**Disclaimer: My timing will never be this good again. I don't own Potter & co. and only Paxia and the plot is mine.
**Reviews: Impossible to have any, b/c I posted this at the same time as Chapter 10.
**A/N: Trust me. Just trust me.
Corrupt
Chapter Eleven
The Corruption
His stomach heaved, and through burning tears he barreled into the corridor devoid of students that were engrossed in their studies, class being in session at the moment. Thoughts not quite coalescent, his legs carried him to the nearest exit, and he plowed through it- not in anyway fazed by the pain in his shoulder.
Stumbling, quivering, and taken by the snow on the field, Draco lost all control of his physical self the same way he'd rejected ownership of his heart last night. She had it now, and she had taken that heart and incapacitated its ability to function ever again. Damn him for ever believing the rebellious Granger that provoked his fight with Potter would ever change. He had nothing anymore. He couldn't claim loyalty to the light or dark side. Voldemort wouldn't want his useless mind, the same mind that had fallen for beauty and intelligence over usefulness and integrity.
He leapt through the entrance of the Astronomy Tower, if only to run its height and take off. To fly. To fall to the floor and escape the misery that haunted him, tormented him, held him captive. But it wasn't meant for him. Not yet. Collapsing into a convulsive mess of physical tire and mental destitution, Draco gave into his tears and sobbed in pain. A pain that tore into every muscle and bone, and which he felt could potentially kill him, and he wouldn't deny it the chance.
Hermione's soul was in no less of a obscured state. She loved Draco, loved him with a passion that she thought was clearly exuded in her expressions, thoughts, actions, words. Harry was a question mark, he meant nothing to her anymore, and it wasn't easy to have admitted that placement, but she openly professed it in class. Harry meant nothing to her. She needed Draco- his touch and reassurance. That potion was a fraud, and Draco was right, she should have been more cautious in a house of Slytherins. Even teachers were not to be trusted. But wasn't this the work of Paxia.......dammit! Paxia Devastarium! Was she so blind as not to have seen it before? The control she had over Snape's class, her demeanor, her acknowledgment of the existence of the word 'attraction'? No Slytherin in their right mind as dark as Snape or Paxia would let such a word become introduced into their vocabulary unless intentions had been otherwise. She had to find him. To find him and hold him and tell him that he was her world and that they needed each other if they were to overcome this new threat. The threat of Severus Snape and Paxia Devastarium.
Pleadingly she ran, looking through each window in Hogwart's castle. She saw a silhouetted shadow against the purity of the fallen snow, and it stemmed from the Astronomy Tower. Hermione cried out as though she'd been stabbed....
*It had been cold, and she feverish. Her aching limbs were forced to run at an accelerated pace to please their commander, however harsh her wish. Commencing at the grass-starved base of the tower's entrance, her inner-hatred began to collect and spill over. She climbed, grasping the stone walls and touching the air with every exposed inch of her flesh. It came. It all finally came and claimed her as its own. The power. The thoughts. Racing. Speeding. Slowing her down until she crumpled in her steps- the feet that brought her so far disobeyed and she cursed them silently through her bitterness. In her fall, the lamp she carried shattered- and the hope it provided for vision splintered into her skin. With it came the trickle she aimed for. The stickiness found its way from every incision to her robes, and renewed her sense of urgency. She ran- faster- until she found what she desired...*
She knew a dream that powerful couldn't have been normal. This was their destiny. This was the fate that they had been sealed into. But she hadn't succeeded in her quest. She had to make him falter.
Speeding into the tower, she raced the clock. The snow had numbed her feet, and the pain traveled through her veins. The screaming echoed down to her ears, and she knew she'd found him. Further, up, past the shadows, past the stone, through the pain, the doubt, the fear of failure, she found her target collapsed beside the window he grasped the edge of with his bleeding hand.
"You're killing me. You got me and you lied. I hate you. I can't bear the sight of you. Go to hell and let me die here alone, with the only person that ever gave a damn about me. Myself," Draco screamed, ripping his voice through the silence. It was too much to bear. She had followed him to apologize? To admit it? She lied, she never gave a damn about him and he had put down his defense to her. To Her. To Hermione. Hermione. The name clouded his sanity and he struggled to his feet, holding himself, chest open to the chill air of the open window.
