Disclaimer: Characters belong to JKR. The misery is mine alone.
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She runs her fingers over the cold steal bars, circling.
"It's been a long time," she says somewhat sadly. "I would have come sooner but they wouldn't let me."
She pauses, watching.
He keeps his eyes down. He can't look at her now, not like this, not with the mask on. And they won't let him take it off, lest he forget. Lest she forget.
"They say anyone sick enough to hold someone captive for months on end deserves to be kissed." Her voice is soft. Musing.
It cuts like a knife.
"What do you think, Bunny Rabbit. Do you agree?" Her soft tone breaks against her will and she loses her confidence somewhere in the cracks. "Do you think I deserve to be kissed for what I did to you?"
She cannot mean it.
But she does.
"For what I do to you still," she adds through hopeful tears.
He groans in misery, but his long parched and roughly worn vocal cords issue more of a whimper. And his sob becomes a laugh. He's still her pup, after all this time.
"I never held it against you," he croaks. "You held it against yourself enough for both of us."
"As did you," she replies, breathlessly.
He imagines her heart is pounding as hard as his is. He longs to look up to see her chest rise and fall so rapidly. In unison with his. At last.
She turns away and paces. Agitated. Angry.
"They said all the things I told myself. And I knew," she rants, her words tumbling from her lips nearly as fast as she thinks them. "I knew exactly what they would say when I told them. They would say that I was not yet myself. That I was slipped potions, was brainwashed, had Stockholm Syndrome. But they don't know. They can never know or understand that we were prisoners together. How hard it was every time we said goodbye. Or how it tore me apart when they forced me to leave you. I didn't want to abandon you, Theo. I tried to write. Did you see that I tried to write?"
He remembers the opened book. The smudge of ink. One word, broken, but legible.
Harry.
He'd torn away the page and burned it.
He nods his reply.
"I didn't believe. I couldn't believe. Maybe I didn't want to," she continues. "But then there he was, just as you said he'd be. 'Prophesies always come true,'" she quotes him.
Yes, he'd said that. He thinks he may really have believed it, even before she disappeared.
"What happened?" she asks, her voice pleading and apologetic. "What happened when he found out?"
He smiles wryly at the memory. "I was punished, of course."
She sucks in harsh breath.
He doesn't want to relive that day, and she doesn't need to know the details. "But I was … happy," he adds. "You were safe, or so I hoped."
"And you were free," she supplies. "Free of the burden of me."
"You're my soul, Hermione," he argues. "I didn't want to be free of you. I don't suppose I ever will be. I doubt even a dementor could pull you out of me."
She sniffles. She huffs. She sobs wretchedly, and grips the bars for strength.
He will be kissed, then.
"Is this our last goodbye?" he asks. He doesn't want to know, but he has to know. The others he was captured with were taken from the main cell, as he was, one by one, and never returned.
He glances toward the large oak door he came in through, to the one on the other side of the room, and feels the cold reaching out from within, wisping, curling, and wrapping him like so many tentacles.
She cries harder and he feels his own eyes well over, and there is silence between them for a long, heavy moment.
"It's good to have closure, don't you think?" he finally reflects sadly.
"This is not closure," she sniffs. "This is … I don't know what this is."
"A puzzle even you cannot solve," he teases gently. "It's hello and goodbye and I'm sorry," he suggests. "I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me."
"For what shall I forgive you?" she asks brokenly.
She can hardly breathe through her sorrow now, and his arms ache to hold her. He tugs at the shackles tying him to the center of the cell, trying to inch closer to her.
"For not freeing you sooner. On my own. For not wanting to," he confesses.
"I cannot cherish it and forgive you for it at the same time," she replies. "Even I am not complicated enough for such a paradox."
He laughs through his tears and feels his chest tighten as she joins him briefly before whimpering in agony once more.
"For what shall I forgive you, Hermione?" he asks softly, pulling her from her sorrow.
"For punishing you for things you had no control over," she proposes. "For not seeing enough, or for seeing too much, perhaps. For never telling you how much I love you." Her voice breaks and she pauses for a moment, trying in vain to catch her breath through the shuddering sobs that begin to over take her once more.
"Silly chit," he chides. "You're a walking, talking paradox without even trying."
She huffs petulantly, even through her sniffles.
"What should I ask forgiveness for?" she asks, her breath slowly coming back to her.
