Tenebris Donum
It came as a surprise to Hermione that the process of hiding Blaise’s body was the easiest part of covering up a murder, it was everything that followed that would prove difficult. Theo had come up with a plan to dispose of the body almost immediately after Hermione had asked him what’s next, the idea had come to him so quickly that Hermione suspected this wasn’t his first rodeo. Her first knee jerk emotional reaction to that realization had been disapproval, but then she remembered that she had just stabbed someone in the neck, watched them bleed out, and then admired how lovely the blood looked dripping down her arm. Right. She had been officially knocked off her high horse, by no one other than herself.
Theo had transfigured Blaise’s body into a pebble no larger than a sugar cube, which he then buried in the surrounding dirt of the gardens. While he did this, Hermione scourgified the blood off of the ground and their clothes using Blaise’s wand. They fixed the cracks to the stone walls using the reparo charm and used the geminio charm to replicate all of the plants that had been vaporized by the blast of magic that Hermione had created. By the time they were finished, the gardens looked exactly as they had prior to the incident. The disposal and cleanup process had taken them less than 5 minutes.
They had spent a few minutes debating whether returning to the ball would raise suspicion or lessen it, and ended up agreeing to just retreat to their dorm and figure out their next steps while the rest of the school danced the night away, hopefully too drugged up to notice that all three of them had disappeared. It would appear Blaise’s poppy stunt would be of some use after all, just not in the way he had intended.
Neither spoke a word the entire walk back to their shared dorm, the clicking of her heels against the stone floor of the castle the only sound echoing through the halls. She kept replaying what had happened over and over in her mind, the feeling of her blade puncturing Blaise’s skin, the sound he made when he had opened his mouth afterwards, and the feel of his blood pouring down her front as she clung to him. Most of all, she thought of the small nod Theo had given her right before plunging the knife into Blaise’s neck.
When they finally reached their dorm, Hermione moved to go sit in front of the fire in the common room, but Theo stopped her with a hand on her elbow. She looked up at him with confusion, and he responded by putting his pointer finger up to his lips as if to shush her and shook his head almost imperceptibly before cocking his gaze pointedly towards the door to his bedroom instead. Right, she had forgotten how extensively warded his bedroom was, if they were going to talk about what happened, his room was the obvious choice.
Once they were safely inside of his bedroom with the door locked and warded, he turned around to face her; his eyes wandering over every inch of her, almost as if he was looking for something.
Hermione realized he was looking to see if she was injured.
His gaze lingered on her wrists, and when she looked down, she realized that the ropes Blaise had restrained her with had left dark purple bruises around them. She imagined her ankles probably looked just as rough.
When she looked back up at Theo, his eyes looked murderous.
“They don’t hurt that much” Hermione whispered, “besides, it’s not like he’ll ever be able to do it again, to anyone”.
Theo didn’t respond, but reached out to gently touch her face, running his thumb lightly over her forehead. Hermione hissed in pain.
“And that?” he asked, his voice subtly shaking with rage.
Hermione walked over to a floor length mirror next to his dresser and peered at her face. There was a deep laceration above her right eyebrow, probably sustained when Blaise had pushed her to the ground, she had tasted the blood in her mouth.
“It’s not a big deal Theo, a quick healing charm will stitch it back up. It will be like it never happened” she assured him as she watched him in the mirror, his anger palpable in the air around them.
“But it did happen” he growled, balling up his fists.
Hermione whipped around to look at him, “And I fucking killed him, and you literally buried him, so what is it you are really upset about?”.
Theo’s mouth shut with a snap, and they stared at each other, the air around them crackling. Hermione knew they needed to talk. They needed to talk about everything; past, present, and future. Whether they liked it or not, their fates were linked now, for better or worse, and they wouldn’t be able to move forward if they couldn’t learn to communicate.
She stepped towards him tentatively, gauging his reaction. His eyes flickered to her foot and back, but his expression didn’t change.
She closed the space between them slowly, almost like she was approaching a wild animal, until she was standing less than a foot away from him.
“We can’t keep not communicating Theo, we literally just buried a body, obviously whatever it is were doing isn’t working” she implored. Hermione began to lift her hand to his face, overwhelmed with the urge to cup his jaw, but she stopped herself and let it fall back to her side awkwardly.
His stony expression wavered at her words, and his icy eyes melted somewhat, and Hermione perked up thinking he might finally talk to her.
Instead, Theo stepped passed her and walked away.
