Notes: Almost there, folks. Almost there.
WARNINGS: mild sexual content, blood ritual
44. For This Sin There Is No Remedy
Draco stares down at the sleeping baby. Harriet's tiny hands are curled into her blankets, chubby pink digits swallowed by pastel yellow. Her mouth is parted just the slightest bit, shimmering drool spilling from between her petal pink lips. Perhaps the sight should be disgusting, but he finds it endearing.
He brushes his fingers over her forehead, smoothing back the thin black hair that clings to her scalp. It's the same dark ebony as Tom's loose curls.
Harriet stirs, but only wiggles, her shocking azure eyes staying mercifully closed.
There's no doubt she's Tom's daughter. The pieces of Hermione in Harriet are more subtle, but no less visible. There's the perfect cupid bow of her upper lip. The button nose they both share. The keen edge of Harriet's stare as she demands her next meal.
Draco lets is eyes roam over Harriet's perfection one last time before he exits the nursery. He pokes his head into the adjacent bedroom. Hermione is tangled in the sheets, a deep furrow etched between her brows.
Even in sleep she can't escape the painful twist Tom bequeathed them.
Draco pads across the room, his thick wool socks silent on the floorboards. It's been a month since Harriet was born and he worries far less for the girl than her mother.
Hermione is remote now, as if her mind were swept across an invisible sea and is now a world apart from the rest of her. It's like when they finally freed her from the dungeons, but worse. This time there's no Tom to understand her. No obliviate to reverse.
He can do nothing but hope, but he's rather unaccustomed to faith being the driving force behind his actions. More often than not he's not sure he has the strength to hold his pieces together while also preserving hers.
Draco sighs as he drops onto the bed. Hermione stirs, bleary eyes blinking slowly.
"Draco?"
He gives a murmur of assent as he tucks her sweat-slicked hair behind one ear. "Can I get you anything?"
Hermione rubs her chapped lips together. "Water?"
He motions toward the glass on her nightstand. "Already got you covered."
She pushes up on her elbows and reaches for the glass. She gulps down the water in greedy bursts. When she finishes, the glass clinks against the nightstand. Hermione sighs, collapsing back against the bed.
"At least I'm no longer freezing my ass off," she mutters darkly.
That is perhaps the one positive that's come out of the drama of Harriet's birth. Hermione no longer has Death's chilling power surging through her.
Draco catches her hand and gives her fingers a gentle squeeze. "I've put Harriet down for her afternoon nap. Your parents are planning to come by for dinner and to stay the night. Oh, and Astoria is wondering if you'd like her to increase her hours. She can easily adjust her training schedule."
"And Ginny will be here for the weekend," she adds.
He nods, "and that."
Ginny, Astoria and their other assorted magical friends know only half the story. The only person beyond Hermione's parents who knows the complete truth is Severus Snape. But Severus is hardly babysitter material. He met Harriet once and the awkward moments when the two stared at each other, perplexed and utterly at a loss, were enough for Draco to know his Godfather was going to be useless until Harriet learned to speak, if not many years later.
To everyone beyond the Grangers and Severus, Tom simply met an unlucky end after the birth of his daughter. Missed a step in the depths of the night and broke his neck on the stairs.
There's a headstone on the moor that marks his passing.
Draco throws stones at it when he's feeling particularly bitter. He'd have cracked the bloody thing in half with a diffindo, but he isn't ready to deal with the fallout. It's best if their friends think they're grieving.
The moldering rage in his bones isn't so easily explained.
Hermione shifts on the bed and he jolts back to the present. She gives him a wan smile that tells him she knows exactly where his mind wandered.
"Tell Astoria I'd love to have her help whenever she can provide it. Of course, I don't want to negatively impact her apprenticeship either."
"You could tell her yourself," Draco probes. "She is just downstairs."
Hermione's gaze goes glassy. "I think I'll rest for now."
"Of course," he murmurs and bends down to brush his lips over her flushed brow. "Whatever you think is best."
The heavy look in the depths of her cinnamon eyes breaks his heart. She knows she ought to force herself from the bed to greet Astoria and thank her for all she's done for them. But if Tom's final choice has shaken Draco to his core, it has ravaged Hermione beyond recognition.
