Harry and Ginny danced ahead of their merry band of friends as they walked through the streets of Hogsmeade. They were gathering at Ron's place. He'd bought the house with his reward money. It was nice, if somewhat reminiscent of The Burrow.
He'd expected Hermione to move in and assume the homemaker roll. It hadn't worked to plan. Hermione didn't want to settle down right away. She had dreams and ideas and a few lingering issues from the war. She simply wasn't ready to play happy families, but nothing stopped Ron from trying to convince her.
Everyone knew Ron had cooked up another scheme. Hermione tended to roll her eyes and humor him, but Luna didn't care for the colors of his aura lately. There was something decidedly off about it. The colors had dulled and it flared oddly. It made her feel as if she'd fallen into stinging nettles and numbed her nose.
Neville grabbed her at the waist and swung her up in a wide arch. The golden halo of his aura shone like sunlight in the darkest night. She adored him. He pushed away the darkness with a simple smile even when he was trapped in the middle of it.
They arrived at Ron's place in a swirl of laughter that faded naturally as they took the final steps to the bright red door. Ron opened the door with a laugh and a frothy mug in hand. Luna knew the others saw only the happy Gryffindor. She tried to ignore the gathering shadows that swirled around him and smiled as she passed by him into the house.
He was busy getting everyone a mug of his homemade cider when she picked up a piece of parchment from his kitchen table. She recognized some of the spell craft on it and felt her stomach rebel. Waving off the mug he offered to her, she plucked another page up. It was worse.
"Where is Hermione? I thought we were all off to the party?" Luna looked directly at Ron. His ears and neck were flushed. It wasn't a particularly attractive look for him. "Is she running late?"
"She had something she had to do." Ron chuckled but it was forced. "You know Hermione."
"Yes, I do." Luna picked up another page and felt something twist inside her body. "She hates to be late, but she isn't is she? She isn't coming."
"Something came up." Ron blustered as every eye focused on him.
"You created this spell? Is she off trying this?" Luna stared in horror at rolls of parchment on the table. "This binds the caster to their soulmate. It removes her choice."
"But Hermione is going to summon me, so it'll just make it all easier." He grinned. "No fussy wedding, no crazy ring. It's just a done deal."
"There's no balance. You're not bound to her." Luna shook the parchment in her hand. "This is slavery."
"It's not like I'm a monster. I'll bind myself to her when the time is right." Ron smiled and looked out the window at the moon. "It will be perfect."
"She wasn't raised in a pureblood household, Ronald. The traditions and the power of this night are just ideas in books for her." Luna looked around the room at the others. She shoved the parchment at Ginny. "Hermione won't understand what this thing will do. It's wrong."
"It's done." Ron leaned against the table. "She just needs some reassurance. This will prove I was right, and she can stop putting things off."
"This is about sex?" Ginny glared at Ron and flung a stinging hex at him. "She wants to wait until she's sure."
"She will be. It will be perfect." Ron grinned and brushed some crumbs from his shirt. "You can go enjoy the party as soon as I'm summoned."
Luna looked out the window behind him and frowned. She looked around the room. Neville looked nauseated as he read the parchment and Harry was listening to Ginny's explanation with a dawning horror on his face.
"You're not going to be summoned." She pointed out the window. "On any other night this wouldn't be an issue. Did you forget? The dead walk on Samhain."
"Try for some remorse." He could hear Potter's words floating inside him. He could remember that moment, feel it, taste it. He'd looked past the bloody annoyance and seen her. Emaciated, speckled with blood, and desperate to save her friend, she should have been pathetic in his eyes, but she wasn't. He'd seen into her, a lifetime in a moment for him. He'd loathed his own being. The broken bit of his soul had faltered and collapsed under the weight of the darkness.
He was pulled from his memory when she shifted on the ground. Her hair was spread out into the grass reflecting bits of gold and copper from the fire. He examined the light cotton shift she was wearing, appropriate to protect her modesty, but the damn thing wouldn't do a thing against the cold and damp. He looked back up at her face and considered what it all meant.
"Do you know who I am?" He watched as she managed to nod. She didn't show fear or bother to beg. He actually enjoyed the moment.
He felt the bond forming and frowned. The spell was flawed. It flared and sputtered. He grimaced and set himself next to her in the grass. He needed to examine the magic involved.
"Kill me." She turned her head toward him. "Please. Better that way."
