Notes: Thank you for your continued support of my writing. I know this story truly isn't for everyone and that by making all the pairings messy and unsure, it's a very different fanfic experience than many. Anyway, thank you for sticking with this and appreciating the very unpaved road I'm following. This next chapter is a very heavy hitter in both length and impact.
WARNINGS: Canon Torture, mentions of sexual assault
19. They Look into the Beauty of Thy Mind
The beer garden is a cacophony of laughter and boisterous conversation. Draco recognizes words from at least five different languages. Children race between the benches, their feet sand-coated and their smiles brilliant, carefree in a way Draco doesn't remember. He watches a young girl wave a wand, a useless Muggle imitation of the real thing, bubbles streaming behind her. He wonders if he was ever that innocent.
He thinks not.
For Draco Malfoy, there has always been blood and death and expectation. He avoids the boggarts at the end of that train of thought. He does not think about how his mother must feel. Devastation. He certainly does not consider how his father feels upon learning of his son's death. Relief.
Maybe one day, he will find his way back to his family—to her, but not now. For now, he has no family at all. No friends save a boy who no longer quite looks him in the eye after they kiss and a girl who manages to not look at him at all.
The cottage has been unbearable since Hermione decided she needed space from Tom. They still gravitate towards each other like the moon to the Earth, but then Hermione realizes and turns away. Draco understands she's trying to find a way to heal on her own, to find an inner strength that will truly help her trauma fade, but he also sees what it does to Tom.
The soft edges of him fade each time she rejects him. The twisted ember of his soul dims, fading closer to darkness. He becomes more monster than man with every step Hermione retreats.
It's visible even in the mundane. Tom no longer dresses like a debonair gentleman from another era. His collared shirts have become plain black tee shirts, his khakis, dark jeans that hug his ass and conjure an aura of danger, not poise. A worn leather jacket completes the transformation, a handful of clove cigarettes perpetually stuffed in the breast pocket.
Draco suspected he smoked—the odor is hard to miss when their mouths are fused—but now Tom has a cigarette clutched between his agile fingers more often than not.
But Hermione is not looking, so she does not see.
Draco sees all too much.
He wonders if one day he will wake up to a wand at his throat and frozen azure eyes spelling his doom. He thinks he might start counting his days.
Or maybe Tom will simply smoke himself into oblivion. Draco hardly knows what to expect anymore.
"You're a million miles away."
Potter. Draco drags his focus back to the present. "Sorry, things are rough."
"Trouble in paradise?" The quip is light, but there's a spark of hope in Potter's eyes that Draco doesn't appreciate.
"Tom and I are fine." It's the truth, from a certain point of view. They're still together, at least when it comes to lips and tongues and hips and cocks. But what momentum was building before is long extinguished. Tom's eyes are distant and hard when he swallows Draco whole, a world away from the passion they once held. It's like they're going through the motions without even a hint of sentiment. It satisfies neither of them, but they don't stop.
If they stop, Draco truly believes his end will come. And he's still a bloody coward; he does not want to die. So he moves his lips against Tom's until he pretends enough for the both of them.
"And Hermione?"
Draco sincerely wants to lie. But he understands why Potter so desperately needs Hermione to be okay. He was listening when Potter told him what happened with Ron Weasley that night in the Death Eater camp. He knows Potter chose his best friend over his girlfriend. And even if Potter hasn't said it, Draco also knows the boy will never forgive himself for it. Especially not after seeing the consequences of his choice written in Hermione's dull eyes.
"She found out about Tom and I. It didn't go well." An epic understatement, but Potter doesn't need to know every modicum of Draco's personal drama. "She made the decision to put some space between them."
"That's wonderful."
If you consider a catatonic Hemione and soulless Tom wonderful. Draco certainly doesn't. "No. Not particularly. I'm not sure if it's truly helping either one of them."
"She was disgustingly dependent on him, Malfoy," Potter argues. "She's been through so bloody much and all she could see was him."
It's a fair point, but perhaps they shouldn't have tried such an abrupt separation. Hermione might benefit eventually, but Tom will not. He is too dark and without her light, he will fall to his baser instincts.
Draco wishes it were as easy as taking her place. If Tom could care for him the same way he cares for Hermione, they'd be safe from all that looms beneath hypnotic azure eyes. But as much as Tom desires Draco, he does not seem to care—not in the deep, aching way that matters.
Draco might feel slighted, but he entered into their entanglement with his eyes wide open. He has not been so foolish as to think beyond basic attachment. He cares for Tom. He is unwilling to love him.
He looks at Potter. He is unwilling to love anyone again.
