As all of you who follow this story know, I try to update on Sunday of every week. Saturdays are normally busy with one thing or another. Sundays I clean my house and reward myself with writing time. I don't have the chapters pre-written and locked away. I write them by hand during my breaks and lunches during the week and refine and edit as I type.
I had a note from a Guest this morning, someone who was having a really bad day. Identity stolen among other things. Yuck. I've been there. I was planning to veg out, watch Treehouse Masters, and make muffins today, but I'm going to try to post this instead.
To the reader who asked me so nicely to update: Keep your chin up.
Hermione sat in the Malfoy Library with a warm cup of tea in her hands and Tom wrapped around her body like a constrictor. She ran her hands over him, his arms, his hair; whatever she could touch. She was pleased to see that her hands didn't shake. She took in his scent, his shampoo (brewed himself with a citrus scent that she found secretly intoxicating…and he knew it) a hint of leftover cologne (that he must have borrowed from Abraxas), and the slight tinge of sweat that still held a hint of fear.
"I realized that trying to fight my way out was useless. His men aren't the wizard that he is, but they're known all over the word as a formidable fighting machine. It's why the wizarding world hasn't banded together and moved against him yet."
She tried to mentally tally his forces, but she hadn't seen enough of the barracks and the stores…an army moved on its stomach after all. If you could guess how much they were using in provisions, then you could guess the numbers…it was just harder to do when you added magic to the equation.
She took a sip of tea, realizing that three sets of eyes were waiting for her to continue. "I brazened it out. I had to offer him the location of one of the Deathly Hallows and dangle Albus Dumbledore in front of him like a cat toy, but he let me come back."
Abraxas let out a breath. "The Deathly Hollows are real? And you are helping a madman find them?"
She shrugged. "I am not certain the story is real…the whole bit about Death seems a bit farfetched. They are simply powerful, dangerous artifacts." She chuckled. "It's been rumored that he had the Deathstick for years…the wand from the Hallows. It's true. Tom and I noticed it when he tried to take us last year. I knew where the Resurrection Stone is. I saw it. In my mind it's the most dangerous to the owner. He might have the idea to raise an army of Inferi with it, but the magic doesn't work like that. Either by accident or design, the stone acts to attract the owner to death. It drives most of them mad."
Abraxas shook his head. "That helps how? It seems like a bad idea to give a charismatic world leader something that will make him mad as a hatter."
"Most of them also end up killing themselves if that helps."
Helena took a sip of her own tea. "He wants the Hallows to secure his power base. He told a rather large lie when he started using the wand: he said that he was the last living descendant of the Three Brothers in the story. The Peverell family name is fairly widespread through the magical community, though the line died out. But everyone knows that the two elder brothers died childless."
Hermione shook her head. "That's not entirely true. The ring was on Morphin Gaunt's hand. I suspect it is a family heirloom. The Gaunts are related to a lot of the old families…including Salazar Slytherin."
Tom's breath caught. "I'm related to a founder?" He frowned. "How long have you known?"
"I've suspected since I learned you could speak to snakes. That particular trait is inherited by blood. One has to be a relative of Herpo of Greece in order to speak to snakes. It was much more likely to be an inherited trait rather than a spontaneous mutation." It felt good to slip into professor mode…Tom always teased her about it. "It's like almost all Metamorphs are related to Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt."
Abraxas frowned. "Who?"
"She was one of the line of Wizard kings and queen of Egypt. Eighteenth Dynasty. She declared herself Pharaoh. Everyone thought she was sporting a false beard but she was a Metamorph. The first one documented, although probably not the first in History. She ruled for fifteen years and once her stepson was old enough, she slipped away." All three of them looked at Hermione. She'd gotten lost in the old story. She'd always loved that bit of History when she was a little girl, and it had only gotten better once she learned about the ancient Egyptian wizards.
Helena cleared her throat. "I'd never heard about that."
Hermione shrugged. "Rare mutations are easier to track, historically speaking." She turned to Abraxas and tugged the end of his pale mane. "Like that hair! Your son will be as blond as you, and your grandson, and great-grandson…" She'd been trying to lighten the mood, but Helena smiled with tears in her eyes. Oops. Looked like she'd let the cat completely out of the bag…but with all the blond male heads in the family portrait gallery surely her little observation wasn't too surprising?
Abraxas smiled up at her, and tugged on her hair. "And what about these curls?"
