Jukebox Plays- 'Forgiven' and 'Our Farewell' by Within Temptation. I strong suggest listening to them while reading this chapter. There is also a tissue warning in effect.

Chapter 15

If the Fates were even the smallest fragment of empathy for the human race, they would have let Tom Riddle turn around and leave the room. Those hateful words lancing across his freshly exposed heart, a red hot knife through fresh butter. The wound left in their wake, deep and already beginning to fester with bitterness. He stumbled backwards a step, as though she had struck him a physical blow. Though he could not for the life of him remember a single hurt that he had taken that pieced like this.

Hermione watched at her wrist fell from his nerveless fingers, ribboned with red marks that she knew would soon darken to the purple and green tones of a livid bruise. He stared at her, his grey eyes the color of the sky before a storm and a hundred times more chaotic. How long they stood there in the fading light, she did not know. Captured by his gaze, and knowing somewhere within her soul, beyond her own knowledge- that if she did not remedy this, then it would be too late.

But she did not know how. Her scarred and weary mind had locked away those pieces of her that could remember how to heal. How to draw him back from the edge of this cliffs edge that threatened to pull them both down. Down to something within themselves that they could not face, a place worse then Hell. Worse then the torments of the demons they knew, to the land of the pit fiends that haunted the deepest recesses of their nightmares.

Hermione stared into his eyes, like the centre of a hurricane they were. Chaotic with emotions that he had so long resisted- so long that he had forgotten how to feel them. And now they pounded against the wall of his conscious mind, a desperate bid for freedom from the prison that had held them so long.

In that moment, Hermione looked passed what she had known of him. Of the man that he had become, the killer of thousands. Of the not-human, barely living creature that had been the waking nightmare of the Wizarding world through not one, but two wars. And she realized something vital, something so shattering that it turned her stomach with guilt.

He was not that man yet.

That buried deep within the layers of repression and hatred, there was still a part of him that was fighting it. The part that had sat with her during the long, quiet evenings, and taken her out into the sunshine when she had despaired of ever seeing it again. That he had been beautiful to her in her hours of despair, and she had cast him off cruelly in return.

A rose by any other name, and he was Tom to her once. The young man that talked to her in those soft, even tones; academia, though she could not now remember what subject. Because it hadn't mattered to her then, before she let her hatred of his very name destroy all that they had begun to carefully construct. And now there was a void between them, carved and fashioned of her very words against her.

Murderer.

She had labeled him, and hated him in the moment she did. Now, she despised herself all the more having said it. If he had been the man she had accused him of being, then would she still be standing here? No, of course not.

Hermione watched as he pulled further away from her, his face once more closing off behind the mask that he had constructed so carefully. Tempered and forged in the fires of his own loneliness, his isolation smoothing the corners until the mask fit him nearly as well as his own skin.

"Tom, I… I'm sorry."

She said, reaching out for him instinctively. He looked down at her outstretched hands, palms facing the ceiling in a gesture of almost supplication. As though she was asking his forgiveness for tearing his sweet delusions from him. Leaving him bare to the elements of the world, which would soon enough strip the very flesh from his bones. So close he had come to hope she would be different.

That if he hid what he was, this foul creature that moved his arms and legs and dwelled within his spirit- that she would stay with him. And even if she had said nothing at all, he would have been happier for her very presence. But somehow she knew, she had discovered the secret that he had held at such a cost. That he was barely human, wretched and cursed for taking the life of another. For the very blood in his veins that tainted him against his humanity.

And whatever sweetness was left in his soul died a little more, as he turned away from her pleading eyes with one smooth turn of his heel. Closing her off from his frozen countenance, casting her off with the same disregard for her that she had held for him. Protectively, desperately rebuilding the walls and bars that had built his armored prison. But for all that, he could not bring himself to walk away.

Hermione pressed a hand to her chest, as though trying to still her heart that seemed so very determined to leap out of the confines of her breast. It hurt to breath, her chest punctured with the tears she refused to allow herself to cry. It was like this one thing had stirred to life everything that she had been so tenuously, so carefully, boxing away in the back of her mind.

She could almost feel the sticky, dried blood on her hands. Of the men and women she had killed without a second thought. Without knowing their names, or their origins, only that they were the enemy and needed to be stopped. Of the countless times her wand had flashed with the green of the Killing Curse, the terrible syllables spilling over her lips.