He bites his cheek. Blood rushes into his mouth and he focuses on the metallic tang. He has been so very stupid and he is still far too battered from his own blind hope. His chest still seizes when Potter angles his head just so or when the light catches his emerald eyes, making them seem to glow from within.
"What Hermione and Tom experienced together can't be fully understood," Draco says, drawing his mind from the spiraling doom of his thoughts.
Potter blinks and takes a sip of his beer. "So he saw her get tortured and he helped her through it. So what? She doesn't owe him anything for that."
"I don't think she feels she owes Tom anything." Draco sighs and puts a hand to his temple. He isn't sure how to explain them to Potter, but he owes it to everyone to try. "She's putting distance between them because of how much she needs him. But she needs him because of their shared trauma, because he was there for her in a way none of us could ever be. I tended her wounds, gave her water when she was nothing but a corpse. But she doesn't think I saved her."
He didn't, of course. He was too much of a coward to find a way down to the dungeons on his own, to give her the sustenance she needed to rebuild her clever mind, to give her the chance to save them both. He gave her a cursed diary instead.
Draco shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. He should cut it, but he can't be bothered to care about such a mundane detail.
"I told you already what Hermione endured," he holds Potter's gaze until he sees the crack in the other boy's façade, the proof he knows what Draco means. "I just never explained that Tom was with her, in her head or something very like it, when it happened. They killed the man together."
It isn't the sort of experience either can turn their back on, no matter how hard Hermione is currently trying.
Potter's mouth opens and closes. His hand clenches on his beer stein. Finally, he murmurs, "that changes things."
Draco just manages to hold back a snide remark. Potter is stating the obvious, but he hasn't had all the facts until now.
The boy runs his hand through his raven hair and looks even more devastated than usual when he asks, "so he helps her?"
"As far as I can tell."
Draco truly has no idea what goes on between Tom and Hermione when he's not present. He has seen their comfort with each other, current circumstances excepted, but he can only speculate as to the things that pass between them.
"So distance between them is a bad thing?" Potter spits the words as if they're an anathema, but his stare is keen and curious.
Draco doesn't have the answer to that. "I think Hermione's right. She needs to find a way to be her own person. But she's also wrong. She doesn't have to do that entirely separate from Tom."
"And you trust him?"
"With her? Yes. Absolutely. But with anything else? No."
"He's part of You Know Who."
"Yes." Draco still tastes the blood in his mouth. "A whole half of him in fact."
"And what does he want?" Potter is leaning forward now, emerald eyes gleaming in the afternoon sun.
"To end the Dark Lord."
The other boy's mouth purses. Draco doesn't look at his lips. The spike in his pulse is a vestige of futile hope and he will not acknowledge it.
"And you want us to work together."
Draco nods. "Exactly. I think we all have a common interest here."
Potter folds his arms across his chest. "I'll consider the offer only after I get to talk to her again."
He swallows and glares across the table. Potter knows exactly how well that will go over with Tom. He also doesn't particularly appreciate Potter using his wayward girlfriend as a bargaining chip. He doesn't think Hermione would approve either.
"I'll see what I can do."
Potter swirls the dregs of his beer. "You're playing a dangerous game, Malfoy."
As if Draco doesn't already know that. He's in a messed-up relationship with half of the Dark Lord's soul. He's trying to unite opposing sides of a volatile prophesy. And he's supposed to be dead.
He can't help the bitter laughter that flows from his lips. "Oh, Potter, you have no bloody idea."
Hermione retches. What little breakfast she consumed coats the damp stone in front of her. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and glares at the boy standing beside her.
"You couldn't have bloody warned me?"
Tom gives her a mild look as he vanishes her vomit. "I forget you're unaccustomed to such travel."
He forgets. She snorts softly. Tom bloody Riddle doesn't forget anything as far as she can tell. Which means this is one of the many petty ways he's found to lash out at her.
She spits onto the stone, just missing his shoes. He growls and she flashes him her most innocent smile. "I had to get the taste out of my mouth."
She can be petty too.
It's been like this for weeks. A cold war that never quite gets acknowledged. She almost feels sorry for Draco, who is undeniably stuck in the middle. But since Tom is still shoving his tongue down Draco's throat every occasion he can find, she can't conjure the necessary sympathy.
Not that she cares.
She's found her own path forward. She's learned how to wake with the impression of rough fingers digging into her flesh and not cry out. To not seek comfort. She's found ways of mixing extra potions when the two of them are otherwise engaged. Potions that make her sleep too long and too hard.
