Notes: Sometimes life just happens and that's more important than any of this. I'll update when I can. At this point it's been a year since I wrote this and I'm a bit apathetic about the entire thing. I apologize since I know it's still new for all of you. Thanks for taking the time to check this out.

42. Die Single, and Thine Image Dies with Thee

The depths of winter are upon them. The chill of the night cuts deep, but deepest into Hermione. Draco watches her shiver, sees the heat of the fire do nothing to quell the eternal cold entrenched in her bones.

He piles another blanket on her as she rests by the flames. She stirs, but doesn't wake.

Tom is nowhere to be seen. He does this, when Hermione is asleep and the sum of his choices weighs too fiercely upon him.

Draco tries his best not to judge him. He thinks if he were the one on the precipice of such a loss—of life and love—he would spend every moment he could with the one who mattered the most.

But he isn't Tom. His life may have had more than its fair share of horrors, but he had a family, he had a home, he had a place of his own. Tom had nothing. Even his body belonged to others before he could understand what that meant, what he lost because of their lechery.

He eases the front door open and blinks into the endless mists of the night. Snow coats the ground like a sodden blanket, stained dark by the muddy tracks Tom wore into it.

The boy in question sits on the stoop, head bowed and hands tangled in his ebony curls. Not a single cigarette litters the ground at his feet.

He rubs his hands together, bare despite the winter night, and swings bloodshot eyes toward Draco. The strong line of his jaw trembles just the slightest bit as he grits out, "I don't want your pity."

"That's good, because I have none to give."

And that's the honest truth. Draco drowns in a thousand emotions when it comes to Tom, but pity isn't one.

The dark boy gives a brittle laugh. "Well, that's good I suppose."

He's only been out here a moment, but the chill already rips through the layers of Draco's clothing, threatening to strip him bare with its icy fingers. He pulls his wand—his new one that has nothing to do with family or death—from his pocket and casts a warming charm.

Tom gives a nod of thanks. "It's painful realizing how powerless this existence is."

"I can think of worse fates."

Despite their red rims, Tom's azure eyes flash as sharply as ever. "You still don't approve."

"As if I could ever condone your death," Draco hisses.

Tom is right. He is still leagues away from acceptance. Indeed, more often than not anger simmers just beneath the surface. He feels like a caged tiger, trapped between the bars of his feelings and Tom's reckless choices. No matter which way he turns, there is only confinement.

"You haven't left."

"You asked me to stay."

No matter how much Draco wants to flee this insanity, he made this promise and he will honor it. And now, he's made other promises too. To Hermione and their child.

"I told her I would stay. After."

Tom's chin jerks up, his pale face utterly blank for a long moment. He blinks long and slow. "Yes, I rather thought you would."

Draco drops to the wooden step next to him. "I'm not trying to be your child's father. I just can't leave her alone. Not after everything."

The column of Tom's throat works, words churning just beneath the surface. He rubs at his eyes with the heels of palms before saying, "but perhaps you ought to be."

Draco freezes, eyes wide. "What do you mean?"

"I bloody killed my father—"

"So did I," Draco points out. Neither of them is a shining example in that particular area.

"But you killed yours for a reason. Because of what he'd done to you and your mother," Tom argues. "I killed mine because I wanted to test a spell, which is hardly a good reason at all."

"Your father abandoned you and your mother," Draco counters. "He rejected the very foundation of who you are. You may not have been right to murder him, but he wasn't right to leave you in that orphanage either."

"So both of us have rubbish examples to work from," Tom concludes.

Draco lets out a hollow laugh. "We bloody well know what not to do."

"You know what not to do." Tom's expression is entirely too solemn, his eyes too deep.

"I can never be you."

The other boy shakes his head, wayward curls falling over bloodshot eyes. "I don't want you to be me. It's better that you're not. I'm not—" he sighs, full lips pursing. "I may not be him, but I'm not good, Draco and I know that. This," he motions vaguely to the house, "won't be enough for me. Salazar knows I wish it could have been, but I know myself and I know I will never be satisfied. And she needs light and I am nothing but darkness in the end. When it matters."

He hates Tom in this moment. Hates that he has sacrificed everything because nothing in this world—a world without magic—will satisfy him. He hates that not even Hermione's love was enough to keep him by their side.