"I can't describe my love for you. Because if I did you wouldn't believe it. Something in that room wants us dead and I don't want to witness it. They've got us Draco. They know it, and they're going to kill us. And if you jump I'm jumping with you. They'll win and we'll lose. And God knows the whole school will burn in Hell with Voldemort because of Severus Snape and Paxia Devastarium," the suicide pact she'd just forged was created out of desperation, but not without its blatant honesty infused between the lines. His destruction would kill her, and if they jumped, it would be together.
Blinking back his fury, Draco was swept by his self-doubts. He didn't want to die. He wanted to hold her, he wanted her to hold him. He was scared to be alone right now, and she sensed it. Cautiously approaching him, she placed her arm between himself and the window, pulling him from it. He crumbled in her arms and they collapsed, weeping, against each other.
"I'm done fighting Draco, I don't want to fight them anymore," the fight against the Voldemort was enough, but if she had to fight him during class, too, she wouldn't be able to sustain herself for very much longer. "I'm tired, and I just don't want to fight anymore."
"Tonight. Come with me tonight. They've won anyway, they've got what they want. They wanted a pureblood to join the ranks and take the muggle world to hell in a handbasket," his purpose became clear now. Fate was sealed. Another Malfoy would be seated to the side of the Dark Lord himself.
Clutching each other in absolute terror of the decision they'd just made, Draco placed his lips on Hermione's, and heated the flame between them. This would be the end. When the new moon darkened the night sky, the Slytherin tower would empty and the sun would cease to rise.
****
Harry Potter made his way from class amidst stares. He'd torn apart the whole lives of Draco and Hermione with one simple potion. His guilt was immeasurable, and he cut class to sit in the Gryffindor Common Room silently. Mouthing the password as though his voice had abandoned him as everyone else had, he slipped beyond the painting, unknowingly followed.
His feet led him to the ruby colored rug embellished with gold. He made it no further than the fringe when his knees buckled. He sat against a chair, holding his knees to his chin like a child, and staring blankly ahead of him. Hermione would never trust him again. She was convinced he loved her, and she probably hated him for it. He never meant for her to come near him! He didn't know what to make of it all.
Out loud he whispered....
"I don't love her. I don't know anything anymore. I just wish I could be done fucking fighting all the time. She's killing herself being with him. Something is going to get her, someone is behind all of this and the day I find out, I will kill them. Tear them piece by piece for the torture they bring to her. I do love her. I- I love her. Dammit, not enough to hurt her. I can't- I do, but I can't..." Harry's monologue grew more and more detached and incomprehensible.
"Our choices are our own, Harry, and we can't control them," a voice came from the shadows.
"Paxia! How did....?"
"I had to sneak in. You looked shattered and I couldn't help but feel sorry for you. I know that feeling, you know. Knowing you were doing what you were doing because you had to, and then having it blow up in your face," she took a seat next to him, and brought his face close to her chest. Her bold move would have normally been rejected, but Harry resigned to her hold. He needed to be held, and it released the flood gates of his heart. Not tears, but sighs, anger, frustration, and hatred. And love.
Why did she see right through him? Neither quite understood it, but both froze there. He looked into her eyes.
"If you know what I feel right now, if you've ever felt the same, then what do I do to get rid of this? How does this hurting go away? What am I supposed to do, Pax?"
She leaned into him and kissed him- hard. Harry remained in a frozen block of mess, but his lips had melted. He kissed her back.
"This isn't right," he whispered against her lips.
"But its what we want," she whispered back, pulling his legs down and freeing his arms, which took her captive.
"We can't Pax, its not right, and I don't know how to do anything...." the innocent first year emerged, but the sixth year body remained, and hardened to her requests.
"You'll learn."
****
She pulled herself away from him after they'd finished. His mind was tousled in a stunned turn of events. As they dressed, they kissed, and would have continued the tryst, had it not been for the darkness dripping down the walls. Nightfall was approaching.
"I have to go," she explained, pulling herself away.
"I'm coming with you. I'll walk you to your dorm and then I'll come back here- no one has to know," he wasn't a user, or a jerk. He was still a gentleman.
"I'm not staying in my dorm all night, and even if I was, I don't think you should be anywhere near Slytherin tower right now," she knew that bit of information would lead him into her territory.
"Where will you be later?" he whispered against her ear lobe. She'd drugged him with attention, and he was suffering from withdrawal.
"Meet me outside of the Quidditch field. Dress in black, hooded. Tell no one, and make not a sound," she pressed her finger to his lips, "then you'll discover the side of me you don't know exists. Yet."
Harry Potter. The light to break the darkness. The muggle to fight the purebloods. The hope and salvation of good. The virgin to battle corruption....
