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The Last Gift	By : AndreaLorraine Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 9746 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Author�s Note:� This was written for the Granger Enchanted
Diabolical Death Eaters Challenge.� It is
for Prompt #6: Under the pain of the Cruciatus Hermione displays her first wandless
magic and Disapparates away, landing in Knockturn Alley and into the warm arms of the enemy.
Some
of you may have read this over at GE � it was posted anonymously there for the
challenge.� I tied for 3^rd place.� I�m thinking of continuing the story; let me
know if you guys would read if I did. :)
======================================================
�� She prayed that it would stop.� It had been horrible the first time she
endured torture with the Cruciatus and she had hoped
that there would never be a second or third occurrence.� Now she was on the fourth.
�� Every inch of her body hurt.� She had no idea the human nervous system was
capable of transmitting so much pain.� Or
was it the brain that was capable of processing so much dreadful sensation?� Both.� Oh, God, it was both.
�� Another wave hit her.� She could hear Bellatrix
cackling madly.� There was none of the
panic that had pervaded their first encounter.�
No, now it was just pure sadism.�
Hermione screamed and screamed and screamed, uncaring of her
dignity.� There was none when she was
naked and bleeding on a dirty stone floor with a circle of twenty men and one
deranged woman standing around her.
�� The mudblood
is resilient,� someone commented.� A
collective chuckle went up around the circle.
�� Perhaps she likes it,� another
said.
�� Filth like that knows how it should
be treated,� Voldemort spat.
�� A week ago his words would have
angered her.� Now she was in survival
mode; the malicious sentiments were like clouds in the sky, distant and untouchable.� Even the stubborn Gryffindor rebelliousness
had been driven out of her.� Hermione lay
still, grateful for the momentary reprieve.�
Let them spout their bigotry�
�� Her semiconscious apathy was
interrupted when a spell lifted her upright.�
She could feel the eyes upon her.�
Hermione was young but not na�ve; she knew nearly all of those men would
love to torture her in another way.� She
could at least be thankful that the Dark Lord prohibited it.� She was below them, would infect them�thank
Merlin for their archaic prejudices.
�� Let us see how far the mudblood can go,� Bellatrix
giggled.� �I want to see her beg.�
�� Voldemort
stepped forward.� �You forget, Bella, she
has a purpose other than entertaining us with her squealing.�� Hermione�s eyes were unfocused but she
recognized the shadow of the Dark Lord towering over her.� �I will give you one more chance, mudblood.� Tell me
where Harry Potter is and I will ensure you a quick death.�
�� Hermione couldn�t have said anything
if she tried.� She had screamed her
throat raw.� She just stared up at the
sky, resigned.� She was going to
die.� The least she could do was die without telling them what they wanted to know.
�� Very well,� he hissed.� �Legilimens.��

At the same time, Bellatrix, hanging on
his arm, flicked her wrist.� �Crucio!�
�� Her eyes flew open even as he
breached her mind.� The Cruciatus felt like nothing compared to legilimency.� Harry had told her that Voldemort
could do this, that Snape had said one of his
favorite pastimes was to hack into people�s minds and drive them insane with
the blurring of truth and fiction�
�� She saw her parents.� Tortured, dead, bleeding, her mother begging
for mercy as a masked Death Eater raped her, her father writhing under the Cruciatus�and she knew tears were flowing down her
face.� It might be real.� If they had captured her so easily, there was
no reason they couldn�t get to her parents.�
If these bastards had�she had tried so hard to hide them!
�� Next it was Ron.� He was coughing up blood, choking on it, as
life left his eyes.� Then Harry, his
severed head upon a golden platter.� It
sat on a dining table where Voldemort was at the
head; as she watched, he stabbed one of those beautiful green eyes out with a
fork and tossed it to an owl�
�� She was screaming.� She didn�t know how to fend him off.� Eventually he would become tired of toying
with her and ravage her brain for the answers he wanted.� She would be helpless when he did.
