a/n: A reminder that this story does have a happy ending. Keep going.
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Chapter 29: The Killers
Theo was supporting all of Granger's weight by the time he got them to Nott Manor. Theo himself hadn't spent much time there recently, but hey - it was fucking his now, wasn't it?
So much darkness around him and all he wanted to do was laugh until he threw up.
"It's okay," he coaxed her, turning her and awkwardly wrapping his long arms around her narrow, shaking shoulders. "It's okay."
"I'm fine," she said mechanically, and the metallic quality to her voice felt wrong to him. So very, very wrong.
"You're not fine," he said brusquely, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length. "You know what you've done, right? You know what just happened?"
She blinked at him.
"Draco," she said, as if that were enough.
Fuck, Granger. If only that were enough.
"Come with me," he said, grabbing her arm roughly and leading her down the hall.
"Where are we going?" she mumbled, stumbling over her own feet. Theo was half dragging her, and he might have felt bad about it if he weren't completely certain she was still in shock.
"Bathroom," he said, not looking back. "Have to clean you up."
"I don't want to," she replied, shivering.
"Don't fucking care," he retorted, swallowing the regret that bubbled in his gut from handling her so aggressively in her fragile state. "You're getting blood all over my fucking expensive floors."
"Blood?" she asked, and he stopped.
"Blood," he repeated, holding her hands in front of her face so that she could see them.
Her eyes widened.
"Theo - "
"Shower," he said, grabbing her arm again and yanking her into the bathroom. Sorry, Draco, he thought, but she fucking needs it.
"Get in," he told her, waving his wand and turning it on. "Now."
She looked at him helplessly. "I'm fully dressed."
"Then undress yourself," he told her.
She looked pained.
"Or don't," he said, shrugging, and gently pushed her inside.
She didn't even argue. That's how far gone she was. She stood in the shower fully clothed, her face tilted up towards the steady stream of water, the blood trailing into her hair. She still gripped the wand. She still didn't move.
Fuck. He was going to have to keep an uncomfortably close eye on her, wasn't he?
"Listen," he said, getting in and turning her to face him. They were both soaked through within seconds, but he found it strangely cleansing. "You need to let me help you."
"Help me with what?" she mumbled, closing her eyes.
"You need to face this," he told her, sighing heavily and starting to scrub at the skin that was showing - her cheeks, her neck, her wrists. "One killer to another," he added, feeling the gravity of that statement settle into the pit of his stomach. "Trust me. Let me help you."
"Killer," she repeated, opening her eyes.
"Yes," he said, pointing his wand at her fingernails. "Scourgify."
There. Now her hands were clean.
"You killed my father," he commented, bending to remove her shoes. "Did you notice?"
"Your father?"
Fuck, she was totally adrift.
He remembered the look on her face when he'd seen her after Draco had been hit by Potter's curse; she'd been covered in blood then, too. He remembered how vacant her eyes were.
Perhaps she did not deal too well with trauma.
"Yes," he said firmly, tossing her shoes onto the bathroom floor and standing. "You killed my father." He studied her, eyeing the multiple layers of clothes now clinging to her slender, shivering body, wondering where he should draw the line. "Do you want to take off the rest of this?" he asked, waving his hand vaguely over her general area.
She blinked, dazed. "I don't remember it," she told him, presumably about his father. She looked down at her hands. "Am I bleeding?"
"No," he said, inhaling sharply. "This isn't your blood."
"Whose blood, then?" she asked, and despite the insanity of the question, the brief flicker of recognition that appeared in her eye seemed human. Theo relaxed a bit.
"Take these off," he said, gesturing to her muggle trousers. "I won't look, if that makes you feel better."
It wasn't sexual, anyway. There was nothing sexual here.
She obediently bent to unbutton them, removing the heavy, slick material that had clearly suctioned itself uncomfortably to her legs.
"Whose blood?" she repeated, holding the pants in her hands. Theo took them from her, blindly tossing them in the direction of her shoes.
"Gonna go ahead and get rid of these," he muttered to himself. "Um." He studied her. "A lot of people." She was blinking vacantly. "What do you remember?"
She seemed mentally stuck, somehow, and he sighed again, unzipping the sweater she wore and peeling it from her shoulders.
"Talk to me, Gr- Hermione," he said, catching himself. "Keep talking."
"He wanted to go," she said, her arms dangling limply as Theo ripped the sweater over them and then placed them atop his shoulders, yanking her shirt over her head.
"Who?" he grunted, trying to keep her talking despite his wrestling match with her clothes. "Draco?"
"Yes," she whispered, and then blinked. "He's - "
Gone.
"I know," he told her, and to his shame, he felt thick buds of hot, stinging tears well up behind his eyes. "Later, okay? Tell me in order."
"I'm sorry," she told him, and he saw it again, the faint glimmer of her that reappeared in her eyes.
