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Last Time -
"The Fates. That's it," Hermione said, awed. She ran her fingers over the words, amazed that they had found their answer so easily; often, problems such as these took years to solve. She met Malfoy's stare, nodding once in honest gratitude. "That leaves only one question, then. The why. Why us, Malfoy?"
"I don't know. We probably never will," Malfoy said, gently closing the book. He traced the title. He smiled once, coldly but without malice. "But we can try to find out."
"Next week, Library?" she asked, extending her hand. It hung suspended between them, a small sign of weary progress, one that threatened the shadow the old life cast on their futures. Malfoy hesitated, gaze lingering on her bitten nails and bleeding hangnails, then gingerly covered her small palm with his large one.
"Next week," he agreed, and shook on it.
Chapter 10 - Full Circle
Snake was not idle. He prowled the edge of the fire, cloaked face swiveling as he studied and predicted each entity. His greatest task lay before him, one whose weight dragged at his shoulders.
He was tired, so very tired. He was old as the Fates themselves, a spirit ripped from the same womb from which man had sprung. Yet he, unlike them, was meant for a different purpose, one higher than the Fates could ever dream of. It was this that allowed him to cut their strings from his corpse, bend their backs in servitude. It allowed him to manipulate, to torture, to enslave. It burned inside him, a black oil that coated every particle of his being.
Man created him. It was his purpose to destroy man.
Snake lit a second fire, one that burned black and silver, the one that would bear the final weapon. Out of its depths, a knife would rise, deadly even to the immortal flesh of the gods.
It took three meeting to shatter the question of Why into the simple one of How. It took them into the first week of February, when the Christmas decorations had long since faded, to be replaced by lace and flirtation. Outside, the snow had become tiresome; its white folds weighed weary branches downward, cemented a wall of monotony around the restless students.
The students retaliated by creating their own excitement. Rumors flew wild, and drama was spun from daily blunders. Hermione found herself appreciating the conferences with Malfoy, the calm and quiet of the Library surreal in comparison to the confusion of reality.
She viewed their time together as an eddy in the torrent of magical vivacity of Hogwarts; it bent backwards, peacefully spun the other way in heavy thought. Even if the bank was as treacherous and slippery as ever, each moment spent in that sanctuary slid by with a stillness that soon became cherished. Little by little, Hermione gradually became accustomed to the idea that perhaps she valued Malfoy's opinion just as much as she valued the quiet they shared. She could not ignore that he and she were similar in a way she couldn't quite identify; the mud of the bank and the mud clouding the river were nearly the same, even if she believed that the river's clay was the blacker and richer.
She entered the Library with a smile, one shoulder low and sore under the weight of her bag. She dropped it by the table and sank down into a chair, a sigh stumbling from her lips. Malfoy had already put their parchment, brimming with ideas, in the center of the table. Up at the top, it read, Why did the Fates choose us? It was followed by a series of queries and cross-outs, each underlined as they became the center of their research. Answers were posed, but both knew that the words were thin and based on nothing more than assumption, the most basis for mistake.
All this led to the final question, circled many times in deep ink: How can we fight them? In that single word "fight", there were a thousand other words struggling to show their letters" escape, battle, liberate, defeat, flee. To bury the memories, to suffocate the terror and confusion the Fates caused. But written below the words — stated and otherwise — there was only white emptiness.
Malfoy looked up as she sat beside him, hastily shutting his book closed. He placed it above the paper, gold title glinting from cracked cover. In its pages, they had found their Controller, but it was doubtful that they would discover any other answers. "Think of anything?" he asked.
Hermione shook her head. In the quiet that followed, her eyes caught on the word "Gods" blinking at her in the dim light. "Malfoy," she said abruptly, "do you believe in God?"
He followed her gaze, hardly surprised by her question. She often asked things like this, but whether to discover what lay within him or whether to evaluate herself, he was not certain. It seemed almost as if she were exploring her own character through conversation, and he had a suspicion she had grown up more rapidly in their meetings than during all the moments she had shared with Potter and Weasley.