Hermione didn’t turn around to watch him. She had always known that he was damaged, her goal wasn’t to fix him, she just wanted to understand him, how could she make him see that? Anytime she tried to get close to him, he would get spooked and retreat inside of himself. It had been a constant dance between them ever since their first kiss in the library so many nights ago. Hermione hung her head in defeat.
She heard Theo’s footsteps behind her and Hermione turned around, mouth open and ready to argue, but the words died in her throat.
Theo was holding out one of his crisp white button downs and a small vial of draught of peace. She slowly took both items from him, staring at the vial with confusion; then realizing that Theo was probably expecting her to be emotional after everything that had happened. Was Hermione upset? She felt… tired perhaps, and what had happened was replaying in her head like a memory wheel. But distressed? Not exactly. Was something wrong with her?
“I don’t think I need this one”. Hermione handed back the potion to Theo, who accepted it, his face betraying a brief glimmer of surprise, before his eyes flashed with something that looked like approval.
He turned away to return the vial to a box on top of his dresser, and she used the opportunity to shimmy out of her black dress, letting it fall to the floor at her feet. She hadn’t worn a bra, and the dress had been so snug that she realized any underwear would show through the tight fabric, so she had forgone knickers as well. Luckily, Theo’s shirt was several sizes too large for her and was long enough that the fabric reached just below her bum.
She was still doing up the many buttons of his white oxford shirt when he turned back around. They had seen each other naked more times than she could count, but never in a scenario that wasn’t explicitly revolving around sex. Somehow this felt more intimate, and she didn’t miss the way he swallowed as he watched her fingers daintily maneuver the buttons into their respective holes. It had been weeks since they last had sex, and the air between them felt electrically charged, drawn together like opposite poles of a magnet. A part of her wanted to cross the distance between them and press her lips against his, but she ignored the urge, determined not to be sidetracked from the talk she knew they were desperately overdue for.
Hermione walked over to his large four poster bed and sat, cross legged, on the far corner nearest to the headboard before motioning for him to sit on the corner opposite of her. He hesitantly complied, leaning his back against the opposite poster at the foot of the bed until their positions mirrored one another’s.
They sat for a while, just studying each other; Theo’s expression considerably more guarded than her own. She could get through to him, she felt it, if she played her cards right.
“Do you have any more firewhisky?” she asked him nervously.
Theo scoffed, “I always have firewhisky Granger”. He cast a nonverbal summoning charm at his dresser, and a bottle of Odgen’s Old flew out and into Theo’s outstretched hand. “I thought you didn’t need to relax after what happened” he quipped, pulling the cork out with his teeth.
“It’s not for me” Hermione responded, hoping her tone sounded more confident than she really was in that moment.
He paused at her words, cork still lodged in between his teeth, and looked at her with an expression that made it clear he would rather be punched in the face than have the conversation he knew was coming.
Hermione cleared her throat, praying that her approach would work. She thought, perhaps, that if she began by talking about herself, that maybe he would let his guard down some. She didn’t want him to feel like he was being interrogated; neither of them had been very forthcoming with their personal lives thus far, this wasn’t all on him.
“Blaise said something, before… before you showed up. He called me something, something I’ve never heard before”.
Theo’s eyes shot up to hers as she spoke.
“I think… I think it was Latin, it started with a T-“
“Tenebris Donum?” Theo demanded, cutting her off, his expression serious.
“Yes…” Hermione replied, feeling uneasy.
Theo’s eyebrows cinched together in thought as he considered her words, and when he looked back up at her, he studied her like he was seeing her for the very first time. His body language spoke intrigue, but his eyes betrayed concern.
“Theo” she prompted quietly, “what does it mean?”. A sense of dread was slowly spreading through her veins.
He took a moment to reply, seemingly mulling over his words.
“Well, it’s complicated, it depends on who you ask” he offered, taking a sip from the bottle in his hands.
“I’m asking you” she retorted.
Theo sighed heavily and relaxed against the bedpost, closing his eyes and offering Hermione the bottle with an outstretched hand.
She accepted it, tipped the bottle up, and took a healthy swig before passing it back to Theo.
“You are correct about the Latin. Tenebris translates to ‘darkness’, and Donum translates to ‘a gift’. When you translate the entire phrase in English, you get ‘the dark gift’”. Theo’s tone was controlled and even, whatever had spooked him a moment ago was now concealed behind the mask.
“The dark gift” Hermione repeated back incredulously.
“Mhmm” Theo hummed in confirmation.
Hermione’s head was spinning.