"Don't," he managed, swallowing, choking back his own anguish to deal with hers. "Just tell me what happened."
"His mother," she said faintly. "The Dark Lord had his mother."
The way she said it made Theo feel like she was parroting Draco's own words from somewhere inside her head; surely she had never referred to Voldemort as the Dark Lord before, at least not of her own volition.
"Right," Theo said, nodding. He turned her around, conjured some soap, and started scrubbing her hair. He had to get the blood out. He couldn't let her go on like this. "Was it a trap?"
"Yes," she said, her head bobbing slightly as he roughly massaged her scalp. "A trap. In the ballroom."
"Why did you go?" Theo asked. "Why were all three of you there?"
"Love him," she said simply.
No arguments.
"The Dark Lord killed Draco," Theo prompted.
"No," she said, and she turned to face him. "No. Lucius."
"Lucius?" Theo echoed, suddenly irate. "No." Should have killed him that day in the cellar. "No."
"Lucius," she said, nodding. There was a brilliant flush to her cheeks now, and he realized that she, too, was angry.
Good. Feel something, Granger. You need to feel it.
"Then what?" Theo asked, still absentmindedly running his fingers through her hair. Almost clean. "What happened next?"
"Narcissa," Granger said. "Threw herself in front of us."
"You were under some kind of spell, right?" Theo asked, furrowing his brow. "That's why you couldn't do anything?"
"Yes," Granger said. "Silencing spell. Paralysis."
"What happened?" Theo pressed. "Why could you suddenly move?"
"Narcissa," she repeated, and for a moment he thought it was nonsense, that perhaps her mind was on some kind of mindless track of redundant, one-word answers, but she continued. "Harry lived because his mother died to save him," she explained, and Theo felt his lungs relax at the complexity of the full sentence. "I think we survived because Narcissa died to save us."
That swotty tone. She was almost back.
"Okay," Theo said. "So his curses didn't work on you?"
"They didn't stick," she agreed, her forehead creasing. She was likely only now realizing what had happened. It had been that way for him, too. Gregorovitch. Grindelwald. Same thing. "I had to get to his wand."
"The wand," Theo remembered, and realized it was still in her hand. "This wand. What is it?"
"The Elder Wand," she said, and then her eyes went wide. "Why I had to kill Lucius."
"That wasn't just revenge?" he asked, and she blinked.
"No," she pronounced slowly. "The wand. You have to earn it." She looked curiously at it, turning it over in her palm. "You have to make it yours."
Theo frowned. "So - "
"Lucius disarmed Draco," Granger explained, her voice clipped. "I had to get rid of him to possess it."
Fuck, she was terrifying. Blinded with grief and still capable of master manipulation.
"You killed Lucius," he said. "Your first kill."
"Second," she reminded him. "Dumbledore."
"Right," Theo said, nodding. "First of the day, though."
"Avada is bloodless," she realized, and then started to panic. "My god, oh my god, Theo - all this blood - "
Hysteria. Another thing he was familiar with.
"Stop," he told her, pulling her into his grip. She tried to push him away but he held tight, his arms unyielding as he held her. Not a hug. Not compassion. A means of containment. To suppress the panic. To repress it.
She fought him for a good couple of minutes, but then slowly let her shoulders droop.
"Theo, what did I do?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But it was a lot more than Avada."
"I did that," she said, her words restrained and deliberate, but he could hear a shadow of regret slowly reach her voice.
"There you are," he said, pulling away to look at her. "Feel it, Hermione. You have to feel it."
"I don't want to," she whispered. "I can't - "
"Do you feel yourself coming apart?" he asked her. "Do you feel the tearing inside you?"
"Yes," she gasped. She looked at him. "How did you know?"
"I told you," he said, teeth gritted. "One killer to another."
"What - "
"Your soul," he told her. "Your soul is - I don't know. I can't explain it, but - "
"It's ripping, isn't it?" she asked, a haunting look on her face. "It's damaged now."
Fight it, Granger.
"You have to feel it," he said again. "I don't know what else to tell you - you just have to feel it. You have to feel everything."
"But - "
"You have to stay whole," he told her. "You have to find a way to stay whole."
Finally, tears appeared in her eyes.
"There you are," he whispered again, roughly tilting her face up to watch her regain her humanity. "There you are."
"I don't want to be whole," she said, her voice breaking. "I don't - I don't want to - "
"You told me you could bring Draco back," he reminded her, and now his own voice felt strange. "You told me you'd bring him back, and he'll want you to be whole."
"What do I do?" she sobbed, grabbing onto his arms and doubling over. "What do I do?"
"Come to terms with what you've done," Theo said flatly. "You killed a lot of people. You threatened Potter."
"No," she gasped, starting to hyperventilate. "No - "
Best to get out of the water under these shitty breathing circumstances. He flicked his wand, removing the water, drying her off, wrapping her in a towel, crushing her under his grip.
