Dedicated to Nerys. The final fork in the road between her Tom, and mine.
Jukebox Plays: My Skin, by Natalie Merchant.
Chapter 19
They looked as though they had stepped out of the final scene of a Muggle romance movie. The firelight had dimmed to smoldering scarlet coals, tiny tendrils of smoke twisting and twining their way up the blackened chimney.
It was this faint light that cast the warm, gentle light over the couple that rested on the nearby couch. Hermione's head rested against the curve of Tom's shoulder, her face pale against the darkness of his robes. Her curls spilled over his chest, lightly brushing across the back of his hand with every shared breath. Shadows dwelled darker beneath her eyes, and he couldn't help the reflexive desire to hold her closer.
But the scene shatters under closer inspection. The small brown leather bound book that had fallen to the floor from his nerveless fingers. The way the young man looked down at the woman to his side with a mixture of horror and guilt flickering across features that had been known for never betraying his emotion. The way his lips silently formed around the words that stuck in his throat, unable to bring himself to risk disturbing her. How can this be?
But for all he wished to deny it, the facts were already starting to line up- shedding a hateful and bitter light upon the situation. The frozen chill that slipped like ice water into his veins, pulling him away from the heat of his companion's sleeping form. How trusting, as she lay still beside him. Her chest rose and fell with every shallow, measured breath; but how many more would be allowed?
The morbid part of his mind counted each breath, each heartbeat, committing them to a part of his mind that he had forgotten existed. Or perhaps it was a part of his mind that he had simply never had need of before. Before she can into his life, and showed him the cracks in his armor. The flaws in his plans. Making him, for the first time in his life, truly desire human contact.
And now he had it. Along with more and more questions that only she could answer.
But perhaps there was another way. Tom looked down at her, at the dark circles, and each and every fragile line of bone and skin that make up the face of the woman he was coming to…
Coming to what, Tom?
The darkest of magics, he had devoured with a mind set on only one task. To have power over those who had wronged him. To bring his own brand of order over the world that had never truly accepted him. And yet- this girl that slept so easily in the circle of his embrace; she had more power over him in her weakness then he had ever wielded in the height of his strength.
The brown book that had been prepared to be the focus of that very dark magic; the first steps of his own immortality. A study, he realized then, that he had all but forgotten since she had so suddenly dropped into his life. Like a catalyst to the humanity that he had pushed so far down into his soul.
A little voice in the back of his head warned that something was wrong. Something had changed in the slim few moments that his mind had been pulled away from the physical present. No longer a breath, a heartbeat, a pause; each action slowed from its natural rhythm. An ache blossomed in his chest, red and hot as the embers that still glowed in the hearth. Brilliant against the backdrop of the cold dead coals.
"Hermione, no, don't do this. You have to hold on just a little longer- we're so close to curing this." His voice trembled on the last words, slipping from the suffocating control he held over his every action. He could feel the time slithering away from them, pulling her away from his side like some insidious poison. Knowing the poison was of his own making. And the immorality of his actions barely plucked at his conscious mind as Tom gently rested the tip of his wand against her forehead, and murmured the Legilimency spell. Unfolding the petals of her mind, unresisting in her trusting slumber. Desperate for the answers that would prove his worst fears to be untrue.
She was standing between two men, one with gingery red hair, the other a tousled black. The text in front of her blurred as they discussed Quidditch over her head. The indulgent smile she gave them, as her hand lifted the cover closed.
Dripping red letters, three feet tall. "The Chamber of Secrets…Enemies of the Heir, beware." The rest fading into the crack of her memory. The ticking trip-trip of a nervous heartbeat.
The outline of a weathered and scarred table, surrounding yet another heavy book. The sinking sensation of imminent despair, and quiet acceptance of the fact. Creaking springs and the tapping of a headboard against a far wall. More then one, and wishing she were- for a moment- deaf.
A black bag pulled roughly over the terrified and furious face of a man with hair the silvery blonde of the Malfoy's. Men in official looking Ministry robes, and eyes that were dead and vacant, controlled.
Green and glowing, an ephemeral skull that floated lightly in the air. Twisting and run through by sinuous snake. Hovering over a simple, Muggle home. A familiar symbol, and flavored with her helpless tears. She had been too late.
A thousand voices screaming, and the towers of Hogwarts ablaze in the night sky. Limning a man who could not even be defined as human. The waxy skin and the scarlet eyes that reflected emotion. The slits of his nose that quivered with every breath.
The bitter sickness that made him want to scream. That was no stranger, bent and deformed by a lust for power that exceeded reason. It was him. It was HIM. Tom Riddle… Lord Voldemort.
The bright sizzling of magic, the flare of green light. Over and over, lighting up the sky, fireworks of unbelievable slaughter. The screaming and the prayers, all cut short.
And the silence, as she stood in the Great Hall, bloody fingers slipping and sliding against the delicate rings of the Time Turner that was clutched in her grasp. "I need to make this better." She had whispered, as the blood poured from her veins. Pooling on the floor around her feet, as she fell to the ground.
The tiny hourglass shattering against the floor, releasing the magic that had imbued the pendant. Allowing it to serve its own purpose- and not bent to the will of the bearer.