Tom blinked and stared at her. The compulsion charm that had forced her to work the spell was breaking as the bond between them solidified. Tears slipped from her eyes catching the moonlight as they slid along her skin. She was no longer the emaciated child. Here was a woman grown. Her eyes caught his, and he slipped into her mind as he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
She wasn't able to hide anything from him at first. He saw her life laid out before him. He saw the strength and power in her. Her forgiveness for others bothered him. He didn't care to share any of her, not even her pity. The snake like visage of his last incarnation floated through her mind and melted into a different view. He remembered looking like that boy. She finally mustered some ability to block him, but he saw the grief in her for the child he had been. Some part of her had mourned him or the possibilities he had shunned. She was too kind and too forgiving, but under that was ferocity and intelligence. Her urge to defend was strong. She was I afraid to be both wielder and weapon. He had always had an affinity with water. He understood how to rage and how to reflect what others wanted to see. This woman was fire incarnate. Capable of giving warmth and light or burning the world down. She was divine.
He slid out of her mind gently. There was time to explore at his leisure. She would fight him with everything in her. It would be amusing. She loved Harry Potter and his band of merry cohorts. Her urge to protect them burned against the spell that Weasley fool had forced on her. She loathed the very nature of a one sided bond. He stroked a finger down her cheek and bent forward to rest his forehead on hers.
"Please." She whispered the word against his lips.
He stroked his fingers along her throat and considered his options. She was his. He could twist and turn her as he saw fit. He could take her incredible mind for a walk through blood and gore and revenge. The image of her speckled with Weasley blood as she danced through the bastard's entrails enthralled him.
She could be his, entirely his. Better than his death eaters, better than Bellatrix. He could mold her and enjoy the fight as he did it.
He lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers gently. She pushed up against him. The bond between them pulling her closer and closer to him. He stroked down her body over her shift and smirked at the little whimpers and cries his simplest touches evoked. The bare skin of her thighs quivered when he reached the end of her little ode to modesty. He pulled back from her lips and looked down at her tear stained face. His mind crashed into hers as he slid his hands up under the hem of her dress.
The desire to live was strong in her. It brushed against him like licking flames. She was vibrant and determined. It made her request for death all the more startling.
He pressed his lips against her beating pulse as he dug into her brain. He wanted to understand her. He needed to grasp her essence and tear it to pieces. She wasn't fighting him as he skimmed the shift up her body and flung it off into the trees. Her battleground was in their linked minds.
The bond grew stronger helping his body solidify. His own heartbeat resumed and he felt the burn of needed breath as he dragged his teeth along her collarbone. Her hands clutched at his back. Her nails scratched along his skin.
Her surrender was inevitable. The spell guaranteed it, but there was something to savor in these moments of passion. He pushed up and looked down at her bare skin, glowing against the dark velvet of old leaves and earth. She was a goddess laid before him, somehow both earthy and ethereal. Her thoughts trickled through his mind with his own. He saw his own face perfect once more and haloed in moonlight. It was a man's face. He felt her joy and despair at the quickening of his heart. She pressed her hand over it for a second before sliding it up over his shoulder and down his arm. He chuckled and kissed the skin over her heart.
Images of them tucked in a sun drenched window seat with a book flashed through his mind as he slid his lips to her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. He lathed it with his tongue as she turned the pages and read aloud to him from some archaic text. The more pleasure he gave her, the more of these fantasies flowed through their minds.
He saw the white dress and the dancing. He saw the small cottage with flowers and a surprisingly large library. He kissed and nipped at the soft skin of her belly in a spiral towards her navel as her simple little dreams flitted about. Her mundane little dreams played on in his mind.
He dug his fingers into her thighs and pushed her legs apart. He was no regular wizard. He didn't want some simple life. He settled between her thighs and fed his rage. He would rule the world, and she would sit at his feet as all others gave him his due.
"Please." Her wide brown eyes met his. He blinked and saw her sprawled across a bed instead of the ground. He felt her welcoming her into her arms and her body again and again. It was warm and comfortable. He let them slide once more into her fantasy as he joined their bodies with a brutal thrust.
She arched under him and gasped. With each thrust he ensured his power and his life. He was trapped between his visions of her offering herself up to him with the blood of her plaything dripping from her hands and her dreams of their simple, sun drenched life. He felt trapped between them as the storm ranged inside him. He forced his mind to focus on the moment. He looked down at her as he slid out of her as slowly as he could. The drag of her silken flesh along his kept him focused even as their imaginations warred in his head.