Had become corrupt.
**Reviews: Impossible to have any, b/c I posted this at the same time as Chapter 10.
**A/N: Trust me. Just trust me.
Corrupt
Chapter Eleven
The Corruption
His stomach heaved, and through burning tears he barreled into the corridor devoid of students that were engrossed in their studies, class being in session at the moment. Thoughts not quite coalescent, his legs carried him to the nearest exit, and he plowed through it- not in anyway fazed by the pain in his shoulder.
Stumbling, quivering, and taken by the snow on the field, Draco lost all control of his physical self the same way he'd rejected ownership of his heart last night. She had it now, and she had taken that heart and incapacitated its ability to function ever again. Damn him for ever believing the rebellious Granger that provoked his fight with Potter would ever change. He had nothing anymore. He couldn't claim loyalty to the light or dark side. Voldemort wouldn't want his useless mind, the same mind that had fallen for beauty and intelligence over usefulness and integrity.
He leapt through the entrance of the Astronomy Tower, if only to run its height and take off. To fly. To fall to the floor and escape the misery that haunted him, tormented him, held him captive. But it wasn't meant for him. Not yet. Collapsing into a convulsive mess of physical tire and mental destitution, Draco gave into his tears and sobbed in pain. A pain that tore into every muscle and bone, and which he felt could potentially kill him, and he wouldn't deny it the chance.
Hermione's soul was in no less of a obscured state. She loved Draco, loved him with a passion that she thought was clearly exuded in her expressions, thoughts, actions, words. Harry was a question mark, he meant nothing to her anymore, and it wasn't easy to have admitted that placement, but she openly professed it in class. Harry meant nothing to her. She needed Draco- his touch and reassurance. That potion was a fraud, and Draco was right, she should have been more cautious in a house of Slytherins. Even teachers were not to be trusted. But wasn't this the work of Paxia.......dammit! Paxia Devastarium! Was she so blind as not to have seen it before? The control she had over Snape's class, her demeanor, her acknowledgment of the existence of the word 'attraction'? No Slytherin in their right mind as dark as Snape or Paxia would let such a word become introduced into their vocabulary unless intentions had been otherwise. She had to find him. To find him and hold him and tell him that he was her world and that they needed each other if they were to overcome this new threat. The threat of Severus Snape and Paxia Devastarium.
Pleadingly she ran, looking through each window in Hogwart's castle. She saw a silhouetted shadow against the purity of the fallen snow, and it stemmed from the Astronomy Tower. Hermione cried out as though she'd been stabbed....
*It had been cold, and she feverish. Her aching limbs were forced to run at an accelerated pace to please their commander, however harsh her wish. Commencing at the grass-starved base of the tower's entrance, her inner-hatred began to collect and spill over. She climbed, grasping the stone walls and touching the air with every exposed inch of her flesh. It came. It all finally came and claimed her as its own. The power. The thoughts. Racing. Speeding. Slowing her down until she crumpled in her steps- the feet that brought her so far disobeyed and she cursed them silently through her bitterness. In her fall, the lamp she carried shattered- and the hope it provided for vision splintered into her skin. With it came the trickle she aimed for. The stickiness found its way from every incision to her robes, and renewed her sense of urgency. She ran- faster- until she found what she desired...*
She knew a dream that powerful couldn't have been normal. This was their destiny. This was the fate that they had been sealed into. But she hadn't succeeded in her quest. She had to make him falter.
Speeding into the tower, she raced the clock. The snow had numbed her feet, and the pain traveled through her veins. The screaming echoed down to her ears, and she knew she'd found him. Further, up, past the shadows, past the stone, through the pain, the doubt, the fear of failure, she found her target collapsed beside the window he grasped the edge of with his bleeding hand.
"You're killing me. You got me and you lied. I hate you. I can't bear the sight of you. Go to hell and let me die here alone, with the only person that ever gave a damn about me. Myself," Draco screamed, ripping his voice through the silence. It was too much to bear. She had followed him to apologize? To admit it? She lied, she never gave a damn about him and he had put down his defense to her. To Her. To Hermione. Hermione. The name clouded his sanity and he struggled to his feet, holding himself, chest open to the chill air of the open window.
"I can't describe my love for you. Because if I did you wouldn't believe it. Something in that room wants us dead and I don't want to witness it. They've got us Draco. They know it, and they're going to kill us. And if you jump I'm jumping with you. They'll win and we'll lose. And God knows the whole school will burn in Hell with Voldemort because of Severus Snape and Paxia Devastarium," the suicide pact she'd just forged was created out of desperation, but not without its blatant honesty infused between the lines. His destruction would kill her, and if they jumped, it would be together.