She keeps to herself, an island sinking too slowly to warrant observation. Her unsteady rhythms slip into the noise of their lives, passing unnoticed and unjudged. They can't tell when the potions fill her head with warm fuzz and her nights with blessed silence. Draco is too wary to intrude while Tom is… not quite antagonistic, but something very close.
She knows this unbridled independence should make her happy, but a restless energy festers beneath her skin. It grows each day she swallows a sip too much of her modified dreamless sleep. It gnaws the hardest when Tom walks by as if she isn't there at all.
It's why she stands here, in a dank cave by the edge of the ocean with only Tom for company.
She follows him through flooded tunnels, their boots splashing frigid salt water, until they reach a large chamber. He pushes open a heavy door. Unlike the spot where they apparated, this cavern is furnished. Rows of wooden bookcases line the rough walls and a handful of armchairs and writing desks are scattered across the damp stone floor. It is the absolute last place she'd expect to find a library.
When Tom mentioned he kept a couple of dark arts books hidden away, she imagined a trunk of books shoved into a forgotten wardrobe, not this hidden Atlantis beneath the waves. The ocean roars above them and she knows he must have enchanted the chambers below to be impervious to the water's assault.
She crosses the cavern and raises a hand to stroke the spine of a tome.
"I wouldn't do that."
Her fingers freeze and she looks over her shoulder at Tom. He waves a hand and the entire chamber illuminates, torches igniting high above the shelves. Tom is bathed in golden light, his handsome features complimented by the gentle caress of the torches.
Hermione looks abruptly away and reaches for the book again.
"Seriously."
This time he's at her side, pulling her away from the shelf by her forearm. Her skin burns where his fingers close over her midnight jumper. Her breath loses its even quality. This is the first time she's been touched in ages. Her sensitivity has clearly regressed.
She supposes it's a victory she hasn't shied away from him. But then again, Tom never made her flinch. She grits her teeth and pulls out of his grip.
"Why?"
He blinks wide sapphire eyes, his brow furrowed. Then he realizes what she's asking and his expression flattens to nothing. "Because it's bloody cursed and I don't want to deal with that."
She can't be upset with him for protecting her from dangerous reading material. "Oh."
His jaw muscle tics. "Let's get to work."
"We're looking for anything on Horcruxes, right?"
She may not remember anything about them from before her capture, but she's learned plenty since from both Tom and Draco. That Tom is a product of such a dark device never ceases to chill her. But she also clings to the belief that he's greater than the dark magic which brought him here.
Yet the distance between them grows as she attempts to wean herself from the dark addiction of his devotion. She doesn't think of consequences. She can't afford to.
"I know I found more, after I'd created the first one—myself. I don't have any recollection of the content because it was examined after I… split away, but I know this was my hiding place."
She studies the underground chamber more closely. A different sort of chill rattles her nerves as she understands this belongs to Voldemort, not Tom.
"And you don't think he's warded it?"
"Oh, he definitely has." Tom's smile is a blade. "They're just keyed to his blood and magic. Two things we happen to share. What's his is mine."
That only makes it worse. Hermione turns back to the shelves. "It would be easier if I remembered a damn thing about magic."
"You're the one who asked to come." Tom is facing a shelf, but she feels his focus on her, not the books before him.
She scans a title. Hysterical Herbology in the Age of the Goblin Wars. She has no bloody idea what that means, but she suspects it isn't what they're looking for.
This feels familiar, the search through titles and tomes.
"Did I like research?"
"How should I know? You and I know the exact same things about you." Tom flips open a book. The pages rustle against the backdrop of crashing waves. "You're better off asking Potter or Malfoy."
"I just think I'd be more helpful if I could remember. I feel like I might be really good at this."
Tom snaps the cover of his book shut. "Then bloody reverse your obliviate already."
They practiced extensively before. Hermione knows every little detail of what she needs to do to lift her memory block. But then it all fell to pieces and Tom disappeared.
She knows it's her fault. For walking away. For not attempting the magic on her own as she ought to have. But it felt wrong to try it without him.
She bites her lip and turns to face Tom. He's abandoned all pretense of searching the shelves and stares directly back at her. It is the first time they've truly made eye contact since the night when her world imploded.
The air seems to crackle as he closes the distance between them. His eyes are twin flame cores as he stops a hair's breadth from her. She is dizzy with silent relief when she feels the familiar caress of his breath across her cheek, the scent of cloves wrapping around her like a familiar blanket.
This. She has missed this so much. It takes her breath away.
"It's time to stop hiding, Hermione Granger." Tom's voice is a low growl, but still slides across her skin like silk.
"I'm not—"
She cuts off because she is. She is hiding from him. From herself. She's had the power to reverse—or at the very least attempt to reverse—her memory loss for over a month. She hasn't dared to try. And while she's managed to stay away from Tom, she's fallen into other habits.