He looked down his body to where their bodies joined and felt the primal urge to thrust again. He held back for a moment and reveled in the magical power singing between them. Her magic was tethering him to life. He felt it, warm and effervescent, against his own. The flashes of her presenting him with a daughter broke through his walls and he snarled. He gripped her hips and slammed into her. She keened as he jerked her hips up from the earth and jerked her body against his as hard as he could.
He could never give her that kind of life. There would be no tea parties or trips to see their children off to Hogwarts. He was the darkness. He dropped her back to the ground and settled on top of her, digging his feet into the ground to power his thrusts.
"I am not some normal wizard." He hissed into her ear. "I can't give you those things. Your precious Potter would never allow it. That is not what we can have."
He planted his elbows on her shoulders and held her down as he snarled above her. She couldn't move. She was his receptacle. She was his. He looked down and saw her dirt and tear stained face clearly.
She had no choice. There would be no sunlit love for her. She was giving him life and losing everything. Some tiny voice from his earliest fantasies started screaming in his head.
He'd never been loved. Never. He'd been worshipped, but it wasn't the same thing. They couldn't have her pretty little fantasies, but he wanted something more than a talented pet.
He bit his tongue until blood welled in his mouth. He bent his head and kissed her forcing his blood into her mouth. She blinked as he whispered the spell that bound his life force to hers. Something snapped into place between them. They were equals. He gentled his movements and kissed her again. Their magic swirled around them, flicking against their skin with heat. There was no line between them. They were one. He shuddered as her hands slid along his body and clenched his buttocks. He didn't want this to end. He didn't want to give into his body. He kissed her face and tasted her tears as her love bloomed inside him. He saw their children in her eyes two daughters with long black hair that curled wildly and a son that looked just like his mother. He kept them there in her fantasies as they moved together in frantic abandon.
He settled his hands on the gentle column of her throat. He felt the life that ensured his existence thrumming just under the surface. He regretted the choices he'd made in his past. The magic was building between them as he lowered his lips to hers. Her love wrapped around him and through him.
He felt truly alive for the first time.
Luna found her the next morning. Leaves covered her in the colors of fire, but she was gone. The blonde witch knelt beside her and let her tears fall.
She heard the soft chords of music and turned from the body to see Hermione dancing with a dark haired man through the trees. Their bodies were transparent and fading as the sun rose.
She shoved her fist into her mouth to hold in her sobs as they spun about recklessly. There was something beautiful in watching their last moments on this plane.
They moved closer and Hermione knelt down beside her.
"This is victory." The ghost spoke in the softest brush of a breeze. "The only way. Love you always."
The sun broke over the horizon and Hermione returned to her soulmate. They stood within the shade of the trees, safe in the darkness. Luna clutched her friend's wand in her hand and nodded at the ghost of Tom Riddle. He returned her gesture and pressed a kiss to Hermione's temple as sun pushed up into the sky dappling the ground around her. Hermione smiled and blew her a kiss as they faded from sight.
Luna sat next to Hermione's body and waited for the others. She looked at the bruises circling her friend's neck and imagined those last moments of life where only death offered salvation. Tom had found love and sacrificed his new life to it. She felt the tears dripping down her face and splattering on her hands. Hermione had kept them safe from the darkness again. She stroked the vine wood wand and felt it grow warm in her hand.
When Harry and the others found her they dropped to the ground and joined her in her vigil for a time before they lifted her away from what remained and carried them both away.
Days passed. Luna was aware of that. There was a funeral and a quiet investigation. Ronald Weasley was found to be guilty of bad judgment and released.
When he was found drowned in a barrel of his own cider, everyone said it was the guilt.
Luna sat on her garden bench and ate an apple from the bucket by the door while the others looked about morosely. Hermione's wand was safe on the mantle in her bedroom. It's work was done.
Hermione watched Luna and the others from the edge of the forest. Tom leaned back against a tree behind her. The thrum of his united soul comforted her.
"I didn't know she had it in her." Tom came to stand beside her.
"It's easy to underestimate her." Hermione sighed. "She knew you were my soul mate. She helped me after the war. When the horcrux in Harry died, I was lost. She helped me so much."
"And she has avenged you." Tom stroked her cheek. "Are you ready to go on to our next great adventure?"
"Being a ghost does have some limitations." Hermione grabbed his hand and turned toward the bright portal that flared behind them. They moved together and stepped into the unknown.