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the-ficus-man-blog · 6 years ago

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Oooooh, I love it

“Just tell me this: do monsters create wars or do wars create monsters” - Tomione, fenrmione, or thormione (your choice)

(a/n: big, BIG Thanks to kyoki for sending a bunch of awesome prompts. I promise I’ll get to them all eventually. I had to go with Tomione for this one because it’s my bread and butter–hopefully you’ll like it!)

Hermione dangled in the air, body limp and beyond her control, hands held high above her head by some invisible spell. She didn’t know how long she’d been there, suspended and helpless, but she could no longer feel her arms.

Probably a blessing, she thought. When—and there was no doubt in her mind about what was coming—whichever Death Eater came to torture her or kill her, maybe the numbness in her limbs would spare her the worst of their pain. She would not be granted a quick death. There were none in the Dark Lord’s army who would be so merciful.

The best she could hope for was a proud death. I will not beg for death. I will not give them the satisfaction.

She repeated the mantra in her head until the door behind her clicked, followed by soft, near-silent footsteps. Her executioner came to stand before her, and Hermione’s heart caught in her throat.

Tom—or, truthfully, she should call him Voldemort now. He had not gone by any other name in a long, long time. He stood in front of her, wand twirling effortlessly between his pale fingers.

“So it comes to this,” he said. If Hermione believed he was capable of any real sentiment, she might have thought him almost regretful. Whatever it was he felt—if he felt anything at all—was but a shadow of true emotion.

He was nothing like the boy from the diary—whom she’d only ever met through Harry’s memories—and there was little left of the man that Hermione had first found when she’d fallen through time. That man, for all his faults, had been all fire, a visionary, a revolutionist. Someone she had managed to love, however twisted it had felt at the time.

Whatever humanity Tom had had slipped sometime in the past twenty years, leaving only the cold, the vicious, the gruesome.

Oh he still looked human enough—dark hair, human skin, eyes that were blue and not red. Maybe that was why she had trouble thinking of him as Voldemort. The Voldemort of her time had looked as wicked ugly on the outside as he was within. This man could still play pretend, could still turn her knees to jelly and steal her breath with only a smile. And he had. He had used everything he possessed to his advantage.

It still hadn’t been enough to sway her to his side. That was her one and only victory.

“We didn’t have to be enemies, Hermione.” The tip of his wand caressed the side of her face. She could not flinch away even if she wanted to—her body would not obey her. “Such a bright witch, a prodigious talent. I could have made you great.”

Merlin, but she’d forgotten how he liked to monologue.

“You would have wanted for nothing.”

A faint smile flickered across her lips. She almost felt sorry for him; he thought he told the truth, thought he could give her everything she desired. As if he knew what happiness was or how to give it.

“You were the only one worthy of sitting at my right hand. I would have remade the world with you.”

“You would destroy it,” she said, voice weak but steady. How many times had she tried to steer him away from this bloodshed and failed? He could see no change without chaos.

“Only in the eyes of the weak.” He gripped her chin. “But you have always been chained by your morals. I could have freed you, if you would’ve let me.”

“You wanted to put me in different chains,” she corrected, not ungently. It was a kindness he did not deserve—had never deserved—but even now she could not summon enough hate to snap and snarl. Where there should have been anger, she had only grief.

He smirked. “There was a time when you wanted to belong to me, Hermione. Do not pretend otherwise.”

It only stung because it was true. She should have known better, but in the early days, when she was fresh from the war back home, it was easy to think that this Tom was better—could be better—than the Voldemort she knew. It had been easy to think they were not the same man when they did not look or act or speak the same.

And she had desperately wanted something to hope for.

What a silly little fool she’d been back then.

“You used to be someone worth wanting.”

His hand dropped from her chin to her neck in an instant, squeezing the air from her lungs. Funny, she thought, that he always resorts to muggle violence when he’s angriest. For a moment, she thought he might actually kill her like this. Her vision blurred, black and purple sprouting up behind her eyelids, and even her non-responsive body gave a violent twitch at the lack of air.

Just as quickly, he stepped back, breathing deeply as he tried to regain his composure. Hermione sucked in air. It burned on her throat, in her lungs.

“You’ve made it plenty clear what you think of me now,” he said, and Hermione was proud at how ragged he sounded. That she had reduced the ever-cool Lord Voldemort to this. “Just tell me this, Hermione: do monsters create wars or do wars create monsters?”

She frowned. What did he want? Her forgiveness? For her to pardon him? It was far too late for that.

“I know you create both,” she rasped, throat stinging. “What does that make you?”

He laughed suddenly, anger forgotten as his eyes lit up in delight. Victorious.

“God.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, angry at the tears that threatened to spill over. How had she ever thought he could be changed? How had she thought she could temper his ambitions?

“If you’re going to kill me, you should probably get on with it,” she said when she finally opened her eyes again. “I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“Kill you?” he asked, almost incredulous. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Dread curdled in the pit of her stomach as his hand came up to cradle her face. It was too tender a gesture for someone who gleefully murdered the innocent. Someone who reveled in the blood on his hands.

“I’m going to make you watch as I make the world you tried to keep me from.” He pressed his lips to her jaw, still far too gentle. “And when I’m done, you will love it.”

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