He gives her a knowing smile. "You think I don't see what you've done to yourself? You're drinking poison, Hermione. You're numbing everything until you don't have to feel anymore. And it's bloody addictive, isn't it?"
In one swift movement his arms are around her and her back is flush against his chest. She feels the frantic tattoo of his heart. He dips his mouth until his lips whisper against her skin.
Hermione trembles in his grasp. It has been too long and this is far too much. Tom doesn't relent.
"Do you think it's better for you to slip into oblivion than to spend the night in my arms?" She feels every word like a bullet to her gut.
"You weren't good for me."
He pulls her tighter. "Why, Hermione? Why wasn't I good for you?"
Because she lost her ability to stand on her own. Because he turns her into a jealous wretch. Because he's the product of everything she's supposedly fighting against.
She swallows and forces raw words from her throat. "Because I needed you too much."
"And it's so easy to discard me?"
It isn't. They both know it. She digs her fingers into his forearm. She doesn't know if she's trying to pry his arm away or pull him closer.
"Why did you run that night?" His breath hitches as he asks the question.
She should lie, but she hasn't the strength. "I hated your mouth on his skin."
He slowly brushes her hair to the side. Her mouth is far too dry when he brushes the nape of her neck with his lips. "You'd much rather my mouth was on you."
She shivers, but the reaction is tempered by a different kind of chill. She turns in his arms. "I don't want anyone's lips on me."
Tom brushes a strand of hair out of her face, the caress tender and sweet, in direct opposition to his earlier ministrations. "Of course, you don't."
Hermione resists the urge to crumble, to give in to the comfort his touch promises. She bats his hand away and steps back until she can almost breathe normally.
"Why start something with Draco?" she demands, her jaw set.
Tom glares back at her for a long moment before spitting out, "honestly? Convenience. He was bloody in love with Potter and I needed him to focus on you instead."
Hermione's brow furrows. She's pretty sure Tom just casually threw Draco's love life into the open. That she already knows about Draco's affection for Harry is hardly the point, but she shouldn't be surprised. For all his tenderness with her, Tom is callous when it comes to Draco.
"But you're attracted to him?"
Tom raises a dark brow at her. "You have looked at him, right?"
"I'm pretty sure he was wearing a silver Death Eater mask the first time I saw him—or remember seeing him. I wasn't exacting ranking my captors by their relative attractiveness."
Tom's visage darkens considerably and Hermione is abruptly reminded of just who stands before her. She just barely curbs the sudden urge to retreat. "That was insensitive of me. I know he was a bloody coward, too spineless to truly help you. I can still kill him if that's what you need."
Hermione coughs on her sudden dread. "What? You're shagging him, Tom. You can't be willing to kill someone you're shagging."
"I'd do anything for you."
Tom's logic is beyond her, his moral compass clearly askew. "Well, I don't want you to hurt Draco, so please don't kill him."
It unsettles her that he could suggest such a thing when he and Draco have been involved for months. She holds tight to that unease, the proof that Tom is not the comfort she needs. Then she asks the question that hurts the most. That has been buzzing about the maelstrom of her thoughts for weeks.
"Why?" she breaths, barely audible. Tom blinks, his lips pulling down in confusion. She swallows and forces the rest of the desolate words from her throat. "Why not tell me? Why lie?"
He opens his mouth, as if to refute her claim, but clamps his lips shut. She is unexpectedly gratified that he doesn't attempt to lie to her again, to refuse to acknowledge the choice he made. The choice they made. For as much as Tom should have told her, Draco could have.
But there was only the absence of facts.
"Why," she says again, louder and full of all the humiliation their choice elicits.
Tom's face goes through the gamut of the seasons. The hard, cruel planes of winter. The angry burn of summer of summer in his sapphire eyes. Then the gentle thaw of spring as his jaw unclenches. At last, he shifts into the tired slant of autumn. In an instant, she notices the bruises beneath his eyes.
He blinks, dark lashes ghosting over the evidence of his exhaustion. When he finally looks back at her, the air in the room shifts, becoming heavier, as if every molecule will pull her down into the depths of the ocean beyond.
"I didn't tell you…" he pauses, clearing his throat before trying again, "I didn't tell you because I was trying to protect you."
Hermione tries to understand. But his answer makes no sense. "From what? From the fact that you're attracted to Draco? From how different your reaction to…" she can't say the words, but she sees in the depths of his tortured gaze that he understands.
Tom shakes his head, ebony waves falling across his brow, obscuring the chaos of his gaze. "No. Not from any of that. From me."
