Jagged

31

He doesn't think. Doesn't even realize he moves.
The second the tears leave Hermione's eyes, Tom hops over the back of the couch, wriggles himself between Abraxas and throws an arm around her.
No hesitation. It's like the last few months had never even happened. She leans into him, tucking her head under his shoulder and throwing her arms around his neck. He feels the tears soaking into his shirt. Smells them on her lashes, mixing with her scent. His chest feels like it's caving in. Shaking hands circle around her back and pull her in closer, until her legs swing over his thighs and she's practically in his lap.
The others are speaking, but Tom doesn't hear a word. There's a roaring in his ears that drowns out everything besides Hermione's gut wrenching sobs.
He can barely stand it. The edges of his vision darkens and Hermione's grip grows tighter and he cannot fight it any longer.
He gathers her in his arms and stands, racing for the stairs and ignoring all sounds of protest. Someone tries to block his path but he shoves them into the wall hard enough that the wood cracks on impact. After that, no one else interferes.
Once in her room he slams the door shut, not bothering with wards. It would be a waste; just fuel for the others now pounding up the stairs to try and tear Hermione's door down.
The door handle jiggles once before sharp, hissed whispers begin, too low for Hermione, but Tom's lycan ears pick up everything.
"Let them be." Abraxas. With an authoritative tone. Tom has never been more grateful for it.
In his arms, Hermione squirms closer. His hands reach between them, opening his top three buttons and ripping her flimsy shirt open until they're pressed chest to chest and he can feel her frantic heartbeat against his.
"Tell me." His voice is rough, breathing haggard. She shakes her head but he lifts her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. It's mean and selfish but he thinks he might lose control of his barely tethered in magic if he doesn't get an answer.
Her sleeve slides softly against her skin as she rolls it up with shaking fingers. The bottom two letters are exposed before Tom puts it together.
His fingers clamp down on her forearm, hard enough that the skin below turns white.
"You told me the person that did this was dead." Sparks of magic stir in the pit of his stomach. Spark around them angrily, zapping at the figures just beyond the door.
"She is," Hermione breathes. Tom tightens his grip but she doesn't flinch. Doesn't pull away. Merely takes a deep breath and levels herself.
"Draco— Her voice cracks and she takes a moment before trying again. "Draco was a Death Eater when we fell in love."
Fell in love.
Tom has known Hermione's love for months now. Even if he denied it, even if he didn't want to believe it, she had insisted upon it and it was truth.
But Tom had never known that Hermione's love might extend out to others. Not the way she had loved him. He had not thought that she might have her heart broken by people not worthy of her affection. People that might take her good, her eagerness to help and morph it into something--
"It— it didn't turn out like I hoped. Not at all like the fairy tales said."
And then she's crying and in his arms and he's holding her up like if she falls to the ground she might crash and break.
He cannot— cannot handle it. He cannot think about anything besides sharp werewolf teeth tearing apart a milky Malfoy neck.
When she pulls away she is hiccuping and red but her eyes communicate urgency.
"I want you to know. If you— it's a lot, but I can show you—"
"Yes" he answers immediately. He wants to watch it over and over again. Wants to memorize everything so that he can recreate it exactly for Draco, so that he might suffer even a fraction of the amount Hermione had to.
But what Hermione shows him— what he sees after she leads him over to the bed and lowers her Occlumency walls for the first time ever— is worse than anything he could have prepared himself for.
It's Hermione with bright, innocent eyes. A look he has never once witnessed. Looking at Draco like he put the sun in the sky and Merlin, she really did love him.
And then it's Hermione on the ground, those same eyes wide and horrified as she's tortured relentlessly. Session after session. Gaze never leaving Draco— not asking. But telling.
You did this to me, he hears in her head. I am dying and I am weak but I will not break. Not for you.
And she didn't. She never gave into the gaping darkness calling to her. He thinks back on that night in the Room of Requirement, where Hermione fell to pieces on the floor and begged for space. How Tom used the moment like he wished he was able to use her.
"I'm sorry," he says. Not because of what Draco did, no, that would have its own consequences. But because he never understood, never wanted to. Not really. Not for anything more than trying to get one up on her.
"I don't want your pity." Her voice is hollow. Like she has said it so many times the words have lost their meaning.
