Notes: Thank you all again for taking the time to read, comment, favorite, follow or any combination of those. I am in awe if you even decide to simply read, so thank you. So much of my heart and soul went into writing this (a fact I realize more as I go back and reread to edit as I post), so the fact that each of you has taken the time to delve into something so personal to me is incredible.

And now for something completely different...

~*~ Twenty Four ~*~

She awoke to the absence of any warmth, to a bed bereft of her husband. But not to an empty room. There was a figure above her, dark hair falling loose across the angular panes of a familiar face. She blinked, sure her mind must be playing tricks upon her, but Malfoy was still there.

He winced as he sank to kneel beside her. "I apologize in advance, Granger."

"Wha—"

The word didn't make it fully out of her throat before the silent stupefy hit her square in the chest and everything faded to cold black.

She was cold again. Frozen like the icicles that hung from the barren trees above her. Trees? She forced her head to turn, taking in the grove of ash and the dying embers of a fire surrounded by a stone circle. Several layers of woolen blankets were piled below and above her, but the biting winter cold still stung her exposed skin.

Hermione shifted, thankful to discover she was wearing a loose blouse and a pair of trousers that seemed close to her size. But what was she doing next to a fire pit in the middle of nowhere? Last she remembered… nothing. No matter how hard she willed herself to put the pieces together, she had no idea where her last location had been, what she had been doing before ending up here, a blanket away from freezing to death.

"Oh, good," Malfoy's familiar voice called from across the clearing as he emerged from the forest beyond with an armful of firewood. "You're awake."

"What happened?" She pushed herself into a sitting position, wrapping one of the blankets tightly about her shoulders. "And why exactly aren't we doing any magic to prevent our limbs from freezing off?"

He unceremoniously dumped the firewood beside the glowing embers. "I think you'll find the answer to the second question has a lot to do with the answer to the first. Although, I believe you have more answers than I do on all counts."

"I can't remember shit."

"Oh, I know." A dower frown was firmly set on his lips. "I didn't want you waking up and remembering everything alone." He ran a hand through his dark hair, disheveling it further. "Best brace yourself, Granger."

The next second his wand was pointed at her forehead. "Legilimens."

It was like a dam giving way, a violent explosion followed by an overwhelming flood. Truths ate away half-truths and lies, holes in her timeline became scars, reality collapsed until it was only pain, so acute it stole her breath away. She remembered every stop on her roadmap of horror, every stumble that led to the afternoon in the Riddles' parlor, every lie Tom had ever told, but also every truth. She felt her soul screaming; she felt his soul beside it.

Wait. She was screaming, a wounded animal in a trap, keening without hope of salvation. Malfoy's hands were on her shoulders, in her hair, at her damp cheeks. She grabbed hold of him, crushing him into the blankets beside her. He let her. Let her scream and cry until there was nothing left but a darker despair than she had ever known.

When words were finally possible, she croaked, "it's too late."

"What?" Malfoy's stormy eyes were calm for once, but she could feel the rapid tattoo of his heart beneath where her fists tangled in his coat.

"He made… I'm a…" It was impossible to say. It was imperative to say. "He made a Horcrux. Two actually."

Malfoy's breath caught now. "Tell me." The words were monotone, unnaturally controlled.

"Yesterday." She could barely force the words from her raw throat. "Yesterday we went to Riddle House. Obviously. You found me there. Wait, how did you find me?"

"Aurelia sewed a tracking charm into your dress after you bought it. Then she avoided Riddle like the plague so he couldn't figure it out. I had to tell her about his abilities as a Legilimens. I'm not sure it was a wise decision since it puts her in significant danger, but it was the only way to make sure I could follow you." He swiped a hand over his face, jaw working silently, the cost of his choice written across his sharp features.

Hermione swallowed down a surge of bile. "Is she safe?"

"I don't know."

That awful truth lay suspended between them for a long moment. "But how did you get me away from him?"

"A detective from the local police force knocked on the manor door just after dawn. They took him down to the station to answer additional questions about his previous statement. I took advantage of the moment. His wards were good, but nowhere near the complexity I'd become accustomed to while working for…" Malfoy's lips twisted and he shook his head. "Anyway, I was able to dismantle what I needed to and get you away before he came back. I don't suppose you could tell me what Tom Riddle was doing talking to Muggle cops, could you?"

Hermione nodded, hand clawing through her matted hair. "It all relates to the… Horcruxes. We went to Riddle House for a purpose. The same purpose as when he went in our timeline. Except it was completely different. We got married and—"

"What?" There was no mistaking the absolute horror marring the chiseled panes of his face.

