Notes: Thank you all. I appreciate such wonderful readers so very much.

WARNINGS: Canon violence

~*~ Forty Two ~*~

As abruptly as they'd come together, Tom jerked away from her, his grip on her throat shifting from sensual to violent in the space of a heartbeat. The damp cloth of his makeshift bandage chafed against her neck, tendrils of his blood escaping to run down her quaking flesh. Hermione choked, air suddenly absent despite her best efforts to suck in a breath. He backed her gently against the wall, blood-shot eyes drowning in chaos, cruel fingers unrelenting.

"Salazar, how I wish I could do it. It would be so easy to just hold on, to watch you fade into nothing. They wouldn't hear a thing and then it would only be a matter of getting the Elder Wand off of Grindelwald and retrieving my family ring. Yes, I know all about that. Your precious Malfoy wouldn't know what hit him." His fingers twitched and darkness started to eat away the corners of her vision.

"I hate you, Hermione Granger—Hermione Riddle. You've utterly destroyed me and I hate you for it. But I just can't seem to forget the curve of your hip in my hand, the moan of my name on your lips, the crinkle of your eyes when you smile. I am tied to you just as surely as you are tied to me and I have no one to blame but myself for this foolishness. Love is the most dangerous weapon of them all, isn't it, my dearest wife? Because of you, I will never become who I was meant to be. Instead, I'm just this pathetic wanker mooning after his adulterous wife. It's revolting."

Hermione trembled, her vision nearly black now. Tom pressed into her, his body fitting as perfectly as ever despite the absurdity of the situation. "Fuck," he hissed sharply and his hand dropped from her neck.

She collapsed into him, coughing violently, smelling nothing but cloves and fear for a long moment. He caught her, held her pinned against the wall, but made no further move against her. She shuddered, throat raw and nerves decimated. But the paralysis of his touch was gone, the fear eaten away by the rage that still festered beneath her skin. Some part of her might still crave him, might still wish he could be saved, but it was hardly the majority. Her hand flew through the air, palm connecting solidly with his jaw. His head snapped sideways, red burgeoning across his sculpted cheek.

Tom stumbled back a step, fingers tracing the imprint of her defiance. But his eyes did not darken to cobalt and his lips did not twist with cruel rage. His focus dropped to her neck, desperate sapphire trailing across the horror he'd perpetrated on her skin. His eyes squeezed shut, his expression distorting, his features becoming utterly foreign. She'd seen it on plenty of others, on the faces of nearly everyone she'd fought beside, on Draco more often than not, but never on him. It was guilt—the relentless kind that ripped into the soul with the knives of memory and would not be vanquished no matter how much time passed.

"Malfoy, get in here." Tom's voice was sharp, intense and mangled beyond his usual baritone.

Draco was there instantly, no sign of either Grindelwald or the rings. His eyes immediately found Hermione where she slumped against the wall gasping for breath, still feeling Tom's punishing grip searing into her skin as she glared at the dark boy who had taken far too much, who made her feel the full gamut of emotion in the space of a mere heartbeat.

There was unholy violence buried within Draco's tense expression as he turned back to Tom. "What the bloody hell did you do?"

Tom didn't reply, but flung himself at the blond instead, hands tearing at his robes, fists connecting with his cheekbone and then his mouth. Draco reeled back, stunned for a moment, but lunged forward again, right fist swinging in a clean upper cut that knocked the darker boy's head back with a wicked snap. Blood spewed from Tom's lips, but a maniacal sneer remained upon them.

"Is that the best you've got?" Tom raised a hand, wiping the blood from his mouth, smearing it across his pale cheek.

Draco growled, low and dangerous. "I can wipe the floor with you, Riddle."

"How intimidating, big scary Death Eater coming to kill me. I'm quivering in my boots." The feral glint was back in Tom's eyes, but they weren't hard cobalt as she expected, but rather turbulent sapphire, more like Draco's wild storms than their usual molten glass.

"Don't bloody talk about things you don't understand," Draco hissed, slowly circling Tom.

The brunette let out a low scoff. "To claim I know nothing of Death Eaters is rather ironic, Malfoy."

"You aren't him."

"True," Tom admitted, rotating to face Draco as he moved. "But you still want to kill me because of him. Because of what he made you do."