He fears it will take more than time to restore her to her former glory.
She looks away, her proud chin jutting toward the ceiling and her expression a study in neutrality. The thin veneer hides nothing from him. They've been through too much together for such a paltry defense to hide her yawning cracks.
But this isn't the moment to force her hand. At this rate, that moment may never come. His fingers dig into his temples as he turns away.
Draco isn't sure he has the kind of strength required to weather this magnitude of storm. Certainly not alone.
Astoria looks up, hesitant smile breaking across her perfect lips, when he enters the kitchen. "How are they?"
He feels the weight of a thousand lives dragging him down, but only sighs. "Harriet's fine. Hermione's… the same."
"I can talk to her," Astoria offers. Exactly as she has a hundred other times.
Draco shakes his head, as he has every time before. "She needs space."
The dark caramel of Astoria's hair shimmers as she leans into a ray of light cutting in through the window. "Maybe she did, but the time for space is over. She has to snap out of it before it's too late. Before Harriet suffers because of it."
He opens his mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand and the words die on his exhausted tongue.
"I'm serious, Draco. You didn't sign up to be a single parent. You may have agreed to help raise Harriet, but that was never supposed to be a task for one. And it doesn't matter how many of us are trying to help you if Hermione doesn't get her shit together. Harriet needs her mother to be here."
Astoria swallows and tucks a curl behind her ear. "Look, I understand how much she's been through. First a prisoner in the war, then pregnant at such a young age and finally having her boyfriend die."
He just restrains the hysterical laugh that bubbles in his throat. Having her boyfriend die. That would have been downright survivable. Astoria is missing too many pieces to see the full picture and he cannot make her see, not without betraying Hermione's trust. And that's one currency he will not surrender.
Astoria may not be able to understand, but she's no fool either. Her eyes narrow, the sweetness in her expression hardening to steel. "I don't know everything. That's obvious, Draco, but I know enough. And I'm not wrong. Hermione needs to wake up and join the living and she needs to do it now."
"Fine," he blurts. "Talk to her. See if you can get through to her. Merlin knows I've tried."
Her gaze softens to warm honey. "You're pushing yourself to edge, Draco. No matter how good your intentions, it won't last. It can't."
His teeth grind and he has to look away from her kindness. It is far more than he can bear in this moment.
"I'm taking a walk."
He pulls a heavy cloak from the rack beside the door. He doesn't look over his shoulder as he barrels out the door. He wishes he could be better. That he had the strength to turn and meet her kindness with grace instead of denial.
But Astoria's right. He's on the bloody ragged edge and if he stops, if he no longer plows blindly forward, then he isn't sure he'll ever have the strength to continue.
So instead of allowing Astoria to help shoulder his burdens, he charges into the bright plains. The brilliance of the sun has burned away the mists for once and waves of infinite grey-blue heather stretch as far as the eye can see.
His feet lead him to the headstone even as his heart warns him away.
It's simple and elegant and a lie. It doesn't even have Tom's true name engraved upon it.
Draco kicks the dirt at its base, spraying the pale marble with mud. He's on his knees a moment later, rubbing away the splatter with his bare hands.
It's the perfect metaphor for his warped attachment to Tom. No matter how much he wishes his feelings away, he can't seem to stop caring—loving—the other boy.
Draco drops his brow to the cool marble. His fingers fall to the ground, a useless jumble of mud and memories.
"Why?"
It's a bitter foreign rasp that escapes his throat.
Only the bitter chill of the wind answers. It ruffles his hair and sweeps the eternal ache of winter beneath his skin. He claws deeper into the mud, as if he will find his salvation in the depths of earth that lay beneath Tom's grave.
But no body rests here. No spirit sleeping soundly through eternity. Nothing is here but brittle memories. And if he lets them in, if he touches them, everything will shatter into chaos.
And he will have to remember exactly what Tom has done.
Not that he can forget.
He closes his eyes and feels the soft sweep of Tom's lips across the hollow of his throat. He feels the desperate tangle of Tom's elegant fingers in his platinum hair. He sees eyes of the most vibrant azure.
