1959
"She's still alive."
Their lord does not ask questions. Is never doubtful. Is always as sure as he is cruel.
"Yes, my lord."
But they know to answer him anyways.
"Kill her."
There's a pause, a brief hesitation, and before their lord can call for magic to trap and torture, before he can so much as raise an eyebrow at the momentary pause, the man bows his head and complies.
"Yes, my lord."
For they know the woman has done nothing wrong, even by their standards. They know their lord is worse today, less human, less true, less master of their cause and more slave to his emotions. And the latter is happening more and more often these days. You cannot hesitate, cannot even begin to doubt or question.
"Take yourself with her."
And this time there is no pause between command and response, the man's head jumps up immediately, tears already gathering, tears that make their lord's mouth curl up into a snarl as they fall, his eyes alight with fury at the begging he's sure is about to come from the mouth of this sniveling servant.
But he bows his head again, even as the sobs begin to rack his body and his mouth moves to form the only words he knows, the only words he can say without the looming figure of pain and torture tearing at him, "Yes, my lord," but no sound comes out, only the quick, stuttered breaths his panic allows.
The woman is tortured within an inch of her life, the man's spells sinking into her body so haphazardly, so quickly, like a sewing machine running a thread through fabric, each new stitch coming so soon after the last, forcing the former to be forgotten so quickly, but changing the piece so completely, the blue of a spell still present when the red comes, her mottled flesh shining a broken purple. Her screams, after hours of listening, reverberate through the man's ears, the source so close but sounding like an echo, she wanting to be so far, he wanting to be so far, but the sound and the listener only coming back, again and again and again. Her blood spills across the dark stones beneath her and she lays in the sticky mess for an eternity, too weak and too afraid to move, her eyelids too heavy, her skin too pale, her hair matted, her lips split, and all the flesh that isn't open, that isn't spilling out around her, bruised a purplish-brown and this is how they keep her, this is how they leave her while they rest, take a drink, close their eyes and breath. Her eyes stay wide open and tears stream and her broken gasps ring through the tired room. And then they do it all over again.
But, through this woman's pain, through her will to live slowly dissipating, her defiant silence becoming pleas for help, becoming cries begging for death, their lord watches with glee, his eyes bright and his mouth twisted high.
It is a terrifying, disorienting sight and when her body finally gives in, when the blood loss becomes too much, when her brain can no longer hold her together and it must shut down, must allow her to sink, when she's finally welcomed into the warm embrace of death, they move onto the man. It's his turn. They drag his body forward, rip the wand from his hand, his sobs already escaping him, his face crimson as pleas slip from his mouth and no breath comes in, the words falling too quickly and too heavily to make out and Hermione has to step out of the memory, the voice of her husband greeting her promptly.
"Maybe we shouldn't do this. Just until the baby is born."
And there is Alphard, rubbing her back as her eyes stare blankly ahead, still trying to process what she had just seen, her hands absentmindedly rubbing at her stomach and he looking at her with the utmost care and concern as he speaks his words.
She pulls herself out of her trance, because she knows she has to show him she's okay if he's ever going to let her go through with this, if he'll believe it's true and that this isn't too much stress to put on her, or to put on their baby.
She smiles at him, letting as much warmth as she can muster to radiate through, "It's okay. I'm okay."
She's had to lie to him a lot more often since they started doing this, since they started sifting through Alphard's memories of meetings so that she can stay informed but keep herself far away from that monster and his dark reaches. At least until the baby is born. Before the fog of the memory has even finished clearing, Hermione thanks Merlin for the blessing upon her womb, taking hold of the first moment that she can start pretending to forget what she saw, start remembering how very blessed she is that what she retains is only an impression and she did not really have to be there. She fears for Alphard, even as he continues to assure her that he's fine. She feels him shake in the night, cry in the restroom behind a locked door, catches him staring forward blankly at the dinner table, his eyes plagued by the darkness of all that he's seen, done, been, what she's sure he's forced to relive every time he closes his eyes, against the black of his lids. She's so very blessed to have him, to be carrying his child, to not have to be at the meetings, trembling under the gaze of a man she had thought she could make feel.