"You?" She's completely lost. She may want to strangle him. She may wish he'd never hurt her with this deception. But even now, she knows she has nothing to fear from Tom except the depths of their attachment.
He wipes a hand across his brow, scattering dark curls. "Me. I'm not good, Hermione. I know that. Salazar, even you must know that. But you don't understand how much of this…" he waves his hand in a sweeping circle, bringing her attention back to the fact that they stand within Voldemort's private collection, "I am."
"You don't want me to know," she realizes. "You don't want me to see the truth of you. Never mind you've seen everything of me."
He doesn't say anything, simply stares back at her, vortices of emotion churning behind dark eyes. She closes the distance between them. He doesn't move a muscle.
"Why don't you trust that I'll accept you as you are? That knowing your darkness won't change how I see you?"
Tom's lips tremble the slightest bit as they pull up, a far cry from a smile. "Because you're good, Hermione."
"And Draco?"
"You already know the true nature of his character."
She knows he left her to die, to be torn to pieces by monsters. But who Draco once was isn't who he's destined to become. She believes in the capacity of people to change. Hermione has to. Otherwise, what is she but a broken husk?
But none of this satisfies the ache in her chest, the scrape of the fletching of the arrow of his deception. She puts her hand on his chest. Despite his cool façade, she feels the hitch in the frantic drum of his heart when she touches him.
"Why didn't you tell me, Tom?"
He wretches his gaze away from her, focusing on the room beyond. "I told you. Because you're everything good in my life, or whatever it is I'm doing, and I'm—"
"Stop." She narrows her eyes at him. Perhaps he truly believes what he's saying. Perhaps he was trying to protect her in some convoluted way. "Say I believe you. Maybe I even understand why you wanted to hide a part of you from me. But how are you so sure I'm good? How do you know who I am?"
Twin sapphire suns snap back to her. "I've been inside your head, I know you're everything good and light in the world."
He says the words with such confidence, as if he's stating the world is round or the sun rises in the east. She closes her eyes and searches. She finds nothing but empty space and cliffs to nowhere. He can't possibly know who she is.
Hermione doesn't even know who she is.
She opens her eyes and stares first at her hand over his thundering heart and then into the fathomless depths of his liquid stare. She can no longer abide the holes in her head, the utter incompleteness of her mind. She does not know if she is truly as good as Tom believes. But she will.
"It's time."
He glances around the hidden chamber. "Here?"
Hermione nods. "Here and now. I'm tired of hiding."
The smile Tom gives her is blinding and true. She feels it sear into her gut, leaving a viscous warmth behind. She clings to that warmth as she takes his outstretched wand. The wood vibrates softly beneath her fingers, less vigorous that the frantic energy contained within Draco's, but no less true. This power is in her veins, she has only to rip the veil away before she can harness it.
She puts the wooden tip to her temple and grounds herself in the blue ocean of Tom's stare. If this fails, there is another way. She prays to every deity she can recall that it doesn't come to that.
"Memento," she murmurs.
Nothing happens. The smallest buzz echoes in her ears, but it fades in an instant.
"Try again," Tom urges, expression grim.
Hermione does. This time something deep inside attempts to break free, but it still isn't enough. She swallows the cold throb of anxiety rising in her throat.
She tries and tries, until she's nearly screaming the word, but the magic does nothing but shake the pieces loose. They're still scrambled, still incoherent, still utterly lost to her.
She drops the wand. It clatters to the stone with an echo she feels in her bones.
"Well, go on then."
Tom looks as green as the seafoam they waded through. "I'm not bloody doing that. I shouldn't have even told you about that. If he couldn't break it, there's no way I can."
"You know that's not true. I want you to succeed. I want my mind back."
"Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?" His voice cracks, breaking from baritone to alto and back again. She's never heard him this ruffled. Not even when he begged her to hold on while her tormentor was in their cell.
He tears both hands through his hair, eyes wide and unmade. "I know how you feel when this curse hits you. I know. I felt it too. And you're asking me to willing do this to you."
"To bring my memory back. To crack the obliviate." She's desperate for her mind now, in a way she hadn't anticipated. Now that she's begun, she is unwilling to fail. "Whatever it takes."
His hands are on her cheeks. His jaw works silently. His eyes are cracked robin's eggs, on the brink of shattering at any moment. "Please don't ask this of me."
Hermione presses a soft kiss to one of his palms. "I'm asking because I trust you. Because I know you would never hurt me. Whatever else might be wrong between us right now, I don't doubt that."
They may have spent the last month sniping at each other, but Tom has never truly caused her harm. This will irrevocably change that.
