Chapter 16: A Chilling Symmetry
Harry was dreaming, or at least he thought he was. It was the only possible explanation for why Hermione, who'd been suspiciously absent these past weeks, despite Dumbledore's assurances that she was visiting family, was perched on top of him, chin resting in her palm, elbow spearing his ribs as she studied him intently.
"Boy with the scar," she said. "It's me, your best friend Hermione Granger."
It sounded like Hermione, at least the voice did, but he couldn't recall a time when she'd ever addressed him as 'boy with the scar' or felt the need to announce herself by her full name as if reminding him of who she was. She looked like Hermione, mostly, but something was different. Harry squinted up at her in order to bring her into focus. The failed vision was another sign that he most likely wasn't dreaming. Usually, in his dreams, his vision was perfect, unassailable, even when the point-of-view was in question.
Harry reached out, hand fumbling past the open bed curtains to the nightstand beside the bed for his glasses.
"Looking for these?" Hermione asked. She uncurled from her perch on his chest, withdrawing her elbow and sitting back across his thighs to reveal his glasses clasped in her hand. Harry grabbed for them, but she held them aloft, just out of his reach. "You really can't see without these, can you?" She palmed the glasses in her hand, closed her fingers and then opened them again, revealing nothing but her bare palm. The glasses had vanished in a display of skilled prestidigitation.
Hermione leaned over him again, hands at his shoulders, pinning him back to the mattress. "Can you see me now?" she asked. She gave him little time to respond before leaning closer still, so that her face was mere inches from his. "How about now?"
No, he wasn't dreaming. If there had been any residual doubt, it was soon resolved by the way his body responded once she'd shifted her weight; tensed in a way that let him know that he was decidedly awake and that there was a girl in close proximity to his sensitive bits.
"Er, who…?" Harry began, confused.
"Oh," she said. "You must be looking for the hair, her defining feature. Except for maybe the teeth. But they got fixed, didn't they? Anyway, the hair's still here, only it's a ponytail." Her hair was pulled back from her face, smoothed into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. She grabbed the end of the curly, black ponytail and brushed it over her shoulder so that he could see it. "Honestly, I don't know how she deals with it. I mean, I had a lot of hair, but it was sleek and not so prone to tangle."
Harry stiffened. Her words weren't making the least bit of sense and it occurred to him that something was very wrong here, wrong in a way that set him on edge, fear blossoming at the base of his spine.
"Blimey! What the—?"
Harry and Hermione turned to see who had spoken. Ron was staring at them, bleary-eyed from the neighboring bed in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory.
"Ronald, you're having that dream again," Hermione said. "You know, the one where Harry and I are doing it."
"I am?" he asked, yawning.
"You are. Isn't it just awful?"
He nodded sleepily, but a moment later the anger set in. "Harry, how could you?"
"Ron!" Harry said, exasperated.
"Shhh! You're making too much noise, Ronald. You're interrupting. You have to go back to sleep—so that we can keep doing it."
Ron's mouth fell open in indignation. He looked as if he were about to protest, but suddenly his eyelids drooped and, since his mouth was already open, it was far too easy for him to lapse back into sleep, signaled by a resounding open-mouthed snore.
Hermione turned her focus back to Harry. "He really is a bit of a brick, isn't he?"
Harry struggled to push her off of him, but she pressed him back down, surprisingly strong.
"No need to go anywhere," she said. "I just wanted to see you—the one they're talking about—unfiltered by her memories."
"Who are you?" Harry asked, alert to the possibility that this could be some trick of the Polyjuice Potion, and that perhaps this wasn't Hermione at all. It didn't feel like Hermione.
"Huh. You're not so bad looking," she said. "But I can see why she chose Malfoy."
"What? Why she chose—"
"—such a big destiny, though. Weighty. How does it feel to be a sacrifice, Harry Potter? I hear it runs in the family."
Harry pushed against her, trying to unseat her, a budding anger lending him leverage. He didn't succeed, however. She forced him back down, inordinately strong, this time with a wand pressed to his throat.
"I get it," she said. "I imagine I'd be angry, too, what with Dumbledore fattening me up like a lamb for slaughter. Did he teach you anything valuable really, anything that might save your life? Or did he teach you just enough to get you to the altar?" She laughed. "I guess you don't need to know much to spill your own blood. Any common Muggle can do that."
