Chapter Three: Misery loves company
Harry had a secret.
Incidentally, his secret also had a secret, and so by the very simple rules of association, Harry actually had two secrets, although he would never cop to either of them.
And they were, in no uncertain terms, a bit of a doozy.
It all started when he fell in love with a human – and not just any human. He fell in love with the most arrogant, magisterial, and annoyingly brazen idiot of the whole bunch, and there had been absolutely nothing he could have done to stop it.
He fell, and because of what followed, it was a tumble that trumped all others.
In the beginning, it was nothing. They weren't anything other than a couple of souls forced into the same sphere by the inescapability of fate. They were strangers, as was to be expected considering their dramatically different types of existence, and their paths crossed only as a consequence of their respective circumstances. The man was nothing more than a pawn in the game Harry played, one small cog in the wheel of yet another Hell-fueled war on Earth, but then, and Harry wasn't entirely sure when or how, it became something – he became something, and that's where things started to go terribly wrong.
Harry had never met someone so conceited, someone so inexplicably unaffected by the suffering around him, and being around the man was more maddening than anything Harry had ever experienced before. But he also had never been so drawn to another being – any being – and it would come as a surprise to no one that knew him that Harry's feelings, if he had ever felt the courage to tell anyone about them, grew from the kind of fascination that could only blossom from hatred.
Theoretically speaking, angels weren't supposed to bend or break (or bleed, if we're getting morbidly specific), but instead of subverting the inconvenient side effects of carrying a human form as was normal for someone in his position, Harry embraced them – especially the ones that made him feel something other than the lethargic indifference that seemed to plague every moment of his existence. Hate, it turns out, was just the easiest way to get there, and so he hated, loathing everything that was even remotely wrong with the mortal world with every ounce of his angelic being.
It was only fitting then that their first real encounter ended not in tangled sheets but with two pairs of bloody fists out in the mud, each of them sporting a near matching set of split lips and swollen eyes after their shouting match over God-knows-what escalated to something a bit larger than a few ruined cups of mead. Their second encounter wasn't much better, and Harry had admittedly taken the violence a step too far before realizing that it would take a bloody miracle to bring the man back from the brink of death.
And miracle the man back he did – over and over… and over.
The disturbing brutality of Harry's obsession with the man would have been ironic if angels really were as angelic as humans always thought them to be, but they weren't, and Harry undoubtedly toed the line of permissibility more than most. His fists had won wars and lost them (rather spectacularly in more instance than one), and the only thing he knew for sure was that this fight, however small in comparison, would end in a gloriously bloody mess the same as the others.
Truthfully, he fought the man not because of some higher power or greater good, as one might expect of someone of his Heavenly stature, but because his gut told him it was the right thing to. And it was – it really, really was; it's just that Harry grossly misunderstood what right actually meant.
He lost count of how many times they ended up in the same combative positions, and even their audience, who had initially done nothing but add fuel to the fire, grew tired of their charade after a while. It wasn't until some years after their first encounter that Harry felt the shift, and by then, they were both so lost in whatever it was they were feeling that there was absolutely no hope of recovering.
It seemed to happen overnight. One day, they were both going for blood, and the next, they weren't, and Harry, enraged by the realization that their hate had grown into something totally unrecognizable, had wound up and knocked the man out one last time with a final punishing blow. But instead of leaving, instead of tossing the man into some muddy hole to sleep it off with the animals like he had done so many times before, Harry stayed, studying the man's unconscious body with a level of curiosity that would kill more than just one cat.
The first thing that Harry learned that night was that sleep, even the kind of un-consenting slumber the man was currently wrought with, was the ultimate truth serum. The man didn't just look different, he felt different, his body exuding a calm that Harry couldn't quite rectify with what the person he had come to know. It was almost poetic that someone who reveled so much in violence could only find peace in one of its consequences, and on a level that he wasn't quite sure he wanted to admit was there, Harry could relate. And naturally, he was curious, so he stayed.
Which was, in retrospect, a bit of a mistake.
He watched the steady movement of the unconscious man's chest for what seemed like hours. He studied the unmistakable flutter of the human heart underneath with equal parts fascination and disbelief. And then quite suddenly, more quickly than the shift itself, Harry learned perhaps the most important lesson of his entire endless existence – his troubled soul, and yes it was troubled, wasn't as alone as he always thought it would be.