She side-stepped the question. "It is yet to be seen if they will go down in history, but one would hope not. One would like to be remembered for something other than one's hair!"
Abraxas stretched like a cat. "Oh I don't know…when one has gorgeous locks like myself…" His mother slapped his arm lightly.
"It's not something I want banded about though Tom…your bloodline. I don't want Gellert to get the idea of removing a potential heir." She didn't know how likely it was that Gellert would remove Morphin for trying to assassinate Tom. Hopefully the thought wouldn't occur to him since the stone didn't traditionally pass ownership through dueling.
Helena sighed. "That brings up how we're going to hide the two of you. I think we should include Dumbledore on this discussion but my owl hasn't returned yet. He must be somewhere unplotable." She was pouring another cup of tea.
"I'm not going to hide Helena. I'm going to take the opportunity he's presenting me with. I can get us information from his inner circle…"
She didn't get to finish because Helena dropped the beautiful porcelain teapot and it shattered on the floor into millions of tiny sharp shards.
"Hermione, dear. You are an unquestionably brilliant child…but you can't possibly think…"
"That I can't spy on him; be a double agent? I have a unique set of skills and I'm much more valuable to Grindelwald than his average follower. As long as I have unique information that he can't get elsewhere then I will be safe enough." It wasn't like she hadn't been tortured before.
"But why give him the benefit of your sight?"
"He thinks I'm planning to take over the world. He assumes that other people want the same things he does, and since I'm powerful, it doesn't surprise him when I say that I'd like to. He'll trust my age and my greed. If he offers me most of what he thinks I want for service under him, he'll expect I'll take the easier route to power. In the meantime I can work toward saving lives within his empire and slowing down his march on England."
Hermione changed the subject. "The important thing for the Malfoy family is that Helga was unaware of Jean Marie's plans."
Abraxas filled his cup from the whiskey decanter. "And here I thought I'd found a way to get rid of the harpy."
"That harpy is the mother of your son."
"And I will treat her as such, as long as she at least shows loyalty to her son and this family. Being unfaithful to me is one thing. A bit annoying, but expected under the circumstances. But to jump into bed with a man who was obviously just using her for information? It reeks of a desperation for attention that is most unbecoming." He took a long pull of his whiskey. "And speaking of reeking, the tart that Jean Marie brought into my home is still in the dungeon."
Helena frowned. "She'll just have to stay there until Dumbledore comes. We need a powerful memory charm."
Hermione smiled vindictively. "I can do it. I think she's exactly the sort that should move to Canada and set up in a remote log cabin to raise chickens."
Helena looked a bit green. "Chickens?"
"Oh yes. Without magic." Hermione knew the woman might have had limited choices in her life, but she was an adult and she had tried to kidnap herself and Tom. Jean Marie would have had a much harder time without an accomplice. So some punishment was in order.
Helena mirrored Hermione's smile. "Ah yes. I suppose chickens are in order. Do make sure she's a polite chicken owner, won't you dear? We'd hate for the Canadians to have to put up with her with her current personality."
HGTMHGTM
Albus returned to his rooms at Hogwarts with muffled curses and began stripping out of his robes as soon as he entered.
Visiting his brother was always an exercise in frustration. He balled the robes up and incinerated them. They smelled strongly of goat dung even after three powerful cleaning spells.
Damn Alberforth anyway. He should simply sign the cottage over to him and be done. Albus couldn't imagine why he hadn't…
An irritated owl flapped into the room and dropped a rolled bit of parchment on his floor. Fawkes trilled a warning at the bird, which looked like it would very much like to take a snap at Albus' nude body. Instead, it buffeted his head slightly with feather and flew out the window.
Dumbledore smiled at his friend. "Had she been waiting long?"
The bird didn't answer, but then he never did.
The smile faded from his face as he read the note. Helena Malfoy had a way of putting a situation on paper succinctly.
The Malfoy matron assumed that Hermione would go into hiding, but Albus feared she was underestimating Hermione.
She had faced Gellert Grindlewald in his own stronghold after being kidnapped from a place that should have been safe. She'd want to go back to spy, thinking to offset the damage as best she could.
Albus started shaking.
She was a child! No child should ever be exposed to Gellert.
He made it to his toilet before he vomited, and counted it as a win.