“Okay, but what exactly is it? Not the literal translation. Blaise felt so strongly about his belief that I was this ‘Tenebris Donum’ that he wasted crucial seconds talking about it. His plan was to torture me for information, and I am assuming kill me afterwards. Feeding me a lie in that moment wouldn’t have served any purpose since he was going to kill me right afterwards, and Blaise doesn’t strike me as someone who willingly wastes his time doing anything that doesn’t directly benefit him” Hermione pressed.
“Well, as I said, it really depends on who you ask” Theo reiterated.
“What does that mean?”. Hermione could feel herself getting frustrated.
Theo sighed and ran a hand through his hair, he seemed to be struggling to find a way to explain in a way that she would understand.
“Okay, let’s try this. Have you ever heard of The Tale of the Three Brothers?” he offered, shifting in bed so that he was leaning towards her as he spoke.
Hermione shook her head no.
“No? The Tales of Beedle the Bard? Nothing?” he tried again.
“No… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be, you grew up with muggles, I knew it was a long shot. Anyway, The Tale of the Three Brothers is a children’s story, quite silly actually. To sum up a very long and tedious fairytale, three brothers cheat death using magic, and as they say, no one can cheat death forever; and naturally, death is a sadistic fucker, so instead of just killing them and calling it even, he instead decides to feign awe at their magical ability and offers them three parting gifts. The first brother asks for a wand more powerful than any before, the second brother a stone that can bring back the dead, and the third brother, a cloak of invisibility. The story finishes with all three brothers dying, and death ends up whole, as he always does. Possession of all three of these artifacts supposedly make one the master of death” Theo finished, looking up at Hermione to see her reaction.
“I’m still struggling to understand how a children’s story has anything to do with me” she quipped.
“Well, it doesn’t, but I haven’t gotten to my point yet, impatient witch” he scolded, the corner of his mouth quirking up slightly. Hermione felt her heart flutter.
“The tale, while primarily fiction, was born from partial truths. Most see it for what it is, a story, while some believe that the Peverell brothers inspired the story, and that the three artifacts that death crafted may actually exist somewhere in the wizarding world. Some people are so convinced of their existence that they spend their entire lives searching. Those who believe in these artifacts have coined them The Deathly Hallows. Now, this tale has absolutely nothing to do with Tenebris Donum, but it’s a good example of what I mean when I say it depends on who you ask. Some wizards think The Dark Gift is a legend, an old wives’ tale, passed down from generation to generation. Others believe that the existence of such powerful beings is possible but has just become increasingly rare now that dark magic has been outlawed for the last several centuries and therefore being used less.”
Hermione swiped the bottle from Theo’s grip and took several gulps, gasping as the spicy liquid scorched her from the inside out.
“Powerful beings?” she choked, her throat still contracting from the burn of firewhisky.
Theo grabbed the bottle back from her and took several gulps of his own, handling it much better than she had.
“The whispers of Tenebris Donum have been circulating amongst the pureblood circles for hundreds of years. Legend has it that some wizards and witches of pureblood dissent are born with dark magic already integrated within their magical core, so not only does dark magic come naturally to them, but it doesn’t eat away at them like it inevitably does for all other wizarding folk. Did you know that dark magic wasn’t always considered dark?” Theo asked, his voice becoming distant; lost in thought.
“Yes, the term dark magic was coined fairly recently, if you consider a century recently, but relatively speaking, a hundred years is nothing, magic has been around for thousands of years” Hermione responded, entirely captivated by Theo’s words.
Theo nodded and continued. “In the beginning, long before modern wizarding society, those who were capable of the type of magic that we see today as inherently dark, were instead seen as being in touch with the earth and the natural cycle of life. They could inflict death, but they could also undo it. They could spill blood, but the magic that could be achieved because of it was extraordinary. Those who mastered these types of magic were seen as sorcerers who had the ability to draw magic from both the physical and metaphysical. These terms that today’s society has come to fear, necromancy, blood magic, chaos magic, used to be a skill set that was desired by any witch or wizard with ambition, but even then, it was rumored that some were born with the natural ability to not only preform such magic effortlessly with little to no training, but wield magic that even the most skilled mages could only dream of”.
Hermione was staring at Theo, wide eyed. “What kind of magic?” she asked.
