SOME OF US ARE NOT GIFTED WITH CHOICES

death doesn't ask to happen / it just comes uninvited -- "psycho-logy"

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CHAPTER FOUR: The Beckoning

"What do you mean we're not going to remember any of these? And who appointed you to know all these things you kept saying, Granger?" Draco uttered in arrogance the moment Hermione breathed out the last syllable out her mouth. He sat on the armchair where she had magically bound him – after all, he didn't have any defences with him since she still had his wand in hostage.

"It's just… I know, alright? This is really happening… you and I… but afterwards, memories are going to be altered as if nothing happened. Until… until it's time." Draco grunted his disbelief. "Look, Malfoy," Hermione said impatiently, as she sat on the low table in front of Draco. "Everything's all beyond me. And as God is my witness I don't know how I have gained knowledge of all these. I just know."

"Fine," Draco muttered, turning away from her. "Get it over with then, Mudblood, so you can leave."

Hermione tilted her head. Somehow, his insults didn't feel so foul any more. "Really? You want me to go?"

"Haven't I said that a hundred times before?"

"If you wish." Hermione stood and started. "The Blade of Deliverance is supposed to give you that – deliverance," she paused and turned to look at Draco, "or salvation. Of your soul, Malfoy. Yet as pathetically obnoxious as you may be, I still don't think you're that vile to be asking destiny to redirect your fate. Not if all you did was show prejudice. You're not a murderer."

Draco laughed mirthlessly. "And how sure are you that I didn't kill anybody?"

"Because you're not dead!" Hermione declared. She knelt beside him and tried to meet his eyes. "Maybe you did make a mistake, Malfoy. The first…" her voice trailed as if she was remembering something. "The first man… who did this put it through his heart and died. He killed a whole family –"

"Malfoys! He killed the Malfoys… he killed my ancestors and had the audacity in him to curse us with the same fate as him. I know the story, Granger. A Muggle," he said, sniggering. "A filthy Muggle rat cursing the Malfoys… its hilarity hasn't died, apparently." He paused as if waiting for Hermione to react the same way he did and then added insolently, "After all, he put it through his heart, Granger. Of course he'd die. It's pathetically stupid if you ask me."

"The same fate?" Hermione ignored Draco's last remark. "You mean ask for mercy? Like what you're doing now, huh?" Draco stopped and looked at her. "Tell me, Draco," she breathed slowly. "How is it that you found the dagger when it has been lost for centuries?"

Draco hesitated. Perhaps, if he stayed quiet long enough, she'd leave him alone with it. But it didn't work. She was staring straight at him as if she was trying to read his mind. "It hasn't been lost, Granger. It's always been told within the family that the sword was buried in the manor dungeons –"

"Sword?"

"And I thought you knew everything –"

"I know how it works. Not where it came from."

Draco sneered. "And so maybe destiny wanted us to fill each other in, then? Now, if you could just wave your wand and unbind me from this chair –" his voice trailed when he found Hermione's wand pointing at him again.

"No," she said. "I think I rather not know, Malfoy. Now if you'll just listen to me."

Hermione started awake. It might have been because of the dream but perhaps it was the noise coming from outside her room that stirred her into consciousness. The noise was intensified by a scream of fright that she immediately stood from her bed calling out, "Mum! Dad!" She grabbed her wand from her bedside table and ran out the door – only to be paralysed by the sight of four dark figures downstairs. Two of them were holding her unconscious parents each.

As the Death Eaters put silence on the Grangers, the same stillness hung over the whole house. They turned towards the stairs and there standing unmoving at the top was the girl.

Hermione breathed out, realising that she had been holding it in all that time. It was when one of the Death Eaters started climbing the stairs that she broke out of her trance. And in less than a second, she pulled up her wand and pointed it straight at him.

Yet, the Death Eater only laughed as Hermione cried out spells that only bounced off him with the use of a Shielding Charm.

Hermione stopped but didn't put down her wand. She was still breathing rapidly and the presence of the Death Eaters in her house was sending frozen shivers down her spine; but she was trying desperately hard to think straight. She had always thought facing them would be inevitable yet she didn't realise that she had to do it on her own without any one else around to help her. "H-how did you get in here? W-what d-do you want with us?" she demanded; her hand shaking as she tried to keep it hoisted up.

But the Death Eater remained taciturn as he steadily advanced towards her, wand aloft – watching her and expecting her to attack.

Hermione stepped back when the Death Eater reached the upper landing. Now she could see him looming high on her like a black phantom of pure evil. She closed her eyes. Maybe she was dreaming still. Because this would rather be a nightmare than be real. She would rather spend the day with Draco Malfoy than spend minutes with the Death Eaters. At least Draco wasn't a killer. He was a hater. But he's not a murderer…

This couldn't be happening.

"You should come quietly, little Missy…" the Death Eater finally spoke in an eerie voice of vast, wintry void.

"Give me one good reas—SECTUMSEMPRA!"

This time, the Death Eater was only as fast with his Shielding Charm as a cut started bleeding across his left cheek. He looked grimly at Hermione and angrily pressed forward towards her, shouting, "Why you insolent little – Crucio!"

But Hermione's charm to shield herself was not enough to protect her. For the Cruciatus Curse was violently strong and the Death Eater had no intention but to torture. Hermione writhed in pain as the Death Eater watched her with much enjoyment. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction and so forced herself to not scream nor grunt. But she fell to her knees and to the floor with an expression of agony; it was enough to show the excruciating throb of every nerve in her body. She looked at him – knowing that he was just waiting for her to plead to stop the curse.

And although Hermione had thought her body was already getting numb from the pain, she finally let out a wail of unimaginable anguish that sent the Death Eater laughing to his black heart's content.