"What are you actually sorry about?" he returns.
"Bastard," she whispers.
"You misunderstand," he soothes. "I bear no grudges when it comes to you. How could I?"
"Easily," she rejoins. "I was horrid to you."
"I was the enemy. I deserved it. I expected it," he replies. "And you weren't always horrid," he reminds her. He is lost in reverie for a moment, thoughts and feelings and memories of her whirl through his mind, but he always comes back to settle on one. "You were the first woman I ever made love with, did you know?"
"Of course," she answers honestly. "How could I not, the way you trembled in my arms?"
He is glad he has the mask now. His face burns hotly.
"I trembled, too, I think," she adds softly. "I never knew it could feel like that; every kiss, every move, every breath a gift from God. I knew then that I belonged to you in a way that transcended the way that he said I belonged to you. And it galled me. To be owned. To want to be owned. So I punished you for it, and in doing so I punished myself. I suppose if I'm truly sorry for anything, I'm sorry for that."
He doesn't know what to say in response. The emotions are intense, crushing, but the words will not come. He feels the pull of the cold waiting for him beyond that door. The time is approaching and his gut twists in fear. He doesn't want to die. Not now. Not without the right words.
"If …" he begins desperately, but his thoughts and words tangle as he hears voices and footsteps approaching from beyond the door.
"If what?" she asks, gripping the bars tighter, as if she might wrench them apart.
"If you're asking me to forgive you for loving me …" he begins and is interrupted by a rough banging on the door.
"Not yet!" she calls out desperately.
"I can't forgive you for that," he says quickly with a shake of his head. "I'm too fucking grateful for it."
"Theodore," she cries softly.
"No one ever loved me before," he continues shamelessly. "I was damned even before I took the mark. I didn't want it. I didn't believe the things they believed. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted him to love me. I know it's stupid. But, in a fucked up way, I got what I wanted, didn't I? I got you."
She sobs pitifully again, her whole body shaking with grief.
"And you were so right about me that first night," he continued shamelessly. "He sent me to you, to make a man out of me. And it was such folly. Even you knew I could never hurt you. But, you did make a man out of me, Hermione, and not just a man, a soldier, because, with you, I found something worth fighting for. And I don't regret it. I can't."
The door swings open revealing Harry with Ron and Charlie Weasley just behind him. Harry looks at her regretfully, and Ron scowls angrily at Theo.
"It's time," Charlie says gently.
"Please don't do this," she begs.
"Hermione," Harry answers sadly, "we've been over this. It's not my call."
Charlie pulls her back from the bars and holds her in a strong embrace as she pleads and writhes to stop them.
Ron and Harry disengage the shackles pinning him to the center of the cell, and, each holding an arm, they drag him out.
"Wait! Stop!" she cries desperately. "I don't have it. I don't have it yet --"
"You don't have what?" Harry asks, pausing for just a moment. Theo's head remains down, his shoulders slumped heavily.
She whimpers, fresh tears spilling down her face. "I need to see him. Please let me look at him."
"You're looking," Ron bites out, clipped and angry.
"His face," she corrects. "Let me see his face."
Ron yanks hard on Theo's arm in response, dragging him forcefully toward the door. But, Harry remains fixed, staring into Hermione's pleading eyes.
Ron stares daggers at Harry, and grunts another tug toward the door in vain. Harry will not budge.
"Look then, if you think it will help," Harry replies disapprovingly, but his ever loyal heart reaching out to her nonetheless.
He removes the mask gently, revealing Theodore's sweaty, tear streaked face. His cheeks are flushed and he burns with regret that he's being seen by his rivals like this, but he is grateful to have the chance to look in her eyes one last time.
His eyes move up slowly from the gritty floor to her face, to her eyes.
Her chest rises and falls in rhythm with his.
And she calms.
Her aguish slowly melts into a hopeful sort of expression before finally widening into a small, teary smile.
"I love you, too," she says softly.
He is shuffled through the door, Harry and Ron's grip on him still firm, but needlessly so. Charlie's strong arms continue to encircle her, but she also makes no move to counter him.
In his minds eye, he still sees her, and stares into the depths of her soul.
To find safety.
To find peace.
To find his own eyes looking back at him.
To find closure.
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A/N: Don't throw things at me. I never promised you a happy ending.
… and this is quite possibly not exactly the end.
Unless you all want it to be. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.