Theo shrugged and took another swig. “I only know what has been passed on to me through legends and stories, no concrete evidence exists that these kinds of wizards or witches truly existed. But, some say that they were capable of mind control through use of blood magic. That they could talk to and even resurrect the dead. It’s theorized that they can wield magic without incantations, and I don’t mean nonverbal magic, because even nonverbal magic requires the wielder to think the incantation in their conscious, more like they could control the magic itself like a physical object and channel it as pure chaos. Some even say those born with The Dark Gift can control the elements. But as the years have passed, and dark magic becomes more and more rare, so does the existence of these gifted individuals, supposedly”.
Hermione sat and processed all of this information. All her years she had spent with her nose in book after book and this was the first she was ever hearing of such a thing.
“Do… you have the gift…?” she asked him.
Theo barked out a laugh, “what makes you think that?”.
“Whenever we train together, and tonight, watching you duel with Blaise… I’ve always thought that dark magic seemed so easy for you, like it was a part of you” she countered.
Theo took a long pull from the bottle before passing it back to her. As she tipped the bottle to her own lips, she realized that he was looking at her, studying her. She dropped the bottle and swallowed the spicy liquor, meeting Theo’s gaze. He seemed to be looking for something.
“Yes?” she asked him awkwardly.
“Just trying to decide if I should trust you or not” he answered honestly.
Hermione nodded in understanding, honestly she was impressed that he was even willing to admit it. It wasn’t much, but it was progress.
“Well, if it helps, we just covered up a murder together, if that doesn’t qualify as mutually assured destruction, I don’t know what would” she joked, hoping her lighter tone would keep him from getting spooked like he always did when they waded into personal territory.
Theo smirked and relief flooded through Hermione, usually by now he would have shut her out completely. He tilted his head up towards the ceiling in thought, his fingers subconsciously fiddling with his cufflink. Hermione held out the bottle back in his direction, she imagined it wasn’t easy for someone with his upbringing to show vulnerability.
He snatched the bottle eagerly, indulging in several large swallows. He was so devastatingly handsome, even slightly intoxicated and relaxing in bed. His slicked back hair had been tousled by the night’s activities, and he still looked ready to star in a GQ ad.
“No Granger, I don’t have the gift. It may seem that way to someone who’s experience with dark magic is limited to what they have seen in the last year or two, but take it from someone who grew up with dark magic, I know a lot, but not enough to be considered Tenebris Donum” he said, passing the bottle back to Hermione.
“Do you believe it exists?” she asked, taking another swig even though she was already starting to feel the distinctive heat spreading throughout her body that was singular to firewhisky.
Theo shrugged, “some of us within The Dark Lords inner circle used to believe that he might have the gift, but now, well, I know enough to realize that was bullshit. He’s always been powerful, but someone who truly had the gift wouldn’t need to rely on unicorn blood to survive”.
Hermione shifted uncomfortably, her next question on the tip of her tongue, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer; but she had to know, and she would never get another opportunity to pick the brain of someone who was so familiar with pureblood legends.
“Do you think I have the gift?” she asked quietly while anxiously observing his facial expressions.
Theo considered the question carefully. He pulled his knees up and perched his elbows on them, staring at her thoughtfully while formulating his answer.
“I’ve considered it” he said simply. “When I’m teaching you dark spells and curses, you do pick them up abnormally fast, but more than that, you get this look in your eyes…” he trailed off.
“I get a look?” she asked, intrigued.
“Mhmm” he confirmed with a nod. “I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like you come alive; I swear sometimes I see sparks in your eyes when we’re practicing”.
Hermione laughed, she couldn’t help herself, and Theo gave her a questioning look.
“I’m sorry, it’s really not funny, it’s just weird that you would say that, because that’s what it feels like, especially lately. Whenever I’m feeling something very strongly, especially negative emotions, like anger or fear, I get this humming right underneath my skin that feel like, well, electricity. I’ve come to believe that it might be a buildup of magic, because it lessens when I… find release” she finished awkwardly. She didn’t need to specify the multiple types of release she was referring to.
Theo’s eyebrows cinched together like they did whenever he was deep in thought, and he reached for the bottle almost mindlessly, playing with the peeling corner of the label silently for several minutes.
“Does that mean something?” Hermione asked, breaking the silence.
Theo looked back up at her with a look of mild surprise, as if he had just remembered she was sitting in his bed.
“I honestly don’t know. It’s common to have feelings of euphoria following the use of dark magic, but what your describing is not something I have ever experienced, nor have heard described by anyone else I know, and I know a lot of people who practice dark magic.”
“There… is probably a few other things you should know too…” she began, anxiety washing over her like a bucket of ice water. Sharing anything personal was terrifying, especially with a death eater, but she couldn’t expect him to open up to her if she wasn’t willing to do the same, and whatever was happening to her wasn’t something she was going to be able to get to the bottom of herself, she was going to need help from someone who had extensive experience with dark magic, and those were in short supply in her world.