Something about her words chilled him. There was a grain of truth in them, which pricked him to the core.
"Get off of me," he said, panic rising in his voice.
"Oh, I'm going, don't fret." She leapt off of him suddenly and came to stand beside his bed. In his mind Harry lunged at her, but in actuality he found himself in some sort of body bind, cast wordlessly, which fixed him to the bed. She turned to leave, inky black ponytail whipping around behind her.
"Wait," Harry heard himself say. He realized that there were things he wanted to ask her, whoever she was, about what she'd said, about being a sacrifice and about Dumbledore teaching him nothing. There were so many questions, but the one that stumbled to his lips was, "Can I have my glasses back?"
She turned back to face him and thought about it for a moment.
"No," she said. "I mean, it's the 20th century. You'd think there'd be a spell or something—that they'd be able to fix the boy hunted by the Dark Lord so that he didn't have to go it blind."
OOO
Albus Dumbledore looked up from his dog-eared copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard to see Harry stumble into his office absent his glasses and squinting.
"Harry, what is it?" he asked, rising to his feet. The elder wizard crossed to the threshold and led the startled boy to a chair.
"It's Hermione," Harry said. "Or at least it looked like Hermione, in the boys' dorm."
"When?" Dumbledore asked.
Harry thought for a moment, trying to focus. How long had it taken the body bind to wear off? "I'm not sure," he said. "An hour ago or two."
Dumbledore turned to address one of the headmaster's portraits on the wall behind his desk. "Dilys," he called, waking a distinguished looking grey-haired witch from a deep slumber.
"Albus!" she responded gruffly, having been startled awake. "It's nearly two in the morning!"
"My apologies, Dilys, but it's quite urgent. I need you to check in at St. Mungo's and see if our guest is still present."
Dilys Derwent, former Hogwarts Headmistress and Chief Healer at St. Mungo's yawned, but nodded in compliance before vanishing from her portrait. Several minutes passed during which Dumbledore paced the floor of his office and Harry glared at him through a squint, needing the headmaster to offer him an explanation for what he'd just experienced, but unable to formulate a question that would elicit the desired response.
Soon enough Dilys returned. "Gone," she said. "Last person to see her was Lockhart. Tried to push an autographed photo of himself on her yesterday evening."
"Thank you, Dilys."
Dumbledore walked to the mantle of the hearth, scooped a handful of powder from an urn and tossed it into the flames. "Severus!" he called.
Moments later, Snape's head appeared in the fireplace.
"Yes," the former Potions Master answered, sounding bored and annoyed at once. Harry noticed that he looked particularly gaunt and hollow-eyed, however, even for Snape.
"Harry has spotted Miss Granger here at Hogwarts, perhaps an hour ago. I have confirmed that she is no longer at St. Mungo's."
"Hermione was in St. Mungo's?" Harry asked. His question went ignored while Snape heaved a sigh.
"What would you like me to do, Albus?" Snape asked, his words sharp and stilted with anger.
"You must have some idea how we can be rid of Miss LeCoeur," Dumbledore said.
"Dispose of the vessel," Snape replied.
"And by vessel you mean the current body inhabited by Miss LeCoeur."
"Yes. Dispose of the vessel and the energy will become rudderless and dissipate," Snape explained.
"And Miss Granger?"
"Dies."
"WHAT?" Harry sprung out of his chair. "What do you mean Hermione dies? What the hell is going on?"
Dumbledore held up a hand to silence him. "I assure you a long overdue explanation of events is coming Harry, but until then please remain silent." Harry felt like breaking something, but he tossed himself back into his chair, biding his time. "There must be another way, Severus."
"Why, Albus? Have you suddenly grown a conscience as pertains to sacrificing children?" he asked darkly.
"We created this problem, Severus. She should not pay simply because we wrongly sought to manipulate prophecy."
"We've created a lot of problems, haven't we, Albus? We created the problem of Voldemort, did we not? We allowed him to rise to power, to return again to human form by ignoring him. We are all of us guilty; one of us may as well pay the price as the next."
"Do not, Severus. You know precisely what I mean."
"I do, and there is no way around it. The vessel must be destroyed." Snape's words were final. He severed the floo connection.