�� It should have disheartened
her.� It should have made her so
frightened that she shut down.� Instead,
it made her angry.� All along he could
have done this.� In one simple spell, he
could have taken the information he wanted.�
Instead, he made a spectacle of her.�
He allowed her to be tortured, leered at, humiliated, and demeaned.
�� The anger permeated her body.� He was still presenting his horrific
slideshow in her mind, images of death and desperation flickering disjointedly
through her consciousness.� Rage was a
second party, though.� It found its way
in, tinged the edges of the illusions with bloody spots, and then �
�� The world careened in a sickening
circle.� There was pain and suffocation
and blackness.� Then
another cold stone floor.
�� Hermione gasped for breath, head
spinning.� She didn�t know what had just
happened.� Her eyes were still unreliable
but it was plain that there were no Death Eaters surrounding her.� The ground felt different, too, more uneven �
cobblestone?� Yes.� Oh, please let her be in Diagon
Alley, please�
�� The full weight of it didn�t hit her
immediately.� She had just apparated wandlessly.� Wandlessly, and without one of the 3 D�s.� She had no destination in mind, just an
overwhelming desire to get away, and
away she was.� Hermione propped up on her
palms and breathed, listening to the silence.
�� No, she didn�t understand the true
magnitude of the magic she had performed.�
Her mind was too taxed for that.�
She did, however, understand that she was stark naked in the middle of
some public place.� If this was Diagon Alley, she could break into Madame Malkin�s or Quality Quidditch
Supplies and steal a robe.� They would
not begrudge her the theft at a time like this.
�� Her legs were like rubber.� The muscles didn�t want to work.� She was aware that her heart was beating
erratically, as well.� It was probably a
miracle that she was even conscious.� She
hoped, distantly and without much actual concern, that
she hadn�t splinched herself and was now too
disoriented to notice a missing body part.
�� At last, after five minutes of
effort, she made it to her feet.� She was
cold and everything hurt terribly.� She
wanted to curl up somewhere and pass out for a month.� That wasn�t an option, not yet; it wasn�t
safe.�
�� That was made all too clear by the
shout that drifted on the wind a second later.
�� There!� Down that way, into Knockturn Alley!�
�� Another voice, low
and full of a harsh rasp.� �MOVE, you useless lot!�
The Dark Lord will have our heads if we come back empty-handed!�
�� Tears sprang involuntarily to her
eyes.� How had they tracked her here so quickly?� And of all the places to go, she had dropped
right into Knockturn Alley!� She was overwhelmed; she had been trapped in
adrenaline-soused survival for days.�
There was barely any fight left in her, and even less ability to
initiate flight.� So she remained
motionless, shell-shocked, with every ounce of her energy occupied by the
strain of merely standing and staying conscious.
�� Someone was coming.� He was wearing black; the fuzzy edges of his
cloak billowed as he moved toward her.�
Even without her vision working correctly, she knew he was a Death
Eater.
�� He stopped.� His posture was strange.� He seemed hunched over, and his breath was
too loud and too discordant.� The
reprieve didn�t last long; he moved forward and Hermione braced herself for a
curse or a blow.� Neither came.
�� Instead she was wrapped in long arms
and physically lifted.� His strength
seemed to falter halfway through the maneuver and she was half-carried,
half-dragged into an alleyway.� Was he hiding from his compatriots?� Or did he just wish to have his way with her
uninterrupted?
�� She struggled feebly against arms
that were unyielding.� A hand went over
her mouth and she was pulled against his chest.�
His cloak draped around her, covering her for the first time in days,
and she realized that he was wounded.�
She could feel the hot trickle of blood against her back.
�� Don�t move,� he panted.� �Unless you want to die.�
�� Hermione stilled.� At least for now, he didn�t seem to be her
main concern.� He was actually helping
her.� His free arm went around her body
from behind, snaking across her ribs.�
Her mind took a second to marvel at how large his hands were; the one
that clamped over her mouth held her like she was nothing more than a quaffle, fingers gripping beneath her jaw and across her
cheekbone.� Was she really so small that
she could be pressed into the negative spaces of his body and they would still
look like one person?
