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Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
She counts from ten and then asks him again.
The answer remains the same.
Zero.
She's on the floor.
She's shaking and knows if she screams now she's never going to stop. (She keeps it locked away.)
She chokes and brushes her fingers across her forehead. They come away red and bright in the dull twilight. Blood. It fills her throat like bile, only sweeter. She gags.
Fallen to her knees there are tears and she sees a blurred form taunting.
He's speaking to her.
-
Blood drenches her to the point where he needn't recognise her face. Her hair a damp mass, at first glance brown but gleaming red as the darkness spreads. He looks at her and thinks of masks and how little sense they made, for all their disguises no one was fooled; masks or not the Death Eater would be identified. And they made it so much easier. That was the thing that baffled him. The ease with which you can hurt those you do not recognise. Surely that makes them vulnerable? Like her. Writhing in the floor – inhuman – without a face. It's so much easier to kill something you can't relate to.
He grabs her hair and pulls her head from her hands, shaking her and watching red droplets fly from the messy gash in her hair. Blood in mud. It makes him smile (sentimental after all that's been lost).
She's crying and it disgusts him in a way so abstract it could be anything at all. He chooses the term 'disgust' because he thinks it suits her. Their relationship from the day they first met revolved to some extent around that term.
Glassy eyed she coughs and there is more blood. He thinks he smirks.
He's always wondered what a person would look like bleeding tears, or crying blood. Would the white of the eye turn red? Would it hurt until they screamed their last or would it be no different at all? (Just colour and salt.)
Her face is stained red from the blow to her head and he watches as she sways, knees sunk into mud with tears and sweat and blood mingling in the dirt. Mudblood. It's almost enough to make him laugh.
He wonders if she hates him as much as she should, if she fears him as much as he wants her to, if she's hurting as much he hopes (as much as he needs).
His hands tremble with adrenaline and fast boiling anger and with another growl he spits the demand out again.
-
It makes no sense to her. Her ears ring with echoes of pity and sorrow for this wreck of a man, trying so hard to be a monster. Her ears ring with his words and his madness. Her ears ring and it makes her sad.
Maybe his father didn't love him as much as he should, maybe his mother held him too close – tried too hard. Maybe he was under stimulated at school or maybe he'd never been in love. Maybe he was trying to be something he was not and maybe (just maybe) it was that that drove him to do what he did and ask what he asked.
Maybe if she made him excuses it wouldn't scare her so much (because he was human too, wasn't he?).
She sobs again as blood trickles down her throat, burning as it goes.
"Why?"
-
He's not sure he knows the answer.
Well. He knows the answer. A soul-deep, gut-wrenching sort of knowledge, but not the kind you could (or would ever want to) put in to words. He looks at her guardedly and hopes she'll understand through his silence.
I need your help.
-
She looks at his face and sees shadows and blue paleness so much like what she shies from (so much like death). He's ragged and weak and thin and cold and he's begging her to do something that she'd never wanted to do (to anyone). He's begging her to do it in his own way, even if it means breaking her down to nothing in the mud and dirt and threatening her family. Was it always a cry for help?
She wants to get up and push him away, to spit in his face and get on with her life. But there's something else. An ugly tug, like an unexpected Portkey, weighing her down with the suggestion that this time he might not be bluffing, the sliver of possibility that just this time it might be the right thing to do. (For both of them.)
She wants it all to go away, to be forgotten like so many things blurted out on the battlefield in hopes of salvation or mercy or justice. She wants to wake up from this hall of mirrors nightmare and yet the more she cries, the more she feels the weight of her wand in her hand, the more she hears him say those things, the more she agrees.
He deserves it.
-
He sees the exact moment she decides. He sees it in the tightening of her jaw, the defiant tilt of her chin, the way her damp eyes go even brighter and yet somehow hard. He's seen her make up her mind before and he feels himself smirk as her knuckles whiten around that thin strip of wood.
He says some words, silly words, but it's enough and she snaps. Eyes locked on his she throws out her arm, voice shattering the still air.
He likes to think he saw her break, in that last green moment as the world fell beneath his feet (or he fell beneath the feet of the world). He likes to think he saw her crumple and fall and that it was all because of him.
His eyes widen as the magic hits him hard and she is all he sees.
He falls.
-
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
He counts from ten and then asks her again.
She holds his gaze.
Zero.
"Avada Kedavra."
He's on the floor.
She's shaking and knows if she screams now she's never going to stop. (She keeps it locked away.)
She chokes and brushes her fingers across her forehead. They come away wet and bright in the darkness. Sweat. It fills her pores like blood, only sweeter. She gags.
Fallen to her knees there are tears and a she sees a blurred form limp.
He's speaking to her.
-
"I need you to cast it for me."
"Why!"
"Because there is no one else."
"Why don't you do it yourself? Why do you even want it at all?"
"Would you swap lives with me, Granger?"
"Never."
"Well then."
"That's no excuse, Malfoy. You can't just quit life because it doesn't go your way."
The whip crack of a spell.
"Shut up, Mudblood, you don't know what you're talking about!"
She stumbles.
Quietly. "You're nothing but a coward, Malfoy. You'll never be anything more."
"Precisely. Now pick up your wand and do it!"
"…Why me?"
"Because there's no one else."
"I've never-"
"Just do it, Granger."
"… I can't"
"Do it or I'll kill every last one of your pathetic little family. A Muggles won't stand a chance – I'll give them to Him."
"…"
"You know what he does to people like them? People like you."
"…"
"He'll torture them. He'll have them rape your mother with your father watching, he'll rip out their insides and let them watch as the hearts stops beating. And then he'll kick them back into life and make them go through it again and again until they wish to god they'd never been born. That you'd never been born, Granger. Because all that would be your fault."
"…"
"…"
"Bastard."
"I've giving you the chance to save them, Granger. One silly little spell is all it takes."
"I hate you."
"Prove it."
"You're insane. You're mad. You're… you really are serious, aren't you?"
"Do you think your Mum will scream when they burn her alive?"
"Shut. Up."
"Do you think she'll pass out from the shock and the pain, or will she be left until the flesh is fried from her bones? That's what they used to do to wizards, you know. Burnt us. He thinks it's ironic – returning the punishment."
"You're deranged."
"Then end it."
"No."
"You know you want to. It's saving lives – what you're good at."
"I hate you."
"You should."
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
"Just do it, Granger. Think of your parents. Fucking dead like the lot of you deserve. Just bear it in mind."
Zero.
"…"
"…"
"Avada Kedavra."
Silence.
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