Dumbledore pulled the half-moon spectacles from his face and closed his eyes, massaging his temples with tired fingers. After several moments, he returned his spectacles to their perch on the bridge of his nose and opened his eyes to look at Harry.
"It is a long tale," Dumbledore said at last, "one best met on a full stomach. I shall ring for refreshment and begin."
OOO
The dress was ivory colored and far too complicated for this simple audience, which took place, not in the ballroom, but in the drawing room over afternoon tea. Narcissa wondered at the color, so pale that it stood in stark contrast to the filth which had colored her skin when they'd finally pulled her from the oubliette. She'd been bathed since, and dressed in this confection, the purity of which she felt oddly compelled to maintain, sweeping the hem up from the ground, clasping the heavy fabric tightly in her shaking fingers.
"Ah, but don't you look entrancing, dearest Merope," Voldemort said. He was sitting on the settee, silken black robes rustling as he poured himself a cup of tea.
"I'm sorry?" Narcissa said, not sure that she'd heard him properly.
"I was merely paying you a compliment, Narcissa. Your beauty is rare, like the flower for which you were named."
"Thank you, my lord." The words stuck in her throat, but she managed to free them eventually. "Where is my husband?" she asked.
"Not invited," the Dark Lord replied simply. "Please, sit."
Narcissa settled into a chair across from him, her back rigid, hands clasped together in her lap.
"Tea?" he asked.
She shook her head no, barely able to speak as a sense of foreboding threatened to overwhelm her. No good could come of this private audience with Voldemort.
"But I insist," he said, pouring a cup for her. He balanced the teacup expertly on its saucer and handed it to her. Narcissa claimed it with unsteady fingers. Her tea things had been laid out for their use and she would never forgive herself if she lost a piece of the Black family tea service to her own clumsiness. The cup stuttered against the saucer in her anxious hands, making a faint clinking sound. Narcissa set it down on the end table beside her.
"You should know that it is my mother's dress," Voldemort said, gesturing to the gown she wore. "Her wedding dress to be precise, the only beautiful garment she ever allowed herself."
Narcissa looked down at the lace cuffs at her wrists, thought of the matching high-necked lace collar and realized that there was something old-fashioned about the dress. It made sense then that it'd been worn by a woman who'd lived and died long ago; the woman who'd given birth to the Dark Lord, who, though he was human, never for one moment seemed as if he'd ever had anything as prosaic as a mother.
"It's lovely," Narcissa replied, though the very thought of wearing this particular dress now terrified her.
"You will need it to be, for while I have faith in your charms, the task I have for you may exceed even your estimable beauty."
"I'm not sure I understand," she said cautiously.
"Well of course you don't, Narcissa. I haven't explained yet." Voldemort left that statement hanging between them, allowing its opacity to wreak havoc on her imagination. Calmly, he sipped his tea, waiting for the moment when her nerves would reach their breaking point, then he spoke. "I hadn't realized the extent of your relationship with Severus."
"There is no relationship, my lord. We are mere acquaintances."
"Ah, but you do yourself a disservice, my dear, if you think that any man who engages in a magical vow with a ravishing creature such as yourself is not half in love with you already."
Narcissa hadn't dreamed it possible that she could be more uncomfortable than she'd been upon learning that she was clothed in the Dark Lord's mother's wedding gown, and yet it had come to pass. A distinct feeling of nausea began to roil about in her stomach, causing her to tamp the back of her hand against her lips, delicately of course, in order to stem the potential tide of vomit which threatened to storm her esophagus.
"Not Severus," she managed to say finally. "He has always loved another."
"Ah, yes, Lily Potter, of course. His one great love," Voldemort said. "It would make him very angry with me, would it not, I being the one who killed her? And you and I both know what a man in love will do when he is so wounded, don't we Narcissa? He might seek revenge, might forfeit loyalty to the Death Eaters, might even go so far as to protect Lily's son."
Narcissa paled. "You think Severus is a traitor?"
Voldemort set down his teacup and leaned back against the settee. "I think all things," he said, "all possible avenues, all possible paths."
"I do not believe it," she said.
"That Severus is a traitor? You are not willing to believe this of a mere acquaintance?"
"He serves you, my lord. We all do."
