Hello Readers - thank you for your kind reviews of Chapter 1! I'm so glad you're enjoying this story. Apologies for the delay in Ch. 2. Life has a way of throwing it's curveballs. Happy to be back with Chapter 2.

This story takes place in the middle of Deathly Hallows. As usual, I own nothing - all rights belong to the brilliant J.K. Rowling.

Thank you for reading, please consider leaving a review.

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The Unforgivables

by Suliswrites

Chapter Two: Turn me

...

Hermione didn't sleep a moment that night. She couldn't shake the awareness of him outside, and the tension that now hung between she and Harry.

It was hard enough losing, Ron. She didn't want Harry to drift away either. He was always so close to being certain that only he could be the one to do this. She barely had him convinced to accept her help. Even past her personal need to keep their friendship, she knew he couldn't accomplish this immense task without her help. If they could accomplish it at all.

Just as the sun was rising, reflecting a cool, peach glow into the tent, she got out of bed and put herself to work. Work was always how she kept the things she didn't want to think about at bay.

She set about filling the water kettle but realized that putting it on meant going outside to start a fire. A quick glance told her Harry was still asleep in the top bunk. She hoped he wasn't having disturbing dreams again.

When she walked out she found him awake and staring at the door. Apparently he hadn't slept a moment either. The ground had frosted over in the night, and his skin was even paler than usual. If that were possible, Hermione thought.

He was sitting up straight and proud, like the pine tree he leaned against were a throne, even gagged and bound. What would it take to make Lucius Malfoy lose his grandeur, Hermione wondered.

She saw her dried blood staining his cheeks and the shame of last night's recklessness flooded back into her chest. For a moment she wanted to avoid him at all costs, pretend he wasn't there as she set about her work. But that was not within Hermione's nature – she wouldn't 'hide' from conflict. I will not shy from his gaze. She quickly set about gathering wood and lit the fire, placing the kettle on.

She sat on the ground with her arms resting on her knees, watching the flames come to life. After a few minutes she chanced a glance in his direction and as expected he was staring at her, the gag still tight in his mouth. Half of her loved seeing him bound and uncomfortable – the other half though, had all the instincts she would with any human being. He must be thirsty.

Well, she thought, there's power in doing what I think is right, regardless of he'd do if the tables were turned...

Getting up calmly, Hermione poured a cup of the hot water and walked over to stand in front of him. He looked at the cup. Does he expect me to burn him with it?

She untied the gag from around his mouth and leaned down so her face was level with his, calling up every ounce of authority and confidence she had.

"One minute without it. Drink."

He watched her curiously she raised the cup to his lips and gently tipped it forward. He drank slowly and exhaled when he had finished.

"Poison?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"You'll find out, won't you?" And with that she tied the gag back tightly around his mouth. He let her, a faint shadow of amusement in his eyes.

Another thing Harry doesn't know about, Hermione thought. I don't need him to approve every decision I make.

She felt strangely at ease with him in that simple interaction, as though they'd shared something intimate that made certain pretenses fall away. That 'something' had been too intimate for her liking, she reminded herself. This new sense of understanding with him was not a comforting feeling.

Hermione poured out two more cups and walked back into the tent. Harry stirred in the top bunk hearing the canvas flap rustle.

"Tea." Hermione set his cup on the picnic table across from the bed and took a seat.

Harry nodded groggily and swung his legs over the edge, reaching for his glasses. His black hair stuck out in all directions.

As they did every morning, Harry reached down his collar and pulled the locket up and off over his neck, handing it down to her. She put it around hers and tucked it under her sweater. The heavy chill of the metal pressed into her breast. Every moment with it on was a conscious struggle against it. Already she felt more hopeless and panicked.

Harry took a seat across from her and gulped his tea. "Awake?" he asked, looking towards the door.

She nodded. "What do we intend to do with him, Harry? There are only so many options."

"And what are they?" There was an edge in his voice. He had never been a morning person and was surely still holding some of the locket's energy, but she felt like he was also frustrated with her.

"Well, it seems to me we either…attempt to interrogate him for information, or…"

Harry looked at her urging her to say it. "…Or kill him, Hermione?"

She sighed in frustration, not wanting to think about that possibility yet. They weren't there yet.

