Disclaimer: I am just a mere visitor in the sublime world constructed by the brilliant mind that is J.K Rowling. Anything that rings a bell is hers
A/N: "The Ashwinder is thin and pale-grey with glowing red eyes. They rise from the embers of the dying fire and slither off into a dark corner to lay their eggs, leaving an ashy trail behind. Ashwinders only live for an hour and will collapse to dust when they have laid their eggs. Ashwinder eggs are red and give off intense heat. If they can be frozen with a Freezing Charm, they can be used in a Love Potion or eaten whole as a cure for ague."- Fantastic beasts and where to find them.
Chapter 34
Theo's POV
I didn't need the arachnid shaped flames that crawled across the grey walls to know that it was fiendfyre, there was something distinctly sentient about the mindless creation that somehow personified the vengefulness of a living, breathing, vindictive enemy. So akin to the vengeful cold that battered my body, centralised at my abdomen but radiating outward with each step I took to the familiar back door which now lay charred hanging off its hinges as I entered the belly of the beast.
The cold that gripped my body was replaced by its antonym with speed but any discomfort at the exchange was neither voiced nor felt as I clambered to the familiar stairs, a hyperborean sensation clutched at a part a little north of my centre, the part that actual bled fire just last night as my lips met its supple counterpart in a war of affection that left me panting minutes afterwards against the very wall that now lay crippled with flame.
I unconsciously battered at the stinging sensation at my right shoulder and ignored the prickling sensation at my neck, hurtling into the familiar room that even in the pungent odour of burning fire riddled my sense of olfaction, I knew I had reached my destination as the distinctly different fruity and floral scent that was Hermione and Kitten mixed in a stimulating feminine infusion that permeated the room I now found myself in.
The bed couldn't be at my hands quickly enough and I ripped off the sheet only to be assaulted by a pit of snakes that slithered this way and that atop each other and over the two still bodies.
Before I could raise my wand a familiar screech coupled with the scent of burning hair cut across the sizzling room and the familiar orange fur zoomed past me attacking the bed of snakes with feline zealousness.
In a proverbial blink of an eye the scene changed, the light fled alongside the flame that disappeared as unnaturally as it arrived, instantly. The bed of white snakes that bled from Crookshanks claws disappeared as my own voice was finally processed, no more overshadowed by falling rubble and sizzling flame and I announced the spell again and again as all the ashwinder snakes disappeared and again many more times to chase away the eggs they left behind after they're temporary existence.
The arctic feeling left my chest to perch in long straight lines on my cheek as the corner of my eye I watched as my blonde best friend fell to the snake and flame free bed, clutching the familiar tanned hand of the girl he would never admit to being irrevocably in love with, my Kitten's haunting grey eyes laying wide open and cold for the world to see, no flicker of its usual zesty flame amidst her pale face.
It was easier to look at her, to feel her loss, to observe Draco's pain...than move my eyes the mere millimetre right that would set my sight on the creature...the beautiful creature beside her... something hard touched my knees and bit at my stomach and tore at my right shoulder and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I knew my fingers were bleeding from scratching at the floorboard...why was I scratching at the floorboard...why was the pain not the least bit distracting...
"Theo."
The scratching stopped. The bleeding stopped. The cold stopped. The fire stopped... my eyes flung open and I turned, looking into the fierce brown eyes that bore into me, that stripped me with its mere intensity and I don't even know how I reached her, I don't know when the floor ceased being at my knees, I don't know when the arctic drops befell her soft brown strands and I don't know if my arms could be pulled away as I engulfed her warm body, her warm, living, tiny body that governed the very quality of my life.
"I'm going to make sure all the ashwinders and its eggs are taken care of. See what you can salvage, we don't have much time." For once I didn't care who spoke, I didn't care what his name was or what his agenda was or what his affiliation was...all I cared for was the life in my hands...
"Get off me." It was her... but it wasn't. Even in her anger, in her denial of her affection, in her confusion at her feelings, not once did she sound like that. I didn't comply, pulling back slightly to observe the startling brown and suddenly a shiver crawled through me, and I turned my head away from inspecting her and sought the familiar dark head...we stood alone in the room now though and I felt the pointed sensation of thin fingers pushing at my chest and slowly I took a step back, turning around... Kitten...
Cold confusion washed over me as I stared at the occupants of the bed, the grey eyes and dark head remained, only the soft tresses now lay course and shot atop the white pillow as the familiar face of Marcus Flint lay dead before me. I looked to my left easier this time, seeing the equally familiar face of Thomas Higgs with his untidy flame hair camouflaged amidst his raw burned face.
