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The Blood Letter

Chapter XXV: I love you.

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Professor Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, also known as the Boy-Who-Lived had just arrived to the Astronomy Tower. The ancient wizard slowly turned around to contemplate the incredible view. It was breathtaking, really. The lake, the mountains… All lightly illuminated by the stars and the light of the moon. – It was simply beautiful.

"This view truly is something, isn't it?" Dumbledore commented, "Every time I see it I feel how my heart melts."

Harry approached him: slowly, like he was very careful not to make any wrong move. Even though he wouldn't say it aloud, Harry was still quite shocked that Albus Dumbledore, the one he had put his faith in so many times, had planned his final hours for him. 'Wait until the proper moment comes.' Now, what was that supposed to mean? Feed him like he was a pig until Voldemort finally killed him? Why tell him so many lies when the truth could have been told? He didn't understand, so he thought that moving slowly, making things happen in a slow motion would help him understand. So slowly and very careful, Harry Potter started approaching Albus Dumbledore. Once he stood beside him, he let out a sigh.

"What is going to happen tonight, Professor?" The boy wanted to know, his eyes searching for Dumbledore's ones.

However, Dumbledore did not look back at him. His gaze was still completely lost in the beauty of nature, somehow searching for the right words to say. Obviously, he couldn't be about to tell him that Draco Malfoy would be threatening to kill him soon. And even more, he wouldn't be telling him that Snape would show up and murder him. Because if he did, he firstly would scare the boy even more than he already was, and secondly, Dumbledore knew Harry would do his best to try and 'save him'. – And Albus Dumbledore had a deal with Severus Snape. A deal he wasn't going to break any time soon. And so… He could not have Harry saving him.

"Harry." Dumbledore called, his calm voice suddenly tensing up, "I need your word."

"Sir?"

"Your word, Harry," The old man continued, somewhat touched, "that whatever shall happen tonight, you will do everything I say."

Harry looked at him, confusion reflected in his eyes. His word? What did he mean by that? What did he need it for? Dumbledore suddenly looked back at him and nodded his head decisively, telling him with his eyes that he knew exactly what he was doing.

"Your word." He repeated once more.

Harry's jaw trembled a little, but he nodded his head, nevertheless. If Professor Dumbledore asked for his word, he would be having it.

"Do you promise you'll do whatever I'll say without hesitating?"

His voice was starting to tense up, that he noticed. It was like he knew something bad –something real bad– was just about to happen. And Harry had the slight feeling Dumbledore wanted him to let him handle the situation. – Not that he fully agreed with that, but he felt like not really having a choice. So, once more, Harry nodded.

"I promise." Harry said, with no more hesitation, "I promise."

And right then, Dumbledore's facial expression tensed up. Harry frowned, as he questioned him with his eyes. Dumbledore stared back at him, his eyes somewhat shining with agony and worry.

"Hide." Dumbledore ordered, "Hide, and whatever shall happen, don't try to save me."

"Wh–"

"–You promised. Go hide."

"Yes, but wh-"

Suddenly, there were some steps to be heard. Without any kind of explanation, Dumbledore put his hands on Harry's shoulders and looked at him deeply in his eyes.

"–You've been like a son to me, Harry Potter." Dumbledore said.

With those words, Dumbledore pulled Harry into a tight hug and kissed his hair. Harry felt Dumbledore somewhat shaking, just as if he was slightly coughing. Except from he was not: When he pulled away, Harry's breath vanished. Never before had he seen Albus Dumbledore crying, and there he was: His eyes red, his cheeks wet; a broken smile across his face and a tense frown on his forehead.

"Goodbye, son." Dumbledore's broken voice said. "Remember me."

Harry's chest shook violently as he panted heavily. He wanted to ask so many questions, but he knew there was no time. So, with a confused heart and mind, the Boy-Who-Lived turned around, went down the stairs and hid himself, fighting back his tears as well as he could.

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Back at the empty Malfoy Manor, Severus Snape ran through the corridors once more without losing any time. His goal was the dark dungeons, Horace Slughorn and Hermione Granger.

His quick steps finally reached the stairs. Taking a big breath in before walking down, Professor Snape rubbed his temples.

"This is crazy." He said to himself as he sighed.

While walking down the stairs, Snape reached for his wand and conjured an Alohomora on the door. He entered the dark room and started searching for both, Slughorn and Granger.

"Professor Snape." A soft, feminine voice called. It wasn't a question. It was a mere statement. "What are you doing here? Are you a new prisoner?"