"I've been trying to think what Lupin or Kingsley would do. But we're on our own – we can't risk attempting to contact them." She paused, shaking her head. "It might come to that, I know, but we should exhaust every other course of action first."

He leaned toward her across the table - "Believe me it's not my favorite option either, but we clearly can't just let him go. Even if we obliviate him, they could find a way to trace him back to us," he said.

"We may have defended ourselves before, Harry, but we've never executed anyone."

"I know, and I'm not saying that we should necessarily, but things are different now. We're at war. What should we do? Tell me."

"I don't know, this is new to me - I've never kept a prisoner of war before." she said, agitated.

Harry looked down silently at the cup in his hands for a long moment. "I had another dream," he said.

This was exactly what she feared – he has to find a way to keep him out.

"Were you him again?" she asked.

He nodded. "I was standing over Malfoy - Draco."

She knew what was coming.

"He was screaming, writhing in agony. His mum was on her knees pleading and – kissing my robes," Harry swallowed. "And I - he - was laughing."

Hermione reached across the table and put her hand gently on his arm. "Oh Harry." He took another gulp of his tea and continued to look at the table.

"You have to keep trying. You have to close y -"

"My mind, I know! You don't have to keep telling me, Hermione, it doesn't make it any easier to do!" he jerked his arm out of her hand.

"I'm just trying to help you." she said quietly. They couldn't fall apart too. They were all each other had now.

Harry looked up at her and rubbed his hands over his eyes, exhaling. "I'm sorry." He took her hand. "It takes a while for him to leave me."

"I'll wear it at night from now on. Maybe that'll help." Hermione said. He nodded. "Thanks."

She swallowed, "Well, clearly Draco is taking the punishment for his father's failure. That may be all we have to bargain with."

"It'll get him talking at least." Harry stood and went to put on his jacket.

He paused and turned to her, "I don't know what he said or did to you outside the cemetery before I got there last night, but…you're not yourself around him. I'll ask the questions. I think you should give yourself some time before you engage him again."

Hermione's stomach flipped at the powerful sense-memory suddenly so strong on her fingers that the word 'engage' conjured for her. Damn him.

"I'm sorry for leaving you with him last night," Harry said.

Hermione shook her head, "You had to. It was my own fault for letting him get to me." For letting him make me feel that way.

Harry hesitated for a moment before asking, genuinely "Was that all he did? He called you a mudblood? That's not the first time, Hermione."

"He…" she tried to figure out how she could explain without details. "He took my power away from me, Harry. And I hated it. And wanted to do the same to him."

He seemed to understand and accept that. Harry nodded and zipped up his coat. "Come on. No one's going to tell us how to do this, we might as well jump in. Hermione Granger and Harry Potter – 'interrogators.' What a strange lives we have, 'Mione," he smiled half-heartedly.

His use of her nickname made her feel that all was well with them again, that she wasn't alone. She smiled back sadly, following him out the door.

...

Once Harry untied the gag from his mouth, he stood before Lucius in silence, wand gripped tightly in his hand.

Is this some kind of strategy or does he just not know where to begin…Hermione couldn't help thinking. She stood a few feet behind Harry, watching, her arms crossed against her chest.

"There aren't any of your pawns to play here, Malfoy. No ministry to hide behind. It's just us. I expect when it comes down to it you're just like your son – once you lose the protection of your half-witted thugs, you aren't anything but a weak, arrogant prat."

Lucius smiled slowly. "Do you think we're playing a game, boy?"

"I'll ask the questions here," Harry said a little too forcefully.

Hermione suppressed the wince she felt at Harry's choice of words. As usual he's so focused on being the hero that he forgets to cut to the bloody point.

"By all means, oh chosen one." Lucius sneered, bowing his head in mock supplication.

He's enjoying every minute of this… Hermione thought to herself, frustrated.

"Yeah that's right, Malfoy. I'm the one who's going to bring your dark lord down. You must be pretty used to cowering like this before him. Comes easy to you does it?"

Lucius laughed under his breath, clearly amused. "Have you ever questioned a prisoner before, Potter? This is not how to begin. First tell me what you wish to know, then show me what you'll do to me should I not give you the information you seek. Understand?"

"I'll do whatever I like to you, Malfoy." Harry stepped forward abruptly, pointing his wand at Lucius' face.