"He couldn't do it," Tom repeats. "He tried for months to crack you. To destroy what you'd done. You must have rushed the spell when you obliviated yourself. It didn't go as planned. That's why the memento didn't work. That's why this sure as Salazar isn't going to work either."
"I need you to try." She can't imagine living this way a moment longer than necessary. It's as if a spigot ruptured and there is no staunching the flow. She must have her life back and she must have it now. She must know if she is truly as he imagines her to be.
"Fuck, Hermione," Tom rasps. It's a plea, a curse, everything he can't find the words to say. "Won't you at least think about it? Take a day—a week—and then decide?"
"You said you'd do anything for me."
She imagines he regrets his earlier vow. His nails dig into her skin as he grips her face. He's clinging to her, willing her to change her mind. She won't. She lifts up on her toes and brushes a kiss against his jaw. It is the first time her lips have touched his face and she marvels at the softness of his skin beneath the scrape of his stubble.
She pulls back to look at him. "Please."
"This may not work."
She knows. Hermione hates it, but she knows.
But she crossed the threshold of desperate minutes ago. Now she is ready and she needs him to be willing. He is certainly able.
"Promise me you'll forgive me." Tom has to force every word out. His jaw is clenched and his hands tremble against her skin.
"I'm begging you, there's no need for forgiveness."
"You don't know that. You can't know until it's over."
She forces air through her teeth, holding back her annoyance the best she can. "Fine. I'll forgive you."
"Just so we're very clear, I think this is a terrible idea and I'm not sure I can forgive you for asking me to do it." His eyes are nearly as dark as the tunnel behind him.
Hermione can't blame him for making his stance crystal clear, but anticipation is crawling beneath her skin, making her antsy.
"Bloody do it already, Tom." He still looks like he might not have the will. She bites down hard on her lip and hisses, "or would you rather I ask Draco when we get back?"
That does it.
Tom scoops up his wand from the sodden stone before grasping her arm and guiding her into one of the highbacked chairs. His touch is gentle even as his expression hardens, his eyes flashing and his mouth set in a grim line. He places her arms on the chair's armrests and takes a half step back. Her head rests comfortably against the plush velvet and her feet press firmly into the ground.
He nods, ebony curls falling across his raging eyes. "I'm going to immobilize you first. That way you can't physically harm yourself."
It's smart. Hermione is filled with gratitude that he has agreed to this madness. She blinks up at him. "Tom."
He sinks to his knees in front of her. His fractured stare begs her to reconsider. She can't give him that. He settles against her legs, his forearms warm against her thighs. She tries to smile down at him. She can't quite manage the correct twist of her lips.
"Thank you," she whispers.
"We don't have to do this," he murmurs. She can still see hope in the caress of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw. Hope that she will end this. That she will be content to remain broken and useless. Not because he wills her so, but because he dreads what comes next. She lifts a hand to stroke his cheek. His skin is scalding hot, nothing like the dank cavern that surrounds them.
"Yes, we do. I may not be who you think I am," she whispers as she pushes forward and presses her lips to his flushed cheek. His eyes are wide as she settles back against the chair.
"You're exactly who I think you are," he replies, barely audible.
She stares back at him, unyielding. "Now do it."
His jaw clenches, his pulse a mad hummingbird at the base of his neck, but Tom obliges her. "Petrificus totalus." She locks into place, her hands dug partially into the plush velvet.
He drops his head and his hand spasms on his wand. When he looks back up, his face is a study in ruination. His eyes are red rimmed and his mouth teeters between a silent scream and trembling lips.
"Merlin, forgive me," he whispers. Then he looks into her eyes and says, "Crucio."
Hermione shatters.
The distinctive bang of apparation sends Draco's mug crashing to the floor. The wards don't allow direct entrance to their cottage. Not unless—
Draco surges to his feet as Tom drops to his knees, Hermione limp as a rag doll on his shoulders.
Tom's face shines wet under the kitchen lamps. Draco takes a step closer and sees streams of scarlet running in rivulets across his pale skin. Draco's stomach drops out and he runs the final steps to where they landed.
"What happened?"
Tom looks like he's seen Death himself or something far worse. He wipes the sweat and blood from his brow with the back of his hand. Draco realizes the other boy is shaking, his hand barely able to maintain contact with his forehead.
He spits a mouthful of blood to the side and looks up at Draco from beneath matted lashes. "Later. Just get her in bed."
Draco doesn't hesitate—the look in Tom's eyes is motivation enough. He carefully grasps Hermione by her delicate waist and gathers her into his arms as if she were a small child. She weighs more than she did before, but not nearly enough. Her breathing is ragged and her pulse is a metronome beyond its maximum. Blood runs in a thin line from her nose, dripping across placid lips and down her chin.
