Notes: Hi all, I'm back to work full time now and have increased responsibilities on top of that. That means for these last eight chapters I'm going to have to change the posting schedule a tad. I'll still post on Saturdays, but multiple times during the work week just isn't realistic anymore. I'll do Tuesday evenings only in addition to Saturday. Thank you for your patience with this modification. Take care and hope you are healthy, safe and well.

~*~ Thirty Nine ~*~

Hermione stirred, twisting away from Draco's overwhelming heat. He murmured softly, but did not wake. She let out a breath. It was the first night he'd slumbered peacefully, the tendrils of horror finally failing to chase him into sleep. She slid silently from the bed, the floor cool against her bare feet. Pulling his shirt from the bench at the foot of the bed, she tugged the plain white tee over her head as she crept from the bedroom.

The air was still warm with the barest hint of a chill upon the soft breeze, the coldest it got in these lazy summer months. She sucked a deep breath, relishing the refreshing swell of her lungs. The strawberry glaze of dawn washed over the dolomite peaks as she moved to lean against the balustrades. She loved the moment just before dawn, when it felt like anything was possible, as if the whole world was taking a breath, erasing the past and preparing to swallow the future.

They were running out of time. She knew that. No matter how much she wanted to forget, to deny that their day of reckoning was coming, she knew Tom was nearly upon them. She couldn't sense him in her mind, but she could feel him deep within, in the unsteady drum of her heart against its cage. When she'd told Draco of the odd sense, the utter certainty of his arrival, he'd merely nodded, ever unflappable, ever understanding of her odd connection to the boy who had hurt them both so very deeply. It made her heart stutter, her chest constrict, her love for him overflow.

She would never deserve him, but Hermione knew better than to presume anything was what she deserved. No, such petty ideas had long since died, having no place in a landscape so rent by scars. She sighed heavily, settling her elbows against the heavy rail as she stared into the stillness beyond her chaotic mind.

There was a moment of perfect silence, the rosy glow racing across the peaks beyond and then a shriek that echoed through her soul. An owl alit beside her, its wings a symphony of darkness. The chill that crashed down her spine was catastrophic and immediate. She knew that bird as easily as she'd known Hedwig once upon a time.

The owl extended its leg and she took the proffered scroll. The bird cocked its head at her, let out another chilling screech and disappeared into the blinding light of dawn, the brilliant white of the sun now washing away the cotton candy haze.

Hermione swallowed. She should drop the parchment over the parapet. She should burn it. She should check it for every dark incantation known to the Wizarding World. Instead her trembling fingers pried it open, breaking the serpentine wax seal. She could feel the beat of her heart in her temples, the icy tendrils of dread caressing her skin, the ghost of his breath on her neck.

My dearest wife,

I told myself I would not write, that your betrayal deserved no such reward. But I find myself disgustingly sentimental since our wedding night and no matter how much I have resisted, I find myself sitting on our bed—the bed we vowed so much to each other upon—and unable to force the quill from between my fingers. Perhaps I will not actually send this. That would likely be the best for both of us.

With school out and my new residence at Riddle House—yes, that is mine now, I have far too much time to think, my dearest wife. I find myself full of anger and vengeance—nothing new, but also a desire to explain, which is indeed foreign to me. I answer to no one, my darling, and yet I am answering to you. What have I done to myself? What have you done? This is absurd.

And yet there is a misconception I feel I must correct. You told me I never gave you a choice, that I took control of you. But I need you to understand I did not. I admit I plundered your knowledge of myself without hesitation or regret, but I did not create your feelings for me. Not your desire and not even your affection. I admit our relationship was not what one might call in good faith… I used what I'd gleaned from your memories to best persuade you, to lead you, but you made the decisions. I headed off your doubts to keep you safe when the situation was perilous, but mostly I merely gave you what you most desired. Is it any wonder you fell for me when I could give you so perfectly what you craved?

It was, indeed, a very Slytherin seduction, but it was that, a seduction. I never forced you into my arms, never made you do something you did not want with perhaps one exception. You mentioned Malfoy—Salazar help that bastard when I get my hands on him. And in that you are, perhaps, correct. I needed something very important from him that day and you were the only resource I had at my disposal. So for that, I suppose, I apologize.

I don't think I've ever written those words, let alone spoken them before. Further proof that I am losing my mind. Are you a poison or a cure, my dearest wife? I suppose only time will tell.

I will be coming for you and in that I know I will be merciless. So many of my plans have fallen by the wayside now, lost to the pursuit of you. It would be troubling if you were not worth every sacrifice. What is power compared with the satisfaction that you are mine? And you are. I know you feel it deep inside, just as I do. You can run to the ends of the world with your false love, but I am within you, my dearest wife. You are never beyond my reach.

With love,

Your husband

The parchment crumpled between her fingers. She stared down at the wad, breath jammed down her throat, caught between fear and something far more dangerous. Her fingers abruptly spasmed open, the missive toppling over the edge of the balcony. She didn't watch it fall.

