Prompt: Adam and Lilith - Dark

Festival: TheMourningMadam's Where Gods Dwell

Summary: Hermione had a life plan, and it was going exactly according to schedule, thank you very much. If only her husband hadn't decided he did not like her plan. . . Which led to her finding out exactly what he had done... Maybe she would never have known his secret then, living in blissful ignorance. But he did have an issue and therefore she did find out. And now? Well, Hermione never did want to be the supporting character, did she? And if they did not want to change, then she would fix the problem. So she had to do what she had to do. Besides, the devil is not always wrong you know.

Warnings: This will be rather dark - with a dark Hermione and Draco, because - well, I like them darkish. Also, some Weasley bashing, not a Weasley fan but also not a hater and I usually do not do Weasley bashing explicitly, but for this story, it fits the bill - so if it is not your cup of tea this might not be for you

First Chapter had been Beta'd by PotionChemist - What an awesome experience it was, she is wonderful!

Part 1

It was raining where she stood on the balcony overlooking the black clouds as it poured to the already soaking wet earth. The rain reminded her of that day years back.

She probably should have known who she likened to be on the day she married Ronald Weasley. But like everything in life, hindsight is the best reveal to the oblivious. It had been raining that day, unexpectedly as it had been forecast to be a hot and dry summer week. And yet, an hour before the outside ceremony was set to start, clouds had appeared and darkened, the heavens opening up to drench the entire ceremony in curtains of heavy rain. Magic managed to protect the guest and ceremony area, of course.

But Hermione remembered feeling heavy that day, like she was going to a funeral instead of her wedding. Jitters, everyone called it, so she stood and let the Minister bond them in the magical handfasting ceremony.

Looking back, she knew that was the day her soul had tried to warn her — warn her that she was not who she was supposed to be. Hermione Granger was supposed to be the sidekick, the supporting character. Years later, she realised she had been moulded for that role by Dumbledore himself. First for Harry in his quest to vanquish Voldemort and then as wife to Ron.

Yet she wanted to be the lead, the main character in her own story.

The torrential rain stopped as instantly as it had begun when the bonding ceremony was completed; the deed was done, and she was bound legally and magically to her expected husband. Fleetingly, she thought of the old tale where the skies had mourned the wedding of the Jackal to the wolf's bride due to a trick.

Yes, she had been Ronald's first wife, and today she knew she was likened to Lillith of the old Hebrew story, of Adam's first wife. And she didn't mind that at all… Lilith was the mother of the feminist, of women who could be equal to men, powerful and the lead of their own story.

But, as with all things, she also learned that power corrupted. And she had been the perfect victim — no, the perfect candidate. She hated the word victim, it made her feel like she was weak with no choice. Gullible. She had the choice and she chose power, and that made her strong. She made the rules.

The rain didn't let up as her thoughts journeyed to the past. Strong arms circled her waist from behind and she rested her head back against the chest that was warming her. His whisper tickled her earlobe. "Where is your mind, love?"

Hermione smiled content as she answered him, never taking her eyes from the rain. "On that day… it rained like this. I know now it was the skies mourning my marriage to my husband…"

She felt rather than heard the soft chuckle her words brought. "The gods themselves mourned that marriage. Soon, soon you'll be free from the shackles of that bond. And then no one will stand in our way anymore."

His deadly spoken words took her back to when she realised her life was truly not what it was supposed to be.

XXX

Ron wanted her to be a better wife, one who didn't work, or at least worked less. It was their most recurring fight. Hermione had realised that her marriage was teetering on an edge and it would tip one way or the other at this point. They had been married for five years… And she was thirty. No children, but her plan had children appearing at thirty-five. She was Head of Department for Magical Creatures and in the process of transferring to the Department of Magical Law to be Deputy's Head, well on her way to becoming the youngest Minister for Magic, exactly on time with her plan. But Ronald didn't want to wait anymore and he didn't want her to be Minister, even though he had known and agreed to the plan before their marriage. He later confessed that he had only agreed because he thought he would be able to change her mind once married…

But still, she was holding out, hoping that they could reach a compromise.

But the day their best friend, Harry Potter, came to her and made her feel like a failure for not wanting children and for putting her career before her marriage, everything went tits up. She realised that Ron went to Harry to recruit him to his side. And Harry had done exactly what he had promised to never do again years prior — he had taken a side instead of staying neutral. She guessed he didn't see it that way; all Harry had ever wanted was a family of his own, and he probably thought that was what everyone wanted. But Hermione wanted power to affect change, and a family was going to be a distraction from that at this point in time.

