A/N: Thought last chapter was screwed up? Wait 'til you read this whopper. Longest chapter. My fave. I wrote this at a weird time of life, so that's why it's screwed. I love Draco, teehee! Then why am I torturing him so? I think it's habit. Well, here it is.. The plan is on its way, but as usual things never do go according to plan.. Not at all.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own HP, that's JK's job and I don't think she's doing a good job of owning it--giving it away to anyone who flashes money, for example, but I'm off track--and there's a Moulin Rouge quote in here that I didn't even notice for a very long time. Anyway..
A/N2: If you're younger than thirteen or in general offended by violence, swearing (mostly the "f" word) and all that that entails, get away now. This may be your only chance to not be disturbed. Staying? Good. Don't blame me for any long term psychiatric trauma.
....But now that you don't....
....I cry for your kisses....
Desperation
-Low Noon-
It's noon.
She should be here. Should. She's not the type of person who's ever late.
Does she suspect me, or is she trying to make me panic?
"Relax." Harry sits in one of the armchairs in my humble flat. I could live in the manor, I could live richly; but I don't see the point. The money rots away in the bank. Cold hard cash is exactly that--cold. Like everything else in my life, cold.
"She probably knows I talked to you," I say. I pace back and forth. "She probably had someone watching me. I know it."
"Don't be so paranoid. She'll be here."
"Then you'd better hide." I pace a few steps towards him, then stop. "The bathroom. You can hide there."
"Now?" Harry rises, blinks at me.
"Yes. Now," I say. He goes in and closes the door. At that second, there's a knock at the door. "Just a second," I say.
I open the bathroom door and whisper to Harry, "Have your wand ready. Come out when I say 'I don't know', all right?"
He nods, ready. "Tasiratus?"
I nod, close the bathroom door loudly. Then I open the door.
Hermione stands there, looking stunning in red. I smile nervously at her. For some reason, I feel vulnerable to her..
"So, Draco," she says. She steps in; her dress is more suited for an evening visit than a noon visit. The sun is dull and bright, and a similar light pounds inside my head. "Have you made a decision?"
"Come in and I'll tell you," I say, turn and sit down. She closes the door behind her.
"So are you going to be smart?" Hermione asks. "Or will you make the wrong choice, Draco?"
"Well," I say, then continue with an extra edge, "I don't know."
Harry opens the door quietly--I can see him behind her. He tries to sneak up behind her,
but she whips around.
"Well! Quite an unlikely pair of conspirators," she exclaims. "My fiancée and my little plaything." She smirks, then simpers, "My two favorite boy toys."
"I can't believe this," Harry mutters. He gives me a significant look and I catch on. I stand, grab her arms, constricting her. She cries out in surprise.
"Now, dammit!" I yell. Harry stabs her in the neck with his wand, shouting, "Tasiratus!"
She goes limp in my arms. I try holding her up, then gesture to Harry to get the chair. He drags it over and I drape her into it. "I've got some rope in the kitchen," I hiss at him. "Get it. We'll tie her up."
Harry hurries to get it before she wakes up. The Tasiratus curse lasts long, but to tightly secure her to the chair will take work. Her head flops to the side, and a few strands of hair fall into her face. I brush them away then pause, staring at her peaceful face.
Harry comes out of the kitchen with the rope in hand. I look away quickly from her acquiescent expression and take a fairly good-sized piece. We begin to bind her to the chair.
"Couldn't we do this with magic?" Harry asks somewhat critically.
"We could, but she'd be able to undo it much easier," I respond. "It may be slower but we'll hold her longer."
"All right," Harry says with more than a little doubt in his voice. Amazing--I'm using the Muggle method and he'd prefer the magic.
I groan. Harry looks up at me. Before he can question, I pull up my sleeve. "Look." Way back when, when I followed my mother and father and became a Death Eater, I was
"branded." Now I show it to Harry in the crook of my arm; it's burning darker.
He looks half-disgusted, half-curious at it. "You actually were..?"
"Only for a short time. When my parents were alive, they made me do it." I push my sleeve back down. "It's probably because I'm near her. Or.."
"What?"
"They're looking for her." Sudden realization strikes me. "I'm sure she thought I'd do it, and then she'd have a big party or something. You're still their worst enemy, you know."
"Lovely, this fame," Harry says bitterly. We finish tying her onto the chair, and I pace.
"She'll be awake in about five minutes," I say. "Should we gag her?"
"No," he says. "I want to ask her things. Lots of things."
I laugh. "You want answers?" I gesture into the kitchen again. "Veritaserum in the refrigerator."