Sweet Merlin, she'd thought she was ready. She'd thought she could kill him. She'd thought so many things. She'd forgotten just how deeply he'd cut into her, just how far she was from being truly free. Draco was everything to her, a revelation that changed her entire point of view, and yet one note and she was craving Tom, lost in a labyrinth of his creation, her own emotions untrustworthy, her mind suddenly his once more.

She forced a ragged breath out, then another. In and out. Just the rise and fall of her chest and the sundrenched morning breaking across the Alps. This was real. The air within her lungs, the hint of cloying summer blooms upon the lethargic breeze. He was not here.

But he would be. Another breath in and out. It was all lies. It had to be. What he'd done had been too cruel, too calculated. This was nothing different. There was no way he'd given up his plans for her, no way he was truly apologizing for the night he'd used her and Draco in equal measure. He was deranged, lost in his pursuit of power. She was an object—a valuable one, but an object nonetheless. He was incapable of the depth of emotion required for genuine remorse.

Yes, this was yet another deception, another pretty lie to lure her back into complacency, to make her chase those rogue emotions that still believed he was worth fighting for. He was worth nothing to her and she would not be so foolish as to allow herself to think otherwise.

"It looks better on you."

Hermione turned. Draco stood shirtless, leaning casually against the balcony doorframe, a gentle smile on his inviting lips that had her wanting to bite her tongue, to let the moment stretch into eternity. But this was no fairy tale and she could see nothing but pain in the glare of the rising sun.

"I got a letter from Tom."

Draco was at her side in a heartbeat, his eyes a rising tempest. "Where? Was it—"

"Gone," she interjected. "It's gone. And no, it wasn't cursed, at least not the parchment itself." As for the contents, that was another matter entirely.

His eyes narrowed, lips twisting away all traces of the smile she'd wanted to save. "What did the bastard have to say?"

"That he never forced me, that he was sorry for what he did to us." She shook her head. "I can't believe it, Draco. I just can't. He isn't capable of remorse, of regret. All he's ever done—for his entire life—is take."

Draco was silent, his jaw clenched and his eyes raging. When he finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "We may need to consider that whatever exists between you has changed him as well as you."

"What?"

"He may not be the same as he was. Whatever binding he placed between you is powerful. It wouldn't surprise me that it has altered him, just as it has altered you." The words were clearly painful to admit, but he did so without hesitation. "You have already inexorably altered his path. This may be another part of that."

Hermione's stomach churned. "Am I truly so different?"

"No, not fundamentally, but your feelings for him are ingrained now. I believe they may be impossible for you to eradicate no matter how much you desire them to be gone." He swallowed thickly, his fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. "That is one of the many reasons I do not hold your continued attachment to him—despite everything between us—against you. You don't seem to have a choice and perhaps neither does he."

"He wouldn't be so foolish as to tie himself to me, Draco. He wants to possess me, not for me to possess him," she argued.

He moved a step closer, his breath mingling with hers. "Do not be so foolish as to underestimate what love can drive a man to do."

Those were not empty words coming from him. He had blackened his soul for love, broken every part of himself to save Astoria. But Tom could not possibly love her in the all-consuming way Draco loved; he was self-serving to a fault, unable to put another before himself no matter how strongly attached he might have become. No, they were not comparable at all.

"He's a misguided, dangerous boy playing with emotions he'll never truly be capable of. Yes, whatever he did to me has made him stick, some facet of him seared into me, but I can see the truth of him too. I know how dangerous he is and I will not underestimate him." Like Draco had mentioned countless times with respect to Voldemort, she had learned her lesson when it came to Tom Riddle. He would not catch her unaware again.

"Then you are prepared to do what is necessary. Regardless of what he says to you? Even if he repents, begs for your forgiveness?"

"He won't."

"But if he does."

They were still a hair's breadth from each other and she could feel him holding his breath, could see the silver clouds roiling in his eyes. Hermione swallowed, the metallic tang back in her throat.

"Yes."

Draco's gaze swept over every facet of her expression. "You don't have to be sure."

She'd thought before that he was right, that she could carry indecision into her final confrontation with the boy who'd wronged her at every level, with the boy who was her husband. But she'd read those honeyed words, heard his deep baritone whispering those false promises in her ear and she knew no such luxury existed. There would be no room for doubt when she faced Tom again. He would use every trick, every seduction, every tool in his arsenal of deception and she could not risk even a moment of vulnerability. She might not be able to change the pulse of him that echoed deep within, a discordant note against the steady beat of her heart, but she could stand strong. She could do what was necessary, the price be damned.

"Yes, I do. I know how much damage he can do… to me, to the whole world." She worried her bottom lip a long moment. "Of course I wish I could save him, Draco. He means far too much to me, far more than he has any right to, but I also know I can't. He's crossed so many lines. And if he's not hurting me, he'll have turned on someone else. He can't help it."

"So we kill him." It was a statement and a question, a declaration of darkness. It sent chills down her spine.

Hermione met his tumultuous stare, unblinking and steadfast. "Yes."