Title: Dangerous
Pairing: Hermione/Voldemort, Magneto/Rogue
Challenge: DementedAllure "Dangerous Games" challenge
Fanfic100 Prompt: 025. Strangers
Rating: R
Word count: 1164 words
Summary: It's a crime and a shame, and the angels proclaim it's a dangerous game.
Notes: Shut up.
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The church would burn from the inside.
He led her into the church to bring her to the altar. It was Tuesday and mostly empty, but Voldemort made the sanctuary glow green against the Father, and although Hermione turned her head, she did not protest as he took the cup and made the Father bleed for her. Her gown stained dark purple, and he kissed her breast before telling her to sin for him. She felt herself thick and too ripe, and incense cloyed her senses – he fucked her against the altar, and her screams were like music to the high ceilings.
She ran through the halls, looking for a sister, fell before three and begged for redemption. They brought her to candles, and she lit one for each sin, one after another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and then she lit one for her lover as the sisters' eyes grew larger and larger and white. She smiled, cradled their heads – their lives drained from the gaping wound on their back until their wimples dyed red.
Then they waited in the rectory full of bodies, waited for the congregation of the dead. They consecrated the beds with indulgence, they tainted the rooms with luxury, waited with fruit and wine and bread; it was all they could do not to burn the entire city into embers with concupiscence. They read Song of Songs. Voldemort rested his head on her stomach clothed in her blue gown that Rodolphus gave her. She was his queen, although he would never give her a title. He swelled with pride to see her kill, to see her his, to see others afraid of her kindness. He watched the candle flicker in her breath. She traced his ear and asked if she could find a dark alley.
They waited in the building across from the church, a building with fire escapes and inhabitants evicted with a little persuasion. Rogue shook her head at Magneto's dramatic entrances, but they were effective, and he seemed bigger, bigger than the world that he could hold in his fist, for wasn't the core of the earth iron? And he could hold her, gloved hands on her bare arms, for when she stood beside him, she could move freely, she could understand herself to be a mutant, and not the Gap or Limited or Banana Republic. She knew she was dangerous to him, but he was dangerous, too, and he liked that. She knew that he feared her, but she feared him, and he liked that. Rogue knew why he wanted her – she didn't mind selfishness. After all, all she wanted was to feel him. He took her against the counter with an altered spoon, and he laughed as she laughed at his choice. She touched his face, and as her power pulled his, he came in the only way he could submit. He liked that she could force him. She was honored that he would make himself vulnerable for her, even if sex was his only vulnerability.
She did not know how they could be happy when they never turned their backs to the other, but they were, and Rogue felt content as she prepared herself for Sunday mass.
They cowered from Magneto first, ladies in hats, men in coats, little girls in tights, they hid under the wooden benches. Rogue wished Mystique were there – she was not so good with this sort of thing. She was always the second wave, not Magneto's right hand. But he wanted to show her what she could be, show her that she was not these creatures shaking, looking like badly packed pudding as their faces contorted in fear. Magneto was right – she could get used to this.
Then there was one girl who did not bend herself to Magneto's will, who stared up at him with a pleasant smile and beckoned behind her. A man – what looked like a man, but wasn't one – walked from behind the choir loft to behind the pulpit. He licked his fingers gently, and Rogue saw that they were stained. And then both Magneto and Rogue saw that the members of the choir had their eyes closed.
Hermione watched the man lower himself to the floor – she knew the word for what he was, but it couldn't quite reach her mouth. That happened a lot lately, even though she felt like she knew so much more. Voldemort's wand hand twitched as the man approached them, but Hermione touched his elbow before stepping forward with her own wand bent toward his face. She looked at the girl who followed the man and thought she saw kinship, but it disappeared as a shard of metal pressed against her neck. She laughed and threw him to the floor with a word.
"Hey!" the girl cried. She was American, and the word came to her – mutant.
"Our objectives are the same," Hermione said. "The building will be destroyed. They will fear the Dark Lord."
"You… you are mutants?" Magneto asked, stopping his own shard of metal from attacking him with a brush of his hand. His gaze snapped from the young girl in front of him to the serpentine man stroking her hair.
"No." Voldemort looked confused, and Hermione understood how distant Muggle troubles were in his mind – he sought to conquer the wizarding world through these Muggles. He had no concern that Muggles had their own powerful factions to parallel their own Death Eaters, their own idea of the better world. They would clash eventually, yes, but for now…
"Then what are you? You look… you might… maybe you don't know…" Rogue asked. Magneto did not look at her – no disapproval – but silenced her with a caress of leather.
"I know what I am," Voldemort said, and his wand was pressed against Rogue's forehead. "And I know what you are."
"Do you?" Hermione asked. She pressed her own wand against Magneto's neck, but she could see that the man knew that there was no threat to either of them if Hermione could still speak to her lover. She was surprised at the way this man understood without one word, and she thought she might have liked to know him in another life. He was familiar. She could not help but cover her lips from a laugh.
Voldemort jerked his hand away as he felt Rogue's pull upon his magic. Rogue touched her fingers to her head, eyelids fluttering as she, too, began to understand.
Hermione removed her wand from Magneto's neck for him to go to Rogue. She took Voldemort's hand, set fire to the altar cloth. She winked at Rogue and let her voice fill the sanctuary again.
"You can do the rest. But let it burn." She hoped they met again, and she kissed Voldemort in the smoke as she heard the rafters shatter, the metal braces ripped away.