�� His hands tightened painfully as
footsteps rang out nearby.� He was
squeezing with so much force that it was hard to breathe.� Still, she didn�t dare move.� He seemed just as afraid as she was.� The ragged cadence of his breath told her
that.
�� I saw him go this way!� He must
have taken that whore�s wand and apparated.�
�� You don�t know that.� Keep looking!� the leader barked.� At the sound of his voice her captor-savior
tensed.� Who was it that he was afraid
of?� The voice seemed slightly familiar�
�� They were so close, yet none of them
thought to look in the tiny alleyway.�
Either that, or they did look and some spell or miracle kept them
hidden.� She hadn�t heard him speak any
spell, but if she could apparate wandlessly,
she was sure that there were people who could cast Disillusionment charms wandlessly.� She
tried not to squirm as his wounds bore their grievances down her back; the drip
of blood tickled terribly, but she was glad that it wasn�t hers.
�� Long, tension-laden minutes
passed.� Gradually, the search party
moved on, fooled by whatever spell the mystery Death
Eater had cast.� She felt him relax very
slightly.� They stayed still for another
minute and she was grateful for it.�
Every moment that he chose to hold her up meant that she was conserving
energy to run.
�� Hermione knew it was too good to be
true.� This man, whoever he was, was not
really trying to help her.� He was in
trouble with his own, yes, but she would be an integral trump card in regaining
his standing � or at least convincing the Death Eaters to leave him the hell
alone.� She understood her own value in
this war.
�� Just like a deck of cards, there
were four aces: Dumbledore, Harry, herself, and Ron.� They were the four that Voldemort
would give anything to possess and destroy.�
Dumbledore was already gone.� Up
until ten minutes ago, she had thought herself lost, too.� She wouldn�t kid herself that this Death
Eater didn�t know how useful she was in remedying his situation.
�� Shockingly, he released her.� His arms seemed almost stuck and yielded only
with a very great effort.� What was wrong
with him?� Hermione stumbled away from
the bloodied man, whirling to face him.�
The short reprieve had given her eyes time to adjust and now she could
see exactly who she was dealing with.
�� Her breath caught.� Lucius Malfoy.� He
painted a terrifying portrait, covered in blood, his face so pale that he
looked like a ghost.� He leaned against
the wall and matched her stare.� As she
watched, he reached into his cloak.�
Hermione took a step back, sure that he was going for his wand.
�� It was not a wand that emerged.� It was a small golden cup held in a shaking
fist.
�� Take it,� he ground out.� �And my cloak.�
�� I�I don�t understand.�� Her voice sounded strange to her.� It was much calmer than she felt, and she
wondered if she had developed some sort of split personality from all this.
�� Listen to me!� he demanded, his
voice catching in pain.� �This is�a horcrux.� Do you know
what that is, girl?�
�� Hermione nodded, incredulous.� What was he doing?� Was he� changing sides?� �Is it�is it the cup of Helga Hufflepuff?�
�� He nodded.� �Take it�destroy it.�
�� She reached for it.� The metal was warm against her fingers.� �What are you doing?� she whispered, feeling
tears prick at her eyes for reasons she didn�t understand.
�� A faint smile ghosted across his
features.� He spoke with his eyes
closed.� �He doesn�t think you know.� Of course you know�� A spasm of pain hit him, forcing him to
pause.� Hermione didn�t feel like she was
in control of her own body because she reached out to touch him, trying to push
apart the black robes to get a look at his wounds.
�� His hand stopped her, clamping
around her wrist.� He didn�t let go.� She hadn�t the strength to overpower him,
though in a healthy state she might have been able to.