"I don't believe in God, necessarily," he said. He had quickly learned to answer honestly; Granger had a knack for seeing through his lies. "I've always been brought up by believing in gods, plural. There are so many religions and so many beliefs — I mean, why can't they all be right? I guess I still believe in it, but not actively, with prayer and church and all that shit. My family has never been big on religion. Do you believe in Him?"
This question was unnecessary; she would have told him anyways. Hermione shrugged. "I did believe in Him for awhile, complete with 'prayer and church and all that shit.'" She winced at the word. "But then I found I didn't like being judged for each and every one of my actions."
"Get used to it," Malfoy snorted. "That's all we humans know how to do."
"But in the end, we're the final judge. Each one of us, by ourselves. No other," Hermione said, a single finger stemming his argument. "The thing about religion is that it sets boundaries. I'd much prefer my character to be the one who limits what I can and cannot do. I hate the idea of a set destiny."
"Bullshit," Malfoy said. "We're controlled by the Fates, aren't we?"
Hermione frowned, but chose not to pursue the subject. She splayed fingertips on the parchment, resting them gently around their question. She sat in thought for a moment, motionless and suspended in their purpose. "Why have they stopped before?" she murmured, hardly aware she spoke outloud. "What did we do to break their control?"
"Nothing. The Fates just dropped us," Malfoy said. He looked beyond their table, studying a distant bookcase. A motion had caught his attention, but he was unable to determine whether it was splintered sunlight or a strand of stray hair that he'd glimpsed. He blinked, and in the infinitesimal interim, it vanished. He stared at emptiness.
"Well, the first couple of times, it only took another person to look them in the eyes to break it," Hermione said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "But the times after that, the control stayed strong even when I struggled."
"How do you know a Fate didn't tell you to look me in the eye or to struggle?" Malfoy asked.
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, honestly puzzled by the question. She took the book in her hands and opened it to the first page she read an eternity ago: "They rule the human existence, puppet every child erupted from the womb. Their task is to weave the strings of each life together, to decide birth and death, love and pain. They design each path: the ruts and the forks and the joints as they cross."
She tapped her quill against the page. It was probable, then, that the Fates controlled her response to Malfoy's advances.
Malfoy gave an audible sigh and stood, stretching his hand out for the book. Hermione looked up at him, automatically handing it to him, and feeling reluctantly disappointed that he was leaving so quickly after her arrival. It surprised her when he turned back when he was only a few paces from the table. "Come on," he said. She grabbed her bag from the floor, and stood to follow him. "Leave it," he said, referring to her books.
He walked briskly away, forcing her to jog to catch up to him. "Where are we going?" she asked, attempting to match his long stride.
"Back," he said.
"What do you mean, back?"
He looked at her. "You ask too many questions, Granger. I'll tell you when I'm ready." He paused when he reached the Potions section, and fleetingly searched the area for listening ears. He bent low, and suddenly grabbed her skull in his large hands, jerking it to rest near his lips. "Listen, Granger," he said, voice so low it was hardly audible, "I'm about to show you what I swore never to do. You must never, ever share this with anyone. If you do, I will find you, and you won't live much longer."
He released her, but kept her gaze in a promise of earnestness. Hermione nodded, and he turned away, satisfied. She rubbed her neck, sore from his rough handling, but her heart thrummed with anticipation and quickly absorbed her resentment.
"Watch," Malfoy ordered, leading her down the Potions aisle. He stooped in front of a bookshelf near the center, and rested a finger on the black spine of a thin book. "Sixth bookcase, sixth shelf, sixth book," he recited. He glanced at her and grinned, then pulled the book off the shelf. "Here we go," he whispered.
Hermione watched, lips parted in wonder, as the hole where the book had been grew until it became a crude arch through which one could travel. It rested above the floor, high enough that she had to scramble to climb over the stoop. As soon as her feet touched the floor, the door vanished to create a shadowed tunnel that crept onwards.
"Malfoy?" she called, voice echoing off the dripping walls.
She heard footsteps behind her, and whipped around to see a silhouette step through thin air. "Right here, Granger," Malfoy said. He put his fingers to her elbow, steering her confidently through the darkness. "The candles start up here."
