Disclaimer:
Really. I swear. None of it is mine.
A/N: This is quite possibly the most
messed up thing I have ever written in my entire life. I do not condone abusive
relationships, and this is no way in support of violence. Wallowing in guilt is
the highest form of selfishness. Don’t copy either of their examples. Lyrics
from Garbage’s Use Me. One of their
awesome songs, I love love love that band. Please don’t hate me for this story,
Emily…
“See ya
later, Mione. Take care of yourself.”
The last
words she had heard him say before he had taken a Killing Curse for her in the
midst of battle. She had been fighting Dolohov, and all of a sudden Lucius
Malfoy had just shot a jet of green light at her, and she was shielding against
Dolohov’s Stupefy and she could see
it coming but there was no time to do anything, no way to duck, and she could
see death staring her in the face—
And there
was a blur of red and a hoarse shout and the next thing she saw was Ron’s blue
eyes staring blankly up at the sky.
Dead. He was
dead. He wasn’t ever going to laugh in that way he had when he checkmated Dean,
or bicker with her over whether or not he should do his homework, or get all
fired up over the latest Quidditch moves. And it was all because of her.
All her
fault.
***
“We did it,
Hermione! We won! That’ll show them, those—”
And his eyes
bulged as his hand flew up to the scar that was slowly widening, tearing the
skin of his forehead apart, so gradually that she could see the threads of skin
fraying until they snapped and twisted apart. Blood burst in an arc of scarlet
and flew everywhere, spattering everyone with small droplets of red. A hoarse,
animalistic scream tore from his throat as his knees crumpled and he fell to
the ground, clutching at his forehead, a horrible scream that no teenager
should have been capable of making.
“Harry—Harry,
God, Harry, answer me, are you all right, hold on for just a while longer,
please, Madam Pomfrey’s on her way, Harry, Harry, please, for God’s sake, Harry…”
His glasses
flew off his nose and went careening into the ground, landing at a crazy angle
with one of the earpieces tilted beyond repair. Shattered glass was scattered
in the near vicinity of the black wire frame, and, mechanically, she Banished
it so that no one would step on it.
His
struggles were weakening, and his thrashing grew smaller, but the flow of blood
seemed never-ending, scarlet against his pale, pale face. Green eyes slowly
fluttered open, and he gave a sort of smile, giving a laugh which ended into a
wretched gasping racking cough as a bubble of blood slowly emerged from his
half-open mouth.
“Harry?”
She watched
as the boy with whom she had eaten together, studied together, laughed
together, fought together collapsed in on himself and died, his body only an
empty shell of what had been, and it was all because of her.
Because of
her faulty spell. They said later that it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t have
known, the spell had killed Voldemort after all, hadn’t it? She had created a
spell to kill the greatest Dark Lord in centuries, she should be proud, she
couldn’t have known.
I should have known! She shouted at them.
And it was
all her fault.
***
Use me, I’m beautiful
Take
me, I’m yours
Hurt
me, it feels like medicine
And
all I deserve.
“I don’t
understand, Hermione. Why would you do this to yourself?” Ginny stared at the
bruises freshly forming on her friend’s face where her lover had smacked her on
the face in a fit of temper.
“I love
him,” she whispered, and knew she was lying.
“This—this
isn’t right. There are therapists for this kind of thing. You should at least
live apart for a while, if not break up all together. And—you promised me you’d
never have sex before marriage! What happened to you?”
“War,” she
whispered, and hurried away. Draco would be furious if she was late.
She was, and
he was. He snarled at her, incomprehensible litany of fury and hate and
contempt, and she stood there and took it, no, loved it, reveled in it, begged
for more as his hand flew through the air and collided with her face, a large,
open slap that left her reeling. Moaning, she leaned into the impact even as
gravity made her lurch away, and his face twisted.
“You love
it, don’t you, you filthy Mudblood whore?” he said, voice low and twisted
beyond recognition. “I could take you, right now, on the floor, pound into you
until you were bleeding, and you’d just beg for more.”
“Yes…” she
moaned.
His face
contorted with rage and something else, something she couldn’t place, and leapt
at her, sending her crashing to the floor even as his hands tore and tugged at
her clothing.
And when he
was through, she staggered to where her clothes lay on the floor and dressed
herself slowly, mindful of her bruises and soreness, and managed a few cleaning
and glamour charms before lurching out the door. Draco watched her with aloof
gray eyes that somehow seemed so incredibly sad.
***
They were
married. The Weasleys refused to come to the wedding, saying they could not
condone her marriage to an abusive husband. The Malfoys refused to come, saying
they would not disown their son, as it would cause too much of a fuss, but that
they could not condone his marriage to a Mudblood.