�� It was in Bellatrix�s
vault.� We knew it would be the hardest
for you to find.� Narcissa
retrieved it�she��
�� In a second, Hermione knew.� The only thing that would drive him to this
was losing everything.� �They�re dead,�
she said, awed and sickened by the realization.
�� The blunt statement seemed to give
him a burst of energy.� He propelled her
backwards and rose up over her, a position that was terrifying. �An angry, disgraced Death Eater was on top of
her; she feared him acutely in that moment.�
Two warm drops of his blood fell onto her bare stomach.
�� He killed my son.�� His voice was choked.� His hands went around her neck but did not
squeeze.� �He murdered my son.�� His
fingers twitched against her skin.� �I
blamed it on you.� If you had not escaped
it wouldn�t have happened.�
�� Hermione looked up at him, remaining
perfectly still.� Arguing about cause and
effect would do nothing to dissuade him if he wanted to kill her.� The grey light of evening made a twisted
angel of him; pale strands of hair hung about his bruised face and his eyes
seemed almost colorless.
�� It is so easy to blame,� he
whispered.� �So easy�except when it is yourself.�� Those
muted eyes filled with tears.� She stared
at him in shock as he went on.� �I
watched him torture my son.� I couldn�t
do anything�I couldn�t�and he screamed��
�� Hermione shivered, feeling
gooseflesh rise on every inch of her skin.�
Grief, in general, was disconcerting, but seeing it so naked upon his
face made her feel like the world had shifted on its axis.� He had no emotions besides hate.� The reality in which he could cry or turn his
hatred inward was one that hadn�t existed until now.
�� Then my wife,� he said raggedly,
�he gave her to Greyback.�
�� She would not interrupt his
confession by pointing out that he had been ready to hand her over to Greyback without so much as a
twinge of conscience.� This was what some
men needed to understand that they were wrong�
�� Then he made me do it.� Used the Imperius and made me torture them.�� A tear slipped from his glassy eyes and fell
upon her lips.� She tasted his sorrow and
the goosebumps ravaged her again, leaving her
trembling with a cascade of emotions that she would never understand.� �I begged,�
he growled, his hands tightening around her neck, but still not enough to cut
off her breath.� �Got on my knees and
begged and it meant nothing.� He killed
him just the same�like vermin�and I knew�it was my fault��
�� I�m sorry,� Hermione whispered.
�� He released her as if scalded and
his hand flashed across her face, hard and stinging.� �You bitch,�
he breathed.� �You foolish little
bitch!�� Anger and despair flashed in his
eyes, giving them life again.� �I should
kill you.� I should make a horcrux of my own and bring him down.�� He laughed, coldly intense.� Her instincts punched through the haze of
confused pain his blow had caused, flip-flopping rapidly to that same all-encompassing
fear; he was unhinged.� �What a hero
you�d be then, mudblood.� What a martyr.� The Girl Who Died so the Dark Lord�s Grim
Reaper Might Live�do you like the ring of that?�
You would always be remembered�not like my son.� Not like Draco��
�� His breath came hard and fast.� She could almost hear the emotions colliding
inside his head.� This was bad; he, too,
was only operating on instinct, on the id-fueled desire for revenge.� The form of that revenge didn�t matter.� It included handing his tormentor�s secrets
to the enemy but no loyalty to that enemy; Hermione waited for him to strike.
�� He did, but not in the way she
expected.� His lips clashed down upon
hers and surprise parted them to his encroaching tongue.� Dimly she knew she ought to struggle.� He was so desperate, though, so despondent
and conflicted.� She could feel the tears
running down his face as he plundered her mouth.� His hands were gentle as they cupped her
face.� For the first time in four days, a
sensation other than pain lit her nerve endings.