Draco lets out a low curse, eyes snapping open.
This is madness. Sitting here in the dirt and remembering what he cannot have. He has a duty, a duty he promised to fulfill.
As much as he wants to stay here, drowning in his rage and his sorrow, he isn't that person. Not anymore.
He will not turn his back on what is required of him. He no longer plays the coward and no one else will write his destiny. Not even the boy he loves.
So he pushes off the ground and vanishes the dirt crusted beneath his fingernails. Then he turns away from the marble and its lies. There are still miles to go before he can sleep.
~*~Break~*~
Hermione listens to the ocean. It's a steady, sure sound that drowns out the frantic buzzing of her thoughts.
Her footfalls echo as she moves through the hall. She imagines she could tiptoe here and still the echo would be monstrous. It's that sort of place—full of darkness rather than light.
Her wand glows, illuminated by a simple lumos. The shadows stretch long, distorted by the bobbing light. There would be ghosts here if Death hadn't gone his job so thoroughly.
But she doesn't think Voldemort's essence will ever escape the eternal annihilation Death provided him. Certainly not while Death himself is—
She shakes her head. It's a truth she can't unknow, but that doesn't mean she needs to acknowledge it.
Hermione shoves open the great library door. It clangs against the wall, the force of her movement making it buck against its hinges. She pays the racket no mind. No one else beyond Draco knows this place exists.
No one will hear the force of her wrath.
She goes through the shelves systematically, searching for any reference she can find to him. As much as malice and black magic ooze from the pages sequestered here, she finds very few references to the monster who haunts her.
She doesn't stop searching. Harriet is with Hermione's parents and Draco is with Astoria. No one is fretting over Hermione right now and this exactly the moment she's been waiting for. The chance to force a reckoning.
Her eyes begin to droop with fatigue, her brain heavy with the useless knowledge of a thousand tomes. She dumps a pepper-up potion down her throat and keeps combing through pages. Somewhere in this library from Hell, she will find the invocation to conjure the Devil.
When the shelves are too high, she uses levitation to float the insidious volumes down. Where they are low, she crawls on her hands and knees, paying no heed the scrapes, to the blood swelling within shallow cuts.
She has bled here before. She has felt the honed knife of suffering as she clawed against this floor. She was reborn within these horrid walls and she will find the power to be remade again.
Down here, there is no sense of time. It's like the Malfoy dungeons. Like the part of her life that barely feels real anymore. With Harriet and Draco, with the impossible loss of Tom, she can barely put together the shapes of her former agony.
She knows it lurks deep within her, a brand she can never erase, but for once, it is overshadowed by a greater trauma. By a truth she is utterly unwilling to accept.
Hermione flips another page. It's as useless as the one before.
She forges onward.
For she has finally found something with more power than hope. Fury.
She's shattered a thousand ways, but finally her jagged edges have given her power. She will no longer bow to the inevitable, to the mundane. She will force her will upon him, just as he forced his upon her.
Her finger tips are bloody, tiny papercuts and required blood sacrifices littering them. She doesn't care. She doesn't even feel the pain.
Because the words in front of her are finally the ones she needs and they mean nothing without blood.
Hermione carves the appropriate runes in the dark wood of the nearest table. Then she fills them with her blood. The bloody runes glisten darkly in the flickering torchlight. She smiles—dark and full of every cut that makes her soul ache. Then she stands on top of the desk, her dark boots within the ring of sparkling runes and recites from the tome.
"Coniuro tenebris. Coniuro frigus. Coniuro mortem."
It's a simple invocation. Six words, three descriptions. But it is powerful. She feels the weight of it as the Latin rolls off her tongue.
The wicked grin cuts more sharply across her face.
The air seems to hum, as if electrified. As if her breath will conjure sparks. She inhales and magic sizzles in her lungs. She peers down, checking the runes. The blood boils in the narrow crevices.
And when she looks up, he is a mere step away.
Her limbs lock, her hands becoming claws. The book drops to the table at her feet, splashing the blood of the runes.
He wipes the crimson splatter from his cheek. "You could have just asked to see me."