Her voice was somehow filled with anger, irony and bitterness, as she thought she would be forced to share a fucking cell with him. – Oh, if she only knew how wrong she was…

Snape turned on his feet and saw her. Her clothes were quite dirty, and so was her hair. But her face was clean. Her lips were somewhat swollen, kind of red, too. He continued inspecting the girl's face in greater detail, and so his jaw dropped at once. He didn´t exactly know how to react at Miss Granger's brown gaze. – She looked… tired. No, not tired, she looked exhausted. Maybe exhausted wasn't even the correct word to describe how her eyes looked. They had lost their shine. All hope was lost. All kindness, all belief… everything was simply gone. Where was her known ambition, and the burning fire in her eyes? – Not that he knew her closely, as he had almost despised her all along her young years at Hogwarts; but he had always noticed her brown eyes. And now they were… empty. They were simply brown.

Snape shook his head. Probably his Godson Draco Malfoy, the next Darkest Lord of History had had his way with her. He knew he was obsessed, even though he didn't quite understand why. – No one did. But no obsession was reason enough to do that to a woman. Did he rape her? He didn't know, and he didn't dare ask. –He shook his head once more. They didn't have much time; it was time to do something.

"That is irrelevant at this point, Miss Granger." He said quickly, "Where is Professor Slughorn?"

"He is still unconscious." Hermione answered, her voice still really bitter, "How dare you treat him like a piece of scum! I don't know him closely, but I do know he is a very intelligent, wise man that-"

"-Look, it wasn't my fault this time, so will you just shut the fuck up?!" Hermione gasped and went silent. "All right. Listen closely; I'll only say it once. All Death Eaters upstairs are gone and we need to go to Mr. Malfoy's bedroom. We must do this quickly, as we don't have much time." Snape explained in a rush, "Follow me."

Hermione shot him an unbelieving glare.

"Why should I trust you?"

Oh, to hell with everything! Snape was tired. No, he wasn't tired; he was fucking exhausted. He was longing to die in the end, so it really didn't matter anymore to tell her anything a little bit about his position in the magical war. She wasn't the only one that was affected in there, and he had to make sure she kept that on mind.

"Because, believe it or not, I'm just a pawn in this foolish war. Not just the Dark Lord's, not just Dumbledore's, but also Draco's." Those words escaped Snape's mouth with certain bitterness, "Because, Miss Granger, I am incredibly tired of following everyone's orders. You can't even imagine. And because, Miss Granger, I am truly tired of being seen as the bad one. I am tired of being mistrusted, and I only want this war to end so I can finally rest in peace, so I can finally be treated how I deserve in another life. That's why."

Hermione's jaw dropped. Never before had she heard Professor Snape speak like that. And his words were… they were loaded with certain bitterness, truly, but also with important amounts of hidden hope. Hope that the war would finally end. Hope that things would finally change for the better. – Snape now looked like a man who had dreams, thus letting himself be more human. – She smiled shyly, for she knew she could trust him in that matter.

"Let's go." Hermione said with decision.

Snape smirked: Granger's eyes shyly shone with Gryffindor true bravery. And he would have never said it aloud, but he felt some kind of relief as he saw that tiny shine in her brownish eyes.

"Follow me."

In a rush, Professor Snape and Hermione Granger went up the stairs and ran through all corridors until they reached Draco's bedroom. With a quick dark spell, Snape opened the door.

"Get in his room and try to find a feather as quick as you can, we don't have much time." He mouthed. "I'll wait here."

The door closed, with her inside Draco Malfoy's bedroom.

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Hermione did as she was told. She entered Draco's dorm and with wide eyes, she stared all around his room. It was enormous! And beautifully decorated: The parquet was made out of dark pinewood, perfectly contrasting with a slightly old white wall. All illumination came from outside, as one of the walls was made out of crystal; perfect to see the breathtaking views of his gardens. – She took one steps forward and looked around a little bit more: His king-sized bed was on her right, covered with black silk sheets and many silver pillows. It really looked comfortable, tempting and inviting, really. But as tired as she was, Hermione had to resist: Snape had already told her they didn't have much time, and she had to find the feather. So, ignoring her right side, she turned her head to the left. There was quite of an ancient wardrobe and one of the doors was open: She bit her lip. Would she dare look inside?

Yes, she had to. She must in order to find that goddamned feather. She must in order to take it with her and destroy Herpo the Foul's Blood Letter. She must in order to win over the Dark Side, win over Voldemort's dark power and Voldemort himself. – Hermione knew it wasn't going to be easy, and not that she had been expecting it to be. And even though she loved challenge, she truly wished that bloody feather was hidden in Malfoy's wardrobe.

Her tiny hands got a grip on the knob of the door and slowly started to open it up. Carefully, Hermione slid her head inside the darkness of the wardrobe and focused on finding the writing tool. Her fingers ran through many objects: Some of them were pieces of cloth, some others felt like shoes, and some others felt like… water? – Hermione tried to sharpen her sight: What was water doing there and where did it come from?