�� She didn�t know why she was kissing
him back.� She wasn�t in her right
mind.� He bit her, cleaved a small
laceration in her chapped lower lip, and the swipe of his tongue over the wound
prompted an incredible gush of arousal between her thighs.� It was the knowledge that his lips were red
with blood, her dirty muggleborn blood�

He was whispering something, words she couldn�t make out, but the
sibilant sound of his voice was inexplicably comforting.� Then his lips were on her neck.� They were soft and gentle where his teeth
were not.� His hand cupped her breast,
emblazoning a bloody handprint around her erect nipple.� She couldn�t control a moan at his
touch.� Hermione didn�t know where it
came from or why this felt good but her mind was too demolished to care.
�� He was kissing her again, robbing
her of breath and sanity, though it could be argued that that had deserted her
hours ago.� His fingers pinched and
kneaded at her breasts as his tongue stroked hers.� Then one hand traced a slow descent down her
stomach and the curve of her hip.� She
felt her legs being nudged apart by a strong thigh.� Oh God, he was�
�� Hard.� Ragingly so.� She could feel it through his trousers.� Hard and big.� Merlin help
her.� She knew what was going to
happen.� Half of her panicked but the
other half wanted to see him, feel him, wreak pleasurable havoc upon him.� She wanted something other than pain and
fear.� She needed it.� The magic in her
blood sang, drowning out rational objections.�
His fingers were testing her, delving into places that only one other
man had been before.� A curl of those
exacting digits made her gasp.� Her nails
dug in to his shoulders � when had she come to encircle them?� It didn�t matter, not when he was torturing
some bundle of nerves she didn�t know she had.�
And his thumb, holy hell, what was he doing with his thumb?� It made her vision cloud over.� He was speaking against her lips and the
words were incomprehensible.
�� Then the sensation was gone, but
only for as long as it took him to undo his trousers.� He was sucking her essence from his fingers,
completely uninhibited.� Was this
happening?� Were his eyes piercing her as
an exacting pink tongue retreated between his lips?� Abruptly he was back over her, his cloak
pooling around them, cocooning them.
�� Never before had she fully
understood what magic was; it circulated in her being and she, like every witch
or wizard, thought she was in control of it.�
No.� No, the base of her magic was
something wild and dark and primitive.� Lucius Malfoy, stripped to that
point just like her, had called to it and her body was answering.� She opened to him, unable to fight the siren
song.
�� She felt the scalding touch of
inevitability against her core.� Sweet
Merlin!� Her head tilted back as he
pressed into her slowly, filling her with ease.�
The first few thrusts were almost soothing; he slid effortlessly inside
her, caressing the tight walls that surrounded him.� After that there was no more gentleness.� His hands clamped on to her hips.� Those quicksilver eyes slipped closed and he
moved, seemingly with the vengeance he wished to exercise upon the demon that
plagued them both.
�� In moments she was quaking beneath
him, unprepared for the surge of sensation.�
Her body was remembering that something other than pain existed.� Her senses converged and drowned out
everything else.� She could hear their
breathing, hear the hard slap of skin as her body absorbed his thrusts, but
more than anything else she could hear the drum of her pulse in her ears.� Her blood was boiling, coursing through her
like it wanted to explode from every pore.�
It became louder and louder as he wrung exquisite sensations out of her,
stroking her in a way his fingers never could.�
God, he felt so right, like her insides had been built for him and him
alone, and this was the answer she
had been looking for all her life, this was what made her different and the
same, this, her blood said, was fate�
�� She didn�t even know how her leg had
come to be draped over his shoulder.� All
that mattered was the stroke of his hand over the long stretch of skin and the
kiss to the inside of her ankle.�
Oh!� And the application of that
wicked thumb as his other hand splayed across her abdomen�� Her being clenched and shattered; Hermione
came with a primal yelp.
�� He gave her no quarter.� She barely felt the cobblestone bruising her
with each of his brutal thrusts.� She
didn�t care if they were making too much noise; let the Death Eater search
party come, let them watch as their collective magic leveled the petty barriers
between them and reminded them what they really were�
�� He gasped.� His hands clutched her knees.� With a roar that might have been the most
beautiful sound she ever heard, he shuddered and climaxed.� She felt his essence explode deep inside
her.� He was all over her, his blood
smeared across her torso, his tears and his saliva in her mouth, and his seed
within her womb�he had marked her like no other man ever could or would.