It just so happened that the matching piece was attached to something far less impervious to the effects of time.
Humans were fragile and confounding and horribly self-destructive, but they were also, by their very definition, everything that immortals were not. They loved as fiercely as they hated. They bickered and fought over the most meaningless of things. They cared and they didn't, and they did both at the same time. They were the greatest enigmas of a vast, incomprehensible universe, a curious accident, and they were to be protected at all costs.
Especially, and as long as it was up to Harry, this particular one.
The man was a walking contradiction. He was perfectly imperfect, projecting levels of immaturity and wisdom that had no business existing in the same person. He was a mess, a disaster of epic proportions, and yet he was calculated, executing tasks with flawless precision. He was beautiful in the kind of way only man well-versed in battle could be – worn but grand, scarred and not. He was a hard mass of corded muscles and long limbs with odd, unnatural angles that both confused people and drew them in. The lines in his face told a complicated story – one that was the culmination of side-splitting comedy and heart-wrenching tragedy. And then there was his mouth – his fucking glorious mouth – which never stopped moving but would (and did, it turned out) look absolutely breathtaking when silenced by a mouthful of cock.
And Harry couldn't help himself.
He had never been quite so attracted to a human before. And sure, he had thought about others, fantasized about them even, but it always just felt more convenient to return to the formidable red-headed angel he had spent most of his existence loving. They knew each other – knew each other's moods, knew each other's bodies so well that there was never any hesitation in bed. But she had ended things years ago, giving him the whole 'it's not you, it's me' speech even though they both knew she was simply doing him a kindness that he probably didn't deserve.
Because for everything that Harry was – and he was a lot of things – he wasn't into anything Heaven had to offer and ignoring that little detail for the sake of convenience turned him into the one thing he hated above all others: a liar.
But even after the split, after years of self-inflicted punishment and isolation, Harry hadn't managed to cuff a single soul. More accurately, he had never even given himself the freedom to try – simply put, he had never really had a reason to.
Until this whole shitshow.
There was no doubt that this thing with this particular human felt different, just felt (dare he say it) like a perfect twist in fate. And it was almost laughable that all it had taken for him to finally comprehend what had been happening between the two of them was for him to actually pay attention.
For once, Harry didn't question how he had ended up where he did. Fate had already done the heavy lifting, and now, the only thing that was left to do was to run headfirst willingly into the fire.
And run into it he did… repeatedly.
Of course, the most obvious problem with this particular story is the fact that angels weren't actually supposed to fall in love with the humans that they tasked with spending an eternity protecting – at least not the kind of love Harry found himself inconveniently inflicted with. They certainly weren't supposed to let slip the truth of their existence in the middle of a supremely glorious orgasm, and that was where things really started to get a bit perilous.
But it gets worse, far worse than discovering that a single ungodly blowjob was a far more effective way of getting information out of someone than any kind of morbid torture device, and Harry had been running from the consequences of that for nearly 500 years.
At first, the man had thought Harry was kidding. That the garbled confession that had come out of Harry's mouth was nothing but a part of some sick fantasy of his, but when Harry finally opened his eyes, there was no hiding the truth. The man knew; he knew what Harry really was, believed it more passionately than he had ever believed anything before, and there was simply no coming back from that.
It would have been so much easier if things had just ended there.
And for Harry, they did – he left the next morning, distraught and filled with regret but with no intention of returning. You see, he had a crossed a line that was never meant to be crossed, and he knew it, and he'd be damned if he didn't rectify the situation even though the rectifying quite literally tore him apart. But if there was ever something that he should have done differently it would have been leaving without giving the man the simple curtesy of wiping his very angelic existence from the man's mind.
Because the man certainly never forgot.
He spent his entire, impressively vast fortune trying to hunt Harry down, following fruitless lead after fruitless lead, hoping someone somewhere knew something. Harry, being blessed with powers the man was not, always remained one step ahead, just far enough out of reach to drive the man crazy. And when the man's search predictably ended in destitute disaster, he did the only thing he could think of, he ended his mortal life while calling out for the only immortal being that might actually answer before he succumbed to the long, dark night.