Suddenly, a drop fell onto her fingers, and so she looked above her: A round, rather flat thing was floating in the air, and it was dripping. Frowning, the Gryffindor Princess somehow managed to stand on one of the shelves and reach the floating object. Once her hands got a grip on it, she carefully pulled the thing towards herself, and gasped.

'What the fuck is a Pensieve doing in Malfoy's house!? In Malfoy's room! In his fucking wardrobe! What-' Hermione thought.

The Pensieve continued to drip, even though Hermione's hands were completely still, even trying to make it stop: It just wouldn't. Hermione interpreted that as a kind of pleading to submerge her head into it and see the memory being played. Frowning even more, she briefly thought about it. Maybe she was going to get some important pieces of information with only having a look…

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A violent shake led her to the first memory.

A little boy was sitting on the corner of his bed. His hair was dark brown, rather black. His skin was pale, and he hated the freckles he had on his face.

He never smiled. He didn't even smirk. His facial expression was always the same: A big frown and a serious, sometimes rather pouty face. He never talked, at least, not with children his age – He liked talking to particular reptiles; snakes. He told them his secrets. One of them was that he would do bad things to people who annoyed him. Bad things to people he didn't like.

His name was Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The shake that took her to that first memory took her again and led her to the second one.

The boy was all grown up. One could say he looked kind of handsome. He was dressed with formal cloths, as if he had attended to a special event.

Tom was waiting for someone in a living room; she could tell it was at Hogwarts, as she remembered she had been there before. She just couldn´t remember where it was or who lived in there.

Suddenly, Professor Slughorn appeared holding a cup of wine in his hands and Tom cordially smiled at him. He congratulated him for the fine feast and thanked him for inviting him. Humble as the professor was, he smiled back at him and told him he was a great student, and that it would have been a sin if he hadn't invited him to dinner that night.

"A propos brilliant students, Professor…" Tom said, his voice kind of blurry, "I have been doing some research in the library, in that special section…"

"Special section, my boy?"

"The forbidden section. Yes, I know, I know. No one's allowed to go in there unless strictly necessary, but… You know me, professor; I'm a very curious boy. And I couldn't help but read about a certain thing… I don't really remember what it did, or how it works, but… As you are a master in these kinds of magic, I wondered if maybe you could help me?"

Slughorn's gaze was rather skeptic, but he nodded his head, nevertheless.

"Well, I don't really know if it really is called like that, but…" Tom briefly paused, "Does the name 'Herpo de Foul', ´Horcrux' and 'General Horcrux' sound familiar to you?"

Hermione could perfectly see that Professor Slughorn wanted to scream and yell at the boy. She saw even fear hidden behind his eyes. But for some odd reason she didn't really understand at all, Slughorn took in some deep breaths, took a seat and told Tom everything he knew about Herpo the Foul and all type of Horcruxes. Also, he made him promise never to use that kind of dark magic; for he had to kill someone in order to spilt his soul to reach immortality.

The hesitation in Tom's voice made Hermione gasp. – It had been right at that moment that Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort.

Once more, the violent shake took Hermione to another memory. But this time, it wasn't Tom's. It was Draco's.

It was awful. It truly was. He looked down at his arm, and it was not clean. There was that ugly mark, with that ugly skull and that terrifying snake. It burnt his skin; it really hurt. But he had done that sacrifice for her, for his mother. He sacrificed the clean skin on his forearm because he loved her with his entire heart. Because back then, he still felt like he was human. And as the human he was, he thought he could believe in people's promises, like the promise that noseless bastard had just made:' Let me mark you, and your mother will live', he'd said. And Draco had been so foolish to believe him.

And then, once he looked up at his face, the Dark Lord drew a superior smirk on his face and told him he had lied. With those words, he took the wand out of his pocket and with a rather harsh move he used the killing charm on his mother right in front of his eyes. She had mouthed three last words to him: I love you.

To top it, he'd told Lucius to reduce his very own wife into greyish ashes, as punishment for the boy for having been so hesitant to give him his arm and let him mark it.

It was awful. It truly was. It was awful to see how easily Lucius Malfoy attached to the Dark Lord's orders without any kind of remorse, how the mighty Lucius Malfoy simply took out his wand out of his pocket and pointed at his Narcissa, at his Cissy, and easily cursed an 'Incendio'. – It was awful to see how her body burnt and how she, a beautiful woman, slowly turned into something as ugly as burning ashes. It was even more awful to hear Voldemort and all of his Death Eaters –Including Lucius– laughing at Narcissa Malfoy's death.

Draco's eyes automatically filled with angry, yet anguished tears, as his jaw and hands started to tremble. He wanted to scream, to throw himself at that wizard and kill him with his bare hands. Unfortunately, he wasn't capable of doing anything but stutter. The Dark Lord simply smirked.