Malfoy's expression took on a dark, cutting shade of pity. "Would that your dear Godfather were here to see you now. A lost little boy in the woods, searching for breadcrumbs. Trying ever so hard to be a man. How proud he would have been."

Harry's face turned red with fury.

"Your son, Malfoy. He's wetting himself from the Cruciatus right about now. Begging for it to stop. Because Father didn't do as he was asked. I don't have to spell it out for you, the things he might do to him next - if your absence continues."

Malfoy's eyes narrowed, suddenly burning with loathing. He hissed at Harry through gritted teeth "You think I don't know the cost of my own mistakes, boy? You have no power to change them. There is no forgiveness for my failure, no reprieve for my son, unless I deliver the Dark Lord something of value. Preferably your body, mangled and bound at his feet."

Lucius looked past him at Hermione. "Though hers would do just as nicely…"

Harry punched him hard across the nose and it began to bleed. Lucius rolled his neck back and grinned, "Now you're getting the hang of it. Again."

Harry was raging, he did as he instructed, and struck once more even harder. Harry, what point are you trying to make? You're giving him exactly what he wants!

Malfoy turned back and spit blood out onto the ground. "Again, boy."

Harry was raising his fist once more -

"What if we could guarantee Draco's safety?" Hermione interjected.

Lucius' eyes fell back to her and he let out a bark of a laugh.

"And your wife's," she added.

He examined her for a moment, amused.

"How very generous of you. Are you offering me the same saintly clemency, Granger?"

"We would speak for you. Tell everyone how you helped us. They would lessen your sentence. You cannot want a life in Azkaban."

Lucius smiled. "You wish to turn me? To have me do your bidding against the Dark Lord?"

Hermione drew herself up and steeled her expression. "You know our options, Malfoy. Either that, or we have no choice but to kill you. Then your family dies at his hand, knowing that you failed and abandoned them to their fate."

"They may die regardless, girl." He said darkly, his eyes dulling.

"They may. Are you determined to just wait and see, while doing nothing?"

Lucius considered her for a long moment, his eyes roaming her face, reading every tension. Harry was irrelevant now – the bargain seemed to lay solely between them.

Lucius was still as stone again, as he had been last night.

"Come here." he said quietly.

Harry looked back to Hermione, wordlessly telling her to stay put and stop talking.

She felt demanded of by both of these men, both telling her what to do – assuming she would bend to their wills.

White-hot anger at her lack of control reared up in her chest once more. I will not be ordered about by either of you.

Hermione swiftly extended her arm, fingers spread wide, and forced the burning energy out of her hand towards the tree.

In seconds, the trunk of the tree shot up out from the ground with a great booming creak that shook the soil beneath them, raising Lucius to standing, all the way up to the point where his feet left the ground and only the toes of his boots touched the earth. New branches erupted from the bark and curled tighter across his chest, encasing him.

The binds held him tight to the tree, nearly suspended. Bright green shoots of newly born grass sprouted out of the hard, frosted winter earth, surrounding him. The only vibrant color within sight.

Hermione walked slowly forward till she stood directly before him, her wand pointed inches from his groin.

Lucius's breaths were quick - it had clearly taken him by surprise, but on his face she saw a thrill and even a trace of wonder.

"Did you have something to say to me?" Hermione asked simply.

Harry stood back watching the exchange, speechless. He'd never seen Hermione perform such elemental magic before.

Lucius looked down at her wand's position, and back to her. "Who taught you to perform wandless magic of this kind?" he asked breathlessly, eyes narrowing with the urge to understand what he was witnessing.

"No one. I taught myself. That's what us mudbloods have to do, you know. No one gives us our magic. We have to pull it out of ourselves from nothing, with our own sheer will."

To tell the truth, Hermione was near shaking with wonder of her own at what she had just done. She had performed small acts of wandless magic before, certainly, but never at this level, never with so much surety and grounding. Adrenaline was soaring inside her.

Where did that come from? She thought. The answer was clear, she felt it in winding up every nerve in her body:

Anger. Anger provoked by him. And something else on the edge of it… an electric vitality that hummed through every inch of her.

Whatever his presence did to her, there was no denying that it awoke a kind of power she'd never known she had. And she already felt herself craving more.