His fists clench at his sides, blunt nails digging into his palms. "Did you even do this for her? Or did you do this for you?"

The planes of Tom's face are luminous marble as he stares back. The darkness of the night has swallowed the azure of his eyes, leaving only bottomless pits. He swallows, once, twice, a third time and doesn't say anything.

The silence is worse than the Cruciatus. Worse than a blade to the gut.

It is everything he has feared, has known deep in the roiling pit of his stomach.

His teeth grind together as his adrenaline spikes. This rotten truth pushes him beyond the precipice, into freefall. He believed the best of the boy who sits beside him. He imagined Tom was greater than the sum of his parts—lighter than the darkness in his soul.

But he only deluded himself.

He is still a bloody coward holding onto lies and Tom is everything he's denied. Everything he's refused to see.

He crashes hard into the truth, his breath leaving his lungs in a panicked gasp. He climbed so far, but he will always end up shattered in this pit, nothing but the shards of a boy who once believed.

Tom brings his hand to Draco's cheek, but he rips away from the comforting touch. From the lie.

"It's not what you think."

It's exactly what he thinks. Tom gave up everything because he could not stand to live in the world without power. His parting gift to Hermione is hardly a miracle; it is a torture. A piece of him to remind them of what could have been.

"Don't touch me," Draco snarls. His voice is a foreign, broken thing.

Tom doesn't listen. He locks his hand at the nape of Draco's neck, fingers tangled in the long platinum stands. "It isn't."

Draco tries to tear free, but Tom holds fast, his expression wild. "Listen to me."

"Let go."

"Listen."

Nothing Tom can say will alter the truth. But he knows that manic gleam. Tom will not give up until he has his moment. Until Draco listens to every last pathetic excuse that will drip from his alluring lips.

"Fine," he bites out. "Tell me why you decided to kill yourself to escape us."

The dark boy's gaze softens, but his hold on Draco remains unyielding. "I needed to make a difference. To be something. I can't do that as I am. I am nothing without it."

Without magic. Draco wants to argue, but on this count he understands. It hardly justifies suicide, but he was raised with magic at his every whim. He cannot imagine what it is Tom lives with. He also knows he's too much of a coward to ever make the same choice.

Or perhaps it is harder to live than to die.

Draco supposes it depends on what you fear the most.

"So what, giving Hermione a child is all that matters?"

"Commanding Death is all that matters," Tom counters. He is darkly angelic in this moment. Terrifying in the way of incomparable beauty and total supremacy.

And Draco understands. While some of this might have been about Hermione and his love for her, this choice came from the power it delivered. From the undeniable might of holding the Hallows and their master at his command.

Perhaps they are all doomed to become their basest selves.

"You could have been something… someone who mattered," he says, throat tight with rage. "You could have had everything. But you threw it all away to be—"

"Something greater," Tom interrupts. He's disturbingly calm in the face of Draco's rising ire. "To become something beyond mortal."

"And was it worth it?"

"I'll let you know," is the mild reply.

Tom abruptly releases Draco and he stumbles back, elbows cracking against wooden stair. He shoves himself upward and glares at the boy he loves. The boy who has broken his heart several times over. Losing him to Hermione is nothing compared to this barb.

"You have to tell her."

"I will," Tom assures. "When the time is right, she'll know everything."

Draco drops his head into hands, fighting the burn of moisture in his eyes. "Why couldn't love have been enough?"

Tom tugs his hands away from his face, dips his head until Draco sees the exquisite lines of his face. Then his mouth is on Draco's, softer than it's ever been.

He should pull away. This is a temptation that will only hurt him. The kiss isn't an apology or a confession, it's a distraction. A sordid manipulation.

He is too exhausted to care. Too angry to fight Tom.

Nothing he does will make a bloody difference anyway.

Draco's fingers claw into Tom's curls, tugging violently. The exquisite gentleness of the kiss is erased in a moment as he pours all his rage into the fusion of their lips. The dark boy whimpers and Draco pushes harder, teeth drawing blood.

No matter what position they chose, no matter who yielded to whom, Tom has always been the aggressor. The one in control. Even their night with Hermione was only about giving Tom what he needed.

No more.

Draco has held back far too long, has lied to himself and buried his feelings too deep. He is powerless to stem the fount of aggression that seizes his limbs. He's not sure he would, even if he could.