Right after Harry's visit, Hermione and Ron had their worst row ever. That same day, Hermione went to the Magical Liaisons and Contracts Department to start the process of dissolving her marriage. He had done the unforgivable by going to Harry and causing what she already knew would be an irreparable rift between them. Not to mention the chasm that was officially now between her and Ron. She knew she could not stay with Ron anymore — all their trust was completely broken down, and she suspected that the deep friendship between herself and Harry had also been damaged permanently.

However, that day dealt her another blow — apparently her marriage to Ron was irreversible.

The entire Weasley clan had permanently bound her to their youngest son. Knowingly. Hermione had trusted Molly when she had assured her that there was nothing untoward with their chosen magical bonding, and she had trusted her, so she didn't do her usual diligent research prior.

After all, why would Molly lie or mislead her?

The official had shaken his head sadly upon delivering the news, regretfully informing her that those specific types of bondings were rarely used these days, usually only in arranged marriages between old pureblood families. That was when she knew she had been misled on purpose.

A deep anger had burned inside of her that day. A rage she had never felt before. A rage directed at Ron and his mother. She knew that something dormant inside of her had awakened then, and it made her recall the time in fourth year when Molly Weasley had snubbed her because she had believed Rita Skeeter's lies… Maybe Molly had always been a threat and would stoop to the lowest of low for her precious little babies… regardless of whether they were in the wrong or not.

The only way to dissolve their bond was through death.

Hermione had taken the rest of her day off and then proceeded to Azkaban to pay him a visit.

XXX

The dark and dank hallways of the island prison never prepared her for the sight of the prisoners, and she always shivered as she walked to his cell. The Dementors were kept at bay during visiting hours, but she swore the misery they brought seeped into the stone itself, for it was present even when they weren't. Finally, she got to his cell and waited quietly as the guard unlocked it and stood to the side so she could enter. Ignoring protocol, he didn't try to enter with her to stand watch; he'd lost that battle with her long ago. Instead, he closed the heavy wooden door behind her and waited outside for her knock.

Hermione frowned at the emaciated figure crouching on his bunk, pressed into the corner against the cold stone.

"Malfoy… It's just me."

Her voice rang out softly through the cell. The striped rags that served as prison garb moved as the dirty and broken wizard shifted in order to glare at her, the steel grey eyes shining brightly from the dirty pallid skin of his face. His chin was more pointed than ever and his cheekbones were sharper than she'd previously thought. Permanent hunger had a way of showing the ugly side of a person's bone structure. They were fed only enough to sustain life. It had been one of the changes she had hoped to effect once she was Minister — the conditions in Azkaban. Now, with the burning anger of extreme betrayal inside of her, she just wanted revenge and to be severed from the Weasleys.

"Why do you still come, Granger…" his voice rasped due to malnutrition and disuse, but there was still life left in him.

Hermione shrugged and walked forward to sit next to him on the thin, hard bunk that served as his bed. "You know why. But I confess, today I am here for selfish reasons."

Draco Malfoy was but a shadow of what he used to be. Imprisoned for his war crimes - unfairly, according to her. He had been but a child in impossible circumstances on the other side of the war. But her words had meant nothing to the Wizengamot. They just chucked him in there and all but threw away the keys. It was something else she had wanted to change. Retrials for all the, then underage prisoners, at the very least. But she had long since started to realise it might be a losing battle. Kingsley had been fighting for the same thing for years without success. Did she really believe she could make the changes that Kingsley had fought for and failed?

Maybe the wizarding world didn't need a new Minister, but rather a whole new hierarchy. It wasn't the first time her thoughts went down this dark route; in fact, it had been on this route more often in the last few years with every failure that Kingsley had faced.

Maybe it was time to actually start acting on the thoughts.

"Do you personally think I can change everything when I am Minister?" her voice was almost dead in tone. But she had to ask — everyone had been telling her for years that her dreams of change would never come to be. But she had optimistically, innocently, believed that as Minister, she could change everything. She'd clung to those thoughts when she started to have a darker mind in recent years. But the developments with her husband and his mother, along with Harry, made her realise how set in their ways the wizarding folk were.

"No. They want people to blame for their own mistakes and sweep them under the rug. You will just be a figurehead, like all Ministers before you." Hermione turned her head sideways to look at him, it was the longest sentence he had spoken to her in the almost ten years since his permanent incarceration in Azkaban and her twice-yearly visits to him.

"Do you want to know a secret, Malfoy?"

His silence was all answer she got. "Ron and his mother had me marry him in an irreversible bonding ceremony. And I only found out today."

He gave a quiet bark of laughter, dry and without humour. "And you didn't research the ceremony beforehand? That's on you, Granger."