"Yes, you all do, and you especially Narcissa." Voldemort leaned forward and stood. He took her hand in his, guiding her to her feet and leading her over to the large glass windows on the eastern wall of the drawing room. "You will go to Severus and learn what you can. Let us see if he can resist you, Narcissa. If he is faithless, if he will strike down your marriage vows, then he will just as easily flout his vows to me."
"I… I'm not certain that I can. Lucius—"
"—Come now, darling, you must. You must try." Voldemort turned his gaze from the windows to look at her. He still held her fingers tightly in his. "And I shall know if you do not try, Narcissa."
Suddenly, the Dark Lord's presence pushed into her thoughts, spearing through memories, sifting images. There was nothing subtle or delicate about it. It was meant as a warning and as such, was appropriately brutal and intimidating. Narcissa's fingers slipped in his grasp as she sought to protect her thoughts from him, but no sooner had she begun than he withdrew, leaving her shaking, wilting against the windows.
"Are we clear?" Voldemort asked, using his grip on her hand to steady her.
Narcissa nodded, blinking back tears. She was too numb to be shocked when the Dark Lord inclined his head, sketching a shallow bow. He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed the backs of her fingers, touching his bony, parchment-thin lips to her skin.
She could only be grateful for the absence of what she knew must be his forked, reptilian tongue.
OOO
These moments of clarity were precious—when sudden lucidity rang clearly through her mind, pealing with certainty, surety; resounding with truth. Hermione found herself at Hogwarts, a far cry from St. Mungo's, in a deserted classroom. It was no longer new—the sensation of waking in medias res without knowing quite how or why she got here—but it was no less chilling in its familiarity.
Hermione studied the room, swallowing the panic that had begun to rise in her throat. She struggled for a sense of calm, waiting patiently for the room to reveal any clues that might explain how she'd come to be here. The dark space spoke tersely, if at all. It revealed nothing, kept its secrets shielded, shuttered as any dark window.
Hermione listened to her breath fill the space. It was the only sound, the only dialogue: her breath in the room and its echoing reply. All she could think was that she'd had History of Magic here, and it was indeed ironic that she found herself now in a place where she'd studied history when she was so completely lacking in her own history at the moment.
She drew herself up from the desk she'd been leaning upon and released her arms which had been folded tightly across her chest. It was then that she felt the object in her right sleeve. She peeled the cuff back from her wrist and was startled when a pair of glasses fell out. Hermione bent to retrieve them and froze the moment she held them in her fingers. They were round and somewhat the worse for wear. They were Harry's glasses.
A distinct chill ran down her spine. Harry. If she'd done something to Harry, if Imogene had in any way harmed Harry, she would never be able to forgive herself. She turned the glasses over in her hands. They were intact, well, as intact as they'd always been when she'd last seen them on Harry's face. It was better than finding them damaged, she supposed, but the mere thought of Imogene confronting Harry was enough to unsettle her. What could she possibly want with him?
What did Imogene want with any of them? Revenge perhaps. To kill Snape and Dumbledore as they'd killed her. To punish Hermione for filling a role originally intended for her or worse yet, for wearing her skin. Imogene had tried to strangle her once, through the golem, but now that she'd found a way to shoulder Hermione aside and assume control of her, she seemed less intent on destroying her. It was almost as if she meant to take over permanently and wouldn't risk damaging Hermione's body.
Hermione shivered in that body, the only one she'd ever known; the body that up until recently was unquestionably hers. She wouldn't cede that body, not to Imogene. She'd destroy it first.
Yet there must be a way. There must be a way to force Imogene out. Perhaps the clue lay in accessing her thoughts. She seemed to know Hermione's thoughts, have access to her memories, use them even. It was the only way she could have gotten to Harry. Was the reverse true? Could Hermione then access Imogene's thoughts?
How would that work? What would that look like, pushing into the other's girl's mind? Did she have a mind? Was she a being, a ghost, a presence? The questions were endless, but certainly not baseless. She and Imogene were undeniably linked. It could not simply be a one-way interaction.
What would it be like, Hermione wondered, not to forget as she was so instructed, but to allow Imogene to come without struggle and to use that moment, that singular instant where the dead girl's thoughts touched hers, as a window, as a dark and tenuous point of entry?