He welcomes the taste of metal on his tongue, the knowledge that for once, Tom is at his mercy. He yanks the boy's head back, teeth tearing at the pale column of his throat. Tom's bloody lips part, an agonized moan breaking free.

Draco pauses to study the boy. His eyes are streaked with red, his lids swollen. The alluring curve of his mouth is a battlefield, blood welling in pump scarlet droplets. The skin of his throat, luminous under the partial moon, is a mottled mess of dark purples and angry reds.

Draco tightens his grip on Tom ebony locks, pulling sharply until his neck strains at an unnatural angle. He brings his mouth to the hollow of Tom's throat and bites hard. The ensuing whimper is breathless, utterly unrecognizable as Tom.

He digs his teeth deeper until he tastes copper. When he pulls back this time, a crimson line trails down Tom's porcelain skin. The hand in Tom's hair twists and the blood flows faster.

A sob escapes Tom's battered lips, the sound devoid of anything but suffering.

Draco's rage cracks. His eyes focus on the travesty below him. The mess he's made of the boy he claims to love.

He stumbles back, breathless with horror.

Tom trembles against the stair, collapsing like a windless sail. His lips twist upward into a farce of a smile. "It's nothing I didn't deserve."

Blood still runs thick and heavy at the base of his throat. The answering surge of bile makes Draco turn away. But nothing comes and he is forced to swallow his own vile actions instead.

No matter Tom's choices, Draco's reaction is reprehensible.

This is a boy whose body has been used his entire life. A boy who never felt kindness until it was too late. A boy who is giving himself up for another—no matter the impetus for his decision.

And Draco has hurt him. Deliberately and cruelly.

"Merlin, forgive me," he pleads, stumbling off the stair and into the misty blanket of the winter night.

Snow crunches behind him and he freezes. Against all odds, Tom stands a breath away when he turns. "You're forgiven. Salazar knows I've done worse."

Holding Tom's haunted gaze, Draco brings the tip of his wand to the base of his throat. "Episkey."

The pearlescent skin knits back together, leaving only the dark stain of blood and mottled bruising. Draco pockets his wand and turns away, unable to bear the shame of seeing Tom so abused by his own hand.

"I…" He wants to explain, but he can hardly understand the wave of unadulterated fury that tore through him. "I'm sorry," he says instead.

Tom's sigh is labored, piled high with all the trauma that lies between them. "I can't blame you. I pushed."

It is absolutely no excuse. Draco clenches his jaw and searches for words—not the right ones, just any that can begin to convey the hurricane of his emotions. "Kissing me like that… like you care. You can't do that anymore, Tom. And not because you're hers, but because you're a dead man walking. Because I can't bear to know what you've decided to do and why. I will help you and Hermione, but I cannot tolerate the illusion of your care."

"It's not an—"

"Yes, it is." Draco whirls to face Tom, steeling himself against the battered façade he will find. "It is an illusion. If you truly cared you wouldn't have made this decision. And no, I will never forgive you for it."

"I don't seek forgiveness."

This Draco already suspected. "Then what? What do you want from me?"

Tom's lips press into a thin line. He studies Draco, searching, and Draco hides nothing. He lets all the bitter rage and nauseating confusion show in the haggard planes of his face. He lets the doubt and the fear and the agony ripping him to shreds tear into his stare.

For the first time, he stands truly naked before Tom—the first time he has truly let every mask disintegrate. No more secrets, no more strength. Just his ragged, fractured soul.

"I need you to take care of my child."

It takes all his willpower to remain an open book. But he doesn't hide away when he says, "I've already agreed to stay."

Tom's eyes bore holes in his soul. "You agreed to stay, yes, but not to raise my child as your own. Completely."

"I said yes to Hermione."

"I need you to say yes to me."

"Why?"

Tom runs a hand over his face, smearing blood and sweat. "Because I need to know my legacy is safe with you."

Draco shoulders slump, his face still horribly unmasked. "Look what I just did to you. This can't be what you want. You said Hermione needs light, not darkness, and we both know just how much darkness is in me."

"Not as much as lies within me," Tom murmurs, closing the distance between them. "I kissed you because I wanted you to forget, to know nothing but my lips and my whims. That you fought back isn't wrong."