Fortunately, the Devil wasn't just listening, he was recruiting, and he sent his favorite demonic duo to propose a non-refundable transaction. The proposal, the one-time offer as it were, was the gift of eternity in exchange for the only thing the man had left to give – his beautifully human soul. And the man didn't even hesitate. He handed it over willingly, knowing that a soulless eternity was better than a mortal life without the only thing that had ever really mattered to him by his side.
But here's the thing – fate isn't just fickle, she's a cold-hearted bitch, and neither Harry nor the man, what was left of him that was, were immune to her horribly demented, sick sense of humor.
In the end, Harry's secret wasn't that he fell in love with a human. It wasn't even that he never stopped loving the man, not even when Hermione came back from a failed mission moaning about the aggravating dark-haired, gangly demon that had bested her, not even after he hunted the same demon down to confirm with overt terror what she had told him. No, his secret was much darker than that – so dark, that if anyone discovered what it really was, they would know that the worst kinds of deception came not from the enemy but from within.
His secret, the thing that would haunt him for the rest of eternity was that, in the case of the man and his eternally doomed soul, Harry was more culpable for the horrors that followed than the Devil himself.
And as for the man who loved then lost then willfully turned himself into one of Hell's best weapons – let's just say that his secret, rather fittingly considering who was involved, would turn out to be far, far worse than that.
Draco wasn't ready.
He thought he'd at least have a couple centuries to fuck her out of his system before she just… showed up, looking so irresistibly edible that he had to actively fight the part of his brain that was urging him to just throw her up against the wall. He'd imagined this all differently – that he'd be the one doing the surprising, that he'd actually be in control of his emotions – fuck, that he wouldn't be so damn scared.
But she was here, and she'd already seen him, and running now would just be so…
Actually, why the hell wasn't he running? He used to be so good at that.
He could hear the clatter of her heels as she ascended the stairs, could almost taste the scent of her as she drew closer, but there was still time. He still had a few milliseconds to escape and leave Blaise and Theo to deal with whatever it was she wanted. He could do it – should do it.
But he didn't.
Instead, he stood there like the lovestruck fool that he was, too afraid to do anything but stare at the empty space she'd be filling in a few, short moments.
The steps grew louder, and fuck.
He needed something stronger than a drink – an inhumanely large dose of horse tranquilizer perhaps – something, anything really that could send him on such a trip that he'd never believe this memory of her.
She was – FUCK.
The first thing he saw was the top of that god-awful hair, but it wasn't really awful, and – double fuck – he wanted nothing more than to bury his hands deep in those perfect curls. The second thing he saw were her legs – the same legs she used to wrap around his waist to pull him closer when she was eager to get him inside her – and if he hadn't already managed to shatter the glass in his hands, it would have exploded spectacularly at the mere reminder of what her naked body looked like when it was intertwined with his own.
Fucking fuckity FUCK.
And then, rather stupidly, Draco let his gaze travel upward again and, well… he really should have run when he had the chance.
She was as formidable as he remembered, more so, if it was even possible, considering that she had just flounced into a literal snake's pit with nothing but an entirely too small piece of sparkly cloth to protect her, and he didn't even try to hide his disdain with the whole charade. Because while he had been forced to stand there like a helpless idiot, she had successfully unraveled him without even lifting a single fucking finger, and dealing with that in any sort of healthy and helpful way was lightyears outside of his pay grade.
He hated her, and he loved her, and he really, really should have run when he had the chance.
Hermione hesitated on the top stair, and they locked eyes for the second time that night, only this time they were closer – too fucking close – and all he could do was stare back, clenching his fists until his arms started to shake from the strain.
He couldn't break first, wouldn't, and thankfully in the end, he didn't.
"Draco."
It was just his name, but on her tongue, it was literally ecstasy, and oh, what he wouldn't do to hear it again.
"Please," she whispered when he didn't respond.
And although it wasn't his name, the word really was the next best thing, and it was a minor miracle that he didn't end up unconscious on the floor.
Her voice was so quiet, so timid and unsure, and Draco felt like laughing because it was just so unlike her. But then she took a step toward him and he blanched because he had totally miscalculated. He didn't know how to react, didn't know how to be so close to her again, and before his body could betray his inability to deal with whole damn situation, he swallowed the animalistic growl that been building at the back of his throat.