�� His arms were trembling but he
refused to fall upon her.� His forehead
came to rest against her collarbone.�
There was his sweat, too, mingling with her own, eked out by the warmth
of a late spring night.� Her blood rushed
beneath her abused skin, renewed and invigorated by the aftermath of one of the
most confusing encounters of her life.
�� You must go,� he whispered.� �Go, now.��
He was pressing a wand into one of her hands and extracting the other
from its death grip on his hair.� He was
still inside her as he did this and her mind, in its inquisitive way, wondered
whether she could apparate without taking that part
of him with her.� She didn�t want to
separate from him.� She didn�t want to
go.� A fierce, purely animalistic
attachment had overtaken her and it fueled her words.
�� No.�
You�re coming with me.�
�� He didn�t answer.� He only looked at her.� In his eyes she could see what her blood already
knew; fate had given them this, but there could never be more.� His path was ending and hers was just
beginning to diverge, forking in a dozen different directions from this moment.� Her hand closed around the wand he
offered.�
�� He summoned the strength to pull
away from her.� Clumsy fingers removed
his cloak and refastened it around her shoulders.� In the contact with his hands she felt little
jolts beneath her skin.� They were surges
of power.� She didn�t know how, but she
knew that he had given it to her.� It was
his magic.� His arcane, powerful, centuries-old magic now
danced along her synapses like an aphrodisiac.
�� Exhausted, he lay gracefully upon
the cobblestone as if he were relaxing into bed.� Without his cloak she could at last see the
extent of his wounds.� Some of them were
half-closed and others still bled; it seemed like he had been hit with Sectumsempra days ago and had been on the run, untreated,
ever since.� Hesitantly she reached into
one of the long, jagged slices in his shirt.�
His skin was clammy and she could make out the bloom of bruising; it
formed a bouquet of rosy pain on his pale backdrop.� She wondered about his innards.� She wondered how he was alive at all.� Where had he found the energy to�
�� To what?� What had just happened?� She didn�t know.� All she could articulate was that her body
was taut with pleasure and power.� It was
not sex, lovemaking, fucking � it was ritual.�
It was magic at its simplest and strongest.
�� I�m taking you to St. Mungo�s.�
�� He shook his head and spoke
hoarsely.� �No.� He has people there.� It will be death��

She knew he was right.� The
last threads of his soul were powering him, moving in the shadows behind his
eyes.� In a reversal of their position
just minutes ago, she climbed over him.�
She wanted to tell him � no, order
him - not to die, but her mouth wouldn�t work.�
Hermione settled for touching his cheek instead.� He turned into the caress, but even as he did
his eyes dulled a little more.

He was slipping away.� His
breath became that awful thing that medicine had dubbed a death rattle.� She sat astride him, watching in horrified,
helpless fascination as life slowly deserted him.� His eyes never left hers.� They flickered with a thousand things;
apology, defiance, pride, and hate, guttering candles of emotion�
�� Anger flooded her, just as it had
under the duress of Voldemort�s legilimency.� With red-hot certainty she suddenly knew
which of those labyrinthine paths she had to take.� He probably wanted her to apparate
to safety.� Her common sense screamed the
same.�

Forget that.� This time she
had a destination in mind and no one would deter her.� Pressing her lips to the coolness of his, she
apparated, and the ghost of her touch was the last
thing he felt.

�� She looked like a primordial goddess
when she appeared in the Death Eater�s camp.�
Her hair was a kinked mess, her face streaked with dirt and tears, and
her bottom lip was swollen and bloody.�
Her body, too, was red and brown, painted with Lucius
Malfoy�s pure traitorous lifeblood.� His handprint still cupped her breast,
perfect and unmarred.� Only she knew of
the mingling juices between her thighs; that seemed to give her the greatest
power, because it was, perhaps, the greatest rebellion.