Avada Kedavra.

And what made her so gifted? So special that some twist in Fate or time had decreed that she should survive where everyone else had fallen? She had no reason to be here, no secret reserve of strength that could carry her through this life and through all the rest of the years that might follow here. And she remembered the faces of the fallen, lying piled on top of each other like children's macabre building blocks, and the black curse scars that laced over her stomach- and why hadn't it killed her?

A low, keening sob caught her attention. It was a sound she had heard only a handful of times, and had hoped desperately would never cross her ears again in this lifetime. It had been the sound Molly Weasley had made as she tried to wake up her sweet husband, knowing that there was no magic the world that would bring him back.

It was the sound that George had made as his brother suffocated to death in his arms, gasping apologies for everything he had ever done to hurt him. Making him promise to carry on without him, between blood soaked breaths that brought him no air.

It was on Neville's lips as Luna was lit with a flash of green, and dropped to the soaked earth in front of his feet. And Narcissa Malfoy as her only son was torn from her arms for 'questioning.'

Harry had made that sound with the realization that it had gone too far. That killing Voldemort was no enough to cease the madness that had taken over everything they had fought, and killed, and sold their souls for.

And she realized dimly through all that, that this time she was the one making the noise. She lifted a delicate hand to the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks, a slow movement in contrast to the lurching sobs that could no longer be held back. The look in Tom's eyes had cast the final blow to the dam, and it had all flooded forth with the terrible weight of her guilt.

She stumbled backwards against the bed, gripping the cold metal rails with all the strength she could muster. And still the world seemed to spin around her, unsteady on its axis. And it was overpowering, and awful, every gasping sob torn from the depths of her very being. Images and faces that swam in front of her eyes. Families torn apart without warning.

Hermione bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood, and still it did not stop the hysteria that was beginning to grip her in its paralyzing grasp. Draco Malfoy had defected, to the side of light out of fear- and taking his mother with him. She remembered the horror on his face when they came, members of the Ministry they had not known were loyal to Voldemort. The first victim of the black bags.

Her stomach lurched sharply as she remembered the bags. Obscuring every sight of their faces, as they were lead away into the black ministry vehicles to be questioned. Not a single person who had been Bagged ever came back. They came for them in the dead of night, in the middle of the working day- tearing mothers and father's from their terrified children's birthday parties. From the arms of their lovers, from their suicide dreams- once you were to be Bagged, it was a death knell.

"I'm no better." Hermione managed to rasp, reaching out for his still form with hands that clawed at the open air. "Please don't leave me, Tom… I can't do this alone."

- ---

A short chapter, I know. And now for the fun part- you guys get to have a say in the next part of the story!

I have mulled this over in my mind since I initially decided to write this chapter, and I have never come up with a conclusion. Does he turn around? Does he ignore her plea and walk out the door? I really want to hear what all of you are thinking. So cast your lot, I can't wait to read your reviews.

It's my gift to you guys, since we're broken the 100 reviews mark! You have no idea how wowed and flattered I am at this point. All of you are amazing. Truly, truly amazing.

Svelte Rose- I'm not sure how much poetry is in this chapter! I admit to crying through

half of it.

Blindfaith- Make sure to get more sleep ) And I think there is enough to psych in this chapter to satisfy even you.

Hpfanf- no kisses, but cast you vote and maybe soon

Unenlightened- Double spellchecked, just for you. And I hope you like this unmasked Hermione as much as you did in the last chapter.

WamprickNyx- since you're a new reader, I'm really hoping this if living up to your expectations.

Ryn- You know, I thought it would turn their relationship negative as well.. Just goes to show that my muses like to string me along with the rest of you.

Enviousmoon- Intense enough for ya? Lol

Speed of Darkness- Well, there's no Dursley-esque Headmaster in this one, but I hope you still liked it! Jk

Stevie K- Well of course she owes him an explanation… She just had to come around to that point herself. I think she's getting the picture now though.

Sachita- You didn't log in! Naughty naughty, because then I couldn't thank you properly when I got your review. So that you bunches now, even if it is a bit late!

And last but not least, Lisiegirl- well, no more encounters of the Hat kind, but hopefully you enjoyed it )