He looked at her curiously as she took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever his reaction might be.
“I’ve noticed some other changes as well, they started after you began teaching me dark magic, but they have been gradual, so I didn’t notice them until fairly recently…”
Theo’s curious stare had become more intense, he was still intrigued, but she could see concern in his eyes.
“My magical output has increased, at least twofold. I haven’t had much opportunity to really experiment with just how much it’s amplified, but it’s significant” she confessed. “I nearly set my bedding on fire while trying to cast incendio on my fireplace” she added on with a slightly embarrassed grin.
Theo did not return her smile, he only kept staring at her, rolling his jaw and deep in thought.
Hermione’s smile dropped.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” he asked harshly.
“Well, I only started to notice it when we weren’t speaking… and I didn’t think you wanted anything to do with me” she snapped back.
His posture slumped slightly as he considered her words, and the anger radiating off of him cooled significantly.
“Theres one more thing” she rushed out, swallowing nervously. “Blaise, when he attacked me, he had me suspended and tied up against the castle wall with ropes, and he was touching me…”. Hermione hesitated, the anger around Theo was building again, she could feel it, and his gaze had turned murderous. She briefly considered stopping, but a dead man couldn’t be killed twice, and Theo needed to know the whole truth if she was ever going to have a shot in hell at understanding what was happening to her. So, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and continued.
“He was touching me, and all I could think about in that moment was how repulsed I was, and how much I hated him. Those emotions, I could feel like just under my skin, like a physical thing, mixing with my magic. The more he touched me, the more I felt the anger and magic build up; it felt like something alive was clawing its way out of me, and then, something happened, like an explosion maybe? All I know is that one second Blaise was kissing me, and the next he was across the courtyard, bleeding, and all that pent up energy had died down to a low hum again. Everything around me had been incinerated, you saw what the courtyard looked like before we spelled everything back to the way it was”. All of it came spilling out, like word vomit. She was surprised to find that it felt good to share some of the burden of what was happening to her.
Theo looked completely dumbfounded, an expression she had never seen on him before.
“That was you?” he asked quietly.
Hermione nodded, anxiously waiting for some sort of reaction from him.
Theo looked down at his hands, his eyes shifting from one spot to another rapid fire as he processed this new information.
“The ability to channel pure chaos” he whispered, more to himself than Hermione.
“Does that mean… that I do have The Dark Gift…?” she asked tentatively. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear the answer.
He looked back up at her and rubbed his chin uneasily before taking another large swig from the whisky bottle. How was he not wasted? Hermione had drunk considerably less than him and she was feeling quite tipsy.
“I suppose it’s possible” Theo theorized, before laughing quietly to himself, “IF we are putting stock into a myth that has zero evidence to support the existence of such beings” he added. “Historically speaking, those with the gift were always pureblooded, but true purebloods are becoming just about as rare as Tenebris Donum these days. Perhaps that’s why the gift lay dormant for so long, maybe it was quietly adapting”.
They both sat in silence for a while as they processed the possibility of such a thing. The idea seemed so silly, Theo himself had admitted that he wasn’t sure if he even believed in its existence, and if anyone was going to be born with such a gift, capable of inflicting dark magic beyond anything anyone had witnessed in the last 100 years, why golden girl Hermione Granger?
Hermione grabbed the bottle from Theo’s hands and took a drink; to not only quell her own racing thoughts about all of this newfound information, but also to prepare her for any possible venom that Theo was sure to send her way once she broached the next subject of conversation.
“Blaise said something else to me while I was drugged, something about you…” she began apprehensively.
Theo visibly stiffened in front of her, and his eyes became icy, but she was determined to not let his demeanor dissuade her any longer, so she powered on.
“He said that you didn’t just learn the dark arts growing up, but that you pursued them; enjoyed them” she pressed.
“Is that a question or a statement?” he answered cooly, his tone as sharp as a razors edge.
“He also said that you had taken a life by the time you were 13 years old”.
There, she had said it.
Theo raised an eyebrow at her, his expression a carefully constructed mask.
“And?” he retorted simply.
Hermione flailed and opened her mouth to speak but found that she didn’t know what exactly she was trying to ask, so instead she sat there with her mouth gaping open and closed like a fish out of water.
He watched her fumble with knowing eyes for a while, before he finally sighed and snatched the bottle back from her. He tipped the amber liquid back and drained what was left in the bottle before staring up the ceiling in thought.
