Why, Love, Why?
By Eternal Luna
Notes: My first HP fanfic. Please be nice!
She was a beautiful girl, and clever at that. The brightest witch of her time. She should have been in my house, I always told her that. And she had very cheeky answers to those remarks. I still remember perfectly the first day of classes I had with her. Her hand shot up, eager to please and show off her knowledge. Though at first irritating, I quickly came to enjoy her puppy-dog antics. Indeed, it was cute, watching her sosmug when correct and furious and flustered if someone dared to say she was wrong. Knowledge was power, she said, she needed knowledge to prove her worth in the wizarding world. I thought she was silly schoolgirl in the old days, so you have to forgive when I tell you that the first time she said she loved me I laughed in her face. She was fourteen, and I was thirty-two. An entire generation lay between us. When I found out she was serious I scoffed and told her pointedly that it would never work. She was so young! And she just sighed and said
"Why, love, why?"
In her fifth year she continued to pursue and pester me when she wasn't hanging around the Potter and Weasley brats. I still have the love letters she wrote me faithfullly all summer. My first instinct had been to burn them, but I decided against it in favor of the possibility of black mailing her. I used them against her twice in the fifth year, and both times her eyes filled with heavy tears and she whispered through the sobs racking her body as she refused to let them out
"Why, love, why?"
The summer between fifth and sixth years she showed up at my doorstep, and let herself in. She pushed me against the wall and kissed me hard, in a passionate way I did not think such a young woman was capable of. That night we made passionate love in the warm, dark confides of my bed. And when I woke up the next morning, furious and screaming terrible names to her, such as whore, slut, seductress, she just took my words and said nothing. Finally at the end, as I was panting and she was dressed and gathering her things, she gave me a longing look from the doorway and asked
"Why, love, why?"
And it was the same question she asked in her first letter to me in her summer between her sixth and seventh years. Only those three little words, not even her name. And I could not answer her, for I did not know within myself. The death of Albus Dumbldore had changed the world she lived in. Potter was gone and the Weasley brats brought her no comfort. And she could never understand why I killed him. I became desperate for her, and in my conflict I kidnapped her in her seventh year and brought her to my world, and she did not complain, just sighed and said
"Why, love, why?"
When the Dark Lord was killed, gone forever at long last I admit to rejoicing with her. And she stood for me when none else would, against the words of her friends. She was loyal and strong, and when they sentenced me to life in Azkaban, she cried as they took me away and visited me almost daily. Then one day she came and we drank poly juice potions to switch places. When they discovered I was not there they let her out and we met deep within the forbidden forest, making love for hours, hot passionate and ecstasy seemed to be within the very air we breathed, so happy and in love and free were we. Then she hid me from the Dementors, and we had a life in her muggle world. Her parents were not pleased at first, but after deciding I had the best teeth they had ever seen they took a liking to me. But when she announced a pregnancy I nearly broke down from fear. All I remember is being cradled in her arms, pressed against a stomach just beginning to protrude and she was whispered in my ear between muffled sobs
"Why, love, why?"
One child became two, and two became three and for eleven years we had peace. Until the letters started arriving. I couldn't show my face in the wizarding world, so she snuck around and got Hannah, Tom, and Carrie everything they needed through a reluctant Potter and furious Weasley. She even changed the last names from her maiden name to her mother's maiden name. She hid us, and fretted constantly for the children. She even had the nerve to teach them the spells of the Half-Blood Prince, for their own protection she insisted because no one was going to see them coming. For twenty-two years, she carefully monitored their lives away from us, protecting them from the danger of their father's name. Twenty-two loyal years. Yet they found me still, and the day the news reached me I declared "They'll never take me alive!" And I ran. But I soon returned when they took her, blackmailing me and holding the one person ever to truly love me hostage. I broke into the Ministry, and confronted that horrid Rufus whatever his last name was. He had her in a head lock, and was pointing his wand at her head.
"I'll do it, Serverus!" He screeched, shaking in all his madness. "I'll blow the head right off your pretty little Mudblood toy. Unless you comply immediately."
"Don't do it! I'm not worth your freedom!" She shouted, crying out when he jabbed her in the head with his wand. Before I could think my wand was drawn and the words of the same Unforgivable Curse that I killed Albus Dumbledore with all those years ago were muttered and a great green light flashed.
Rufus had flown through the window, and now Hermione fell with a spray of blood behind her. And as I held her in her last, precious seconds, she uttered the words so softly that had they not been so familiar I never would've known what she said.
"Why, love, why?"
Please review!
Eternal Luna