Hermione nodded. Light skulked through the blackness, illuminating iron spikes that erupted from the walls. Rust coated the stone red, and green slime slid downwards to pool at the base of the wall. The ground was cracked and uneven, the footing treacherous even where it became level. And everywhere, a seeping cold breath twisted around her arms, suckling her warmth where it spun from her flesh.
She unconsciously pressed closer to Malfoy. "What is this place?" she finally managed to ask.
"A library," he said. Seeing her disbelief, he added, "We have a ways to go. My father showed it to me at the end of our Second Year. Salazar Slytherin allegedly began it in the hopes that it would be used by members of his House, except almost everyone has forgotten about it now. My father said that it was probably created because Slytherin was afraid the curriculum would be dumbed down for Mudbl— I mean, part-Muggles. I suppose it might have been, from his perspective, because we aren't learning half the things that are kept in this place."
They walked in silence after that, footsteps reverberating before and behind them. Hermione kept on glancing over her shoulder, wondering how long the doorway stayed open. She could almost hear a third set of treading shoes interwoven with the sound of her own, slinking along in their wake.
The two rounded a corner, and the low ceiling of the tunnel suddenly vanished. It reappeared far above them, shedding a silver light that softly dusted the innumerable bookshelves below. As she descended down the stairs, she craned her neck upward, and found that the light poured from the eye sockets of hundreds of snakes hissing maliciously at her dwarfed form. She froze, cowering on the broken stairs that led into the main body of the library. She chanced a glance upwards; the snakes circled threateningly, but they were bound by a magical prison far stronger than their hatred.
"Come on," Malfoy said, beckoning her down the stairs. He began to walk towards the distant west wall that stretched before him. "Most of these shelves are empty, but there are enough books left to probably find an answer. It's our best bet."
Hermione followed him down a row, hesitant to touch the texts that slept on either side. She screwed up her courage to drag an ancient tome from the shelf, one that hadn't been touched in a century. The air around them soon filled with dust that crept into every pore of their body, until they lived and breathed it. Hermione felt her eyes redden and water each time she opened a cover, but was too enthralled by the words before her to stop. This place, once a sanctuary for her greatest enemy, had become her paradise for the moments spent there. It was ironic, she knew, just as it was ironic for her to enjoy the time she spent with her rival more than any she had experienced in months.
They worked quickly and quietly, interrupting the hush whenever a mention of the Fates appeared. The hope that had knotted in Hermione's breast slowly unwound, leaving a trail slick with disappointment behind. Several times she came across Dark spells so powerful and complex she was positive would work to break the Fates' control, but Malfoy shook his head each time.
"No, look," he'd point out, exasperated. "It says you have to bathe your wand in unicorn blood. Besides, it's not as if we're going to actually find the Fates and cast this spell of — what was it? — enslavement. We need protection spells. Look for those."
Surprisingly, there were a number of defensive spells scattered through the pages; Hermione had always imagined to the Dark Arts to be strictly offensive. But as she read further, she found that they only shielded the caster from a spell too Dark to be taught in any Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
She looked up when they neared the end of the row and shivered, feeling that it seemed distressingly familiar. Malfoy worked a bit ahead of her, reaching the books she never could. She straightened, and noticed an empty space between two thick volumes. It hit her.
They had come in a full circle; she now stood where the Fates had begun their work. She unconsciously stretched her hand forward, mimicking that afternoon when Sense had found her, in the recesses of the Dark alcove. Perhaps a bit poorly named, she decided, but she had remembered nothing of that journey except the single moment when her hand touched his.
"Malfoy!" she called, voice high from excitement. "Come here. Look, look! This is where—"
"Yes, I know." He stood by her elbow, eyes on the darkness staring from the shelf, where the book under his arm belonged.
Hermione looked around her again, eyes admiring the long reach of the aisle and the dusty tops of the shelves beyond it. Her gaze rose to the ceiling, where the forbidding snakes hissed and coiled, wishing to strike. "But how could I have missed all this?"
"Fate," Malfoy said.