"That's not what this is." He walks over and takes her cheeks in his hands. "I crave you. I envy you. I even— I care about you." Her breath catches. Another tear slides down her cheek, and his voice sinks dangerously low. "But I don't pity you."
Her eyes travel over his face, searching for the lie, for the manipulation.
But it isn't there. He's never been more sure of what he wants.
Eventually, she nods. Her hands still tremble, but she shakes her shoulders back and steps away from him.
Whole once more.
Tom rolls his jaw. "What do we do about him?"
She doesn't ask what he means. The innocent act she puts on for the rest of the Order apparently ends at the threshold of her bedroom door.
"I want to speak to him first. He claimed he didn't betray me."
Tom's blood turns to fire in his veins. "I saw—"
"I know what you saw." She turns to her vanity, wand raised to her face. The uneven rosiness in her cheeks disappears. The red streaks in her eyes lessen. She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a tube of mascara. "But I also know that nothing is ever as it seems anymore. He deserves an explanation. A chance."
One. A single chance. "And then?"
She paints a bright red over her lips. "And then we plan."
---
Hermione lets Tom join him. They're back in the basement, but Harry leads them to a different room than the one he'd been stuck in for weeks.
Draco sits in a chair across from Remus, anxious and unrestrained. As soon as Hermione walks in he shoots to his feet and heads for her.
A growl makes its way up Tom's throat, rumbling through his chest.
Betrayal. He betrayed Hermione. Scum of the earth. Even lower. He deserves every bit of torture and pain Tom plans to give him, explanation or not.
Draco freezes in place, but the rage doesn't simmer. Hermione wraps her fingers through his and catches his eyes.
"It's okay," she whispers. "I'm okay."
He remembers that night in the woods, the first time he'd ever touched her. The first time she'd shown him that hideous scar.
"I need to know you're okay."
Losing control had been so easy and he hadn't even known the full story. The truth.
He nods back at her. He could wait. Could hear out whatever ridiculous explanation Draco has to offer.
There's a reward on the other side. Tom can exercise patience for that.
Draco's eyes fall to their entwined fingers, brow furrowing. A surge of mean pride shoots through Tom.
"Sit," Harry commands Draco, and he listens. 
So much like Abraxas, Tom thinks, and then wonders how many people Abraxas might kill to save Hermione from writhing on the floor like Tom had seen. And yet so different.
Tom feels Remus' nervous energy from across the room, like some kind of werewolf bond had been opened between the two of them. He'd need to do more research on that later.
Hermione leans against Remus' desk and crosses her ankles. "Speak. And make it good. You have five minutes. If I'm unsatisfied at the end, I might like to hear what your screams sound like under the cruciatus." She turns to Tom. "Tell me, Tom, do you think his skin will carve easier than mine?"
"Depends." He shrugs, crossing his arms. "If we're using a knife... or fangs." He bares his teeth at Draco, whose color drains until his skin is the same shade as his hair.
"Enough," Remus warns.
"Something to say?" Harry asks, so sharp that it throws off even Tom. Hermione looks at him with wide eyes, but Harry ignores both of them, gritting his teeth. "Are you going to preach some sort of moral high ground?"
"We do not torture and kill for no regard of life," Remus states, not raising his voice. The picture of calm, even as the room vibrates with his anxious magic.
Harry leans over the desk, expression violent. "Not yet." He turns back to Draco. "Speak. Before I kill you myself."
Interesting.
Tom turns to Hermione. "That's new."
She shrugs, pressing her lips together.
"Orders," Draco yells out frantically, hand shaking as it cards through his hair. "I was following orders!"
Hermione's brow crinkles. "Orders? From who?"
Draco's eyes dart towards Remus. It's less than a second, but it's enough. Draco deflates, shoulders slumping. "Moody, too." Harry's eyes widen. "But it wasn't supposed to go down like it did. I swear, Hermione, or else I never would have agreed."
A wave of cold, hard fury rises up into Tom. It's not his.
He looks over at Hermione to see her face is a perfect mask of careless indifference, even as her fingers tremble around her wand handle.
"Explain."
Tom has heard many different tones of Hermione's voice. The soft caresses when he is mindless and she wants to control him. The angry, righteous sting when she feels she's been wronged. The all knowing, superior song when she knows something he doesn't.
But this. This one. It's new. Stiff and commanding enough to straighten the spines of all three men in the room. Deep enough that if he were just a few more feet away, not a word would be heard.