Suddenly, a voice came from behind him. "Stop it," another cloaked figure said, gesturing his hand for the other Death Eater to lower his wand.

Hermione breathed in through gritted teeth when the curse was finally lifted as she murderously glared at her enemies. She instinctively shifted her attention on the second Death Eater; wondering why he was saving her… when all she knew was that they were there to finish her off. But then, the second Death Eater only sneered at her, slowly picking up the wand that she had dropped during the Cruciatus Curse and muttered, "The Dark Lord wants her alive." Then, pointing Hermione's own wand at her, he said, "Stand up, Muggle."

With a great deal of struggle, Hermione stood up without taking her eyes off her attackers. She was defenceless to magic now… especially that she was present with two of the most vicious wizards ever known in dark sorcery.

From a distance, she heard cracking noises, which told her only two things… either there were more Death Eaters Apparating in her house; or some of them had left. Hermione remembered the other two Death Eaters who were holding her parents hostage. And from then she realised – "Whuh – Where did you take them?" she demanded; sounding surprised and worried but still with much force of distaste in her voice. However, it seemed to have not any effect on the Death Eaters at all.

The second Death Eater, still pointing Hermione's own wand at her, spoke, "You will come with us if you ever want to see them alive again," with a trace of delight. "But then again, you might not in any way –"

"Impedimenta!" The first Death eater yelled when Hermione lunged forwards to try and seize back her wand. She was blasted off her back and landed across the floor.

But this wouldn't stop her. This couldn't stop her. They had her parents and she was starting to feel that it was her fault. If only she listened to them. If only she had done what her mother had asked her to do. Maybe… maybe they would've been far away by now. Maybe she and her family would not be worrying about Voldemort or the Death Eaters… but…

At the very instance that she felt the floor beneath her back, she stood up, unrelenting to them. Her whole body was still aching but adrenalin was soaring in her system. She couldn't let the Death Eaters win. Not without a fight – magic or no magic. But as she strained to get back on her feet, she heard the Death Eater scream out another spell.

"Stupefy!"

Amidst all confusion that the commotion had given her… she realised that she wasn't hit. Someone had grabbed her aside just in time instantly after hearing another cracking noise exceedingly close to where she fell. "Get off me!" she shouted, struggling to get free, thinking that it was another Death Eater. But within that very second, everything went black and she felt that she was being tugged in every direction possible.

And then… a moonlit sky flashed before her eyes.

She was let go and finally realised that she was Apparated Side-Along with… Remus Lupin. She looked up and saw a number of members of the Order of the Phoenix gathered around her and Remus. She didn't know if she wanted to faint, to throw up, or to break down right then and there; but her eyes fell on Harry and with a faint sound of cry in her voice, she said, "They got Mum and Dad! We've got to find them!"

"Where?" asked Harry, stepping forwards.

"We have to come inside first, please," Mrs Weasley's voice interrupted, pleading that it wasn't safe to be congregating outside the protected grounds of the Order's headquarters discussing Death Eater abductions.

Hermione stopped, ignoring Mrs Weasley.

And immediately, she went cold.

She looked up at Harry and with a desperate gaze in her eyes, whispered, "I… I don't know…" before she fell onto the ground… into her own oblivion.

* * * * *

"I'm going to be a Death Eater, Hermione."

"So you're bound to kill people, is that it? For what cause, then, Malfoy?"

"Some of us are not gifted with choices."

"It's me," she said with finality. She looked at him trying to decipher if he realised what she had just uttered. "You're going to have to kill me, aren't you? I'm the Muggleborn you'll have to murder, am I not? You don't have to die to save your soul, Draco. Has it not occurred to you that it's not too late?"

"Do you think I wanted this?" Draco raised his voice and stood up. A second of surprise rushed through him. He didn't realise that Hermione had already lifted the binding spell before that.

"Why? Because suddenly, you think that Muggles and Muggleborns are just like you? Human?"

Draco stared at her firmly as if she was the one who was holding him up. And in a murmur… an almost inaudible whisper… he spoke softly. "Because I should believe that you don't deserve to live. But it doesn't make sense, does it? Yet, still I will have to kill you… That's why I'm tainted… And I will be destroyed in the end because I know I wouldn't be able t—" he swallowed, feeling his throat tightening "to end another person's life."

It was like a light of unexplainable knowledge dawned on Hermione. She knew it now. It wasn't a dream. It was all real. It had to be. Because it was the only explanation that would give all these much sense. It was how the Death Eaters were able to enter her house. They were connected to her as she was with Draco. Because it was real. She stood up from the sofa where she lay; quickly realising that she was inside the headquarters.

"Lie back down, dear."

She turned to where the voice came from and found Mrs Weasley carrying a glass of pumpkin juice and sandwiches on a tray. However, "I have to go," she said, running out of the room.

"But… Hermione!" Mrs Weasley protested, running after her. "You shouldn't. They're taking care of it. They're –" she paused, seeing Hermione standing outside the headquarters… just standing. As if waiting for something to happen.

"Wha-What's going on here?" Another member of the Order appeared behind Mrs Weasley and then followed her line of sight. "Ms Granger!"

"I'm here!" Hermione shouted as if to the sky. "You can freely summon me now! What's wrong! Have you suddenly shrivelled into a coward!"

Mrs Weasley and the other Order member almost jumped forwards to reach Hermione. "What? What are you talking about, Hermione? Summon? You can't – What – Let's get back inside –!"

But they weren't quick enough.

Hermione had Disapparated.

Or so it seemed…

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i have shivered in a corner and cried the seven seas / wept of water… of tears… of blood… of sands and stones / and anger shouted out from the deepest core of my soul -- "one day in june"

So, how're you liking it so far? It would be nice to hear from you… how 'bout a review, eh?