The word hung heavily between them. Hermione felt its weight press her shoulders to the ground, where she sat against the bookcase and studied the patterns of dust on the floor. "Fate," she murmured, over and over again. Suddenly, she realized something terrible and frightening, something that arrested her body and dragged her to the earth. If the Fates designed each path, then there was no such thing as choice, she thought. There was no such thing as chance. Malfoy had been in the Dark alcove because the Fates had given him a logical reason to be, though truly it was simply because she had to meet and notice him. It had been no accident that Dumbledore had mentioned the Potions essay, but was part of a web so complex that she found herself stumbling beyond comprehension for the first time in her life. She did understand, however, that its cords were wrapped firmly around her wrists; she could never escape.
"Malfoy," she said, overwhelmed. She paused and breathed deeply, raw and afraid of this knowledge. "We can't fight them. Whatever happens, it happens because they made it so. It means that there isn't decision, that our life is planned before we're even born. There's no way out of this, Malfoy."
The terror of this concept settled around her shoulders, gently bent her neck towards her knees. She felt anger needle her eyes, and tears of resentment pooled in the well of her elbow. Everything she had understood was wrong: she was enslaved, without freedom or daylight in her solitary journey. She forced back the fury that threatened to consume her on the behalf of her mother; her mother had not died for a reason, for simple amusement — it was too cruel. She buried the thought where the memories of her mother lay, where they still ached too much to remember. There were times when it was better not to feel.
Malfoy gingerly put a hand on her shoulder, concerned despite himself. She started; she had not realized he had sat beside her. "You okay?" he asked. She looked away, tipping her head back to hide the tears. Softly, gently, he rubbed a thumb across her cheeks, absorbing the moisture into his flesh.
Hermione's breath caught. It was a simple gesture, innocent, nothing more than what a friend would do. Had she come to consider him a friend? she wondered. No. We are too different, there's too much between us. But as his thumb streaked across her cheekbones, leaving the dust from the library behind, she felt a shiver sigh and stretch from hiding, scrambling up her spine from her gut. She swallowed, suddenly afraid of this sensation and its meaning. She had certainly not told her body to react this way.
Why had he even done that? If she didn't quite think him a friend, there was no way he thought of her as one. Perhaps he respects me, she thought. Perhaps this is a mark of respe—
"Thank you, Malfoy," her mouth said. Her voice trembled — from nervousness or tears? — and then continued, her caged frustration erupting. "Oh, why do I always have to call you that? Can't we talk without the stupid last names? It's such a ridiculous tradition. It doesn't do anything but keep us strangers. I mean, they talk 'inter-House unity' and 'equality,' but how do they expect us to become friends when we have that dumb restriction?"
She clapped a hand over her mouth. She wasn't supposed to tell him that; it was supposed to stay intimate, hugged close around her middle. Her tongue had separated from thought, had wagged loose when her guard had been let down. She chanced a glance at Malfoy, who looked calmly down at her. She saw that indentation by the corner of his mouth, the one that would collapse and become a cavern as he laughed in her face. She saw the shadow in his eyes, the one that contracted as his respect for her was swallowed by the familiar repugnance.
"I—I'm sorry," she muttered. "Don't know what I was thinking. I mean, it makes sense to stay on a last name basis — after this is over, there won't be any reason to continue seeing each other. Like, seeing each other as in, 'Oh, look, I see you,' not as in dating. You're seeing Parkinson right? As in dating? Oh God, I feel so st—"
"Shut up," Malfoy said, beginning to laugh. "Just shut up. You're making a fool of yourself, Granger." She looked away, blushing fiercely. "Look at me. No, in the eye, not at my chest." She grudgingly raised her eyes, staring at his nose instead. "Granger, I don't mind you using my first name. Here, if you want, I'll go first. Hermione."
She met his gaze. The blood still inflated her cheeks, still pounded at her ears, but she took the time to search his intention. There wasn't any spite, any flicker of vengeance flickering in the depths of his eyes. "Good," she said tersely, and left it at that.
"One thing," Draco said. "Don't use my name outside of our meetings. I don't want to be embarrassed."
Hermione bit her cheek, bitterness bleeding from the cut in her mouth. "Come on," Hermione said curtly, standing up. "Class will be beginning soon."