"You're kidding me." I shake my head. "You keep that around?" I shrug. "You're a remarkable one, Draco."
"So I'm told." I pull up a chair next to the unconscious Hermione. Harry goes into the
kitchen and I hear him rummaging through the refrigerator.
"So, my love," I whisper to her. "My love, you're a witch of many talents. Love, you can make a man feel like the most important person on the planet." I sigh, kiss her cheek softly. "But you can, in the next moment, make him feel like the most foolish fool."
"You need to clean that refrigerator," I hear Harry say from within the kitchen. I jerk away from Hermione as Harry emerges from the kitchen with the Truth Potion. "Let's get her awake," he says. "I want to.. enjoy this."
It seems we don't need to do so, however, because she's beginning to come to. "Mmm," she murmurs.
Harry seems to have something like rage, rather than regret like me, festering inside him.
He slaps Hermione across the face, snarls, "Wake up, darling."
Hermione opens her eyes wide, stars at Harry, and I swear I see fear in her eyes. Then she lowers her eyes, gives a low laugh. "My boy toys," she says. "What've you done to me?"
"Nothing yet," Harry responds. "But there's more to come, oh yes, much more."
The voice of reason tells me this is not normal behavior from Harry. "Harry," I say, "maybe this wasn't a good idea. I mean--"
"Draco," he interrupts, "I'm speaking to my fiancée right now. It's important. Honey?" he snaps at Hermione, then mocks her simpering tone. "We need to talk."
"Draco," Hermione says desperately, watching me warily. "He's a madman, Draco, I've always loved you, you know that.."
"You bitch," Harry murmurs. "You bitch." He pulls a knife out of his pocket--I recognize it from my kitchen, a large thick blade--and presses it against her throat. "How would you like me to cut your lying throat, huh, Hermione? How would you like that, bride-to-be?"
"Harry," she pleads. "I did love you, I swear it. Draco was just.. a mistake, Harry, I love you.."
"Still lying?" He pulls away the knife. "Fine. Your choice." He produces the crystal vial of Veritaserum. "You won't be lying now."
"Harry," she pleads. "I've been mad, please just..." she looks down at the ground. "Trust me."
"Draco, plug her nose."
"What?"
"Do it." Harry unplugs the vial. Hermione looks panicked and clamps her mouth shut. I plug her nose and after about ten seconds, she begins coughing. By that time, Harry's shoved the potion down her throat.
"Now you should know," I say, "that she's not going to know what she's saying." I know this is his way of getting revenge, sadistically jabbing at facade of his love; he wants to hurt her, to make her weak and defenseless. But you can't be awake during a Veritaserum trance.. at least, I think.
"I'll find a way." He wants to see the fear in her eyes. It scares me that he's like this, and doubts are starting coalesce..
Hermione suddenly slumps in the chair. Her eyes are open, head cocked back towards the ceiling, and I see her eyes are flat, dull.
A sudden thought grips me, and I say, "Did you ever love me, Draco Malfoy?"
"I've been fond of him, yes, quite fond of his desperation and constancy. I've never known what love is.."
"Love," Harry repeats. He looks at me strangely, and I look away quickly. "What about me, Harry Potter? Did you love me?"
"He was clueless to the world. Sure he was an orphan, but he didn't know pain. He was.. he was an innocent. That innocence attracted me, but.. romance and love, it seems.. like.. an infection."
I laugh sardonically. Harry doesn't notice. "So there's no way we can wake her up?"
"No. Well, we probably could give her a good electric shock and she may wake up."
Harry suddenly laughs--I jump, startled--and he turns to Hermione. "You're a potion buff, Hermione, how can you wake someone who's under a Veritaserum trance?"
"Electric shock and loss of blood are effective in awakening one from a Veritaserum trance," she quotes flatly.
He nods to me. "Good job, Draco, you were right." He pulls out the knife again, looking at his reflection in its silver surface. "Blood loss, eh?"
"Harry, you could seriously hurt her if you keep this up," I say. Then I remember I was the one who proposed her death by our hands. "Though.. it may not matter now."
He ignores everything I said, and slashes a deep red line across her wrist.
As if an electric shock is going through her body, she spasms from her feet up. Then her head snaps up and her eyes are wide, startled. She begins to cough.
As she recovers, I look over at Harry. There's a strange glint in his eyes, one that scares me. "Are you, Hermione Granger, leader of the Death Eaters?" I ask.
"Yes," she answers, then her eyes widen with fear as she realizes she can't lie any longer.
Harry laughs, then asks, "Did you ever love either of us?"