Albus knew, better than most, the lengths Gellert would go to, and worse, his personal proclivities. There was only one thing that he respected, only one thing that he was attracted to. Power. Neither her age nor her sex would be any deterrent. It would only add spice. He would use taking her as a lover as a way to bind her to him. He might even be considering that it was time for an heir.
Albus stood under the hot spray of the shower and scrubbed his skin until it bled. Washing and rinsing, washing and rinsing. Knowing that he needed to stop and get out, but never feeling clean enough to do so.
The water was running pink when he finally talked himself out and every inch of his skin stung.
He healed it of course. It was baby pink, but he had crèmes to make that fade. This sort of thing…happened.
His hands shook as he dressed, and he summoned a blood replenisher. He didn't think he'd lost that much blood, but there was no harm in taking one. He scrubbed his mouth the same way he'd scrubbed his body…and healed it too.
Robed, he looked much like he always did.
Inside, he was much like he had been since Gellert had revealed what he truly was all those years before.
Gellert hadn't been his first lover, but he was his first love. Albus had never met anyone his own age who had the same thirst for knowledge, the same creative spark. In those dark days after his mother's funeral, lying in Gellert's arms had given him the strength (and the reason) to get out of bed each morning.
His mind shied away from remembering the good times. He couldn't.
Albus had known every inch of that golden tan skin once. Had seen it gloriously displayed in firelight, candlelight, and sunlight. He knew every single dip, and ridge, and plane. The precise texture of Geller's lips, and the way he hummed when chopping potions ingredients, and the tiny scar he had from trying to make potions when he was three and nearly sliced off a finger.
He knew so much about him. He had thought that he knew him.
Albus picked up the brush and started on his teeth again, but he winced and set the brush down. He didn't have time to indulge this, not now.
It wasn't just the torture and the murders that twisted Albus' stomach. It was Gellert's penchant for rape, and the fact that he tolerated it among his ranks…and never reigned them in when it came to the subject's age or sex. Sexual violence was common in war, but most generals punished their men when the atrocities reached a certain point.
Gellert had not.
Gellert had laughed and took the victims himself, encouraging it.
Albus shuddered. Because he'd seen the results in his spying missions, in the broken minds of those who were left alive because it was far crueler than killing them.
No one talked about what it did to a person when they learned that their lover…someone they loved was a monster. No one mentioned the soul sickness and self-hate that came not from your own actions, but from knowing a body that had touched you gently, had given you such pleasure had gone on to do such evil.
Gellert hurt people. And the closer you were to him, the more likely you were to get hurt.
He had intimate proof of this, and the emotional scars to prove it.
Albus finished dressing quickly. He had to speak with Hermione…make her see, warn her. Even if it meant revealing all the things he didn't wish to speak of.
ADADADAD
If one had asked Albus Dumbledore under truth serum, he might have admitted (if he couldn't find a way around it) that he expected to be the person making the most pivotal decisions when it came to defense against Gellert Grindlewald. He was, after all, the closest thing Gellert had ever had to an equal. They both knew this. Albus had known the man, feared him, and obsessively followed his movements for many years, hoping against hope for a change or for a slip-up. Anything. Because in his heart of hearts, he knew that he the one who was fated to duel him.
Somehow, in Albus' mind, these facts had made him the leader of any group that chose to stand against Grindlewald. The del-facto head, as it were.
His expectations were brutally (and unexpectedly) dashed against the reef that was the will of Hermione Granger.
He had carefully explained why she would not be spying. He had even shown her memories of Gellert's victims that made her go white around the lips. He'd begun to tell her how he would arrange for her (and Tom of course, they were nearly the same entity) to go into hiding with the Flamels when her voice cut across his.
"You know you can't actually stop me."
Albus raised a brow. "Can't I?"
She looked at him with eyes no child had ever had. "No. If you act against me, I can use it. It would end his hope of recruiting you, which would make me less valuable, and put you in a considerable amount of danger…not all of his lieutenants are dunderheads you know…"
"I will not allow a child…"
Her eyes flashed and there was something dangerous in there. "Haven't I just said? You don't get a choice. He has to be stopped and I'm the one who has to do this part. Don't worry…you will have your bit to do."
Dumbledore closed his eyes.
"May I speak with Hermione alone?"
The others left, reluctantly. Tom was last of all.