“You’ve known who I was since the beginning Granger, perhaps in the beginning you only suspected, but you’ve known for a while now, I can see it in your eyes when you look at me. So, knowing what you know, what exactly is your question?” he asked in a dead voice.
Hermione thought of all the questions she wanted to ask; how many people had he killed, and why?
But then she thought about everything that happened only hours before. Hermione’s entire morality system had been turned upside down in the blink of an eye, and it was Theo himself that had warned her not that long ago that no one would come out of the other end of this war without getting their hands bloody, even her. If they had this conversation only yesterday, her question would have most likely been different; a question designed to uncover the complexity that is Theo’s history. But now, she was discovering that she couldn’t give a damn about Theo’s history, she just wanted to know where his loyalties lay now in the present.
“Do you enjoy it?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
He met her gaze, his pupils expanding incrementally. She could tell by his expression that he had been expecting her to ask all the wrong questions, but that she had surprised him by asking the right one.
“Killing?” he asked, the iciness is tone long gone, replaced now by an almost eerie curiousness that sounded out of place considering the heaviness of the topic at hand.
She nodded, terrified of what truth she might uncover.
“Did you enjoy killing Blaise?” he responded, answering her question with a question.
Her instinct was to answer unequivocally no, but she paused to give it some thought first. She had always been told that murder felt like tearing one’s soul apart, but it hadn’t felt nearly that dramatic, in fact, she hadn’t felt much at all besides adrenaline. Even directly afterwards, she would have expected to feel horror and regret, but she had only felt fascination as she had watched Blaise’s blood drip from her wrist to her elbow like crimson spider webs. She hadn’t felt guilty when she plunged her blade into his neck, and she hadn’t felt guilty when hiding his body afterwards.
“I don’t know” she answered honestly after several moments, her eyebrows cinching together at the realization.
Theo nodded in approval at her response.
“Nothing is ever as simple as it seems Granger, you and I are no exception. Have I ever killed anyone because I simply wanted to? No. Am I losing sleep at night, picturing the face of every person I’ve cut down? Also no. Does the fact that you and I aren’t crippled with guilt because we’ve witnessed death by our own hand make us bad people? You tell me Granger” he challenged in his deep baritone, his eyes pinning her in place with their intensity.
Hermione felt her breath catch in her throat as she considered his words, her world was shifting on its axis once again. She had been feeling her old self die a slow death ever since she started practicing dark magic, replaced by a woman she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t too late; she could still turn back, she could reject dark magic and ask McGonagall to move her rooms, McGonagall would be willing to do it for her if she asked. She could reconcile with Ginny and pretend like none of this had ever happened, it would be so easy to go back to her old life.
It would be so easy, but Hermione didn’t want to.
As much as Hermione disapproved of this new version of herself, she was also a little bit in love with her. Hermione had spent her whole life scared. Scared of Voldemort, scared of disappointing everyone around her, scared of failure; and ever since she had started training with Theo and practicing dark magic, she no longer felt scared, she felt powerful.
She knew that allowing herself to rationalize murdering Blaze would sever the last thread that tied her who she was before, but it wouldn’t matter, because whether she rationalized it or not, she just didn’t feel guilty.
“Well, if it doesn’t make us bad people, what does it make us then? Psychopaths?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I prefer the term pragmatic” Theo responded with a shrug, resuming his relaxed stance.
Hermione snorted, both amused and horrified at his casual demeanor when discussing one’s morality in reference to murder.
“How do you do it? How do you continue on like nothing happened? How am I supposed to go to class, or eat lunch with my friends? Everything will be different now” Hermione asked while flopping her head into her hands. She was so emotionally drained.
“Everything will change, but not in the ways your expecting” Theo whispered, and something about his tone drove Hermione to snap her head up to look at him.
He was staring off into the corner of the room, completely lost in his own thoughts.
“Your life will continue on just as it had before. Your friends will still be your friends, your teachers will still be your teachers. The only thing that will change is you. Food will taste different, music will sound different, human touch will feel different..” he trailed off.
“For better or worse?” she asked him, snapping him out of his trance.
“That depends”
“On?” Hermione was growing impatient with how many times he had said the phrase ‘It depends’ in the last few hours alone.
“On if you enjoyed it or not” he responded, looking her straight in the eye. Hermione’s skin prickled as a chill washed over her.
“Did you know that I would kill Blaise when you nodded at me?” she pressed, not willing to let the conversation die out. Theo had never been so open with her, and she knew she was on borrowed time until he clammed up again.
