Soundtrack- "Ashes" by Radical Face
Ashes
The rain had stopped about an hour ago, but humidity still hung in the air, dripping from dying blades of grass and sticking to the messy strands of hair twisting down over his forehead. Theo took heavy, purposeful steps. He knew where he was going. He knew he wasn't supposed to, but that had never stopped him before and like hell he would let it stop him now.
He hoped everyone had already left. Theo didn't fancy running into her friends, arms around each other and always talking about the good old days as if they were still gathered around a fire in the Gryffindor common room when this place was the furthest thing from it. The tree that served as his landmark was burning with fall colors. Leaves of every shade of yellow, orange, brown, and green filled the thick branches, lit up like a candle in the dark.
He sent up a silent thank you that no one else was here. He wanted to spend some time alone with her, wanted to sit under the tree with her and just talk to her. Talk, like they used to.
They had spent so much time talking. Just talking. About anything, anything she wanted. Theo sat there, listening to the thoughts her clever mind came out with slip out of her lips. He let her go on for hours, just to keep her with him a little longer.
Theo felt his spine stiffen a little as neared the tree and steadied himself before walking up to her. His feet slowed to a stop, knowing exactly where to stand.
"Hey Hermione."
The white marble headstone rose from the damp earth on a large pedestal. A massive open book sat on top made of pristine white marble with deep grey swirls snaking over the pages carved from rock. Theo took a breath and pulled his hand from the pocket of his coat and placed it on the cold stone.
He traced his fingers over her name- HERMIONE. He always thought it was a beautiful name. He loved calling her it, loved saying it. It started in the back of his throat, warm and soft before sliding over his tongue and his lips would touch briefly, gently, before opening in a smile as the last syllable slipped from him.
"Figured you'd be busy earlier so I waited to come see you. I hope you don't think I forgot about you." Theo's fingers slipped down to the dates under her name- 19 September 1979 – 12 October 2002. He dreaded this day and every year it came without remorse and every year he came here to see her. "It'll take a lot longer than five years to make me forget you."
The leaves from the overhanging branches rustled in the wind and a few drops of cold rainwater trickled down from them, landing in Theo's dark hair, soaking into his scalp and sending a deep shiver down his neck.
"This is wrong," he murmured. "You should have… you shouldn't have died."
He looked at her name in scrolled print as if the letters were going to jump to life and spell out a message for him. They stayed as silent as the stone they were etched in.
"I would have saved you, Hermione. I would have-"
"Yes we all know what you would have done," the drawling voice was as cold and hard as the marble beneath his fingers. "If given the chance."
Draco stepped out from behind the tree, moss standing out against the wet trunk that had hidden him from Theo's view. He blended in so well with the dark, wet landscape; only his white blond hair standing out against the grey sky behind him.
Theo's fingers dug into the H of her name.
"Draco," he snarled and the prick flashed him a mirthless smirk.
"Told you not to come here anymore, Theo." He picked his steps carefully through the roots of the tree.
"Fuck you."
Draco raised a brow and half-heartedly rolled his eyes. "I should have known you wouldn't listen."
"Oh I listened plenty," Theo's lip shook in its snarl. "Listened to her tell me how you manipulated and ignored her, how you never supported her work, how you made her stop seeing her friends because you didn't like them."
"She still saw you though." For the first time there was a flicker of dark anger in Draco's eyes. Theo relished the sight of it, he knew it well- jealousy.
"Yeah, she still saw me." He let the words hang in the humid air between them.
Draco leaned against the tree. "Saw you for the pathetic piece of shit you really are. And saw you as nothing more than a… friend."
Theo burned with anger. It was molten inside him, churning and bubbling. His fingers dug into the stone until they went numb and all he could feel was the dangerous heat rising up his spine.
He had to look away. He was shaking with rage, with pain. He looked back down at her name. Hermione. A thick vein of grey, the same shade as Draco's cold eyes, shadowed her name. He had traced her name countless times, but never touched the second part of it, but now he couldn't stop his eyes from following the vein in the marble along the length of it. Hermione Malfoy.
"Time to go, Theo."
"No," he growled, glaring back up at the man he hated more than anyone or anything else on the face of the earth. "You couldn't keep me from her back then and you're not keeping me from her now."
Draco pushed himself up and marched towards him.
"She's my fucking wife."
"And you let her die."
Draco's eyes flashed dangerously and Theo felt a little of the steam in him release knowing he finally got to him.
"I didn't have a choice," Draco spat.
"You could have let her go. You could have let her be happy, with me!"
Draco whipped his wand out. "She didn't want you, Theo! When will you get that through your thick head, huh? She loved me. She married me. She never even gave you a second glance until you started sobbing all over her shoulder-"
"Shut up!" The anger in Theo boiled, rising higher.