OOO
The library was quiet. The books sat silently on their shelves, covers closed, keeping their secrets. The silence suited Narcissa, its weight, its integrity. It was whole and sound, unbroken by dark lord or husband.
She pulled her traveling cloak close around her, allowing its folds to envelope her and its hood to fall forward over her face as she approached the hearth. It wasn't until she was within a few feet of the fire that she was drawn up short, her cloak having caught on something. She turned to see Lucius sitting in one of the chairs before the fire with the hem of her cloak snagged in his fingers.
Narcissa hadn't noticed him there; seated low in the chair as he was; slouched, if it were at all possible for Lucius Malfoy to slouch. His legs were splayed in front of him, his collar undone, his shirt sleeves rumpled and pushed up to his elbows. There was something extremely discomfiting about seeing Lucius untucked. It frightened her even more than the glass of pale amber liquid which rested half empty on the arm of the chair beside his free hand.
Lucius rubbed the fabric of the cloak between his fingers before he turned his eyes to her. "Going somewhere, wife?" he asked.
"You know what he has asked of me," she replied stiffly. Narcissa took a step away from him, tugging the cloak along with her in the hopes of freeing it from his fingers. Lucius held tight to the fabric, however, using the motion to pull him forward to his feet. Her eyes flicked over him as he came to standing, noting the fluidity of his movement, its lack of the usual calculated poise.
"You won't need the cloak," Lucius said. He pushed the hood back from her face and jerked the garment free of her shoulders, exposing the ivory-colored gown beneath. "You won't need the dress either." His hands fell to the skirt of her dress, twining in the fabric there, pulling her toward him. Deftly, Narcissa pushed him off, slapping his hands away.
"And why should you care, Lucius? Why should you, who cast me into a dungeon, who sacrificed me to the Dark Lord just as easily as you did your own son, care one whit where I go or what I need?"
"Is that what you believe? That I sacrificed you, that I sacrificed our son?"
"Yes, that is precisely what I believe."
"Damn you, Narcissa! I did nothing of the sort. I gave you purpose! When you were nothing more than a pretty sylph to be murdered as incentive for our son, I gave you purpose. I gave you meaning in the Dark Lord's eyes!"
"Purpose? Meaning? It is a terrible purpose, Lucius, to be chattel, to be a pawn of men, to be used and discarded like mere commodity."
"It is the cost."
"I did not agree to pay such cost!"
"You do not pay it! I pay it. I pay it, Narcissa. I surrender my wife. I watch her leave. I watch her walk away from me into the arms of another. I give her up for lost."
"By your own design, Lucius! At your own behest!"
"Is that all, Narcissa? Is that all that your frigid heart will allow you to see?"
"What else is there to see?"
"That these are not the actions of a man who does not—" he broke off abruptly, swallowing the last of his words.
Narcissa's eyes roved his face, searching in vain for the lost words. They were well hidden at the very bottom of his pale grey eyes. At last, she knelt and retrieved her cloak, fastening it around her shoulders.
"I'm late," she said, turning back to the hearth. Narcissa scooped a handful of floo powder from a tin on the mantle and tossed it into the flames. The fire roared, its flames burning bright green before she stepped into them, her cloak billowing out behind her. She did not see Lucius as he knelt in front of the hearth, the hem of her cloak caught once again between his fingers. She could not see him bow his head and kiss the hem before he released it into the flames.
OOO
He had never thought to return to the Room of Requirement in its current incarnation as a hall of lost things. Draco picked his way through the stacks of forgotten objects, wading though generations of clutter, until he came upon a pile of splintered wooden remains. The skeleton of the Vanishing Cabinet had remained undisturbed since he'd last kicked it to pieces.
It seemed liked ages ago that he'd made the choice to abandon the plan set before him, to elude the Dark Lord's task. But it had not been so long ago that the evidence had vanished, decaying over time as any corpse might. The evidence remained. The splintered skeletal outline of the cabinet stared him bold in the face; a frame that, though fractured, could be easily mended with a swift flick of his wand.
Why not? he thought. Why not build it anew, set things to rights, as it were? The path had been clear, the way prepared for him since his birth. The mark on his arm reminded him of the irrevocability of it all. He had never doubted that he would be a Death Eater. He had known it since he was a small boy, had in fact, even come to see it as his rightful due. He had spent his youth constructing the bearing, the poise, the arrogance that he thought served this status. It should have been the culmination of things—taking the mark; instead it felt like being owned.