She took another step, her eyes searching for something, acting as if she could still read him like a damn book.
And how dare she be so calm?
But she most certainly dared, and he responded the only way he knew how, with a glare so icy that it could have cut through the very floor beneath their feet.
"Draco," she repeated, a bit louder and more in control of herself this time.
It wasn't quite a sexy this time, wasn't quite as alluring, but it still affected him in ways he hadn't been prepared for. But then he saw a hint of a smile on her face, and it sent him into a rather predictable tizzy.
"What the fuck do you want?" Draco replied tersely, finally acknowledging her presence with words of his own.
He saw her cringe and nearly apologized for it before remembering that it was her that had left him, that she was the one who had spent the last fifty years pretending like he didn't exist, that he was a fucking demon not some lovesick puppy dog, and he got angry all over again.
And this time, he growled and didn't care who heard it.
Hermione dropped her head and exhaled slowly while she fidgeted with the edge of her dress.
"This was a mistake," she muttered under her breath.
Of course, it was, he wanted to shout but didn't because he couldn't find it in him to actually be that much of a bastard.
And then he followed her gaze to her feet, and fuck… he almost moaned – fucking moaned – as an image of her spread-eagle on a bed wearing nothing but those sinful heals flashed behind his eyes.
Just shoot me. Someone, just please fucking shoot me.
No one could hear him, and a lead bullet certainly wouldn't do anything but cause him temporary pain, but humans were always so sure that they could manifest anything simply by projecting their wants into the universe, and he thought now was as good a time as any to give the whole projecting into the void thing a fucking shot.
And rather fittingly for a being as desperate as he was, nothing happened.
Draco crossed his arms over his chest because it was the only thing that he could confidently do that wouldn't immediately give away his discomfort (and ill-timed arousal), and he waited, purposely twisting his lips into a hateful scowl. She sighed and lifted her head, and he caught the flash of hurt in her eyes before she matched his icy glare with one of her own.
Check...
Their standoff continued, and with each passing second of painful silence, Draco grew more and more impatient with her. She needed to say something, needed to stop looking at him like he was the scum of the earth (and it really didn't matter that he was). This was his turf, not hers, and she needed to start explaining her very sudden and unwelcome incursion into enemy lines before he lost his goddamn mind.
It wasn't until she opened her mouth, then closed it, then repeated the motion a few more times before he realized that she was just as uncomfortable with the situation he was, and his fury morphed into joyful elation. He, the demon she had so nobly left behind, had rendered her, the insufferable do-good know-it-all, utterly speechless, and it was finally his turn to smile.
...mate.
"Well, this is disappointing," came a voice from somewhere behind him, and Draco swore, angry that the interruption had happened before he could unload a barrage of his signature biting remarks.
Of course, he didn't need to turn around to know who had said the words, and he braced himself for whatever it was Theo was going to say next because if he had learned anything from his tenuous relationship with the dark-haired demon behind him, it was that Theo was exceptionally skilled in making even the smallest of things worse.
"I was hoping for a bit of bloodshed – hysterical shouting at a bare minimum, but this – this is just… sad," Theo finished, the disappointment and boredom obvious in his voice.
Draco didn't even bother replying (why would he?), and instead watched with overt curiosity as Hermione suddenly snapped out of her trance and turned to find the source of the voice.
"You!?" she exclaimed when her eyes finally found the culprit.
Draco pivoted on his feet and watched as Theo's eyes narrowed slightly, then widened almost imperceptibly, and Draco, who typically enjoyed anything that made Theo's skin crawl, found the whole exchange entirely way too suspicious for his liking.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked, and Draco's mouth fell open in surprise as she sashayed (translation: just walked) toward the other demon.
What the actual fuck?
"Oh, I'm sorry," Theo said sarcastically, his eyes flickering to Draco as if this was all his fault. "I didn't realize my movements were restricted by the ever-changing whims of a few angels in Heaven." He stopped, glaring at the small angel as he swallowed the rest of his drink. "Oh wait, they aren't," he finished angrily.