His is exactly how she remembers and entirely different. His eyes burn a familiar sapphire, but she sees hints of golden flame sparking in their depths. The lines of his face are poetry made manifest. Her fingers itch to trace the cool marble of his pale cheek. And his hair, darker ebony than ever, sweeps across his brow in a perfect wave.
He is flawless and he is horribly foreign.
"Would you have come?"
She is sure he would not. She screamed his name countless nights, a silencing spell on her room protecting Harriet and Draco from her madness.
He purses his lips and then shakes his head. Not a single hair on his head shifts with the motion. "No. I do not have the luxury of coming when any mortal calls."
She holds his impossible gaze. It's like staring into the heart of fire. The dull light of the torches circling the hidden library is nothing compared to the super nova exploding around the darkness of his pupils.
Hermione hops down from the table, her palms smearing heated blood. He remains motionless as she approaches, as she runs a hand down the line of his magnificent jaw. Only when her thumb tugs at his bottom lip does he retreat.
She smiles up at him, sharp and knowing. He glares down. "There are lines we can no longer cross."
He's already crossed every line that mattered. She snatches her hand away. "Why, Tom?"
"You assume Tom is here?" he asks, dark brow cocked.
"It's been six months. You're a quick learner," she replies.
"You're right. I am." The golden comets in his eyes fade, leaving only brilliant sapphire.
Adrenaline ricochets through her veins. She hoped, bloody prayed, but never imagined he would have conquered Death so soon. "So answer the question."
He bridges the gap between them, cradling her face between his hands. His skin is soft—too soft—and his touch trails icicles behind it. She doesn't notice the cold, only the continued clarity of his eyes. "I am so sorry, Hermione. But it was the only way. The only way to give you what I had stolen. The only way to give you the life you deserve."
She closes a hand around his wrist, her nails digging into the soft flesh below the base of his palm. "The only way to give you the power you craved."
He doesn't deny it. He can't.
"Did you even love me?" she whispers and it's far too soft. She wants him to feel the fury that's been gathering in her bones for months, but one look into his remade face and all her ire washes away. She is left with only echoing sorrow and that is so much worse.
"I love you both. In different ways. But you," he strokes her cheek with his thumb, "you I love more than anything."
Hermione glares up at him. "And yet."
His expression turns haunted, an echo of the boy she watched fall apart. "And yet, I am powerless to fight the truth of my existence. I was never meant to live… not like you and Draco. I was made from darkness and it only makes sense I have returned to it."
She wishes he were stronger—different, merely mortal. But a part of her has begun to understand. His years in the diary were real, just as his childhood as Tom Marvolo Riddle was. He is the sum of discordant pieces, of a life not meant to be lived.
"I will never be able to forgive you."
He nods, "I would never expect you to." He strokes her cheek. His touch is grief and desire knitted into one chilling caress. "Harriet is beautiful."
Hermione jerks away from him. "You don't get to speak about Harriet."
She hates that she sees the shadow of sorrow fall across his face. She hates that she believes his grief. He swallows, a step closer to human. "I'm sorry."
She looks anywhere else. "How is it? Reaping souls all the bloody time?"
"Exhausting," he admits in a low tone that has her turning toward him before she can think better of it. His head is bowed as his fingers idly trace the bloody runes she carved into the table. "Even now, I feel the pull. The obligation to be somewhere else."
A bitter laugh escapes her lips. "Not quite the infinite power you imagined, is it?"
"No."
"Do you regret it?"
Tom's head snaps up. His stare is a vortex of emotion, complex and indecipherable. "No. I've seen Harriet and I could never regret her."
Hermione can't help but agree. She crosses her arms over her chest and glares nonetheless. "You could have told me the full truth."
"I wanted to… but you already were so worried about me. You'd made peace with—"
"Knowing you weren't planning on killing yourself for me would have been a comfort, even if I disagreed with your choice."
"I didn't want…"
He trails off and it takes her a moment to understand. He didn't want her to stop him. To prevent his transition beyond mortality. Because no matter how fiercely she loved him and no matter how much more he became, there was no removing Tom's darkest fears and desires. No removing his obsession with power and death.
She wants to hate him for it, but she can't. It's a fatal flaw—clearly, but it's a part of him and unfortunately she still loves all of him.