"No child, however mature can realize the depth of his…"
"Sexual depravity?" Her voice was hard. "I know what you are warning me about Albus. I know I look like prey. I'm not. I won't go in without anti-rape jinxes on myself and a port-key that I can operate with a blink, but this could end the war, and end it years before…"
In her passion she'd slipped a bit.
"Before you see it ending."
"Something like that. The last bit of wars is always the worst. Unless you have the element of surprise. We don't, and we won't unless someone can sneak in there."
"You'll be discovered."
"I don't think I will, but I will prepare for it. I've been tortured, I can take a great deal and still think around it. At least enough to get out." She seemed to consider for a moment. "Perhaps a two-way mirror in a compact? I may have to become a girly girl for this role so I can keep it with me."
Albus tried another argument. "You'll put Tom in danger."
"Tom's already in danger. Gellert wants him as much as he does me. He wants to mould Tom into a younger version of himself and wallow in the darkness with him. I know why he wants us. I know that bit better than you do."
"I doubt it. Don't forget, he was my lover."
He waited to see if that knowledge shocked her. Of course it didn't. The insufferable child was a seer…or something like one. "I know he was. Was he…? Did he hurt you when you were together?"
It wasn't a question he'd ever answered. "Yes. Not at first. At first he was a perfect lover, thoughtful, kind, funny. But his act only lasts a short while and soon enough the things he really wants have to be sated. And everything he truly wants in a lover involves pain, and not the kind that anyone sane enjoys."
He blushed as he admitted this to a child. But he felt her thin arms wrap around him and for some reason, it didn't remind him of a child. It reminded him of when his grandmother had hugged him before she died, when he was very young.
Hermione petted his hair. "I am sorry he hurt you, but you mustn't let that define you. Don't let him make you doubt your own power and skill, not as a wizard, and not as a man either. I know you've avoided other loves for most of your adult life because of this moment. It's time to put this pain away." He looked into her eyes and felt her mind reaching into his. She didn't erase anything, but some of the raw edges were buffed a little.
"Darkness has no power. It steals it from you and me when we let it control our actions." She kissed his forehead and he held her.
TRTRTR
If there was one thing Tom didn't doubt in the world it was that where Hermione went, he was going. It didn't matter to him if that was Hogwarts or hell.
So when she fought for her right to spy, he stood on the sidelines, mentally readying himself for this task. He'd need to work on his shields, add some really nasty hexes to his repertoire, and discuss Grindlewald's psychology with Hermione.
So when he held her that night, he asked, and she started talking about the man's personality…but not like he would ever meet him.
"But Tom, no, of course you aren't going! I only promised him that so I could come back. I can't have you there."
"I'm sorry. You seem to have mistaken yourself for the person who gets to tell me where to go and what to do Miss Granger." He kissed her, but there was steel in his tone. She was his. He let the genial smile fade from his face like it had never been there. "I'm better than you with a wand. You need me at your back."
"If I'm there alone all he can do is torture or kill me…if he has you, he can rip my soul to shreds."
He crushed her to him. "You'll have to make the choice. Either we both go or neither of us does. All of those unnamed lives you could save are worth the danger to you right? If it is, it's worth it for me as well."
She narrowed her eyes. "Tom, please don't do this. You know who I'll choose."
He didn't, not really, and it must have shown on his face. "If I had to choose, I would choose you against all those unnamed people. Give up my own life? I could do that. Give you your life?" She shuddered, obviously sick at even the thought. "Never."
He stopped talking and kissed her then, and for the first time the urge to take it further than she'd previously allowed was there and very real. His lips moved to her neck and he sucked the delicate skin until there was a lovely mark. His.
"That's how I feel about you Hermione. You are mine. I will not lose you to anyone." He kissed her deeply, letting the hunger he felt for her flow thorough his mouth so she could feel it. She trembled under him.
He cupped her face in both of his hands. "We know who he is. Grindlewald. But don't forget who we are Hermione. If you want to drag him to the gate of hell with your own two delicate hands I will help you, but I won't let you leave me behind. You don't want to fight a war on two fronts. You can't afford to fight me and Gellert Grindlewald at the same time."
"I shouldn't have to! I am trying to keep you alive."
"Living without you would be a kind of death."
She sighed. "You aren't good enough at occlumency yet."
He smiled, knowing that victory was only a matter of time. "Then teach me…later." And with that, he let the discussion drop and turned his attention to kissing her in as many places as she would let him get away with.