Draco sets her on her bed, taking care to be as gentle as possible. Her breathing hitches and falters as he shifts her awkward limbs into a more comfortable position. He tastes fear beneath his tongue. Whoever did this to her was brutal. He can see the tremors of the Cruciatus in her hands, if the trail of blood wasn't proof enough.
He feels Tom enter the room, but doesn't turn away from the ravaged girl on the bed.
"I thought she was free of this. That we would protect her from anything like this ever happening again." He hears the accusation in his tone. He's glad. This is Tom's fault. He brought her into the serpent's lair; it was his duty to protect her.
"Oh, Draco, this is so much worse than that."
Tom's voice is hollow. A chill begins to creep up Draco's spine. He looks over his shoulder. The other boy is deathly pale. His hair hangs in limp tangles, matted to his brow and cheeks. Lines of blood crisscross where he's smeared them across his face. He looks nothing like the darkly elegant boy Draco has come to expect. This Tom is less. This Tom has fear dripping from his pores.
The chill spreads into Draco's limbs. "Did he find you? Did the Dark Lord get to her?"
"In a manner of speaking," Tom croaks. "But no, we were not found."
Tom's reticence is more terrifying than his appearance. "What happened?"
"What's the best way to tend the Cruciatus curse?" Tom swallows thickly. "I've never particularly paid attention to the aftermath of my work."
Draco looks at Hermione's ruined, trembling body then back at the boy with ruin in his eyes. "You bloody did this?"
It doesn't make any sense. It won't compute. He crosses the space of the room in a single stride. Tom's head knocks against the wall with a crack when Draco slams him into it. He doesn't resist, doesn't meet Draco's accusing stare.
Draco doesn't stop to think. He slams a fist into Tom's jaw, wrenching his head sideways with a deafening crunch. Blood spurts from a spit along the strong line of his jaw. Draco buries his other first in his gut.
Tom crumples to the ground. He folds in on himself. His shoulders shake and garbled words are lost in the baseboards.
It takes Draco several moments to understand the other boy is crying. Not the silent tears of rage or the bright tears of physical pain, but the messy tears that come from deep within.
Draco turns back to Hermione. Her breathing is even now, but her limbs still quake. He goes to the kitchen and retrieves the most powerful healing potions they've made. They're intended for delivery to the Order tomorrow, but he thinks Potter will understand.
Tom is still a quivering lump on the ground. Draco refuses to deal with him until Hermione is cared for. He sits on the edge of the bed and uncorks a vial. It smells rancid, but it's a powerful restorative. He eases open her jaw and places five generous drops on her tongue. She doesn't swallow, but he doesn't need her to. The potion will absorb well enough in her mouth. He reaches for the next potion.
The process continues as he works through the remedies. When he's done, her muscles have relaxed and her pallor has receded. He runs a gentle hand through her hair and pulls the blankets up to her chin. She doesn't stir. He imagines she won't for some time given the potency of the elixirs he's given her.
The quiet sniveling from Tom's corner hasn't faltered.
Draco grasps his wand tightly as he approaches the boy. The cut on Tom's chin still weeps openly, blending into the waterfall of tears cascading down his cheeks.
Draco has absolutely no idea what to do. He's unwilling to comfort him; Tom just tortured Hermione. But the boy is falling apart at the seams and Draco doesn't want to know what happens when Tom Riddle self-destructs.
He settles for kneeling down and placing a hand on the boy's thigh. Tom looks up at him through bloodshot eyes.
His voice is broken glass when he says, "she made me do it."
Draco doesn't believe that for one bloody second. Tom lets out a sound between a deranged laugh and a guttural sob. "I swear she did. She thought it was the only way. I made her promise to forgive me." He shakes his head, hands twisting in his grimy hair. "It doesn't matter if she does. I'll never forgive me."
Draco stares at Tom, searching every pathetic twist of his features. Perhaps there is some truth to his story. "Why would she ask you to torture her?"
"Her memory. She's trying to get back her memory." He shakes his head, frantic and lost. "I never should have taken her there. I never should have showed her a glimpse of our world. I never should have told her the Cruciatus could break an obliviate."
They'd both had their doubts about Hermione accompanying Tom to the hidden library, but this certainly hadn't been an outcome they'd considered. "But why would she ask? She was tortured for months at the Manor. She had to know it wouldn't work."
"I've never seen her like this, Draco." Tom's voice is haunted. "Something in her cracked when she couldn't get the memento spell to work, or maybe before when I..." He shakes his head and smears salt and iron across his cheeks. "It was as if she couldn't bear to continue on as she was, as if she'd just realized how empty her mind truly was."