She had done it. She had somehow caused him to question that which he'd taken almost for granted. She had caused him to question who it was that he would become. Even once she'd seen the mark, touched it, she had not believed its ability to determine his fate. She hadn't said it, not with words, but it had been understood in the way she touched him, as if he were worthy of her touch.
Somehow that had changed. She couldn't love him. Those words she'd said loud and clear. Perhaps she'd finally seen the inevitability of it. That he was what he had always been.
Draco drew his wand, gripped it tightly in his fingers. He found the words for the charm in his memory, gathered them to his lips and released them on the sound of his voice. The wood of the cabinet began to knit, splinters drawn together, forming a new grain, which groaned as it solidified into being. The process could not be got without a groan, could it? There was always pain in reconstruction, even for the inanimate. To force together those parts which had been severed, to reestablish a whole; it was not done without strife it seemed.
So if he were again that boy which he had been, who thought once to embrace the way prepared for him, it would not be done without a certain discord, would it? It would likely feel rank, foul in some way—the reassembly of that which she had caused him to question. It made sense then, his disgust with himself, with the cabinet suddenly whole before his eyes.
OOO
Harry stared at the three objects assembled before him. Having his glasses back made absolutely no difference in their appearance. They remained plain and unassuming. There was nothing about them that bespoke their magical properties, nor anything that seemed to merit the name Dumbledore had given them: hallows.
Dumbledore had been just as surprised as Harry to hear scratching at his office door. He'd been even more surprised to see Mrs. Norris slip into the room holding Harry's glasses in her mouth. The elder wizard had taken them from the cat, and wiped them on his robes before turning them over to Harry, who'd slipped them immediately back into place.
Dumbledore had then asked Harry to fetch his Invisibility Cloak. When he'd returned to the headmaster's office, Dumbledore had taken the cloak from him and placed it alongside the two other objects, a stone and a gnarled wand. The headmaster had then told him the tale of the three brothers, the Peverells, whom he believed to have been Harry's ancestors. The rest Harry could not recall precisely. Dumbledore had continued to speak, but he had lost the ability to listen.
What he thought then, he thought now, having been left alone in Dumbledore's office. That's it? That's the extent of Dumbledore's plan? For Harry to confront Voldemort and die in so doing, but perhaps the hallows could aid him; perhaps they might somehow bring him back. That was all? That was the best that Dumbledore had to offer?
He had the strangest thought. It was of seeing Dumbledore, not as a man, not as Headmaster, but as he appeared on his Chocolate Frog Card. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The name itself was like an incantation. The greatest wizard of his age. Champion who'd defeated Gellert Grindelwald. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Recipient of the Order of Merlin First Class. He was a legend in his own time and all that he could offer Harry was a rock, a stick and a cloak?
Dumbledore himself didn't even believe it, or he would never had staked the future of the wizarding world on Draco Malfoy and sought to influence him.
How does it feel to be a sacrifice Harry Potter?
Her words stung him like a slap in the face. She'd known. Hermione—or the girl, Imogene, whoever she was, had known.
The three objects sat before him on the headmaster's desk. Hallows or no what did it matter? Harry felt doubt and anger claw their way to the front of his thoughts. The objects were merely the last gifts given to a dead boy. Before he even knew what he was about, Harry tossed the cloak into the flames of the hearth and snapped the wand between his fingers.
She was right. He needed nothing from Dumbledore. He needed nothing from any of them. He needed nothing to spill his own blood. Any common Muggle could do that.
OOO
Draco stepped out of the Vanishing Cabinet to find her waiting for him. The cabinet had worked as intended. Its twin stood open in Borgin and Burkes. He'd taken the passage there to the little shop on Knockturn Alley and then back again, to the hall of lost things. As he stepped out onto the stone floor of the Room of Requirement, he spotted her. He hadn't wanted to see her, especially since what he needed of her she had plainly told him she couldn't provide.
Draco retreated to the path which had been prepared for him, one of cruelty and arrogance. It may have sickened him to reconstruct the creature he had been, but at the very least that creature traveled a path that was clearly delineated. Inevitability made it so.