It's evil incarnate. And it sends a shiver of anticipation down Tom's spine.
Dead. Draco's going to be dead soon.
"Voldemort was getting suspicious," Draco began, eyes never leaving Hermione's. "As Remus very well knows, an entire thread of Order spies had been found in Death Eater ranks just two weeks prior. He was furious. Obliterated those people and their families and made the rest of us watch." Draco's voice trembled. "He didn't say a word. Didn't need to. The message was clear."
Behind them, Remus shifts in his chair. Hermione pays him no attention.
"I came and I reported it, like I was supposed to. They told me I needed to get out. To prove my loyalty."
"By turning Hermione in?" Harry's fists were clenched, but as he stalked forward Hermione grabbed him by the hem of his shirt.
"Let him speak. It's the only chance he gets."
Draco swallows heavily. "They weren't supposed to get you. As soon as the Death Eaters appeared the Order was supposed to apparate in and whisk you away. But something went wrong. The Death Eaters came too early, or the Order too late. I'm not sure."
The betrayal that Tom feels in his gut has nothing to do with Draco. It's so strong that Hermione should be doubled over with it, but she stands tall as she turns to Remus.
"I trusted you," she whispers, voice strained. "With everything. I looked up to you."
Implicit trust isn't something Tom ever had. From his very first memories he knows he had always been very skeptical of those around him.
But Hermione, as guarded and cautious as she is with other people, has always been different than him. Like the walls she put up were artificial, made out of necessity rather than convenience.
Hermione had never trusted Tom. But she had wanted to. She desperately wants to see the good in everyone she crosses paths with, so much so that she's down here, listening to Draco as he explains why her torture was ncessary.
Remus, to Tom's surprise, meets her stare. His eyes shine with unshed tears and he makes no excuses as he breathes, "I'm sorry."
She turns away from him sharply, as if he'd slapped her. Tom can see it, how his remorse and genuine distress in this moment are more harmful than anything else.
It's easy to dismiss people when they're hateful and crude. When they sneer and claim selfishness. But Remus is none of that, and his guilt and regret are real.
But still, Remus had looked at Hermione and decided her safety was worth the risk. That she was not important enough to know the truth, even when it all blew up spectacularly.
It was a hard truth to accept. Even as an outsider.
She steps towards Draco.
"So you just watched, then? All those hours? Everytime Bellatrix brought me to the edge of death just to grant me a small reprieve, for me to never know if I was going to get out of there?"
Draco presses his lips together. "I needed to keep my cover. It killed me to do it. I would have done anything to help—"
"But you didn't," Hermione cut in, twirling her wand. "Do anything, that is."
She saunters towards him with all the confidence in the world, somehow in her element. Seduction and torture, they're really not all that different. It's no wonder Hermione excels at both.
"They would have killed me," Draco insists. "Both of us. By standing back, I saved both of us."
Hermione places her hands on his knees and levels her eyes with his. "I would rather have died than watched you be tortured to near madness." Her hand connected with his face, a sharp crack echoing into the room.
And that was it. Her decision had been made.
She walks away, stopping only once by Remus' desk. "If you let him live, I will find a way to destroy you and the Order. Draco is my hard line, and I will not be merciful if I don't get what I want."
---
Hermione asks for space. She heads up to her room, leaving Tom and Harry at the door of the basement to explain to all the waiting faces.
"It's simple," Tom says easily. "Draco dies, or Hermione leaves."
The room is silent. The group is mostly the same that had attended Tom's first mission, and very few seem caught off guard. Only Cho and Lavender, standing up front with stony faces, are aware of what Hermione leaving might entail.
Beside him, Harry stands silently. Undecided? Tom can't tell. He doesn't know him well enough.
He catches Cho and Lavender's eyes. Chucks his chin at Abraxas and drags Harry to a smaller room.
Harry turns to him as soon as the door shuts behind them and they're shrouded in privacy.
"She doesn't mean it," he says immediately. Tom rolls his eyes. "She can't mean it."
"Mean what?" Abraxas asks. "Is she okay?"
"She's negotiating." Tom looks at all of them. "Which is a lot more than the Order deserves."
Cho crosses her arms over her chest. "Explain."
There's a command to her tone that reminds him all too much of Hermione, but a bit more present. Like it comes more natural to her.
"She's threatening to destroy the Order if Remus doesn't kill Draco." Harry runs a hand through his hair.