"And even that didn't make her want to leave me. Nothing would have made her leave me. You least of all." Draco stood in front of him, chest heaving heavily and face pale and lips pursed white with rage.
Theo was shaking, barely able to keep his anger in check. His dark hair fell in front of his eyes, trembling as he twitched. His palm was sweating in his pocket around the handle of his wand. He wanted to curse him. Wanted to hear the fucker cry out in agony, writhing around on the ground. He wanted Draco to hurt just as much as he was.
"At least I never made her cry."
"You don't know fucking ANYTHING about us!" Draco shouted, finally stepping down to Theo's level. "You think I was bad to her? Cruel to her? If you think Hermione would have stayed with someone who treated her like that, then you didn't know her at all. You only hate me because she loved me."
Theo ground his teeth together. He did hate Draco. He hated him more than he thought was possible. This was the man who had everything Theo had wanted, and he had let it die. He had let her die.
"You can blame me for her death all you want, Theo. You think I don't? Your worst thought would pale in comparison to the ones I have."
Good. He would blame him. He would blame Draco for killing Hermione until the day he died.
Draco glanced at the marble book next to them. "I wish it was me. If I could have…" Theo watched as Draco exhaled sharply and barely shook his head, the fire dying into cold ash in his eyes. "Don't come here and pretend you loved her more than me. You have no idea what it was like to have to make that choice."
In five years, it was the first time Theo had seen any sort of regret from Draco about the decision he had made. Normally Draco seemed indifferent. Impassive. Theo did his best to avoid Draco and anywhere he might be which was surprisingly easy. Draco barely left his Manor these days.
Theo glared hard at him, savoring this sight. He wanted to watch that pain and sorrow on the bastard's pale face for the rest of his life. He deserved it. He deserved to live without her, like he had forced Theo to.
"You made the wrong one."
Then the last ember flickered in Draco's eyes and his wand was up, pointing at Theo. Theo was ready and pulled out his own. He'd do it. He'd fucking kill Draco, right here, right over her grave, and give Hermione the justice she deserved. The man she deserved.
Draco's face twisted in deadly loathing and Theo focused his mind on his magic, half a second away from sending the crackling green light flying from the tip of his wand when something moved in the corner of his eye.
"Daddy!"
The spark at the end of Draco's wand died as his head quickly turned, expression falling into fearful shock.
Curly blonde hair bounced on top of a small girl, running directly towards Draco. Theo barely had time to register what was happening before Draco was on his knees, collecting the laughing child in his arms, pulling her into his chest, cradling her away from Theo.
The girl's pale face poked over Draco's dark shoulder and warm brown eyes landed on Theo's. His wand fell uselessly by his side. They were hers. Almost. They were her same shade of brown, but they were streaked with the deep grey of her Father. A blonde curl fell, twisting slightly like a white flame as her eyes sparked curiously at him.
"Harmonia, what are you doing here?"
"Tullie is sorry, sir!" A large, winded house elf came waddling after the little girl. "Miss Monia is running away from poor Tullie." The elf grabbed her side, holding it as she wheezed.
Draco hands held onto the girl's shoulders, planting her in place in front of him.
"You ran away?"
The little girl giggled happily. All the air left Theo's chest. It was her laugh. It was Hermione's laugh.
"I missed you, Daddy," she said sweetly. "I finished my book and-"
"That was your birthday present, darling, and you finished it already?"
"Too smart of her own good," Tullie muttered under her breath. "Too fast too."
Draco brushed his hand over her head, pushing back unruly curls. "Good thing there's another one waiting at home for you. Cake too, if you behave." Her brown eyes lit up, igniting the grey streaks in them like lightning. "Go with Tullie now and say you're sorry for running away."
"Dad-dy!" she whined, "It's my birthday!"
"I know, I've just got to finish saying goodbye and then we'll go."
She seemed to be considering this carefully and looked back at Theo as if she could see right through him, then Hermione's daughter threw her arms around Draco's neck and hugged him before taking the elf's outstretched hand and mumbled a quick, "Sorry Miss Tullie," with a small pout as they walked away.
Draco stood back up and turned towards Theo again. Theo hadn't seen Draco show that much emotion since... she she died. He had been stoic for years, uncaring about his wife, cold in the ground. How dare he give that kind of love to her daughter when she didn't give a shit about her?!
"If you're going to curse me, do it quickly. She'll be bored again in five minutes."
Theo's heart was on fire, arteries cauterized so his blood had nothing to do but sizzle and pop in the ruined mess of his chest. Draco had dropped back into the dead expression he normally wore.
"I was going to kill you," Theo spat. The bastard didn't deserve to live. Not when he let her die, screaming in pain as he held the child and left her to bleed out on their bed. That's how he always imagined it. He could see it so clearly in his mind's eye- Draco covetously cradling the small bundle while Hermione's eyes closed, color draining from her cheeks.