The corner of his mouth twisted upward as he looked at her. He felt the ugliness of the sneer inside him, felt it cauterize the ache that gathered in his throat when he stared at her.
"For my next trick, I'll pull a mudblood from my hat," he said, stepping away from the cabinet with the creaky flourish of an old stage magician. He was hoping to wound her as she had him, only somehow the word felt wrong in his mouth, and when he'd said it—mudblood—he lacked the conviction he'd once had. If anything the word shamed him into an uncomfortable silence. He lowered his eyes, suddenly off-kilter, but quickly raised them to her again, ready to excoriate himself with the pain he knew he'd caused her.
He was shocked then to see that Hermione's eyes glittered, not in sadness or pain, but in something akin to amusement.
"Bravo," she said. "If I hadn't thought you a hard case before, I certainly do now."
He narrowed his eyes. Something didn't feel right about her—not the way she looked at him.
"You do realize that she's trying to keep you away from me," she said, approaching him slowly from where she stood a few feet away. "But it really doesn't work that way, does it?" She moved closer still, stopping mere inches away from him. Her nearness, which had never failed to affect him, felt wrong. It took a moment before he was able to parse her words and reconcile them with this feeling of wrongness.
"Imogene," he said.
"I don't know why she's trying to keep us apart," the girl said. "It's fate, destiny, prophecy, even."
"What?"
"Well, surely they told you—how you're going to be the leader of the wizarding world once the Dark Lord's been defeated? You're the chosen one it seems. They wanted you to be worthy, for me to make you worthy."
None of it made sense, but then Imogene was a volatile sort. What did he know of her really? All he knew was that she'd tried to kill both Dumbledore and Snape. He had no way of knowing if she was as prone to make sense as she was prone to attempted murder.
Draco had spent the entire summer with the girl and the better part of the school year, but still he hadn't known her. What he had known had been Hermione all along, walking around in this girl's skin. And now they'd come to it; it was Imogene in Hermione's skin, like for like, a chilling symmetry, a justice that would make poets proud.
"Why should I need you to make me worthy?" Draco said. "Why should I need anything from you at all?"
"Ah," she said, as if expecting the question. "Loneliness is efficient in its way, I suppose. It simplifies things, doesn't it? Let's you close yourself off; particularly appealing, especially after having been hurt. She did hurt you, didn't she?"
It was odd to hear those words come from her, as if he hadn't been staring into those very same eyes when Hermione had told him that she couldn't love him. There was an eerie dissociation that seemed to occur between girl and body. It angered him and in his frustration his fingers closed around her upper arms, biting into her flesh.
Imogene had anticipated such a response. Instead of pulling away from him, she rose up on her toes and leaned into him so that her forehead touched his lips.
"We have something in common," she said softly, her fingers curling in the front of his shirt. "She hurt us both."
Draco hadn't initiated the contact, but he didn't move away. He let his mouth rest against her skin, his lips parted.
"I know what it is to be raised to the purpose of the Dark Lord," she whispered. "I know what it is to wear the mark." She drew back from him then and pushed up her sleeve, baring the underside of her left arm. The pale skin was blank except for the network of blue veins laced together at her wrist. She traced her fingers along her arm, drawing his gaze. "They took it from me, the mark. She took it from me." Imogene slipped her bare arm around his neck and drew his face down to hers. "But it doesn't matter. If there's one thing I've learned from my death it's that I am what I am." She touched his jaw. "And I am inevitable."
Draco saw it clearly for the first time. They were the match as it was intended, as Lucius had so desired all those months ago, without interference from Albus Dumbledore. They were the path well traveled, the slaves of expectation. Together they were the creature unable to question.
OOO
A/N: My sister has pointed out that Monday is the two year anniversary of this story. Wow two years! I would have been done by now if I hadn't taken 8 months off. Despite all that I'm still glad to be writing it and thanks to all of you who are still reading! I appreciate your reviews, so keep them coming!
That said some reassurances are in order perhaps. I have no intention of jumping ship or perhaps I should say changing ships mid-stream. This started out a Dramione fic and will end that way. It is not a Snarcissa fic, or a Drimogene fic, but that doesn't guarantee smooth sailing….
NDP