The bastard!

"Next time I order something, you do it without hesitation, young Malfoy." His cold voice said, "These are the consequences if you don't. You may go now."

Once all Death Eaters were dismissed, Draco went up to his room and took a phoenix's feather. Totally enraged, he then went down to his dungeons led by his furious steps. When he arrived, he started to punch the wall and rub his hands against it, until his fists were covered in blood. He then followed a certain way he knew and arrived to his goal. He punched the wall again, and so the wall opened itself up.

And there it was, completely covered in mud: Herpo The Foul's Blood Letter.

Tightly holding the phoenix's feather in his hand, Draco attempted to write his name on the Letter with his own blood, as it seemed that would bring Voldemort to his end.

Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.

But he seemed to fail at it every time he tried: His name simply vanished, his blood didn't seem to be– his blood wasn't– His blood wasn't…

His pure blood was not good enough.

Draco yelled, he screamed, he roared until his throat started to hurt. He wanted his name to stay on that shitty piece of paper! He wanted revenge and so needed his name to stay, for that fucking wizard had just killed his mother!

His mother! His very own mother, Narcissa Malfoy! The person he had loved most in the entire face of earth. The only one that loved him back and wasn't afraid to show. And now she was… gone. Forever. Just like that. And it wasn't fair. He had always imagined her death –he rarely did– as something more tender: He had imagined her lying on her bed, really old, her grandchildren and her very own son surrounding her. He had imagined her taking his hand and caressing it gently with her thumb as she went; smiling softly and telling him how much she loved him. – But no. It had been entirely different; she had been murdered. And it wasn't fair. Not fair on him. Not fair on her. Not fair on anyone.

Draco just wanted to kill that fucking bastard! But apparently, his own blood and that goddamned letter were against him. And so he bitterly cried. He shed thousands and thousands of tears, as he didn't know how to have his revenge. He didn't know how to get rid of Tom Marvolo Riddle, as he wasn't Harry Potter, he was not the Chosen One.

He shed exactly a hundred tears. As the hundredth tear rolled over his soaked cheek and fell onto the floor, a ghost came out of the nothingness and gave him the Pensieve as a gift, telling him the answer on how to kill the Dark Lord was hidden in there.

As he took the Pensieve in his hands, he looked up to the ghost and gasped.

The ghost was Herpo the Foul. And the answer was Hermione Granger. The answer was Hermione Granger's muddy blood.

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Completely shocked, Hermione pulled away abruptly and fell onto the floor on her bum. Her breathing was heavy and her heart was racing quickly. Her eyes were out of orbit, all watery and glossy. – So that was what everything was about? She… Her muddy blood was the key? That was the key to kill Lord Voldemort?

Not only that. That was the exact reason why Draco Malfoy was so obsessed with her. That was why he had been on about Blood Letters all the time. She was the ultimate Blood united with the ultimate Letter. She now understood: The Blood Letter.

Hermione panted. She panted heavily, as she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Why her? Why a filthy little mudblood, as every fucking pureblood put? Why… Why her? Why then? Why–

Three impatient knocks on the door reminded her of her duty. She had to find the feather and she had to find it right at that instant. There was no more time to sigh, cry, pant or pull out a scene. She had to take action, and quickly. So, drying off her tears, the brave Gryffindor stood up and searched all around the room until she finally found the phoenix's feather.

It lay on Malfoy's study table, right on a portrait of his mother. It was a beautiful motioned picture: Narcissa was smiling. Her eyes shone with happiness, their shine would intensify with every time she blinked. And every five seconds she would blow him a loving kiss. – There were three written words: 'I love you'. Hermione frowned. Draco was really fond of his mother. He really, truly loved her, and she could tell he was extremely hurt by her loss. So extremely hurt, his psyche ended up being the victim of all that mess. – Draco ended up obsessed with Hermione, now she knew why. He ended up wanting every possible nuisance out of his way to her, now she knew why. He wanted her just as he wanted his mother. And deep, very deep inside her, even though she would neglect it, she understood him.

More impatient knocks on the door kicked her out of her thoughts. Hermione folded Narcissa's portrait and tucked it into her pockets, as she then took the feather in her hand and, with a last blink at his room; she finally went.

But those three meaningful words never left her mind: I love you. She thought about it all the way back to the dungeons. He loved her. Draco Malfoy, a boy with destroyed feelings and a sick psyche, was capable of loving. That meant he was no monster. No monster at all. At least, he didn't exactly choose to be one. And maybe, just maybe, it wasn't too late for him. Maybe, just maybe, it was in her hands to change his awful, terrible life.

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Sexieeees! AHHAHAHAHAH finally, Chapter 25's up! :D Yaay! :D Hope you all liked it! :)

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Kisses! xxx