Sending her back. The chance to make things better.
Tom tore himself from her mind, his entire body trembling with barely contained horrified disgust. The vision of Lord Voldemort floating in front of his eyes like the spectre of the vivid green Morsmordre. Burned into the space behind his eyelids, the truth of what he would become. The path set before him that he had believed etched in his very blood.
His ideals perverted for lust of power; greed and avarice and evil that had already begun to tarnish the good that had before held sway in his soul. The little witch beside him, her breaths growing shallower and further apart. The hot tears that disregarded his armor, sliding down his cheeks to dampen the wild curls that he twisted gently around his fingers.
"I was wrong; I was such a fool for so long… Don't leave me, please. I am the twisted evil that you must despise- but I want to change. I don't want to become that creature, I don't! I can be more then that, better then that!
You are not the cause of all the dark thoughts- you are the one that has saved me from acting on them. You are the light, and the best thing in my faded and useless existence. But I can't do this without you, Hermione. And there are so many things that I want to- that I need to tell you.
And I have never truly needed anything in my entire life, the way I need you. You have crawled under my skin, and I don't know how to separate myself from you. I don't even think I want to anymore. I have been so blinded by my own pride that I… I don't know when I stopped trying to push you away.
I want to wake up like this. I want to be able to touch you whenever I want. And I want everyone to know that you have bewitched the man who thought he had no soul to lose. No heart to be turned from its path by… By…"
Tom stopped, swallowing hard. The words were there at the tip of his tongue, pressing against the inside of his mind. His hand jerked towards the book on the floor, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His short nails digging deeply into the soft leather worn shiny by use. It was the hated thing, the proof of all that he had not been able to overcome.
The noose that tightened around his neck, and pulled this sweet person away from him. The very thing that could not be allowed to control him anymore, the very reminder of the evil that he had sought to become. And with that thought, Tom Riddle hurled the diary into the still burning embers in the centre of the hearth.
Watching as the heat seared the pages, little tongues of flame quickly leaping up to devour the dry parchment. Sliding along the cheap leather, sending up acrid black smoke. Burning away the proof, redemption through fire. Searing away the evil, separating it from the whole.
"Please, hold on…" He prayed, pulling Hermione's limp form roughly into his lap. Wrapping both arms around her, her head cradled against his shoulder as he stared into the purple heart of the flames that now danced across the hated creation. Coiling her long curls around his fingers as his gaze flickered to her face.
"If it doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. Hermione you can't leave me, I won't let you. No Heaven or Hell will ever bar me from you. Time itself will not take you from me! Don't slip away…" His voice dropped off to a whisper as he bent his head to hers, pressing his lips to hers- already cooling with her faint breaths. Not a tender action, but like a drowning man clutching for his salvation. A damned man at the gates of Hell, begging for release.
His chest throbbed with every labored beat of his heart, the room lighted with the flames that consumed every inch of the parchment and leather monstrosity. And his lips slid from hers as he spoke, his whispered voice harsh with emotion as he felt the last wall within him fall to the power of his own grief.
"I love you."
As the last inches of the vile tome disappeared to the onslaught of the flames, Tom felt her take a breath. A deep and shuddering breath, as the chill of death was banished from her flesh.
Hermione opened her eyes slowly, looking up at the ravaged and disheveled face of the man that had become to much a part of her life. The strange blessing of seeing every emotion play out on his face, the tears the glistened in the warm light of the hearth. Slowly she lifted her hand to his face, gently wiping away the tears that spilled down from eyes that were no longer impassive grey, but shot with the true, deep blue of gemstones.
She smiled then, feeling the strength flow back into her body. Heady and light as a perfect drug, returning to the hale and healthy body that she had possessed before the foul curse had taken it from her. Erased from her physical form as though it had never existed.
"You finally got it right," she said quietly, tilting her face towards his, "I love you to."
And perhaps it was not so much like an ending scene from a Muggle movie. But as the black scars of the curse faded to a tarnished silver, they knew that this was no final piece. This was the beginning of a new life for both of them. A second chance.
The future for them had been written, a blighted not-existence riddled with painful acceptance and the burning blackness of greed. A future that faded, rewritten by two people who, by chance and accident, found themselves at this point. Both of them broken and rebuilt, to face a life with a different set of problems.
And as the clock chimed the hour, and the dawn light spilled in through the window, they slept.
Bound together by something they had never known would exist for them. Something stronger then Time.
- ---
There you have it… Not including the epilogue, this is the ending. Thank you so much to everyone that has taken this ride with me, I have had the chance to meet some truly wonderful people.
Blindfaith
Svelte Rose
Tom the Riddle
Nerys
Hpfanf
Unenlightened
Akira
Ryn
Michaela
Lisie
Speed of Darkness
Enviousmoon
Lauraart123
And everyone else I might have missed. Your reviews have turned this from a 5 part drabble, into one of the longest pieces I have ever written. Hopefully I will have the epilogue up soon. But I am officially changing this to Completed, because the main story is.
And after a well-deserved break, I will begin the sequel. Thank you all again. So much.