“I suspected” Theo responded before summoning a second bottle of firewhisky from his dresser and pulling out the cork.
“Why?” She needed to understand how he had known she was capable of something that she had spent her entire life absolutely sure of otherwise.
Theo shifted while thinking of how to respond and subconsciously lifted the bottle to his lips and took a drink before passing it back to Hermione. She accepted it eagerly.
“I grew up in a world where killing was a casual topic discussed over dinner Granger, I spent a lot of years observing all kinds of wizards and witches, all with their own idea of right and wrong. I can spot a killer from across the room, and I knew the moment you kissed me in the library that you were just like me” Theo stated with fierce edge in his tone.
“Just like you?” she breathed, mentally preparing herself for whatever his answer would be. Sometimes it seemed like Theo knew who she truly was before even she did, and asking him to weigh in on something about her felt less like an opinion and more like a peek into her future.
“Willing to do anything to get what you want” he stated, emphasizing each word. His eyes were pure ice, but the intensity in them had Hermione feeling warm all over.
“And what is it that you want Theo?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
His posture stiffened and she could feel his anger radiating out from him in waves, even from across the bed. “I wanted to save my friends; it was the only thing I wanted. I took the fucking mark; I had a plan…” he trailed off. The whisky was making him honest, and he sounded devastated.
“And now?” Hermione asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Now?” he responded with a hysterical laugh. “Now nothing makes sense, it hasn’t in months. A lifelong friend that I would have died for, we just buried, and instead of feeling grief, all I feel is rage”.
“At me?” she whispered, terrified of his response. Did he resent her for murdering his friend?
“At Blaise” he retorted angerly like it should have been obvious.
“At… Blaise? But why?” She was truly perplexed now. It’s true that Theo had given her permission to kill Blaise when he had nodded his head at her, but she figured it was to protect his own life.
“Because he fucking touched you!” Theo growled, sounding nearly feral with rage.
Hermione just stared at him dumbfounded.
“But… but you ignored me, for weeks…” she stuttered. Something wasn’t making sense.
“I tried, I fucking tried. I thought that if I could just get you out of my system, that I could move on. Everything felt casual until that night we received the ball invitations, and you suggested we take other people, suddenly I was picturing you on the arm of some baby-faced Gryffindor that would try to feel you up in a corridor somewhere, and I…didn’t like it. I knew right then we had taken things too far, and I figured that if created some space between us, we would both move on with our lives.”
Hermione’s heart was hammering against her chest, and she felt like if she made any sudden movements, it would shatter this precarious bubble of honesty that had formed around them.
“Did it work?” she breathed, slowly raised herself onto her knees and halfway crossing the space between them. He was so lost in his anger that he didn’t even notice her.
“No, not even a little. Everywhere I fucking turned, there you were. At first I was angry, it felt like you were crowding me on purpose, but then I realized that I was looking for you without even realizing it, which made me even angrier.”
“I know” Hermione whispered. “I could feel you looking at me”.
Finally, he looked at her, only now realizing that she was slowly closing the gap between them. His eyes looked panicked, but he didn’t get up, even as she settled herself on her knees only centimeters away from his feet.
She tentatively reached out her right hand and gently splayed it across his jaw and cheek, letting her thumb caress his pronounced cheekbone.
“What do you want Theo?”
He looked up at her, his expression still torn between fear and rage. She could tell he was battling against every instinct instilled in him not to get up and run. He swallowed heavily as his eyes flickered to her lips for a split second. She threaded her finger into his hair, letting her nails gently scrape against his scalp.
Theo closed his eyes and shivered at her touch.
“I don’t know what I want anymore, everything is so muddled. But… I know that I don’t want anyone else touching you. When I saw Blaise touching you… If you hadn’t killed him, I would have” he growled before raising both of his hands with lightning speed and pulling her face to his own.
She gasped as he jerked her forward, her lips crashing against his in a desperate kiss.
The moment their lips connected, she felt consumed with a frenzied desire to get as physically close to him as the human body allowed, and she didn’t have to wait long. His hands snaked around her waist and dragged her onto his lap until her thighs were straddling his own. She moaned into his mouth at the friction of his clothes against her naked flesh underneath his oversized shirt she was wearing.
He pulled his legs up and propped up his knees, using gravity to push her firmly into his groin without breaking the kiss.