"Stay with me," he warned, shaking her a bit. Don't regress. "Stay with me."
"I didn't - what - what was I doing - "
"You needed something from Potter," he reminded her. "Remember? You needed something."
"The stone," she said, her breathing ragged. "The Hallows."
He let her gasp a few more times, waiting until her chest stopped heaving, before he asked the inevitable question.
"What," he began slowly, "are the fucking Hallows?"
"The Elder Wand," she said, raising it in her right hand. "The Resurrection Stone. The Cloak of Invisibility."
He desperately fought every instinct to laugh. "The Tale of the Three Brothers?" he burst out, choking in disbelief. "Those?"
"Where are the other two?" she asked, suddenly jerking her head up.
"Right there," he said, turning her so she could see where he'd placed them, right outside the shower. "But seriously, that's - that's a fucking children's story - "
"Vold- " she looked at him, biting her lip. "Is there still a taboo?"
"Doubtful," he said, shrugging. "After Greyback went missing, no scavengers wanted any part of it. Besides," he added. "The Dark Lord certainly won't be showing his face here anytime soon, not after the fucking fireworks show you put on earlier."
She suddenly attempted to pull from his grasp. "He's alive!" she shrieked, launching herself forward as though she meant to hunt him down, now, to blindly tear him limb from limb. "He's still alive - how, how did he escape - "
"Yes, yes, he's alive," Theo tutted impatiently, yanking her back to his chest. "Stop trying to fight me. Stop it."
"I have to find him," she hissed, and he saw something manic in her gaze. "I have to find him, I have to destroy him, I have to make him pay for what he's done - "
"You fucking will, okay?" Theo snorted. "But put some clothes on first."
She glared at him, and then she relaxed.
"Damn, Hermione," he said, slowly releasing her once he felt certain she'd regained control. "You're fucking terrifying."
"The prophecy," she said hoarsely. "If the Malfoy heir falls, someone else - someone else will take over - "
Ah, so she knew about that.
"Yeah," Theo said, fighting an eye roll. "I'm pretty sure that bit has come to pass."
"What do you mean?" she asked, flipping to face him. "Who is it? Who - "
He blinked at her.
"You do know what's in the prophecy, right?" he asked, not sure what to make of her reaction.
Was it denial? Was she still in shock?
"Draco" - she broke off, her face contorted in anguish, and then he knew for sure it wasn't shock - "he said that there would be a 'great and terrible power' if he were to fall - " She gaped at Theo. "I assumed it was Voldemort, right? Who else - "
Fuck.
She caught the look on his face. "What?" she demanded. "What is it?"
"Draco didn't tell you the full prophecy," Theo said flatly, shaking his head in disbelief.
Draco must have suspected it was Granger all along; why else would he hide it from her?
"I - I thought he might have left something out," she admitted, frowning. "He and Harry - they were keeping something from me - "
"The prophecy is about a woman," Theo hastily explained, irrationally furious at Draco for once again forcing him to deliver bad news on his behalf. "An outsider, 'born of another world,' - " He stopped. "Here, listen to it yourself," he offered, picking up her wand hand and gesturing to his forehead.
She nodded. "Legilimens."
He heard the shrill voice echo in his head, a second-hand memory from Snape.
"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD DOES NOT TRAVEL ALONE. THE EVENTS ONCE PROPHESIED ARE POISED FOR DISRUPTION. THE OUTSIDER BORN OF ANOTHER WORLD IS NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS . . . ETERNALLY UNDERESTIMATED, SHE IS NOT THE IDLE THREAT THAT SHE APPEARS . . . SHOULD THE MALFOY HEIR FALL, A POWER GREATER AND MORE TERRIBLE THAN THIS WORLD HAS EVER BORNE WITNESS WILL BE HERS . . . THE CHOSEN ONE WILL FAIL BUT THE DARK LORD WILL FALL INTO OBSCURITY . . . HIS DESTROYER WILL BECOME HERSELF A CONDUIT OF CHAOS AND SUFFERING . . . BEWARE . . . THE ONE YOU NEED IS NOT THE ONE YOU SEEK . . . THERE WILL BE GREAT SUFFERING FOR ALL, SHOULD THE MALFOY HEIR FALL . . . "
When he opened his eyes, her face was ghostly pale.
"He thought it was me," she said breathlessly. "He thought - " she broke off. "He thought I could - "
"Personally, I thought it was Narcissa," Theo admitted. "Maybe it would have been, under other circumstances."
She glanced sharply at him. "What do you mean?"
"I know a guy that's dabbled a bit in prophecies," Theo drawled, imagining the look on Severus's face at the heinous understatement. "Told me they don't really have any meaning until someone acts in a way that makes it self-fulfilling."
She frowned. "What?"