"I deserved a chance to say goodbye."
He swallows, the ghost of grief still clinging to him like a second skin. "I know. And I can never make that right." His eyelids flutter, as if caught between agony and ecstasy. "But we can do that now."
Hermione craves what he offers. The chance to find closure. The ability to make a final memory that belongs to them and not Death. But the prospect of this being the final time she sees him shreds her heart.
"Come to me again," she pleads, all pretense of hostility dissolving as panic washes over her.
He makes a choked noise and stumbles toward her. "The magic that allows me to stay here is weak—too thin. It will require more the next time you attempt it. This time the cost was merely blood. The next time it could be a year from your life. Or worse, a year from Harriet's. Are you truly willing to risk her safety just so we can see each other?"
The pernicious hope in her gut curdles to dismay. Of course she isn't. She reaches blindly for him and he meets her halfway. Her lips are trembling as she whispers, "I don't know how to say goodbye."
He drops his forehead to hers. "Neither do I."
She's only known him for the briefest of moment in the scope of a lifetime—a year and change. But he is the father of her child. The reason she regained her memory. The slayer of her demons.
She has no idea how to let go of that. How to find peace with his absence from her life when he is not truly dead and gone.
"If it didn't hurt so bloody much, it wouldn't be real," he murmurs. "And this is the most pain I've ever felt."
"Even now?"
"Especially now," he counters. "I'm… greater than I was. My senses are heightened and my ability to empathize is unparalleled. When the root of your power is the destruction of life, you learn to savor it and the myriad emotions it encompasses."
Despite the undeniable truth of it, Hermione still can't picture him as Death, a reaper cutting down the living with a gleaming scythe. The Muggle imagery is likely far from reality, but the effect is very real. He is no longer Tom and she cannot afford to forget that.
Especially when his perfect lips dip to capture hers.
But she runs no risk of forgetting his true nature, not even when her mouth opens to his. He tastes nothing like the boy she knows. There's no tang of cloves on his breath, no dark musk that is uniquely Tom. His lips are like the depths of a forest—bitter cold with a hint of pine.
She pulls him closer anyway. She will not say goodbye for as long as he will let her.
Not quite Tom buries his hands in her hair and guides them back, until she's bumping against the table smeared with blood. She ignores the streaks of crimson they leave in their wake—a smudge on his cheek, bloody fingerprints on her hips.
She tears at his clothes—the same black shirt and dark jeans he adopted as a Muggle. This isn't smart. It likely isn't even safe, but she's beyond caring. She needs him one last time.
If his frantic vigor is any indication, the same wild desire drives him.
They don't bother with more clothes than necessary. She's been without this type of intimacy for over half a year now, but when he slides into her, she feels no panic or discomfort. With Tom, her past doesn't haunt her.
But this—this will haunt her.
The moment a god—or something nearly like it—became a man again for her.
Hermione clings to him, chasing far more than pleasure. He is undeniably different. His brow does not glisten with sweat. His hair remains perfectly coiffed. Golden stars shoot through his brilliant eyes.
But he is also absolutely the same. And for one moment stretching into the jaws of eternity, she is safe and loved and home.
But even gods aren't infinite.
Time slams into her with the force of a reducto. Tom pants against her neck, an imitation of exertion he doesn't feel. Hermione runs her hands through the silken waves of his ebony hair and searches for salvation in the depths of his cool mouth.
She finds only denial, bitter and wrong.
He feathers her flushed cheeks with soft kisses. She savors every brush of his cold lips, tries to capture the specters in the depths of her memory.
Hermione is not ready for what comes next. She's numb as he gently puts her back together—pulling up her jeans and fastening them, righting her askew tank top and cardigan. The dull click of his belt as he fastens it sends dread pooling through her.
This is the moment she can't abide. The moment she doesn't have the strength to face no matter how much trauma she's already endured.
Her lips are chapped as she rubs them together, raw from the passion they shared. She stares up at him, the weight of her soul in her eyes.
He's streaked with blood and his newly flawless face looks cruel beneath the crimson stain. He is beyond her now. A creature of darkness with the power of life and death at his disposal.