"He killed my wife," Draco spat as he struck out with a lightning fast kick that had Tom stumbling back against the remains of the desk. "And my unborn child. He forced me to kill and torture. He made me pretend I liked it just like you, you sick fuck."

Tom closed the distance between them in the space of an inhale, his fist connecting solidly with Draco's jaw. The blonde jerked, collapsing backward, but Tom caught him, fingers digging into his biceps. "I never claimed to be a saint, Malfoy. I can't help who I am any more than you can. And we both know you enjoyed it just as much as me. That power, that feeling of complete control over another life, it's intoxicating." He hauled Draco to him until their pants intermingled, blood smearing between them. "I've seen inside your head, Draco Malfoy, and I know just how black your soul is."

Draco twisted out of reach, torment fracturing his elegant features. "You're not even human, Riddle."

"Then neither are you." They glared at each other, the tension in the room ratcheting up with every passing second. Tom's eyes were riotous sapphire, his face lined with a strain she could not interpret. Draco was equally unhinged, his jaw clenching silently.

"I should kill you for taking my wife away from me, Malfoy."

"I should kill you for what you've done to her."

Tom swallowed, gaze flickering to Hermione for a long moment. "That is the plan, isn't it? To kill me."

"You don't deserve to live," Draco ground out.

Tom brushed away a fresh trickle of blood from a cut on his cheek. His gaze was heavy, laden with judgment as it rested upon Draco. "And you do? I believe that if we were to compare crimes, Malfoy, you would be the one found more heinous, not I."

"I never forced—"

"No, you only tortured, maimed and killed. By the scores. For nearly three bloody years. What is my father's death, my grandparents' deaths compared to your trail of carnage?" Tom chuckled, dark and yet not so cruel, no hint of pleasure in the sound. "You are in no position to judge me."

"No," Draco admitted. "But that doesn't mean I won't. Don't pretend to be innocent here, Riddle. What you did to Hermione's head is unforgivable in an entirely different way. Especially considering you claim to love her."

The brunette surged forward, tackling Draco to the floor in bout of fury. "I do love her, you bloody bastard."

Fists flew and limbs collided as the two grappled on the floor. Hermione was tempted to come between them, but knew she was just as likely to be hit as to pry them apart. She could use her wand, firmly ensconced her arm holster again, but this sort of brawl couldn't be easily resolved with magic; it was more personal and primal than any duel.

Draco let out a loud grunt as he flipped Tom beneath him. He rolled the darker boy to his stomach, yanking one of Tom's arms violently behind his back before bringing the knee of his good leg down firmly at the base of the brunette's spine.

"This isn't my first fight without a wand, you bastard."

"Just do it, Malfoy. Get it bloody over with so you can go have a happily ever after with my wife." Tom's voice was muffled by the stone, but still clear, full of a pain she wouldn't have believed him capable of even twenty-four hours before.

"What we've both done is unforgivable, Riddle," Draco hissed. "What you did to Aurelia… that told me everything I needed to know about you. You may love Hermione, but the rest of the world is just collateral damage to you."

Tom snarled, twisting futilely against the blond's iron grip. "She took my wife away from me."

Features a riot of torment, Draco sank his knee deeper into the other boy's back. Tom's breath rasped harshly against the stone as Draco spoke. "She did what I asked of her, nothing more. She saw a friend in need, in danger because of you and she helped. And because this was against your will, you killed her, or something very nearly like it. Despite the fact that Hermione cared for her, despite the fact that your choice hurt the woman you claim to love. So who did you punish, Riddle? Ultimately, Hermione."

"And you. I was trying to hurt you," Tom croaked. Draco made no move to release the pressure on his back.

"Aurelia may be Astoria's great aunt, but nothing truly hurts me. Not anymore. Not the way you want." The swirl of misery within those stormy eyes made her chest ache, made her wish everything had been different, made her realize just how infinite the depths of his suffering must extend.

Tom surged upward in a desperate heave, but only rolled to his back when Draco's grip faltered, lips grimacing and free hand coming to clutch his cursed leg. Tom's lip and cheek were bleeding again and his hair was flung in disarray about his darkly angelic face. His voice was hoarse, broken beyond recognition as he murmured, "We both know you only wish that were true."