"Remus betrayed Hermione," Tom snaps. "He's lucky she's giving him a chance at life."
"Hermione's not like that. Not like you."
Tom steps closer. Harry levels his chin as Tom towers over him, eyes boring into his.
"If you believe Hermione isn't justified in wanting Draco punished after what he did to her, your morality is just as twisted as mine."
Harry clenches his jaw. "There's been enough bloodshed. And he didn't see another way."
Tom feels that same irrepressible magic begin to swirl and he opens his mouth— whether to yell at Harry or to curse him— when Abraxas steps in.
"Picture it," he begins slowly, pushing his hands into his pockets. "You're captured and brought to Malfoy Manor with Hermione. Put in the corner of the room and forced to watch. Tell me," he walks forward, a brow raised as if in challenge. "Do you stay silent? Watch from the corner as your best friend writhes and screams on the ground?"
Harry's fists clench, but his expression remains stony. "Draco had a cover to keep."
"Would you do it?" Abraxas presses. "Watch as Hermione suffers?"
Harry doesn't respond, so Abraxas leans in closer, teeth bared. "Before you answer, just remember if the roles were reversed, she would choose you. Everytime."
Abraxas turns away, but before he can take a step Harry's hand shoots out and grabs him by the shoulder.
"I wouldn't stand there."
Abraxas doesn't move. "Even if you were undercover?"
Harry's fingers twitch, tightening for a moment and then lifting completely. "It wouldn't matter."
"And what do you think we should do with Draco?" Tom asks.
Harry isn't like the others. There is misery and bitterness in him, fed by the war like a starving child, but there's brightness too. Some brand of innocence the others had long ago had burned out of them.
But he hesitates. Mouth open, eyebrows furrowed, expression unsure. It's all Tom needs.
"Hermione or Draco," Tom says simply, backing away. "Make your choice. Hermione wouldn't hesitate to make hers."
---
The other members are easier. Cho and Lavender require absolutely no words. Dean drags Seamus up to Hermione's room less than an hour after Tom finishes with Harry to voice his support. Several red haired siblings vow to diligently stand by her side.
"You should go down and speak to Remus," Tom says. Hermione's head is in his lap and he runs his fingers through her hair. The tears that streaked her face earlier have been scrubbed away, but the tension in her shoulders remains.
"Remus was like a father to me. Did you know that?"
His hand stops moving. He forgets sometimes. Hermione is strong and ruthless in magic, and he can never let that go. But she saves her sharp tongue for special occasions only.
"What happened to you parents?"
"I obliviated them." She stares straight ahead at the wall, littered with successful mission reports. The words ring hollow. Emotionless. "When Voldemort came back. They live off the continent now."
"Safe?"
She nods. "Happy, too. They don't need their daughter for that, I suppose."
Tom presses his lips together. He doesn't know anything about parents. Had never even had a stand in Like Hermione did. "You should talk to Remus."
She turns her head to stare up at him. "You don't want him dead too?"
There are no words to explain how Tom isn't sure he can harbor any resentment towards Remus or Lavender. He's tried— craving that anger as a source of energy, especially in those days after the full moon.
"I understand why he did it."
Hermione doesn't recoil or slap him. Merely waits for him to explain.
"I could feel his guilt." More than guilt. It was a crippling self resentment at the choices he made. "I think he could be convinced to join our side."
Hermione raises her brows. "Our side?"
"The side for change," he says. He means it, but she rolls her eyes.
"A new Ministry with policies that make sense. A judicial system that is run by more than the Purebloods that want to keep it the exact same."
A small smile pulls at her lips. "That sounds nice," she teases.
"I mean it. And you have an entire crew behind you ready to fight for you if Remus makes the wrong decision. You think they'll stop at Draco?"
She twists her lips to the side. Tom wants so desperately to kiss her. To put her back together the way she deserves. "I'm tired. And I think they are, too."
"Done fighting, then?"
He tries to imagine Hermione settled down. Living in a remote location, far away from the excitement. A baby on her hip, one toddling around on the floor. A quiet man coming home to enjoy the peace with her. A person more willing than he is to give up on his dreams for love.
A deep, devious smirk lights up her face. "Far from it."
Tom can't help it. He leans in and presses his lips against hers.
No, he wouldn't need to give up his dreams for Hermione. Their paths intertwine.