Notes: Each and every one of you is still the best. I appreciate you so much if you leave a note, mark a favorite or simply just read. All of those are equally wonderful. We are finally getting to the portion of the narrative where Draco's story begins to come fully into focus and I'm so excited for all of you to experience the growth and evolution of his relationship with Hermione. For those of you who really like Tom, have no fear, we have definitely not seen the last of him either.

~*~ Twenty Eight ~*~

Their room was sparse. Two cots pushed to opposite sides of the room and a water closet attached to the far wall. There was a single window with not even a ledge, simply a shear drop, the dull gray stone of the manor impossible to scale. They were not prisoners in name, but in all that truly mattered they clearly were.

Malfoy's head canted to the side, turbulent eyes sliding to the door. "Go to the washroom. Now."

On another day, in another life, she would have questioned him. Now she simply slid the door closed, studying the empty bath and rudimentary toilet. A flick of her wand had the bath filling with steaming water. A moment later she'd freed her feet from the heavy boots and deposited her socks within them. Her aching feet were in the water seconds later, a moan of pleasure barely suppressed on her lips. It had been too long since she'd had the luxury of warm water and she was bone weary. If Malfoy hadn't been in the next room, she would have flung the rest of her clothes aside as well and fully immersed in the steaming tub. As it was, something had set him on edge and she had no intention of being caught naked and unaware.

The source of his unease was identified a moment later, Grindelwald's jagged voice sounding in the room beyond.

"All alone? Where is your…?"

"Companion." Malfoy replied curtly. "Taking a bath."

There was a whispered muffling spell that Hermione easily undid with a wave of her own wand. She was not missing this conversation. Malfoy was leaving her out of the loop for a reason, but that didn't mean she wasn't owed an explanation. She might trust him with her life now, but their debt to Grindelwald was one she would bear in equal measure. If she was going to put herself through total hell again, she deserved to know the finer details.

She could hear shuffling on the other side of the door, a scuff of a shoe on the stone floor and then the squeak of a mattress as someone sat.

"So tell me, boy, what has this Tom Riddle done to make you orchestrate his demise?" Grindelwald didn't sound terribly interested in the answer, but Hermione doubted he was truly so removed from learning more about the man who would kill him.

The sound of footsteps echoed dully in the other room for several long moments. Malfoy. Grindelwald must have taken a seat while Malfoy paced the length of the room. The movement stopped and Malfoy finally answered. "He wronged someone very dear to me."

Hermione's breath caught. He couldn't be talking about her, could he? Grindelwald seemed to share the same conception as he asked, "Your companion?"

Malfoy's response was sharp, his voice harder than usual. "No, my wife."

Oh. Whatever Tom had done to Hermione must not hold a candle to what Voldemort had done to his wife. Had he killed her? Malfoy had admitted she died, perhaps this was how. Or had it been far worse than that? Malfoy might have been Voldemort's primary means of torture and pain, but Hermione knew the monster had been fully capable of doing his own dirty work. It turned her stomach to imagine Malfoy watching his wife writhe on the ground, the effects of the Cruciatus wracking her every limb. Her fingers closed into fists, nails digging into the pliable skin of her palms.

"And your relationship to this Riddle fellow?" Grindelwald paused a moment, as if surveying Malfoy. "What might that have been?"

"I was his right-hand man. After my aunt passed, he needed someone he could trust to fulfill his every whim. He chose me." There wasn't an iota of emotion behind the statement, the words cold and stale.

"Ah," Grindelwald murmured, barely audible through the door separating them. "So you administered his will."

"Yes."

"Death?"

"On a daily basis for nearly two and a half years." There was a jolt in her chest that was altogether painful and unwelcome. She'd known. She'd known, but she'd tried her very best to forget.

"Torture?"

"At equal frequency, if not more often. The Dark Lord found it easier to maintain order in his ranks through fear rather than respect. I was just as likely to have my wand on an enemy as a friend." Again, it was nothing she hadn't already known, but to hear it, to hear that voice, so flat and dead now, telling such gruesome truths. It hurt. It hurt so much she wasn't sure she could bear the ache that went bone deep and cut into her soul. She wished Grindelwald would stop asking questions, strop forcing truths she didn't want to hear.

But he didn't. "And information gathering?"

"You mean torture for information?" The question held no hint of curiosity, only a bland interest in determining the nature of his companion's inquiry.

"Yes."

She could almost see Malfoy shrug, all insolent nonchalance. "Occasionally. The Dark Lord was not overly interested in the peculiarities of battle. He'd long since lost his higher reasoning skills."

"You mean to say he'd gone mad?" Now Grindelwald was interested.

"Oh yes. Utterly. He was a terrible leader. The only reason he won the war was the raw dark power he'd amassed. Without it he would have been nothing more than a bumbling idiot." Hermione was surprised by the assessment, but realized he spoke the truth. Voldemort had split his soul five more times than Tom had. Then he'd spent over a decade as an incorporeal spirit without a host. He'd been significantly less than human by the time he'd been fully restored in that graveyard their fourth year.

"And the Riddle you plan for me to deliver?"