Hermione had stopped a few paces away from Theo, staring at him with an intensity that, in a demon's horribly twisted and demented mind, could only mean one of two things, and Draco didn't particularly want to think about either of them.
"Fucking hell," Draco mumbled before snatching the bottle off the table next to him and starting to drink, ignoring the eye-watering burn as the liquid went down.
"Hey, that's–" Blaise said, reaching out to stop him.
"Shut it, Blaise," Draco said, planting his hand on his friend's face and shoving him away before continuing his long, drawn-out chug.
"Does he know you're here?"
The voice was Hermione's again, and Draco pulled the bottle away from his lips long enough to realize that he was clearly missing something very, very important.
He?
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Theo replied, his eyes darting around nervously – clearly assessing whether or not he could escape the wrath of this particular miniature-sized angel unscathed.
Draco made a noise that landed somewhere between a hiccup and garbled giggle, and nearly tripped over his own feet as he set the bottle back down. He knew Theo was lying, and for a moment, he forgot entirely about the emotions swirling around in his gut because there was at least one other poor soul drowning in a kind of sorrow no amount of alcohol could drown.
"Know what?" Blaise asked after snatching the bottle and moving it out of Draco's immediate reach.
"Who?" Draco asked at the same time, having already deduced the half of the equation that Blaise had not.
But they were both ignored.
"Does he know?" Hermione repeated, this time with a bit more bite, and Draco couldn't help but beam at the majesty of her fury.
If there was a silver lining to this entire debacle, it was that he had at least fallen for the most ruthless of the whole angelic bunch.
Theo opened his mouth, and then, apparently seeing something threatening in Hermione's eyes, promptly shut it again.
"That's what I fucking thought," she said, and Draco laughed again.
It was a mistake, of course, because having gotten the answer she had apparently been searching for, the single chuckle was all it took for her to remember that Draco was there, and she spun around angrily to face him once again.
"And as for you," she nearly shouted, stomping toward him until her finger was lodged firmly into the middle of his rib cage. "I don't have the time or patience for whatever this is," she said, gesturing at his renewed scowl. "We need to talk, and preferably someplace where I won't be tempted to commit murder in front of hundreds of people."
Theo's eyes widened in surprise, and Blaise, the bloody idiot that he was, decided that now was the opportune moment to speak.
"Well, at least now I understand why it was her," Blaise mused, winking ridiculously at Draco.
Draco closed his eyes and started shaking his head, but it was too late – he could practically hear the snap in Hermione's neck as she spun on her feet to chastise the third and final member of their idiotic motley crew.
"I don't know you," Hermione began, speaking with a fury that was far too familiar (and arousing) to Draco, "but I will disembowel you. And then I will miracle you back together and repeat the whole process until you wipe that shit ugly grin off your face."
The smile on Blaise's face promptly vanished, but Hermione didn't even bother waiting for a reply. She turned around again, her fists now balled at her sides, and for a second, Draco thought she was going to punch him in the face.
(Which wouldn't have been the first time… nor the second or the third).
She continued to glare at him, and he didn't actually need to communicate her thoughts. If he didn't agree to speak with her in the next couple of seconds, he'd be lucky to make it through the next five minutes with his favorite appendage intact.
"Fine," he said finally, letting out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Blaise, we're borrowing your office," he added without bothering to look over at his friend. "Do try to refrain from doing anything that will result in our cocks being sliced off while I'm gone."
As he turned to lead the way, he caught the slight twitch in the corner of Hermione's mouth, and for a second, a brief and fleeting moment, he felt like things might actually be okay. But then he remembered the whole her leaving thing, and he was right back to where they had started the night.
He ushered her into the large, dark space at the back of the lofted section of the club and closed the door before sauntering over the opposite side of the room.
"What do you want?" he asked as he leaned back against the edge of Blaise's obnoxiously large desk.
Instead of answering right away, Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"What do you know about the Apocalypse?" she said finally, annoyingly answering his question with a rather ridiculous one of her own.
Draco snorted. "What the actual fuck kind of question is that?" he retorted, eyeing her dubiously. "I'm a demon – I'll be more intimately involved than you might like to think."