"Is it that bad?" Draco never asked either of them for the details.
Tom nods miserably. "Worse. Whatever she did, it was under duress and she took away far more than she meant to. It's the reason he could never crack her."
"So you failed."
Tom blinks and more tears drip from his dark lashes. "I don't think so."
Draco's jaw drops. He snaps it shut. "You cracked her obliviate?"
"Yes, I'm fairly certain I did. When I checked after—" he cuts off, jaw grinding. Tom takes a shaky breath and continues, "I went into her head, just to make sure she was still there at all. I found things I'd never seen before. Her and Potter. Her classes at Hogwarts."
Draco stares at Tom, dumbfounded. He's still irate that the boy would raise his wand against such a defenseless victim, but he's in awe of the result. Cracking an obliviate using torture is standard Death Eater procedure, but it only works if the torturer is especially powerful and vicious. In cases where the original spell is imperfect, the task becomes infinitely harder. Draco knows the Dark Lord gave up trying to break Hermione Granger months ago. That Tom succeeded is harrowing.
A broken smile cracks across Tom's face. "A grand achievement to be sure. Too bad it cost me what's left of this ghastly soul."
Draco settles on the floor beside Tom. "That you're this upset tells me your soul isn't nearly as broken as you might fear."
"My soul is in seven bloody pieces," is Tom's wry reply. Neither of them laughs. It isn't the least bit humorous.
"What you did is reprehensible, even if she did ask for it."
Tom's shoulders shudder and another choked sob escapes his chapped lips. "I bloody know that, Draco."
"But you did it for her."
It doesn't take a genius to realize why Tom agreed. It has nothing to do with how dark his soul is and everything to do with how he feels about Hermione Granger. Draco isn't sure he could ever care for another human being in the desperate way Tom clings to Hermione. He's also fairly sure it isn't natural. But then again, Tom is by definition unnatural.
Tom licks his lips, smearing blood and salt. "Do you ever feel like you've lost yourself? Like everything you believed is a lie and you have no idea how to find your way back?"
Draco is intimately familiar with the notion. "It's what happens when you change, when you grow up. Not because you want to, but because you have to."
"I used to know what mattered. Power and my ability to wield it, to shape it. But I was the most powerful dark wizard in the world today and I felt entirely powerless. It didn't matter that I could crack her head because the only thing I truly wanted was to spare her the pain, to save her, and I couldn't do that. I had to destroy her instead. I had to cross a line I'd vowed never to cross."
It's shocking to hear Tom speak with such raw honesty. Draco assumed plenty, but he never dared to ask questions, to force Tom to confront his origin and his trajectory. "It's natural to find yourself becoming someone different than you expected."
Tom laughs, bitter and broken. "I expected to become the king of monsters, Draco, but I find myself wanting to be a simple man. How tragic is that?"
Draco's chest aches. He pulls the other boy into the circle of his arms. Tom collapses against him. His breath still hitches, but the tears have slowed to a faint trickle across his weathered cheeks.
"No one's future is written in stone."
"I'm fairly certain there's prophesy about mine."
"Since when would Tom bloody Riddle let a prophesy stop him?" Draco murmurs into the mess of Tom's ebony locks.
Tom huffs against his neck. "The last time I ignored a prophesy, I lost corporeal form for over a decade."
"That wasn't you. And anyway, I think trying to kill Potter was you making the prophesy come true. If you completely ignore it, if you work with Potter instead of against him, it could be completely different."
He shifts, bringing his cheek to rest against Draco's shoulder. "You are annoyingly persistent about making me work with Potter."
"I think there's something to be said for flouting expectations. The world expects you to be a monster, Tom. So defy it and be a man."
Draco has no idea what that actually involves, but he knows that despite the great evil Tom committed today, he feels more tangible in Draco's embrace than ever before.
The dark boy sags further against Draco, his lashes fluttering as his eyes shutter. Tom's breathing evens as he melts into Draco. Within moments he's succumbed to exhaustion. Draco leans back against the wall and guides Tom's limp form into his lap. He runs a hand through Tom's tangled hair, gently undoing the knots.
He is different like this. His features have lost their ragged edges and gained a softness—a humanity. He looks too gentle to have inflicted such terror on another.
Draco squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on the silk of Tom's hair. He has nothing left to give right now. He can barely begin to categorize the chaos of his thoughts. He tips his head back against the wall and attempts to think of nothing at all.
Quick note: Breaking the obliviate with the cruciatus is actually taken from canon, so all credit to JK on that one.