"No." The blood from the cut drips down her arm, into her hands, staining the rope. She looks down, panicked, then desperation overcomes her face.
"Do you want to live?" Harry places the blade on her other wrist--a bit of pressure and she'll at least pass out from blood loss.
"Yes. I have to carry out the last wish of my master before I die," she says. The blood on her right arm is beginning to dry, and has stopped flowing. A superficial cut, but serious nonetheless.
"Was your mission to kill Harry Potter, no matter the cost?" I ask shakily. This is really scaring me, the look on her face. The way Harry delights in her desperation.
I hate to admit it, but I'm beginning to doubt, and I.. my love for her is still there.
"Yes. Since my first year at Hogwarts, I was to assist Harry Potter to each trap my Lord had set for him. After the destruction of my master, I had to take the job into my own hands and lure him myself." She looks appalled as all her secrets spill from her own mouth.
"And so you led me to believe that you loved me," Harry says. He laughs again, that same
"I can't believe it" laugh.
"You meant for me to kill him," I cut in. "Would you have followed through with you promise if I had?"
"Yes. You've grown on me, Draco, and I enjoy having you around.. I would've taken you in and added you to the Dark Empire, so we could rise up and rule all wizardkind.. yes, you had potential, until you joined up with him." Her face is now resigned, and I'm in wonder. She wouldn't have used me and thrown me away? She had.. she had the potential of feelings for me?
"You bitch, you bitch," Harry mumbles. "You were mine, it was perfect, why would you--? I hate you. I hate you.."
....You don't want to listen....
He sinks down, hugging his knees to his chest. He looks up at me and I see tears in his eyes. "Are you happy? She loves you. Not me. Happy now?"
"Happy? I've never been happy." I look over at Hermione, who's staring at Harry crying over her. A look that I can't describe overcomes her--a mix of pity and hate and
frustration. "This was a bad idea, Harry," I say. "Let's just.. let's just forget this ever happened." I look over at Hermione, then begin to untie her wrists. "Will you turn on me if I release you?"
"No," she says, with a strange clarity in her eyes. Clarity like starlight, nothing like the dull light of the sun this day, this low noon.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Harry stands up, glaring at me through clouded eyes; rage behind his glare shining like the dull noon sun. "You and I started something and we're going to finish it. Don't take her side, Draco."
Then he pulls a gun.
Hermione is quivering--and it makes sense, because only one of her wrists is loosened. Even if she got her hands out, Harry could shoot her dead on the spot before she could untie her bonded ankles.
I grab at the gun. "You idiot," I hiss. "What are you thinking? Someone will hear!"
Harry pulls back. "It shouldn't matter to you in a second, because you'll be dead!" His eyes are wild, his voice verging on hysteria. "If I can't have her, no one can, especially not you!"
We struggle a moment more until both of us hear a sound. We both turn to look.
It's Hermione, softly crying, crystalline tears dripping down her face. She can't say a thing--the potion grips her still. All she can do is cry almost soundlessly.
....You just want to talk....
Harry pulls the gun away from me roughly, and my hand smarts for a moment. He stares at Hermione. "Why are you crying? You've got no right to cry."
"I didn't mean any of it," she says, tears still painting her face a flushed red. "I was immature and selfish, and I didn't know--didn't know what love was. And I wanted it so bad, but I mistook lust for love and power for wisdom and.. I've wronged you two so much."
Harry shakes his head, lets out a noise of surprise. "Do you really believe you deserve to live?"
She starts to cry again, but Harry pistol-whips her. She lets out a muffled cry, sobs louder.
He barks, "Answer the damn question. Do you think you deserve to live?"
She looks up at me with that innocence like starlight shining out of her and a look I can't decipher, and says, "No."
....I know something's missing....
At that moment I realize what the look in her eyes was. The soul of a person who learned the way to the right path too late.
I see the bullet hit her in the forehead before I hear the sound. Her head's thrown back like whiplash and her blood spatters, hits the wall. Her body slumps back, and I rush over to her. I cup her chin and look into those starlit brown eyes. They're flat, dull, and the light of life is gone.
I hear a clunk of Harry dropping the gun, and I suddenly remember.
"You fuck." I step away from her, staring down at the ground. "You fuck." I look up at Harry with a hopeless defiance. I storm up to him, grab him by the collar, and seethe, "You killed her."
He says nothing, just stares down at his shaking hands.
"You shot her. You killed her. Fuck. Fuck." I shake him by his shoulders. "You fucking killed her."
Harry laughs quietly, then says, "Well, Draco, isn't that what we came here to do?"
I pull up a chair by the window, and stare outside.
....From this Primrose Path I walk.