Hermione threw her head back and groaned (and Beelzebub give him the strength to ignore that sinful sound coming of her throat). "What I mean is–" she paused, appearing to consider her next words carefully. "What do you know about how it starts?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm really not in the mood to decode whatever it is you're trying to communicate," he told her, his irritation with her bubbling out of his control. "If you have something to say, spit it out – plainly." He stopped, cocking his head. "Otherwise, I'm leaving."
Once again, she didn't answer right away. Instead, she started chewing nervously on her bottom lip, and if he didn't do something to chase the erotic images from his mind, he was going to wind up doing something horrendously stupid.
"Woman," he snapped threateningly. "You have five seconds…"
But she still didn't answer, and Draco, needing to remove himself before he quite literally pounced on her (and not necessarily in a way that would end well for either of them), pushed himself off the desk and moved toward the door.
"The trumpets," she blurted out just as his hand closed around the doorknob. Her voice was pleading with him, begging really, and Draco froze, stuck between his need to storm out of the room and his desire to fix whatever it was that she needed fixing.
And it was scary how easy it was for him to decide to stay.
"Excuse me?" he asked, trying not to seem too eager as he turned around. "Did you seriously come all the way down here to talk to me about the worst of all the brass instruments."
He wasn't a complete idiot. He knew what she was talking about, knew where this conversation was undoubtedly headed, but he couldn't let her have all the power. Plus, it really was just so much more fun riling people up, especially her. She'd already unraveled him, and it was only fair that he do the same to her.
"No– I–" she paused, taking another deep breath. "I'm talking about the trumpets you fucking imbecile," she shouted, throwing her hands up into the air. "All of seven of them. You might have heard of them!"
"What about them?" Draco snarled, not even the least bit bothered by her mocking tone.
Hermione made a sound that was far too similar to the moans she made when he was…
Nope, do not go there, he told himself as he outwardly put on the facade of extreme impatience.
"Are you being purposely daft, or have you just gotten dumber since I last saw you?" she quipped.
"I'm not the one being deliberately cryptic," he countered, beginning a long, slow stalk toward her. "And if I recall correctly, the last time we saw each other, you didn't seem overly concerned about what was going on in my head. You were much more focused on sucking my–"
"Shut up!" Hermione screeched, apparently having reached the end of her patience. "Just shut up!" She stopped, breathing heavily as she moved a few paces forward. "I'm sorry okay? I'm sorry I broke your little non-existent heart!" She paused again, and this time, Draco was convinced he was moments away from getting slapped, but the moment passed. Instead, whatever anger she was harboring toward him suddenly manifested into a look of pure fear. "Now, can you please just answer my question?" she continued, her voice quiet. "This is, whether you give a fuck or not, actually important."
Despite the sudden shift in her demeanor, Draco rolled his eyes. "Is that really how they teach you to apologize up there?" he asked her, taking another step. "I thought you lot were better than that?"
He didn't realize they had invaded each other's space until he looked down and she was there, staring back at him with her annoyingly big, beautiful eyes.
"You're insufferable," she said.
"And you're unbelievably irritating," he said in return.
They were inches away from each other, breathing heavily (and not in a way that was purely non-sexual).
"The trumpets," she whispered, clearly as affected by their sudden proximity as he was. "They're missing."
Those four small words were all she could manage, and yet, he could see the pleading urgency in her eyes. And he didn't particularly like it how that made him feel.
"Missing?"
She nodded.
Bollocks.
As much as it pained him to admit, even just to himself, that was fucking news to him. And not terribly wonderful news.
"Did you– was your side involved?" she asked, clearly trying to make the question sound less accusatory than it actually was.
In all honesty, it was a fair question, especially considering they were playing for vastly different (and opposing) sides, but it still didn't soften the blow.
Of course.
She wasn't here to mend things with him; she was here for information, trying to play him like a fucking fiddle.
He took a step back.
"And if we were, why would I tell you?" he challenged, not even attempting to hide the venom in his voice. "I don't owe you anything."
"No." She frowned but otherwise seemed to accept the truth of his statement. "You don't."
Draco was fuming. She couldn't just come bursting back into his life and expect… favors.
"Someone took them," she told him, taking the step that he had just given up. "I know you," she continued, her voice softer than it had been all night. "I know you don't want this world to end. You enjoy it far too much to do something this stupid."