That was the least of it, but she could hardly dismiss the marriage so easily. No, even knowing the full truth now, she understood the wedding had been undeniably real, that Tom's confession in their marriage bed had been the type of truth that would haunt her until the grave. Lips trembling, she stared across at Malfoy. "I'm married to Tom Riddle. It was real. There was even a Reverend. It wasn't a magical wedding, but it was a legal Muggle one. We signed our names in the town registry."

Malfoy's brow climbed skyward. "You and Tom Riddle had a Muggle wedding?"

"He had a purpose to it." A very nefarious purpose. "He wanted—needed—the wedding to be real, but it was Muggle because it gave him the opportunity to wipe out the Riddle side of the family without being implicated in their murders and without involving the Gaunt line. He already gave a statement about the murders to the detectives yesterday after… Anyway, I suspect he already murdered his uncle on his mother's side this time around. He seems to have gone through my knowledge of his life decisions with a fine-toothed comb."

"Lovely," Malfoy spat, although it was something they had both suspected in the dress shop in Hogsmeade. "So he got married and then decided to murder everyone but the bride?"

"No, he got married, excused the Reverend, had his father murder his grandparents, then murdered his father and the maid while making two Horcruxes." It sounded completely fantastical, the plans of a madman. And she supposed Tom was that. She swallowed, bile climbing as she remembered the feeling of the darkness settling into her, of his emotions flooding her as they moved together. "Argh!" She spat toward the embers, metallic tang on her tongue.

"You're not telling me something important."

There was no point holding onto the bitter truth. "The two Horcruxes. His wedding band is one and I… I'm the other."

Malfoy flinched, rocking back from her in the span of a heartbeat. His lips were a hard line as he stared at her, the fire making his eyes more flame than ice now. His voice was a wretched plea as he rasped, "You cannot be serious."

If only she wasn't. If only Tom hadn't figured out what had happened when he'd killed Harry's parents as Voldemort. If only she couldn't still feel him within, despite the destruction of his handiwork in her mind. "I am."

Malfoy sagged back against the blankets, deflating. "Can he tell where you are?" His keen eyes cut through her, searching, trying to understand.

"I'm not sure. When Harry was connected to Voldemort, Voldemort used the link to lure Harry out sometimes, but other times Harry just got impressions that weren't meant to be shared. Of course, Tom knows exactly what's happening this time, so I would think he would have significantly more control over our connection. Plus, Tom and I are actually close to each other." She massaged her temple, digging her fingers in deeply. "We're bloody legally married."

"I got rid of everything he'd left in your head," Malfoy sighed. "But I'm pretty sure it's going to take more than some serious Legilimency, memory magic or manipulation of the Imperius to get rid of a Horcrux."

Hermione let out a dark scoff. "Oh, it does. It takes murder."

Wide, turbulent eyes blinked at her. "Murder?"

"Harry needed to die to get rid of the Horcrux. No one in the Order was ever willing to risk it, so in that last battle the plan was for him to have Voldemort kill him, with the hope it wouldn't be permanent. But I saw that fall off the parapet. The Killing Curse might not have worked, but that fall certainly did. On the plus side, that was the last Horcrux, unless he'd made new ones. So theoretically he would have been beatable after Harry died." She hadn't let herself think about it, not from the moment she'd heard Harry's lifeless body hit the solid ground. It had been over then. She'd known he wasn't coming back and a life without him, without anyone she'd loved, had been no life at all.

"But you came here anyway." Malfoy's lips pursed, expression inscrutable.

She shrugged, the decision feeling more than a lifetime ago. "With Harry gone, there was no reason to defeat him. No reason to suffer for a world not worth saving."

He eyed her silently for a long moment before nodding, features dancing in shadow as he turned back to the fire. She took the moment to study him, to truly look at the man beside her, the man who had promised to save her and had followed through. They were hardly safe now, but her mind was her own and that was thanks to him. To Draco Malfoy. To the man whose name had been uttered in the darkest of corners, linked to the most heinous of crimes. The man who had kissed her with the softest of lips and the most tender of caresses in Tom's bedroom and then silently shook as pain wracked his frame because he was protecting her, waiting for the opportune moment to give her back her sanity. She didn't understand him, couldn't understand what went on beyond those tumultuous eyes that somehow made her feel safer than she had since the war began.

He shifted beside her, hands tangling in the blankets idly. "We need to assume the worst. That Riddle can sense where you are, that he can see what you can, know what you know."

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. He was right. "So what do we do?"

"Do you trust me?"

She wanted to say no. To tell him he was a torture hungry miscreant, but she couldn't. At some point in the last few months, he'd ceased to be the nightmare of legend and simply become her only ally in a foreign minefield. "Yes."

His eyes were luminous, equal parts flame and storm as he leaned into her, his wand pressing sharply against her brow. But his words were soft, gentle and calming as he whispered, "We'll get through this. Stupefy."