What has transpired between them now will never happen again.
It is a wound far deeper than the bite of any knife.
The golden sparks in his eyes explode like fireworks. He grimaces and pulls her close. "I can't fight it much longer."
His duty. His power.
She kisses him and it's all salt and iron.
"I love you," he says against her lips.
"I know," she whimpers because she doesn't have the strength to say the words in return.
"Goodbye, Hermione Granger." He brushes his chilling lips across her cheek.
Their gazes meet for a tortured moment that is over too soon. The gold shatters his sapphire eyes and he is gone—ripped out of the air like he was an illusion of mist and memory.
"Goodbye," she echoes, voice rough and worn. But it is too late and he is long gone.
~*~Break~*~
Draco finds her at the marble headstone.
He hasn't been out this direction in months, not since he vowed to leave the past behind and forge a future. But when he returned from his lunch with Astoria followed by a consultation with Severus at the ministry, she was nowhere to be found.
Usually, she doesn't leave her bedroom or the nursery, let alone the house. He couldn't quite believe his eyes when he saw a smudge of darkness on the horizon, barely visible against the swaying heather.
Hermione looks over her shoulder as he approaches. The expression on her face is different. It lacks the gaping wound he has come to expect, the absence of hope and the ragged edge of sanity.
For once her cinnamon eyes are crystal clear as she looks back at him.
"How was work?"
It's a banal question—one she has never asked before. Draco comes to stand beside her. He looks out to the horizon, gaze lost in the low hang of the summer clouds.
"Good. Severus and I are making good progress on the latest artefacts they found in the Lestrange vault." He pauses, considering just how composed she truly is. When she stares back at him with steady interest, he continues, "and Shacklebolt has been asking about the Hallows."
Hermione's grimace is unmistakable. "So we've admitted to having them?"
"Not exactly." He gives her a wry smile. "I placed the blame squarely on Harry's shoulders. He was, after all, in possession of all of them except the wand. And since they're nothing but ash and dust, it hardly matters anyway."
"But you've kept Tom out of it."
It's the first time she's said his name to Draco in months. The syllable holds none of the pain he expects from it. Something major has shifted and as much as he wants to understand what, he won't ask.
"Yes. The Ministry doesn't need to know Voldemort's younger, hotter, saner half had control over Death."
Hermione snorts, her cinnamon eyes glittering. "Yes, that would give them a fright. But not nearly so much as knowing Tom Marvolo Riddle became Death himself."
"Salazar, can you imagine Slughorn's face when Death comes?"
She wrinkles her nose. "I think Tom will show more tact than letting Slughorn see just who delivers his fate. Not all who pass come face to face with Death."
He raises a brow and searches her face. There's a shadow of the sorrow he's come to expect, but she's brighter, more vibrant. Her shoulders no longer crumple forward like they're under an impossible strain.
"You're not telling me something." He won't push, but he will open the door if she's willing to meet him halfway.
The smile that flickers at the edges of her mouth is both foreign and familiar, a vestige of less troubled times. "I saw him."
Draco blinks, owlish, as shock courses through him. "What did you do?"
Hermione gives him a reproachful glare. "Nothing drastic. I haven't gone completely mental."
He has the evidence to argue otherwise, but chooses diplomacy and keeps his mouth shut. She huffs and crosses her arms. "I found a ritual in the hidden library, okay?"
That she's been to the dark library without anyone else concerns him, but Draco's in no position to judge. He spent hours pouring over the contents of Tom's library, searching for something that would tell him more about the bargain Tom struck with Death. That was before he knew the true nature of the bargain.
He certainly never looked for a way to summon Death beyond the Hallows. Then the Hallows disintegrated when Tom became Death and that was the end of that. He felt no need to dive deeper into the madness of Tom's choice and its horrific repercussions.
He chose the future over the past and he doesn't regret it.
But Hermione suffered differently, Tom's final decision wounding her in ways Draco can only imagine. He finds he can't blame her for searching for Tom. The raw wound of his betrayal has been etched into her for months.
That she has managed to be there for Harriet, to be a mother to the best of her current abilities, speaks to the fortitude of her character. But Draco knows she tires of being strong, of holding on while her strength wanes.