"Nevermind," he said quickly, waving it away. "My point is that if the Dark Lord hadn't done everything he did - killed Draco and then Narcissa, in that order - it might not have been you. But," he added, leaning heavily on the word, "now that events have played out this way, I'm not sure we can deny that the events are already set in motion."
"That's what Draco said," she murmured. "'You have no idea what you've set in motion'."
"Obviously," Theo began airily, "if your suspicions are correct and the Hallows are - I don't know, whatever the fuck you think they are - then you do possess 'a power greater and more terrible than this world has ever borne witness,' wouldn't you say?"
"'The Chosen One will fail, but the Dark Lord will fade into obscurity'," she repeated, humming thoughtfully to herself. "What do you think that means?"
Theo shrugged. "Don't know," he admitted. "Don't think it's worth it to think about."
By the anxious, skittish look on her face, she clearly disagreed.
"Was Draco afraid of me?" she gasped suddenly. "Was he - "
"No," Theo said sternly. "Don't spiral. You know he wasn't."
"Then why - "
"Ask him yourself," Theo told her bluntly, shrugging. Perhaps the more he said it, the more possible it would become. "You said you could bring him back, Granger. So tuck that little thought in your pocket for later, and fucking ask him yourself."
This time, she didn't flinch when he used her surname, though she went silent for a few moments.
"This is my fault," she said, suddenly reticent. "I made a mistake when I pulled Draco into this." She sighed. "He didn't want to be part of this war, and I forced him into it."
Funny, Theo thought humorlessly. She accepted the guilt of murder with barely a second thought but it's this she can't forgive herself.
"Not true," he told her. "He needed to make a choice, and he did."
"I should never have dragged him into this," she repeated, more vehemently this time. "Narcissa was right - I should have been selfish, I should have insisted we just get out - "
"No," Theo interrupted. "If there's one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that the decisions you make have to be about more than just one person."
"But - "
"Don't interrupt," he snapped, admonishing her with a gravely pointed finger. "You can't live in this world and pretend there's not something wrong with it." He gave her a very stern glare, the most authoritative look that he could muster. "You can't have honestly expected Draco to just stand by and watch you try to survive in the same world where everyone like you was being hunted down and tortured."
She looked away, pained. "Still."
"Don't," Theo warned. "There are a lot of things you need to feel. Regret is one of them, but not for this," he scolded. "You could never have prevented him from going. You couldn't have stopped him."
"I know," she said sadly. She seemed to droop, which wasn't helpful to Theo. He wanted her useful. He wanted her angry, if necessary; he wanted a fire lit under her, because if she mourned, he would be forced to do the same. Considering he hadn't dealt very well with Draco's death the first time around, he wasn't likely to do so now, either.
"Focus," he said, snapping his fingers. "Bring him back. What do you need?"
She bit her lip. "I don't know," she confessed. "I have to admit, I was never all that sure it was anything more than a children's story." She tilted her head. "I'll have to re-read it."
"I know that story through and through," Theo said, thinking. "Not sure it really reads as a how-to manual, but if anyone could figure it out, it's you."
That much was true. It wasn't flattery, though she seemed to appreciate the sentiment.
"Master of Death," she commented, her voice hushed. She shrugged. "Mistress of Death, I guess?"
"Master sounds better," Theo told her. "You're the Master of Death."
Smaller than he might have thought, looking her over. And yet, somehow, also scarier.
"A far cry from 'brightest witch of our age'," she muttered.
"Disagree," Theo said airily. "Two sides of the same coin, Granger."
She sighed. "You should call me Hermione, you know," she said gently.
He only managed to let a moment pass between them before the words bubbled to the surface.
"You're all I have left of him," Theo blurted out, hanging his head. "You're it."
Difficult to say. Harder to swallow.
"He thought of you as a brother, you know," Hermione said gently, reaching up to smooth her small hand through Theo's hair.
Conduit of chaos and suffering.
Nah.
"I think that makes you my sister," Theo said, gesturing to the M pendant around her neck.
She nodded tearfully, clutching the towel around her shoulders. "I've got nobody else."
"Neither do I," Theo said, alarming himself with an unexpected rush of affection. "Especially since you killed my father," he added, surprised by how little the statement affected him.
She looked down.
"I should be sorry, I know," she said hesitantly. "But Draco told me what he did to you."
Theo didn't blink. "He was a monster who won't be missed," he told her bluntly, and he meant it. "You've done the world a favor."
She eyed him carefully, tilting her head. "You've got a little darkness in you, don't you, Theo Nott?"
Ominous, coming from her.
"We've all got light and dark, Hermione," he told her seriously. "It's what we do with it that counts."
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a/n: Dedicated to pgoodrichboggs; thank you for your always thoughtful reviews. And waterproof88, for the beautiful Kafka quote that nearly made me cry. Always, a heartfelt thank you to everyone for reading.