I couldn't make sense of it and I was in no place to even try, I turned to Hermione as she stood staring at the shelf of burnt books on her left wall unmoving, "What happened?"
She didn't answer me, pulling off a particular singed book off the plank of wood, the action itself causing the blackened cover to fall off. I hovered behind her as she opened to the first page which was practically nonexistent except for a small sheaf that stuck to the binding... blue ink shone up, letters looped to form the words With love, daddy...
Guilt plagued me just as quickly and I was ashamed to only think of her parents now, especially considering they're treatment of me just yesterday and I swallowed thickly, "Your parents-"
"In a hotel in London." Her dainty fingers tracing the loops of her father's signature almost cathartically, "Charmed asleep." She whispered. I reached for her but upon my touch the book fell shut and she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
For a moment I stood staring at the destroyed book shelf but I quickly got over my shock and hurtled after her, not taking in much of the house as I watched her flight outside. Some of my anxiety dispersed upon seeing Kitten, leaning against the same tree Draco and she sat at just last night as a man with blonde hair waved his wand over Draco's right hand.
Kitten kicked off her tree and ran to me, "Vez!" She snapped commandingly and the blonde man looked at her, his familiar amber eyes settling on me and then flickering to my waist... eyes such a distinctive colour I was positive I saw it before...
"Cease your panic attack it's just another splinch wound. I'll see to it after this one here. This really should have come as no surprise considering neither of these boys has an apparition license, but I suppose this isn't enough of a mess to clean up after already what with adding underage magic into the mix." The blonde man waved his wand in an intricate pattern and the biting at my abdomen dulled down but I didn't care to look down, turning instead to the brunette that stood singularly and silently a few steps away.
I turned away from the tingling of healing magic at my shoulder and ignored Kitten's reprimanding voice and walked closer to her, my confusion slowly clearing with each step I took as she stood breathing before me.
Polyjuice potion. It could have only been polyjuice potion that made Marcus Flint look like Ky Thornton, but how did they execute this... I knew from my last visit to the house that it was well warded. For one thing Draco couldn't enter the yard, yet I passed by effortlessly. Marked Wards, the dark magic that lay in his left hand restricted his entry and I knew not how to break them, but it...that man's eyes... I saw it glowing in the darkness of the trees just the other day but I thought it a figment of my imagination because with a blink it was gone...he responded to the ward being tampered with and let it down long enough for our entry...so when the death eaters attacked today, many of which were skilled ward breakers, he must have been notified once again...
So it was to him I owed her life... their life. I didn't move to touch her again, as she had her arms crossed over as if the very action was the sole thing that kept her together as she stared at the burnt house with a fire that made fiendfyre look meek.
"You should go." She muttered to herself, "The Ministry will be here soon, I don't think it would benefit-"
"I'm not going anywhere." I took off my shirt quickly, magically warming it and slinging it over her shoulders, she looked down at the white material momentarily but didn't shrug it off, we were in the heart of winter and Hermione Granger was smart enough to know standing there in her thin pyjama top was no armour for a night like this.
Her eyes fell to my waist and some of the fire in the chocolate orbs diminished at the scarlet stained thin white t-shirt I sported, it further diminished when it flickered to my right shoulder which was hanging at an awkward position. Her face, marred with ash but completely and thankfully unharmed, turned resolutely back at the house, her lips trembling as she took in the destruction.
I knew, just like she knew, that it could not be healed by magic. Not the walls, not the windows, not the paint, not the pictures, not the souvenirs and trinkets and books...nothing can reverse the effects of fiendfyre...
We stood in silence for moments and my body was numb from the cold that whipped about us, I hadn't waited long enough to ask Daphne just how many men left for Hermione's home today. If it was my father and Davis Sr, it was probably the whole Muggle Hunting Contingent that was at the Ball as the two led the faction... that meant at least eleven people...
I glanced towards the trees where Ky, Draco and the blonde man stood... what was he? His reaction time was impossibility... that would mean in the time it took for the wards to break and his notification to the time the Hunters reached the second floor, Hermione Ky and her parents were apparated out of there, Flint, Higgs and another two were forced polyjuice... polyjuice that had to have been ready and waiting just in case this very thing happened...and the rest of the Hunters, too drunk to notice the four rookies who probably entered the house ahead of the others in eagerness to impress their superiors...were not only missing, but was the very people they set fire too...
My tattered fingernails dug into my palm as fury coursed through me at the thought that Hermione...that she was that close...I glanced again at the amber eyed man...whatever he was... I was thankful for his existence. Not only was he fast, he was smart enough to know taking on the faction of death eaters on his own would only result in unnecessary hardship...and as long as Hermione, her parents and Kitten was alive...then all was well in the world...