Her body went momentarily limp with arousal as she felt him, hard as steel beneath his suit pants. She abandoned their kiss as the wave of arousal coursed through her, letting her face fall into his neck instead as she keened; something wild and animalistic. Her desire was flooding through her, and she felt like a slave to instinct, it had been so long since they had been intimate, it felt overwhelming.
He used his fingers under her chin to tilt her face up until she was looking at him.
His pupils were blown, and his eyes look crazed with desire. Hers probably looked just as wild.
“The thought of you making that sound for someone else… I will fucking kill anyone who tries to touch you, do you understand?” he implored.
Hermione didn’t know what to say, she just wanted him to kiss her again, so she just nodded and wiggled her hips.
Theo groaned and bucked underneath her. She could tell his cock was rock hard, even though the fabric of his pants.
“You’re going to be the death of me, witch” he breathed while grabbing her hip with one hand to hold her steady while using the other to unzip his pants. His prick sprang upwards as soon as it was free, and he wasted no time before pushing her hips downward and onto him in one quick motion until her quim was resting against his hips.
Hermione gasped as he filled her, her nails digging into his back as she breathed through the pain of the sudden intrusion.
Theo groaned and dug his fingers into her hips as she stretched around him. “So fucking tight, just for me” he whispered mostly to himself, slightly out of breath. She nodded regardless.
With Theo guiding her movements, Hermione began to move her body up and down, using Theo’s shoulders as leverage. She would raise herself up until only the tip of Theo’s cock remained inside of her, and then she would drop her weight down until every inch of him was buried within her walls. After a few minutes she had built up a good rhythm and sweat began dripping down her skin as her pleasure built.
Theo snaked one of his large hands up her body until he reached her neck, where he then laced his fingers gently around the curve of her pulse points on either side. He didn’t squeeze, but he kept them in placed even as she bounced on him. She moaned unabashedly and raised her arms and threaded them through her own hair as she felt her orgasm closing in.
“Do you want me to fill you up with my cum?” he rasped, watching her with a dark look.
“Yes” she gasped, her muscles contracting at his filthy words.
He groaned as her pussy throbbed around him.
“Then tell me who you belong to” he panted, his eyebrows cinching together as he neared his own release.
“You” she wailed, riding him with abandon as she chased her orgasm.
“Say it, tell me you belong to me” he demanded, his fingernails lightly digging into the skin just under her ears.
Hermione reached up and placed her hand around his that was wrapped around her neck and squeezed, in turn causing his hand to tighten around her throat. She watched the last thread of his control slip as he watched her movements.
“I fucking belong to you Theo, just you, and I want you to fill me with your cum, please” she begged.
That was it, Theo snapped. He squeezed her throat until she saw stars and pistoned his hips up, each thrust meeting her bouncing.
Hermione’s orgasm crashed over her like a tidal wave, and she cried a strangled scream as all of her muscles contracted in bliss.
“Fuck yes, scream for me baby” Theo panted as he jerkily pounded into her as her pussy walls squeezed around his cock as she rode through her orgasm.
“Please” she begged again, no longer sure what exactly it was that she was begging for. She just wanted him, all of him.
Her begging triggered Theo’s orgasm, and he pulled her roughly down onto his lap and held her in place as he emptied himself inside of her, groaning as he pumped her full of his seed until he was spent.
Theo rested his forehead against hers as they both sat there, panting. She didn’t want to move; she had missed the feeling of being full of him. She let her mind wander as she enjoyed the feeling of being close to him once again.
She played over the events of the night, and how much had changed in such a short amount of time. Theo and herself had gone from barely speaking, to being… well, something. She had killed someone. She had possibly been born with a rare gift that may or may not even exist. It was a lot to take in.
She thought about the legends he had shared with her, when suddenly, something he had said suddenly caught her attention. She furrowed her brow as the idea slowly pieced itself together in her brain, still sluggish from the afterglow of their sex.
“Do you believe The Deathly Hallows actually exist?” she asked, looking up at him.
Theo barked a laugh, “That’s what’s on your mind right now?” he joked, but his smile fell when she failed to respond.
“It’s possible… obviously the origin story is total rubbish, but the idea that three powerful enchanted objects, created by particularly powerful sorcerers, exist somewhere in the world, is not unreasonable” he explained slowly, studying her face with confusion. “Why?”
Hermione stared at him, could she trust him? She had spent the better part of the night convincing him to trust her, but now she understood how he felt.
Nothing she had said that night had been a lie, she felt like she belonged to him. For better or worse. It was time to take a leap of faith. Hermione bit her lip and opened her mouth,
“I think I know where one of them might be”.