So he can't blame her for resorting to drastic measures, for turning to the darkest magic to find solace. He just worries what new madness she's unearthed.
"Stop it," Hermione gripes.
Draco sighs. "I'm not bloody doing anything."
"You're thinking I've screwed us over in some new and fantastic way."
They have spent far too much time together in close quarters. He rubs his temples. They're raising a child together. Of course, she can read him like Hogwarts: A History.
"I'm thinking every time we interact with Death, life gets worse."
She absently traces the lines of Tom's name—his Muggle name. "No, that was all Tom. He made that bargain long before he deigned to tell us and long before Death came to collect his due."
"So you didn't make another bargain to see him?"
The twitch of her eye, the tic of her jaw. The signs are barely visible, but they're enough to tell him Hermione did participate in some manner of exchange. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "Every ritual has a price. But this time it was merely blood, a debt easily paid."
He catches the hidden emphasis. "And next time?"
"More," she admits. "More than either you or I is willing to pay."
"So, there won't be a next time."
"No."
He expects her to crumple inward, to become less once more, but she doesn't. The heavy veil of sorrow doesn't swallow her whole. Instead, she twists to lean her back against the headstone.
"I've been holding on to so much anger, Draco. To a rage and fury that drove me mad. Without Harriet, I'd have fallen to pieces ages ago. And without you, I would never have been able to properly care for her."
She shakes her head. "I kept thinking he was someone else. Merely a boy who loved me."
Draco knows the feeling. "But he isn't. Separating him from the depths of his soul, from the power he craved, it's impossible."
"You understood that long before I did," Hermione murmurs. "You understood he would never be content with mortality, let alone a life as a Muggle."
Draco's lips press into a thin line. He wants to spare her this truth, but they're far beyond that sort of mercy. "You saw the best of him. The noble boy fighting for what was right. The hero saving the damsel in distress. But Tom was messy, Hermione. He was never who you thought he was. Not completely."
She surprises him when she nods. "I know. I know he never stopped wanting you even when he committed to me. And I know he has almost no self-restraint. What he wants, he gets. He produced the most wonderful illusion for me and as much as I hate knowing it was only that, I am thankful he loved me enough to try."
Draco sighs. Now comes the virulent truth he shies away from. "He always chose you, even in the end. Harriet is here because his love was more powerful than his desire, for once."
She laughs, a bright and bitter sound. "A conflicted boy who escaped it all by becoming a bloody god. I think we could rehash his choices for hours—months—and still not understand him."
Draco shifts to lean against the headstone with her. The brilliant heat of the summer sun simmers his back, chasing away the chills that crisscross his skin. He slants his chin toward Hermione. "Do you think that's what he's become, a god?"
"What else?" she asks. "He may not have unlimited power, but he holds every drop of life between his palms. That's too much control for anything less than a god."
Draco never much thought about power and magic beyond what he's been taught. But the last six months have been filled with nothing but that. No matter how hard he tries to understand what has become of Tom—not on a personal level, but in purely academic terms—he finds himself lost in theology and philosophy. He can't seem to decide if he believes in the existence of gods or not, let alone what role Tom might play in such a pantheon.
The myth of the Hallows was always that, just a myth. But Draco has locked eyes with Death now—wearing Tom's face and a stranger's. He's watched the Hallows vaporize in the face of a greater power. He knows there is more, but he can't seem to understand enough, to put reason and facts in the space where only myth dwells.
He looks at the clear conviction etched into Hermione's strong features. She believes. And truly, what else could Tom be? A monster does not hold such infinite power.
It is a leap of faith he is not ready to take.
But perhaps, one day, he will.
For now, he shakes his head and smiles as best he can. "All I know is that he's far beyond us."
Hermione shivers at his side. "I miss him every bloody day."
"I know, but we have to move forward. We have to give Harriet the life she deserves."
"The life Tom wants for her."
Draco nods and pulls her close. "We can make her life a wonderful one."
Hermione relaxes into him. "I know."
The sun is bright and for once, so is the future. They walk, hand in hand, away from the marble headstone. Neither of them looks back.