"Please, just go."
I walked forward as her soft voice carried over to me by the wind and laid my hand on her shoulder which was tensed as she leaned against the burnt walls, hunched over in pain. She shrugged me off but less forcefully than she had done upstairs in her room. I didn't blame her for being angry... there was so much to rage about, but I wouldn't let her couple me with those people, with him.
"Dad painted these walls with his very hands... all on his own... he could have got anyone to do it but he loved doing these sorts of things..." She mumbled, "He said that's what the difference was between a house and a home... this was their home." Her voice heightened at the end and she shuddered and I stepped forward again but not touching her, yet so close I could smell my cologne of the shirt she wore. "It stopped being mine ages ago... I barely stayed long enough... but this was where they lived, where my mum would watch her dramas and my dad would write me letters... and the Millers would come over every other Tuesdays and they would all sit under..." Her voice choked over as she pointed at the back porch, "On that porch swing which my dad built when I was five because my mother said that he couldn't because he wasn't handy enough but he did...after three attempts he did...this was their home..." She clutched her sides again, "This was they're Hogwarts." Her tiny shoulders shook and the parts north of my centre grappled with pain, "And now look at it... twenty years..." She sniffled... "Two decades destroyed in two minutes..."
"Hermione-"
She whipped around, "GO AWAY!"
I shook my head slowly, "No." I didn't raise my voice an octave but the word was the most unrelenting I ever muttered.
She panted, her slender neck extended to her utmost as she glared at me with all the blame she could muster but I didn't falter, I wouldn't let her do this. I was not him. I didn't believe his beliefs and I wouldn't receive the repercussions for it. She stood there, reading my thoughts and suddenly she broke.
"GO!" She screeched, hurtling herself at me, "AWAY!"I clutched her to me and restrained her easily considering she was so tiny and tired...
"I love you too Hermione."
She bared her teeth at me animalistically, "I don't love you!"
"Then what is it that riddles you with guilt. You opened your heart, your home, your family to me and this was the result... this is the seed of your anger... you blame me. This is my fault somehow?"
"Your father is a Death Eater! This is what they do! HE could have easily been the one that could have KILLED my parents! MY PARENTS! MY PARENTS who have not done a thing...they're..." Her body trembled, "If Silvestre didn't...if he didn't..."
And then she did something I didn't expect, she fell onto me sobbing... and it frightened me... I was accustomed to woman's tears... it never made me feel awkward like it did Draco or angry like it did Blaise... yet Hermione... my Hermione... my brave Hermione... and then I realised I was wrong... she didn't blame me...
She blamed herself.
"This isn't your fault."
"It is." She snivelled, "If I wasn't-"
"If you weren't Hermione Granger, the world would cease to exist. My faith in humanity would disappear. Life would be ugly because every single beauty I discovered is laid at your feet. I've not cried, nor loved before, yet today I did both out of fear that a thought I can't bear to think occurred. I never thought there would be a thought I couldn't think when thoughts were my only friends once. You're beyond logic to me, insensible and insatiable. You're the only person that I have ever loved. If you weren't Hermione Granger, she wouldn't be Ky Thornton, he wouldn't be Harry Potter, I wouldn't be Theodore Nott. We would be lost, doused in darkness and hopeless. That's who you are Hermione. You're the girl that can change everything by just existing. You're the girl that can bring light to the darkest of places and teach a boy who never thought he could love how to do just that. You're the only girl in my world."
Her soft lips hung open slightly and her chocolate eyes tremble behind its misty mirror, for once speechless. "I...I do love you."
"I know. How can you not after that speech." She smiled but it was fleeting, but it lightened my shoulders.
"Theo?" I turned as Draco hovered a few feet away, "We have to leave." His grey eyes were plagued with worry, and I nodded. His mother. Pansy. The Ball. The Brocklehursts.
"Thank you." Hermione's voice was back to its strong melody and I smirked at the satisfying sound. Draco looked at her, glancing at Ky and as if ripping of a plaster he hastened forward.
"Here." He pulled out a small glistening object which he tapped with his wand. "I guess it found its way back to the family faster than your mother expected."
She took the ornament, the black dragon with wide brown eyes, the small trinket that survived. "Thank you."
He rolled his eyes, "You say thank you one more time Granger and I might die of surprise."
"Thank you." She chuckled and he glared back. I squeezed her hand, passing my nose over her hair and finding her forehead with my lips.
I love you.
"I love you too." She mumbled into my neck.
And I'd never let her forget it. Even if I'd have to spend the rest of my days running into burning houses, because if Hermione Granger was anything, she was worth every burn, every bruise...everything.
Feedback as always will be appreciated
Kalina