Draco's fists clenched, his jaw grinding in the charged silence. Tom made no move, only tilting his head to stare up at his blond companion, blood trickling down his strong jaw to the pool on stone below.

"You're a bloody menace, Riddle. You've hurt the only person you care for in the world other than yourself in ways that can never be mended. You've taken love and twisted it into something cruel and poisonous. You disgust me."

"Then bloody execute me already. In case you haven't noticed, I am entirely at your mercy."

Hermione stumbled away from the wall, falling to her knees beside Draco, who was staring down at Tom, trepidation fracturing his fury as he registered the dark boy's apparent surrender. She couldn't force her eyes away from the macabre depths of Tom's sapphire stare. Her wand slipped into her hand from the holster, a simple flick of her wrist that shattered every facet of her. She could feel Draco trembling beside her, the moment stealing away even his iron-clad nerves. The brunette didn't blink, didn't make a move to rise from his prone and helpless position against the bloody stones.

Tom's liquid eyes fastened on her as he rasped, "I suppose we have the answer now. You are the poison, but so am I. Be free."

Her heart skipped a handful of beats as the truth of his statement echoed in her bones, shaking her foundation. He would give her this; he would die for her. Whatever he had done, whatever irrevocable bond he had wrought between them, had distorted her, but it had decimated him. She lifted the veil of Occlumency between them and swayed, hand clutching at Draco's shoulder, as the truth slammed into her.

The ancient ritual and its subsequent link had remade him entirely, contorted his darkness, transformed him from a sadistic schemer who worshiped at the altar of power and destruction, forever a slave to the siren song of suffering, to a boy capable of doubt, of genuine guilt. He had never felt the pain of others before, had never been affected by the destruction left in his wake, but now Tom understood the depths of suffering, the shadow of empathy coiling about his blackened soul. All because of her, his connection to her more potent than any other urge.

She could feel the truth of it, the depth of his overwhelming new emotions, the certainty of his commitment to die, to make things right in the only way he could. He was a monster, but in this moment, he was only a boy, drowning in remorse, beyond salvation, but not sacrifice.

Tears trickled down her cheeks, heavy and wet. She wanted—needed—him to fight back again, to snarl and dig his fingers into her flesh with possessive fury, to expose the monster, to be what he had been when he'd taken and taken until she bled dry. But instead he lay, compliant and darkly angelic, silently begging her to end their suffering.

Draco's hand closed over hers, his fingers trembling. His voice was a miserable rasp in her ear. "Together. We do this together."

There would be no coming back from this, she knew. No escape from what she had done to the boy who had loved her, broken and twisted though he might have been. He was still too dangerous to be kept alive. It sounded like a lie even as she thought it, even as she knew it was likely true. She wasn't in the business of playing God and yet, wasn't that why they were here? She'd traveled to his time with this despicable purpose in her heart. She just hadn't expected her victim to be a boy she knew, a boy who she'd irrevocably changed, a boy for whom the vestiges of a not quite love still lingered in her soul despite his sins. She'd wanted a monster and gotten a wicked seducer instead, all hidden danger and alluring temptation. And now he was not even that; he was a broken nightmare, lost beyond measure, Hermione his only compass. His dark eyes blinked up at her as his bloody lips shaped her name.

Bloody do it, Hermione. Tom's voice reverberated through her mind, a plea and a curse and everything in between.

She gagged, nearly collapsing to the rough stone below. Draco's chest pressed into her black, his heartbeat frantic against her. His breath was hot against her ear, his hand shifting to hold her wand more firmly. "On the count of three. One, two, three."

"Avada Kedavra."

Their voices melded into one and the brilliant green exploded from her wand. Tom began to form her name again, but his lips froze on the second syllable. She felt the cord between them draw taut, a bow stretched to its limit, and then it snapped, the connection abruptly ripped away, her soul left raw and wanting. Hermione surged forward, her hands tracing the unnaturally still column of his neck, her lips brushing his ashen cheek, smearing his blood. His eyes were dull now, sapphire extinguished to common blue and she closed the lids with trembling fingers. Even the shimmering light of Grindelwald's foreign incantation was gone now.

Hermione collapsed beside him, unable to hold the heaving sobs and surging bile at bay. Distantly she felt Draco's hand on her shoulder, against her back, but all she knew was the raw agony in her soul and the slow cool of Tom's body against her.