"I know it is on me, I was stupid… but I trusted the Weasleys. Molly assured me it was nothing uncommon or untoward, and I trusted in the Weasley reputation of love and choice."

"Never trust anyone, Granger. Especially not a Weasley — or a Prewett in this regard. Lots of history between our families. Nothing is ever as black and white as they make it seem."

Hermione felt the vibrations beneath her as Malfoy shifted to uncurl from where he had sat drawn up in the corner. His movements were slow and sluggish, his breathing short and gasping. He really is very frail, she thought. Finally, he was next to her on the edge, his feet now resting on the floor with her own.

"What history? Seemed pretty cut and dry… the Malfoys and ilk considered them blood traitors, Prewetts as well to a certain extent," Hermione asked.

Her eyes met his and she noticed his mouth pulling up in the slightest of a grim smile. "Blood Traitor is merely a glossed over term for something a lot deeper than mere tolerance for Muggles and Muggle-borns. And not a story for today."

Hermione searched his eyes in silence and shadows for a minute before sighing and turning her head to face back forward,looking at the dirty stone wall. Foraging in her pocket, she removed the chocolate frogs she'd brought for him and handed them over. The quiet was only broken by the wrapping as he tore one open to indulge. She always brought him something sweet and they never discussed it.

"I don't feel quite right, Malfoy. I want to hurt him. I want to hurt them. It feels dark and suffocating." Her voice was a mere whisper.

"So he fucked up enough finally to warrant you wanting to divorce… Wondered when that would happen." His voice had traces of his old sneer in it but it didn't bother her.

Malfoy was who he was.

"He must die for me to be free."

Silence met her ears as Malfoy stared forward as well. It was a long time before he spoke. "Obviously. It's what an unbreakable bond means. My parents were married the same way, by mutual choice. And it wouldn't be the first time a Weasley used that bond to tie a witch to them under misleading pretenses."

"What can I do?"

"You ask me? Why? You only come here because I'm the 'one that you couldn't save'... Not for advice. Never for advice."

"Because, like I said, I don't feel as I should. And you are the only person I know that feels the same dark thoughts." Her hands gripped the edge of the bunk as she clenched her jaw.

"You have always felt it, Granger. You just never acknowledged it. Remember what you did with Umbridge? Edgecombe? And I am sure there are other such events as well."

Hermione realised the truth of his words. And he was right, there were various instances throughout her life. Maybe she had never been the pure and righteous person she thought she had been. Maybe she had always justified her dark actions as for the greater good when it was actually simply for her own twisted pleasure and revenge. Maybe that was the real reason she always came to Malfoy… Someone like her. Someone selfish. Someone who wanted things their own way. She never compromised with Ron, it was her plan alone and he had to fall in line with it. She never had any intention of compromising. Not really.

Malfoy was the same… Maybe it had something to do with being only children. Who knew?

All she knew was that she was bound to someone she couldn't live with, let alone even look at anymore.

Death.

That was the only answer. But it seemed unobtainable… She would be the first suspect due to the type of marriage bond they had and an official now knew she wanted a divorce. But then again, it went deeper than that, as well. No one cared that she was hoodwinked into an unbreakable marriage to a misogynist, so she knew no-one would care and assist when she was Minister. They didn't really want change, not even for the better.

Maybe Voldemort had been onto something.

His reasoning was skewed but his ultimate goal was on point. The entire Ministry and its hierarchy needed to be replaced. And since the wizarding world didn't want to embrace change, it had to be forced.

"Malfoy...do you still hold to your wishes of redemption and peace?"

Her question didn't seem to surprise him; he didn't move at all. Turning her head to look at him again, she saw he did the same. His eyes seemed empty then, almost soulless.

His voice was raspy and barely above a whisper when he finally responded. "Granger… Would you be all love and light after ten years in this place? Not even counting the two years prior while awaiting my trial."

Hermione didn't have a response. Instead she let his words wash over her, let it settle deep into her soul as she also dropped her walls to let the desolation of Azkaban seep into her completely.

She let the cold and damp absorb into her bones and the shadowy darkness elongate to hide away every corner of the cell. She opened her mind to let the sadness and misery hook into her as if the Dementors were right there in the cell with her. Sucking out every happy thought, every content memory… The total overwhelming darkness of her feelings crashed over her like a tsunami and stroked the slumbering blackness in her soul enticingly. She now knew that Malfoy was right; the darkness has always been there. Waiting.

Maybe it was time to embrace herself completely.

She would never be free in this world. She knew that. So it was time to make a new world — by any means possible.