Tom is right. Draco's sin comes not from the act of resisting, but from the untamed madness that swept through him. From the desire to wound as he was wounded, to fight darkness with darkness instead of light.

"Why me?"

"Because I love you."

Draco chokes, the agony burning in his chest unbearable. "You can't just say things like that, Tom."

"When have I ever chosen my words lightly?"

Draco hiccups on the hysterical laughter searing his throat. He forces a handful of steadying breaths before replying, "I suppose you haven't. You've only chosen them to deceive, to manipulate, to gain whatever ends you require regardless of the cost to yourself or others."

"I'm not manipulating you now."

"How can I possibly believe that? After everything."

"You can put your wand to my head and tear my mind wide open or you can have faith." Tom's azure eyes flicker, a maelstrom of emotion tangled in their depths. "The choice is up to you."

Draco should absolutely rip into Tom's head. It certainly holds secrets he has yet to yield. But if he loves this boy as he believes, such a violation is unthinkable. Which leaves him with faith.

He doesn't think he has a single drop of that particular magic left.

Staring into fathomless azure irises, he knows he has no choice but to dig deeper and find more.

This dark boy is going to damn him or save him.

He can no longer tell which fate is most likely.

"I'll be there for your child."

~*~Break~*~

Hermione stirs. She's almost warm, which is rare. She sways gently, as if floating upon a serene lake.

It takes her a moment to recognize the motion as footsteps, the heat against her face as the warmth of Tom's chest. She peels open an eye to look up at him and frowns.

"You look like hell," she croaks, sleep clinging to every syllable.

"Thanks," is his dry reply.

She pries her fingers free from the soft blanket and traces the line of his jaw. The skin is discolored there and along the pale column of his throat. He swallows and she sees a deep bruise just below his Adam's apple.

She leans closer. "Are those teeth marks?"

Tom trips and they nearly plummet down the staircase. He lets out a strangled breath, as if the air has disappeared from his lungs and sets her down. She teeters for an instant, disoriented from the sudden shift in her position, the large girth of her swollen belly, and the lingering vestiges of sleep.

"Tom?"

He presses his palms to his face, rubbing viciously. A thread of unease weaves its way down her spine. It's embroidered an entire tableau of horror by the time Tom breaks the uneasy silence.

"Draco and I had a disagreement. Of sorts."

She blinks, slow and deliberate. "A disagreement that involved his mouth on your throat?"

Hermione isn't naïve. There is only one way Draco's mouth left that kind of bruise. Where she once might have been upset, now she is only curious, concerned even. The time for secrets is long past and both of them know it.

"I told him I love him," Tom murmurs, barely audible despite the absolute silence that surrounds them.

She turns to make her way up the stairs. "I'm surprised you hadn't told him already."

"Draco and I are… complicated," he says. "Not like you and I."

She doesn't know whether to be offended or not.

Sighing, she uses Tom's offered hand to haul herself up the remaining steps. Her steps shuffle, her gait unfamiliar and awkward. They're working with borrowed time, a fact she can neither escape nor deny. Not when her body reminds her of the raw truth every waking moment.

Hermione tightens her grip on Tom. There's no point in fretting over the myriad differences between Hermione and Draco and how Tom interacts with them. What might have mattered the most at one time is mere noise now.

But that doesn't mean she will allow the matter of Tom's bruises fade to yet another bitter thought, forgotten and rattling in the depths of her aching soul.

In all her months living with both of them, in the months where Tom and Draco shared far more than Hermione and Tom, she never saw such anger imprinted upon either of them. They could have hidden the evidence, used healing spells and glamours, but she doesn't think so.

The angry marks spread across the perfect canvas of Tom's throat are something new. They are the fear, the doubt, churning inside her made manifest. They are the proof that Tom's decision comes at too steep a price.

"What did you say to him?" she asks, collapsing on the edge of their bed. She wraps her arms around herself, clutching her shoulders and searching for the earlier warmth. But that gift is gone and bitter cold has reclaimed her bones.

He plucks a blanket from foot of the bed and lays it over her shoulders. His dark eyes won't meet hers as he replies, "what makes you think I said anything?"

She levels him with her most quelling glare. "I'm pregnant, not stupid, Tom."

The muscles of his jaw twitch. "He's not pleased with my choices."