He remembered Hermione's face, smiling and so full of life when she told him she was pregnant. Theo had barely heard her as she rambled on and on and on, running her hand over her stomach and chatting away about how Draco has been renovating a whole wing of the Manor ever since they found out. She said it was a miracle; that they hadn't even been trying and kept calling it a 'blessing'. Theo thought it was a curse.
The next time she had rolled her eyes as she told him that Draco wanted her to leave her position at the Ministry while pregnant. She had looked tired and there were dark circles under her eyes, but she went on, telling him about a new piece of Merperson legislation she was working on. She leaned back, trying to get some relief from her swollen belly. Theo knew how much she loved her job and asked her everything about the current laws for Merpeople and what challenges they were facing before taking it to the Wizengamot to try and distract her while he tried to ignore the growing bump.
When she finally did go on bed rest, Draco had tried to keep him out of the Manor just like he did with all of her friends, claiming she needed rest and relaxation. Theo had shouted at the top of his lungs until she came downstairs, curls messy from laying in bed and sighed as she told Draco to let him in, just for a little while. Theo sneered as he brushed past him, Draco glared back at him and snarled that she only had ten minutes. Draco had shouted and thrown Theo out when he found them still together over an hour later.
But now Draco's face was emotionless, his eyes a dead ash grey. Then, the smallest of embers flickered to life.
"You'd be putting me in the ground right next to her."
Theo nearly did it right then. He raised his wand, hand shaking with fury, but at the last second stopped. He had imagined Draco's death more times than he could count, but had never thought about the fact the grave he visited every anniversary of her death would one day be Draco's too.
"Did you think the other page was left blank intentionally?" Draco scoffed nastily. He nodded towards the marble book on the pedestal next to Theo. "That's my grave and I'll gladly go to it. But not yet."
Theo was breathing heavily and looked back at Draco who was glowering darkly in his direction. "Say goodbye, Theo. And don't come back."
He turned and stalked off in the direction the little girl and the elf had gone in. Theo kept his wand pointed at Draco's back until he was out of range. He sucked in a heavy breath, filling his chest with the damp air. The fire in his chest was doused with it, hissing as the fizzled out into steam that rose and pressed hotly behind his eyes.
Dark hair fell in front of his eyes, burning with tears and Theo turned back to her beautiful name carved into the white marble. They trembled on the edge of his bottom lids, his vision blurring a faded into nothing and he could see was MALFOY.
He placed his hand over the letters he could no longer read, feeling the hollow places in the stone as her name echoed inside his head. He didn't want to go, he didn't want to say goodbye. He didn't have anything to go home to. Nothing but an empty house and an emptier heart, ashes flaking off of it to fall like leaves inside him.
Theo roared, ripping his throat with the desperate sound. His fury became fire as he pointed his wand at the tree and it erupted into flames. They licked up the dark bark, hungrily eating away at the leaves of bright gold, rich vivid orange, and deep, warm brown. He watched as it burned in front of him, the magical fire consuming it at an alarming rate. The heat was almost unbearable. He could feel it searing his skin even at a distance.
The trunk cracked and spat as it turned to charcoal. The vibrant leaves gone, branches broken and burned and grey ash fell around him, hanging heavily in the steaming air. White smoke billowed high into the sky, joining the overcast sky seamlessly.
Theo brushed off a few pieces of ash that landed on her page of the book and then stopped. He had only succeeded in smearing the flakes deep into the grooves of her name, filling up with white stone with a burnt shade of grey.
"You shouldn't be dead. If you would have been with me, if you would have just loved me-" he ground his teeth together. "Why Hermione? I would have saved you. Why wouldn't you…"
He placed her hand over her name one last time and closed his eyes tightly before letting it slide off the smooth stone and back to his side.
"I don't want to say goodbye." It wasn't fair. Draco had her in life, he shouldn't get her in death too. As soon as the sun set, Draco's enchantment would fall again and her grave would be hidden for another year. The selfish bastard only opened it one day a year for her friends and family. Other than that he kept her to himself.
Theo took a step back, ash sticking to his wet face and felt the familiar heat of anger deep inside him.
"I would have saved you, Hermione. You might have hated me for it, but at least you'd be here to do it."
The warmth from the burned tree faded away. Ash sprinkled the air around him, swirling and twirling before coating the ground in a bland, blank grey.
Theo turned away. His steps were stiff as he walked back across the empty ground. Darkness fell quickly and when he reached the lane and turned back, there was nothing behind him. No smoking tree, no marble pedestal and book, no Hermione.
All that was left was the blistering rage under his skin, flickering and flaring into flames that he would feed and tend, that he would protect and take care of because it was the only thing he had left. Theo turned back on the shadowed lane, disappearing into the dark night for another year.