"No. I don't believe you can. And apparently, neither am I… And I don't even have twelve years in Azkaban as an excuse."

His eyes stared hard into her own as he responded in his raspy voice. "I do know that you can be more, Granger… So much more."

XXX

Hermione sat in their living room that night, waiting for her husband to come home. She might not be able to divorce him… But nothing in the bond specified they had to live together or even be together physically. It didn't even force fidelity. It merely stopped impregnation of non-spousal partners and legal divorce. She had spent the rest of her day researching their specific bond.

When he finally came through the floo and saw her surrounded by boxes and suitcases, he halted in surprise and she merely raised an eyebrow.

"What's this, Mione?" His voice was inquisitive but not alarmed. She knew it was because he was under the belief that she couldn't go anywhere… Ever.

Hermione crossed her legs where she sat and spoke mockingly in her response. Since that afternoon, it felt like an invisible elastic band that had always kept her tightly contained had snapped. She found herself not caring about his feelings anymore. She found herself not caring for anyone's feelings, truth to be told. Her family was dead. And the Weasleys had all known exactly the type of bond Ron had chosen and her ignorance of its implications. No one had even bothered to inform her. In fact, the ones she did deign to ask had actively misled her to its nature, so all the Weasley's were equally guilty in her eyes. Just as guilty as she was in trusting them. No more.

That left Harry in her life.

Harry who had once again chosen Ron. No. She was alone. She and herself. That was all that she had.

"Well, Ronald, I am moving out. I would think that is obvious."

Ron shrugged out of his robes, still seemingly without care. "But you can't Mione, we're married. Bonded."

Hermione threw her head back and laughed.

"Oh, I know. So tell me, Ron, did you and your mother willfully plot on the exact type of bond ceremony we got? Or was it more of an unspoken agreement on how to keep me in the dark? You know, abuse my ignorance on ancient and obscure magical rituals?"

Her words had the desired effect as she saw the man pale, his freckles had stood out in stark contrast.

"Mione… it was for us- "

"Don't. Don't insult my intelligence with some forever love and us bullshit. Was it on purpose? Yes or no."

"Yes. But only because I never wanted to lose you… We were expected to be married forever, part of the Golden Trio…"

His words rang out in their flat, leaving her blinking with incomprehension at his reasoning. It was ridiculous. She was at a loss for words at the sheer childishness of his thinking. So she really was the trophy wife — the Weasleys' claim to fame along with trophy husband Harry Potter. Oh, she knew Harry and Ginny truly adored each other… But at this point in time, she felt that it was sheer dumb luck that they did.

"You are a liar and deceiver Ronald Billius Weasley. And your bonding doesn't specify we need to live together, so I am moving out. And mark my words, I will be free of this curse. And you and everyone involved will be held accountable."

With that, she stood up and with a few quick waves of her wand, she had all her boxes and suitcases shrunk and in her handbag before Apparating away with a loud and angry crack. The last thing she saw was the dumbfounded expression on her husband's face as she disappeared from their home.

Hermione resigned from the Ministry the next day and then seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving only whispers and mysteries behind.

XXX

Two years after Hermione's mysterious departure from wizarding Britain, the first Azkaban breakout in over a decade happened. Only one prisoner was marked as gone.

Draco Malfoy.

The guards insisted that it was impossible, that after the breakouts from the war years all possible weaknesses had been addressed and improved. Yet everyone was left scratching their heads as to how he got out. And even more importantly, how he disappeared without a trace from there. Not a sighting or tipoff had been reported. It was as if he had just gone or simply never existed.

The Weasleys and Harry Potter were still searching for Hermione, to bring her back to where they thought she belonged — at the side of her husband, playing the role of the perfect wife. In their haste to deceive her, they never realised that their bond could adversely affect Ron as well… For he couldn't remarry and sire children without her.

Harry didn't know the exact truth of Ron and Hermione's marriage bond since everyone shrugged it off. Therefore, he believed that Ron's ongoing 'single' status was because of his love for Hermione. It was what drove him to use his status and position to find his lost friend more than anyone else. He truly believed in their love, and his loyalty to Ron was irreplaceable.

It wasn't long after the Azkaban break out, maybe two or three years, before whispers started reaching England of a new Dark witch and wizard that had surfaced in the rest of Europe. A couple that would come at night and steal babies only to return them without a scratch three days later.

Harry didn't think much of it as nothing conclusive could be confirmed by other Ministries and therefore shrugged it off. Besides, no dark wizards would dare infiltrate England — they all knew who Harry Potter was and stayed away out of deference, so he spent his time searching for Hermione and dismissed the pesky rumours as scary stories told to misbehaving children.