"That's hardly a surprise." Hermione leans into him as he settles next to her on the bed. The silken ends of his hair tease her skin, a pleasant distraction from the unease churning in her stomach. "Neither of us are very happy with your unilateral choice."

"But you don't wish for another outcome."

"I wish I could save you."

He lets out a low laugh and presses his lips against her brow. The warmth sears into her and pushes back the chill. "You already have."

"You should see your child grow up."

He's silent—too silent—for far too long. Her heart is in her throat, a steady throb of pain and something deeper, more despondent. When he speaks, he skirts the issue, redirecting their conversation to gentler waters.

"Our child will be a wonder. I have no doubt of that."

She wants to pry. To refuse his evasion. She wants to talk about how he's decided her life and happiness is worth more than his own. She wants to force him to understand he is worth it. That he is worthy of her love. Of Draco's love. Of a chance at a life free of darkness.

But where will that get them? Her belly has swollen far more than she ever imagined it could and they are standing at the edge of the cliff. One more moment, one more step, and Tom tumbles off the precipice.

She could not live with pushing him, with her fear being the last thing he knew before the end. So she gives him a smile that hides a multitude of despair and whispers, "our child will be magnificent."

He settles back against their mattress, his legs still dangling off the edge. She follows his descent, resting her cheek against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

Tom tangles his lithe fingers in her hair, pressing her closer. "We haven't chosen a name."

They haven't. She's been too distracted, too caught up in the collateral damage of her child's existence to take a beat and consider such a normal item.

She burrows deeper into Tom, searching for warmth, searching for a balm against the coming storm. "Then we should pick one."

"Harriet if it's a girl, Henry if it's a boy. Harry can be the nickname for either," he suggests.

Hermione jerks, lifting up on an elbow to look down at him. His expression is serene, his sapphire eyes unguarded. She gently pushes an ebony curl away from his brow. "You want to name your child after Harry Potter?"

He quirks a dark brow. "Is that a problem?"

It's the opposite of a problem. It's a bloody miracle. It's the final nail in the coffin of her doubt. She shakes her head. "No, of course not. It's not that at all. I just didn't think you and Harry were that close."

"How do you think I ended up the with the Resurrection Stone?"

She knows better than to admit her less than flattering assumptions. "I—"

Tom gives her a look that tells her she's hidden nothing and he knows exactly how deceptive she assumed him to be. "Harry wanted to help you and so did I. We both came up with the idea of uniting the Hallows. It was simply up to me to orchestrate the final agreement with their master since we both knew Harry might not make it through his encounter with Voldemort. Of course, neither of us knew he was a bloody Horcrux and was doomed no matter what. I may have been well attuned to magic at that point, but I never sensed anything different about him."

As Hermione stares down at him, at the chiseled contours of his breathtaking face, at the luminous sparkle in the depths of his sapphire eyes, her chest constricts. She barely breathes as she understands a horrible truth.

Two boys she's loved. Two boys who have chosen to die for her.

Why couldn't either of them have been more selfish? Two opposites, two lives fated to destroy each other, and instead they both sacrifice everything for her.

She traces the lines of Tom's angular cheekbones and strong jaw. She trails promises over the mottled skin of his bobbing throat. She vows to never love like this again.

She is not worth these sacrifices.

And perhaps if she were less exhausted, she could lie to herself and say Harry died for the world and leave it at that. But from what Tom has told her, from the memory of Harry's brilliant emerald eyes staring up at her, she knows his sacrifice was as much for her happiness, for Tom's survival, as it was for Voldemort's defeat.

And Tom has turned around and made the same decision. No one can claim he's saving the world. His death will be hers and hers alone.

Not for the first time, she is in awe of the boy beside her. In awe of the winding path he walked. In awe of his ability to rise above who he could have been and become something so much more powerful.

She presses her lips to his cheek. He shivers beneath her.

"How are you possible?"

He laughs and it's low and full of dark secrets she aches to explore. She wants to understand him. But their time is out and all she can do is love him as he is.

Hermione will do what Draco could not. She will accept this choice he has made and she will love him all the more for it. And she will not think of this precious reality that rests on pillars of spindly glass. She will not acknowledge how quickly everything will shatter.

She finds Tom's lips, soft and familiar. She drowns in their warmth and the illusion they provide. She finds a way to forget, if only for a moment.