�� Many of them were gone, doubtless
dispatched to search for her after her improbable escape.� But there were still ten or so left.� Bellatrix was among
them.
�� She died first, thrown into the Dark
Lord by the force of Hermione�s killing curse.�
Voldemort caught the raven-haired woman
reflexively, eyes wide. �Others leapt to
protect him, wands drawn, stupidly assuming he needed
the protection.� He didn�t - not yet -
but she would relish these ten lives.�
She would relish the splendid, murky power that made her able to do this.
�� It was the last gift of Lucius Malfoy.� It was his magic that formed the words, his
drive that fired arcs of green light around the battlefield.� Her magic remained mercifully insulated,
coiled around the last remnants of pleasure deep in her core.� More were coming, spurred by the danger to
their Lord.� She was untouchable in her
rage � in their rage, because his
egged her on, liberated her from the confines of right and wrong...he was still
in her, even now�
�� Through it all Voldemort
remained frozen, Bellatrix slumped lifelessly in his arms.� When no one else challenged her she turned to
him, breathing hard and glaring at the creature that had turned the world
upside down.
�� Who are you?� he asked.� His voice was devoid of the casual arrogance
that had washed over her earlier that night.�
It might have held a note of wonder.
�� Hermione reached into Lucius�s cloak and pulled out the golden cup.� She wanted to taunt him.� She wanted him to feel as helpless as his
victims, if only for a moment.
�� Your worst
nightmare.�
�� Recognition lit his scarlet
eyes.� Before she disapparated
she saw him drop Bellatrix to the ground and take a
step toward her, wand drawn.� Then he was
gone.

�� They thought she was crazy.� Harry and Ron were watching her with fearful
eyes.� Neither of them dared to deny her
what she wanted, not when she was wearing blood like clothing and emitting some
coldly lethal aura that even a squib could have felt.� They had followed her here knowing full well
that something wasn�t right.� Like this
she couldn�t be argued with, and their joy at seeing
her whole and alive only very slightly outweighed their apprehension at where
she wanted to go.
�� Knockturn
Alley was deserted.� The Death Eaters had
probably all been told to retreat.� At
last she found that little alleyway, desperately hoping Lucius
was still there, clinging to life.� There
was nothing to commemorate him but a broad blood stain on the grey
cobblestones.� That,
and the imprint of those same stones on her back.
�� Everything caught up to her right
then. Sobs ripped out of her as she sank to her knees.� It wasn�t for him, no, but part of it was,
and she hated him, him and his
fucking ability to carve forgiveness out of her in one act, to peel away a
shroud of darkness in a redemption that eclipsed everything else, because he
didn�t deserve it, he didn�t, and God, why did he have to die�
�� She was screaming.� Ron was frozen with fear, pale and nearly ill
from seeing her like this.� Harry was the
one to set his jaw and walk into her bubble of enraged grief.� She felt his hands wrap securely around her
and heard the stark sincerity in his voice.
�� I�m sorry, Hermione.�
�� He didn�t even know what he was
apologizing for.� And suddenly Hermione
understood why Lucius had slapped her, why her
sympathy for Draco and Narcissa�s
death had infuriated him.� An apology was
an insult.� It was a flimsy charade that
tried to make loss something that could be cured through the currency of human
wishes.� It could not hold up to the real
cataclysm of pain and when an apology was all another person had to offer, it
was bittersweet.
�� Harry had to know that, didn�t
he?� She looked at him, blinking away
tears.� His face changed.� He understood.� Then he said the only thing that could have
comforted her at that moment.
�� We�ll get him, Hermione.� You Know Who won�t
know what hit him.��

His words held a grim promise.�
Something inside her recognized the murder in his voice; it made her
happier than it should have.� Regardless,
it gave her overtaxed mind what it needed.�
Satisfied and relieved, her consciousness folded to Harry�s waiting
arms.
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The Last Gift