She tells him she loves him and, unlike her being okay, unlike her being happy, her feeling safe, being ready and willing to face anything this life may throw at her, her feelings for him may actually be true. She believes it more than anything when he smiles brightly at her as soon as the words come out of her mouth. It isn't the first time she's said it, but every time she does he smiles at her as if the sun had just revealed it shines only for him. It's as if, just for a second, the weight of the world isn't quite so heavy, the peak of their goals not quite so insurmountable, as if he can truly believe that someday, far from now, but someday, he can actually so much as hope to be happy, really, truly happy. A happiness unbounded by time and space, a happiness brightened by the normalcy he now craves, by the certainty of life, of calm, of peace that the end of this mission has been assured to bring, the pearly gates and warm lights that they have formed for the end of this in their minds. They have made this mission's end's their ascension to heaven, because it is all so much more unbearable if they cannot allow themselves to believe that it will all be better when it ends. They don't think about the trauma that will stay with them, how they'll still jump at loud sounds, still look around anxiously whenever anyone mentions his name, his oh-so-common name. But, Hermione knows Alphard deserves these small moments of happiness and more, so she tries to say it as often as she can muster, as often as she can say it without feeling guilty, knowing how much she still thinks of Tom as Tom and not as Voldemort, how often she thinks of Tom in the same sentence as love. She says it as much as she can think of Alphard without immediately feeling dread build up in the pit of her stomach because she knows how bad she is for him, to him, with him. She doesn't get to say it very often. But she so wishes she could, wishes she could give him everything he's given her and more.
He makes some jokes, trying to banish the image of that woman's pain from her mind, the echoes of the man's whimpers. He knows the task is impossible because this is his memory and every time he closes his eyes he can see her skin splitting, bruises blossoming up and down her legs, the tufts of hair, bloodied and flaked with skin that she pulled out every time a new round of crucio was expelled onto her, and then the man's eyes as he knows that everything that he does to the woman is about to be done to him.
Hermione smiles at Alphard, a small, almost nonexistent smile. They both know the jokes don't do much, but their relationship has always been built on their pain. What more can they do but try and smile, and try and believe that it looks even a little real, that it could reasonably be even a little real.
He kisses her forehead and his eyes droop, the grief clouding them reaching new depths, darker shadows swimming just beneath the surface, biding their time until they could break through and break him.
She knows it is only because of her that he is like this and she wishes it could have been any other way. She wishes she could have been just a little stronger and shouldered the pain, been a little more resilient and not had to lean on him, not have to stab him with her knobby roughness every time they touch or speak. She wishes she could have brought him joy, could have done for him what he does for her, but she is not strong enough, cannot do this alone, cannot let him only be a mindless, unaffected pawn, had to bring him into her heart and let him breath in the darkness, become a true part of this mess.
He makes dinner and as they sit and eat, as she laughs at his corny jokes, as he tells her how beautiful her eyes are, as she blushes and reaches a hand out to him, as they wash the dishes together, as he kisses her nose and she kisses his lips, as his face fills with joy when he rubs her growing stomach, as they go to bed together, warmth settling in their stomachs and hearts, they seem almost happy. Almost normal. She can almost convince herself she didn't think of Tom, isn't thinking of Tom, even later when he clumsily places a wet kiss on her cheek as he climbs off of her. She tries to convince herself that his sweaty arm wrapping around her middle as he snuggles into her neck and falls asleep, his breath hot and sticky, isn't making her think of Tom's cool hands still exploring her long after they are done. Of his cool breath chilling her shoulder, of his warm, whispered words heating her face as they fall in her ear.
Alphard mentions his sister is visiting tomorrow and she groans and he laughs and she thinks about how easy this life would've been. If Tom weren't a factor, she could go on pretending to be friends with his sister and dreading every moment up to her arrival, she could go on loving Alphard, welcoming their growing family, throwing the foam from washing dishes at each other and rubbing it away when they halt their laughter long enough to kiss again and again. This life would've been easy, would've been so simple, so lovely. But it is not her life. She was destined for bigger things, for more painful things, for the life of a war hero, for the life of a martyr, for the life of a bringer of pain and suffering, an ender of pain and suffering. She is not meant to be just a wife, a lovely, laughing wife with her lovely, laughing husband by her side. Because her life has Tom. Her life is tinged with the notion of blood purity and genocide, with the fact that she might be in love with a murderer. With the fact that she hates Alphard's sister, not for her incessant babbling but for the fact that, had she known Hermione's true blood, would launch a million curses at her in an instant for tainting her precious lineage. Her life is tinged with a mystical predisposition for it not to be easy, for it to be anything but. And it is anything but, anything but easy, anything but happy, anything but a life she wants to continue.