Blinking back his fury, Draco was swept by his self-doubts. He didn't want to die. He wanted to hold her, he wanted her to hold him. He was scared to be alone right now, and she sensed it. Cautiously approaching him, she placed her arm between himself and the window, pulling him from it. He crumbled in her arms and they collapsed, weeping, against each other.
"I'm done fighting Draco, I don't want to fight them anymore," the fight against the Voldemort was enough, but if she had to fight him during class, too, she wouldn't be able to sustain herself for very much longer. "I'm tired, and I just don't want to fight anymore."
"Tonight. Come with me tonight. They've won anyway, they've got what they want. They wanted a pureblood to join the ranks and take the muggle world to hell in a handbasket," his purpose became clear now. Fate was sealed. Another Malfoy would be seated to the side of the Dark Lord himself.
Clutching each other in absolute terror of the decision they'd just made, Draco placed his lips on Hermione's, and heated the flame between them. This would be the end. When the new moon darkened the night sky, the Slytherin tower would empty and the sun would cease to rise.
****
Harry Potter made his way from class amidst stares. He'd torn apart the whole lives of Draco and Hermione with one simple potion. His guilt was immeasurable, and he cut class to sit in the Gryffindor Common Room silently. Mouthing the password as though his voice had abandoned him as everyone else had, he slipped beyond the painting, unknowingly followed.
His feet led him to the ruby colored rug embellished with gold. He made it no further than the fringe when his knees buckled. He sat against a chair, holding his knees to his chin like a child, and staring blankly ahead of him. Hermione would never trust him again. She was convinced he loved her, and she probably hated him for it. He never meant for her to come near him! He didn't know what to make of it all.
Out loud he whispered....
"I don't love her. I don't know anything anymore. I just wish I could be done fucking fighting all the time. She's killing herself being with him. Something is going to get her, someone is behind all of this and the day I find out, I will kill them. Tear them piece by piece for the torture they bring to her. I do love her. I- I love her. Dammit, not enough to hurt her. I can't- I do, but I can't..." Harry's monologue grew more and more detached and incomprehensible.
"Our choices are our own, Harry, and we can't control them," a voice came from the shadows.
"Paxia! How did....?"
"I had to sneak in. You looked shattered and I couldn't help but feel sorry for you. I know that feeling, you know. Knowing you were doing what you were doing because you had to, and then having it blow up in your face," she took a seat next to him, and brought his face close to her chest. Her bold move would have normally been rejected, but Harry resigned to her hold. He needed to be held, and it released the flood gates of his heart. Not tears, but sighs, anger, frustration, and hatred. And love.
Why did she see right through him? Neither quite understood it, but both froze there. He looked into her eyes.
"If you know what I feel right now, if you've ever felt the same, then what do I do to get rid of this? How does this hurting go away? What am I supposed to do, Pax?"
She leaned into him and kissed him- hard. Harry remained in a frozen block of mess, but his lips had melted. He kissed her back.
"This isn't right," he whispered against her lips.
"But its what we want," she whispered back, pulling his legs down and freeing his arms, which took her captive.
"We can't Pax, its not right, and I don't know how to do anything...." the innocent first year emerged, but the sixth year body remained, and hardened to her requests.
"You'll learn."
****
She pulled herself away from him after they'd finished. His mind was tousled in a stunned turn of events. As they dressed, they kissed, and would have continued the tryst, had it not been for the darkness dripping down the walls. Nightfall was approaching.
"I have to go," she explained, pulling herself away.
"I'm coming with you. I'll walk you to your dorm and then I'll come back here- no one has to know," he wasn't a user, or a jerk. He was still a gentleman.
"I'm not staying in my dorm all night, and even if I was, I don't think you should be anywhere near Slytherin tower right now," she knew that bit of information would lead him into her territory.
"Where will you be later?" he whispered against her ear lobe. She'd drugged him with attention, and he was suffering from withdrawal.
"Meet me outside of the Quidditch field. Dress in black, hooded. Tell no one, and make not a sound," she pressed her finger to his lips, "then you'll discover the side of me you don't know exists. Yet."
Harry Potter. The light to break the darkness. The muggle to fight the purebloods. The hope and salvation of good. The virgin to battle corruption....
Had become corrupt.