Draco didn't answer. She was too close – again – and he couldn't think straight, correction, he wasn't thinking straight.
"If someone uses them… first, the vegetation will burn. Then the oceans–"
"Stop," he said, waving his hand in the air. "I know what they do."
"Please." She was begging now, and he couldn't take it.
"It wasn't me," he told her, mentally berating himself for being so goddamn weak. "It wasn't any of us as far as I know, but that certainly doesn't mean it wasn't."
Hermione sighed. Whether in relief or frustration, he couldn't tell.
"And the other two?" she asked a bit too pointedly, nodding toward the other side of the closed door.
"Are you really asking about both of them or just Theo specifically?"
There was nothing wrong with the question, but the flash of anger in Hermione's eyes was confirmation enough that there was something deeper there – something that Draco really needed to know.
"Theo– he isn't…"
"He isn't what?" Draco asked, interrupting before he could watch her struggle with whatever it was she wanted to say but was too scared to articulate.
"He used to be a human," she said, lowering her voice as if her words were communicating some sort of state secret.
"And that's news to absolutely no one," Draco told her. "He made a deal with the devil – his soul for an eternity. That's how it works."
"Yes but–"
"Listen, the fucker is annoying as hell, but his personal life is his personal life," Draco interrupted. "Unless it has something to do with any of this, I really don't give a fuck."
"And if it might?" she asked, her golden-brown eyes pleading with him again.
Beelzebub, he couldn't resist her – not when she looked at him like he was the only being in the entire universe who could help her.
Draco dropped his head to his hands and sighed. "What in the world has Theo done this time?"
"It's less what he's done and more about… who."
Salazar, she loved being cryptic, but this was a puzzle even he could unscramble.
"So, our twisted, demonic Theo fucked an angel, is that it?" he asked, dragging his hands down his cheeks.
"Sort of."
"How does anyone sort of fuck someone else?"
"He wasn't a demon when he did it."
"Oh," Draco breathed. "Oh," he repeated, and then he burst out laughing.
This whole night was just dripping with irony.
"You're telling me that Theo – the same fucker who gets off on poisoning the minds of perfectly innocent young children – made a deal with devil so he that he could join his angelic lover in eternity?"
"Yes."
The irony really was too much, and Draco couldn't stop laughing. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as tears began to stream down the side of his face.
Hermione obviously wasn't as amused as he was, and she stood there with her hands on her hips, shaking her head as if she was about to dole out some wonderfully terrible punishment.
"Is this all you wanted to discuss or was there more?" Draco managed finally, wiping the sides of his eyes with the back of his hand.
"You're seriously just going to laugh this off?
Draco shrugged. "You can't fight the Apocalypse, Hermione," he said, rather unhelpfully.
It was the first time he'd said her name all night, and he nearly flinched as it left his mouth.
"If it was him–"
"Would it even matter?" he asked, interrupting again. "Would it even change what we're all now fated to do?"
She didn't answer right away, but eventually, she shook her head. "No," she began, pausing to exhale deeply, "it wouldn't."
"I know you consider yourself some sort of hero," he said, studying her intently. "But this isn't a battle you can win."
"No," she admitted freely, her eyes blinking rapidly. "Not without help."
And this was at least one statement that Draco had no issue with her not clarifying – the implication was blatantly clear.
"I really don't know what you want me to do," he told her, shaking his head. "The fate of this world was never ours to control – it never will be. It was bound to come to an end at some point or another, so it's best we just… get on with it."
"I know you don't mean that," she said, moving so close to him that he could feel the fluttering of her human form's very human heart.
"And if I do?" he asked, his mouth uncomfortably dry.
She licked her lips, not even bothering to hide the tormented hunger in her eyes as she loomed below him. "Then you're really not the demon I thought you were," she managed finally.
And before he could respond to whatever that was, she was shoving him onto the desk behind them, and he… well, he was already fucked, wasn't he?
Song – Angels Like You by Miley Cyrus
a/n: Oh, Harry – I really did love writing that bit and can't wait to throw you back into it. In the meantime, any guesses on who we get to learn more about in the next (hopefully next week) update?
Also, I'm a bottle of champagne deep posting this, so any errors are entirely the fault of the bubbles.
