of what his assignment would be, until a small ugly woman clad in pink told him about the muggle-born registration committee.
He was in front of his Lord on bended knee less than an hour later putting himself forward.
He was dragged kicking and screaming from The Ministry, the aurors didn't pay him much heed, it wasn't like he was the only one expressing his reluctance to return to hell violently.
Too much had happened in the last hours for his mind to process properly, he would never be able to sort the jumble inside the cesspit.
He was motionless when he saw her for the first time, properly anyway. When the fighting began he had disillusioned himself to follow her, ungracefully he clung on to the wall trying in vain to get enough support to be able to function. He had never expected this, the picture wasn't quite right, the image she presented off somehow, like a painter who had missed the lines by inches.
But he could see it there, under the surface, it would come, his time would come.
Torture was a device that was best undertaken with gusto while in front of his master but also his 'brothers in arms'. Louis never had any real trouble with that, he had been cool and detached from childhood. In situations where he wasn't, he had always been able to fake it.
He would do as he was bid.
He was free again and that meant revels, after years of incarceration he was only too happy to take part. A trick he had learnt during the first war was needed again on the first night. As a girl was thrown at his feet he pulled on her hair to get her to look up at him, met with deep amber pools he flinched almost undetected, used to shielding the reaction before waving a hand across her face.
When she blinked his dark stare was met with watery sea foam blue irises and he landed his first hex without further hesitation.
The first look he got in the mirror when he had been broken free made him lose balance momentarily. He looked older now, not that it was surprising in itself but it was more what it signified. The lines on his face were not new to him, he felt his heart quicken at the same time that he cursed himself from continuing this charade. He should have given this up years ago, but the haunting memory remained as clear as ever, even after fourteen years under the bony grip of the dementors.
He had anticipated it would been amongst the first of his clear thoughts to go, then he remembered, they feasted on memories that were happy and dragged forth the recollection of those that were not. That was why he had played it out on a loop for fourteen years.
Against his better judgement, he instructed that the rooms be reopened and prepared.
When his Master had fallen at the hands of the Potters Louis knew it would only be a matter of time before he was taken also.
Rushing into his townhouse he barked instruction after instruction at the small army of elves. Above all else, he wanted no sign of her existence, absolutely none. The prepared rooms were closed and he raced to his study, flinging the door wide open he wrenched open the doors of his desk and pulled out an ordered stack of parchment only to throw it straight into the fire.
He watched silently, bar his ragged breathing, as every last piece curled and disappeared into nothingness.
Now let them come.
Occluding his mind had become his number one priority for survival, he had known it since that first day. He was glad that he had the foresight to practise years before when he received his first proper punishment when his Lord invaded his mind as he knelt on the stone floor after a failed mission.
He clenched his fists as he felt his Master's anger as he moved through his mind in a rage crashing through walls or making them glass to see right through.
He shuddered against the rough invasion.
An hour later, breathless, he crouched against the wall of what was his father's study, mopping up the blood that continued to flow from his nose as he roughly sketched eyes that were as empty as he felt.
He was laying flat on his back, his body awash with different pains, the coppery stench of blood and sweat filling the small candle lit room. He arched to move himself and his arm felt like led, he fought back bile as the serpent moved independant from his control, the slither of the ink ghosting against his forearm.
"You may go" his Master commanded, he made to get up, grateful he was still able to walk "remember" the Lord called after him "do as I desire and you will get everything you ever wished for"
I'm not sure that's true.
He scanned through yearbooks, first with the genuine belief that all would become clear and then with a growing sense of despair. By the time he had searched through ten years a clawing sense in his gut could no longer be ignored.
He spent so long focusing on her that he forgot himself, how he had looked, he knew she wouldn't be in these books.
It didn't take long to find out the meaning of it all, he had always been excellent at research. Hiding it was going to be infinitely harder.
When he found the page in front of him that confirmed his growing suspicions and fears he quietly went to the library directory before destroying every reference he could find.
Louis Travers walked around the corner into the seventh-floor corridor trailing behind Jugson who was steaming ahead as usual.
"Come on Travers… we don't have long" Otto implored impatiently.
Sighing he quickened his step in an attempt to catch up, they didn't have time for this, Tom and Walden had asked to meet them later they were the only third years to be included, he was given to understand it would not be the best to be late. But Otto had been persistent, something he wanted to show him he said.
They stopped in front of a blank corridor and he began to walk back and forth, then a door appeared.
"What the…" he began confused.
"Come on" Otto interrupted determinedly.
When they emerged from behind the doors they were in a vast blank room, he didn't have time to take it all in before Otto ran forward dramatically moving a dust sheet to reveal a large mirror.
He shrugged at him, not understanding what the fuss was all about, Otto looked back at him exasperated before stepping in front of the mirror.
"When I look in I see me…" he began excitedly.
"Yes, well you would hope so"
"...fuck you… listen"
"Fine, astounded me" he laughed out.
"I see me and I'm wearing my father's ring and I have a beautiful witch on my arm and Tom is on the other side with his hand on my shoulder"
He raised his eyebrows at that, Otto smirked at his expression and roughly shunted him in front of the mirror "what do you see?"
He looked in and could only see himself though if he moved his head a little he could see that he looked older, it wasn't him as he was now at certain angles, it was a man's face, unmistakably his, but not him now.
There was nothing else in the mirror, no gold or riches or trophies he stepped back slightly ready to say it didn't work for him and that was when he noticed...
A small hand on his waist
He stepped quickly to one side and his mirrored counterpart did the same the small figure left behind nearly lost balance at the quick movement and his mirrored self steadied her, a small smile playing on his lips.
She was dirty, skinny and her face and clothes, weird clothes, were mottled with blood.
He looked at the curly haired girl and he found he couldn't look away from her eyes for what felt like minutes. There in the middle of what appeared to be a war torn face were the blankest eyes he had ever seen.
He didn't want to consider what had happened to such a young girl for her to look so devoid of life.
His mirrored counterpart moved back in front of the girl and raised his eyebrows at him before picking up her small hand and securing it back around his waist.
He looked up to the top of the mirror there were engravings into the ornate gold; erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
"Come on" Jugson whined "what did you see?"
He had that feeling, that one he got in his gut sometimes, the one that gnawed at him to do the right thing, it told him to lie "Quidditch Cup" he said pulling his face into a smile he didn't feel.
His lie was weakly delivered and he knew it, though it was enough for Otto who went on and on about whether or not he thought the things in the mirror would come true.
He would have to improve his story before he spoke to Tom.