There was a sharp laugh—Malfoy's—that stung her ears. "Oh, he's plenty sane. Has yet to destroy his psyche in its entirety. He may have mad designs, but he is fully capable of following through on them. Unlike the man I served, he is a formidable enemy to you."

"Why travel back to a point where your enemy was more powerful? Why not move against him sooner if he was so weak in your time?" Considering it hadn't been Malfoy's idea to come to the past at all, she wondered how he would answer. He'd clearly wished harm upon Voldemort even before lacing the time turner's chain about his neck. But he hadn't been militant about it, certainly hadn't supported her initial decision to kill the younger version of the monster to be.

"Sometimes the opportune moment is the last thing you might suspect," Malfoy evaded coolly. "But to answer your second question, I was not in a position where I could move against him without great harm being done."

The mattress creaked under Grindelwald as he divined Malfoy's unspoken admission. "Your wife."

"Yes, my Lord."

Hermione's nails dug suddenly deeper into her palms, the truth a shot of ice water to her veins. It would explain everything. His choices, the allusion to a reason he wouldn't explain. Much like sixth year when Voldemort had held his mother over him—a fact divined from Snape before he died a traitor at Malfoy's hands the second year of the war—Voldemort had used Malfoy's attachments against him. Hermione gagged as quietly as she could, the rotten truth of the matter burning her throat. He'd been used, made to do everything the Order had reported, because his wife had been at Voldemort's mercy. No wonder he was so closed off, unwilling to trust, sure the world was against him at every turn. No wonder he sneered down his nose at her, her wartime troubles child's play compared to the horror he'd endured. She'd always found the scorn confusing, the anger misplaced, but no longer. She'd lost her friends. He'd perpetrated atrocities to save the one he loved. There really was no comparison.

Malfoy and Grindelwald were still speaking, something about the particularities of what the elder wanted them to accomplish in his ranks, but Hermione was done listening. All she could hear was Malfoy's dead tone as he agreed with Grindelwald's conclusion, as he admitted the magnitude of the ordeal he'd withstood. She hadn't been able to see him, hadn't watched the sorrow swallow those stormy eyes that held more pain than she could imagine, but she felt the impact as if he stood before her. All the assumptions, all the self-centered wallowing and shame seemed so trivial now. She'd been led astray by a teenaged mastermind, she'd become so lost in her own darkness that only physical gratification had made her whole, but none of that had truly taken her soul. No, Tom had tried and the war had fractured her, but given the chance she understood healing was possible. But for Malfoy? With so much pain and death on his hands? With the death of his wife despite the brutalities he'd committed to save her? She could not imagine how dark and tormented he must be.

And yet he'd saved her. He'd taken her away from Tom and released her from the prison of her mind. He'd given her the tools to protect herself and the hope that one day she might be whole again. Despite everything he'd endured. She could hardly fathom the strength, the mental fortitude required for such a herculean feat. Hermione had never seen him falter—anger, yes; succumb to the pain of his curse, sure—but never give up.

Gradually the pressure of her nails retreated and her hands slipped from fists to dangle idly in the still steaming water below. She flexed her fingers, then her toes, breathing deeply as she let the tension drain. It was not her place to act on the knowledge she now had. If Malfoy chose to tell her, she would be glad, but she would not force this confession from his lips to her ears. She could only let go of her doubt, of the unsettling feeling that her greatest ally was made of the darkest mettle. His darkness was nothing but a product of his own suffering and she would no longer fault him for it.

A knock on the door had her lifting her head. When had Grindelwald left? She'd been so caught up in her ruminations she couldn't remember hearing him go. Shaking her head, she angled her body toward the door. "Enter."

Malfoy slipped in, shutting the door gently behind him. "He's gone."

"What did he want?"

He ran a weary hand through his dirty locks, eyes dull as he met her inquisitive stare. "Too much. But suffice it to say, we now know what's expected of us. He wants us to help train his army. To bring them up to date with the most modern battle strategies and spells. And then, he wants us to lead them into battle."

"You're sure this is worth it? Tom is likely looking for us already. We could prepare for him without involving Grindelwald and his war." It would be next to impossible, but perhaps the two of them working together would be a match for Tom.

"No. It's too risky. I've underestimated Voldemort too many times in my life to start now. With the full backing of Grindelwald and his army we will be able to disarm him and then destroy him." Hermione understood now just how much Malfoy had lost in that underestimation. His tense jaw and fractured stare made so much more sense.

"But we have to destroy the… objects first." It seemed unwise to breathe a word of the Horcruxes.

Malfoy's lips twisted, his handsome features distorting to something beyond distaste or pain. "Yes. Let me handle that."

The urge not to trust him, to question was still there, but she laid it to rest without a second thought. "Fine. What's first on our agenda with Grindelwald?"

"Training with the forces here at dawn. If we do well, we'll move on to his main stronghold at Nurmengard for a few weeks. After that it's back to the front lines."

He said the words with as much acrimony as she felt. But the price would be worth it. What was another scar compared with destruction of the man who had wrought so much chaos on both their lives? Never mind she still felt drawn to that man, or at least to pieces of him, and would likely have to die to ensure his death was permanent. That was too much to grasp right now. Perhaps ever. Instead she focused on the determination that shone through the sorrow in those stormy eyes that refused to yield. One day at a time. That she could manage.