The only
people there was the wizard marrying them and Remus and Tonks, who thought that
they were seriously messed up and should seek counseling but were still, after
all, their friends.
When they
got home, Draco seemed strangely reluctant to fuck her as usual, saying he was
tired. He overlooked the fact that she burned the food slightly and glared at
him all throughout the meal, but when she deliberately called him a bastard to
his face, the familiar rage flared in his eyes, and he threw her against the
wall. He fucked her hard and thoroughly, all the while muttering his string of
abuse into her ear. “You want this, don’t
you. You make me do this. I hate you, you goddamn bitch. You make me sick.”
When he was through with her, he spat and turned on his heel, but he wasn’t
quick enough to disguise the sheen shimmering on his face.
It was a
destructive spiral, her guilt and his love, her need and his hate, twisting
them all in a desperate circle downwards, forever downwards toward their impending
doom, one they could not escape, not now. He came to her in the middle of the
night and screamed at her, and she leaned forward into his violence that drew
her like a fly to a lamp. He screamed at her and cried for her and leaned
forward into her indifference that he tried desperately to imagine into love.
He loved
her; she needed him; he hated her; she wanted him. He watched her cry with avid
obsession, scooping up her tears with one fingertip and tasting them on his
tongue, compensation for all the tears he cried alone. She watched him strive
for her love and let him cry into the night with the righteous satisfaction of
one well avenged for the pain he gave her, the pain she needed and the pain she
hated him for.
They
delighted in each other’s pain.
***
Oh
what a crazy time
I’ve
been a fool
On
a wild ride to oblivion
I
lost my mind.
Wizards and
witches live a long time, and their bodies, though aged, really don’t
deteriorate as quickly as Muggles do, not until the very end of their lives, a
fact proved by Albus Dumbledore’s surprising nimble agility. Hermione and Draco
could have lived until they were approximately a hundred and thirty, something
Remus and Tonks continually reminded them as they visited and saw Draco’s wan
face, Hermione’s bruises, the circles beneath both their eyes. They were slowly
dying, when they were not even quite forty, young even for nonmagical folks,
unbelievably so for wizards.
Surprisingly,
or perhaps not so, Draco gave out first, and he rarely, if ever, got up from
his bed. Though this meant he could no longer give her the pain she so
desperately craved to assuage the guilt, she couldn’t just leave him, some last
lingering remnant of Gryffindor morals compelling her to stay and look after
him. He cursed her, a stream of vituperation forever on his lips. It sounded
like music to her ears.
He demanded,
“Why don’t you leave? Haven’t I done enough to you already?”
She only
laughed, a bitter, dead sort of laugh, and shook her head.
He woke her
up in the middle of the night. “Hermione,” he said. Her name sounded strange on
his lips. “Hermione, I’m dying.”
She stared
at him as the moonlight bathed his face, all sharp silver angles and hollow
cheekbones. What was she supposed to do, to say? She hadn’t loved him—had never
loved him, only instinctively sought him out as the only acquaintance she had
who could give her the life she needed. She had needed him—still did. But she
had never felt anything for him.
His grip on
her wrist tightened spasmodically, and he drew her close to him. “Why?” he
asked in a whisper.
She stared
at him, uncomprehending.
“I loved
you, you know. I would have done anything for you.”
Shock rushed
through her veins, a roaring in her ears. The world spun around her, fell away,
crashed into dust, as she stared at him, her gaze affixed there by some strange
compelling.
“But all you
wanted me to do…” he broke off in a fit of coughing. “All you wanted me to do
was fuck you. Hit you. Hurt you. So I
did it. I would do anything for you. And you hated me for it.
“But you
begged me to, deliberately provoked me to, made me a monster. And I couldn’t
even blame you, because what kind of man would do that to a woman, no matter
what she did? I was a monster, just like they all said, and the Order was right
not to trust me. They should have put me in Azkaban. Remus should never have
testified at my trial. But then I justified myself by saying you would just
have found someone else, someone worse, someone who at least wouldn’t love you
like I did.”
She just
kept staring at him, horror filling her face as what she had known was laid out
in bare bones for her to realize what she had done to him with her
indifference.
“My God…”
the incredulous whisper dropped dead in the silence that somehow muted it all.
“And I
didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe—but you
never loved me back.”
And then she
started screaming, a high pitched scream that kept going on and on and on and
on, even as he gave a last sigh, even as she watched his eyes grow blank, even
as they came and took him away, even as they put her in St. Mungo’s, a awful
scream that echoed forever within the confines of her mind, all the echoes of
the guilt which had ruined her life and his.
We never said
(regretting)
We wish we said (something)
We should have said
(regretting)
We could've said
(something)