And there, in the pool of Time it created, rested a single eye. It watched her.
Hermione screamed, silence straining from her lips; she, a simple Dreamer, could make no sound here. She felt the terror tremble in her veins, felt it take control of caution and clear thought. She staggered and fell, body rolling down the curved floor towards the monstrous thing at the bottom. She shut her eyes tight, hoping against hope that the momentum would fail and she would slow to a halt before she made contact.
With a lurch, she hit against soft flesh and rested at the base of the eye. She squinted at it fearfully, and lay still in the chance that it would overlook her if she made no movement. As the moments stretched on, she moved her own eyes gently to survey her surroundings. It was not a disembodied eye, as she once thought. She found she lay just beneath a nose, whose wide holes whistled with whispered breath. Below, there were two lips which led to a chin, and a small body that extended beyond that.
It was a fetus, skin a blue that melted into the floor of the chamber.
"Where are we?" she heard Wormtail whimper above her.
"In the Womb," Lucius Malfoy answered. "Where life was created."
A/N: I think this set the record for lengthiest chapter. Originally, there was supposed to be a lot more in this, but the Library scene kind of ran away with me. But, on the bright side, I chugged it out in only two weeks (at the price of some typos)! Just for you, my wonderful readers. Now go congratulate me with some reviews, eh?
But first, thank you's:
Callista: And how about THAT, my dear? I wrote it with you in mind. I did just like you asked, and started a bit of the romance. If that's what you call it. We just passed the vital landmark — first names! Hee hee! (And no, you didn't rush the story, if you're wondering...this was exactly what I had planned. Next time, you have Draco's side to look forward to! Eeps...maybe shouldn't have mentioned that...) AND GAH! The ravens and the crows! I swear that I wrote it in the right order, but I switched it by accident. Though I was thinking of it the right way when I wrote the review...it just came out backwards. Now, about the Fates...I was waiting for someone to ask me that! I think you made my day with that. Well, they're somewhat of an original invention. I actually got the idea from the Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and mixed it in with the idea of the Furies in Greek mythology. (You know, they're those ugly things in Disney-fied Hercules, who cut the string when it's time for someone to die?) I sort of mixed the two together, added a fourth Witch/Fury thing, and voila! Fates. And whether Nockfred is associated with them or not...I'll leave that for you to decide. She's not going to play a HUGE-huge role in this (I'm still working on her a bit), but she does seem to be in the thick of things, doesn't she? Well, greatly looking forward to your next review, sweets! Talk to you soon, I hope!
Slyswn: You liked it? Yay! I'm so glad. I just banged out this chapter over the past couple of weeks to make sure you had your dose of PUPPET MASTER much sooner than last time. Your wish is my command, as per usual. (Though I can't promise it will be as quick next time...) And, darling, how do you like this one? Eagerly waitin' your review!
Lorett: You blew me away with that review. Seriously, you did. I don't think you left one stone unturned...it was AMAZING. Let's see...you nailed the Fates scene. (The line about the 'the tortured pain of undeserved and unrealized and unyielding love'...well, I suppose it could apply. I mean, I originally just wrote it thinking of the general...but it does seem to fit nicely, doesn't it? We can reflect on that at the end, when everything is wrapped up, si?) And you also got the line when Hermione slipped in a hint of (what could be) her feelings. BRILLIANT. Man, I'm still stunned by that review. And I'm so glad that Draco seemed smart to you...he really isn't just a sex icon (hot though he is). I guess I haven't really read any fics that purposely make him dumb, but all the same...I was glad that his intelligence carried across without me having to say "Me smart. Daddy think me should be better than Hermes." Wait...I guess I vaguely did. GAH! I keep meaning to go back and revamp those first few chapters! Ah...another day, my friend. (And did you notice that your thought of: "So now that THEY know the Fates are jerking them around, HOW are they going to fix it?" was included in this chapter. I swear you read my mind. Right. Now off to write another chapter, ma cherie! Ta ta, my amazing, beautiful darling!
To everyone else who's reading but not reviewing, thanks for stopping by! I'd still love to hear from you, and would be eternally grateful if you left a little note or question behind.
Kisses to You All,Alison