Peremo

Peremo. Latin, verb: annihilate; extinguish; slay; kill

*

"Renervate."

Avery woke groggily, with slow, heavy blinks, but the moment he became aware of the wand at his neck and the hand holding his head up, he thrashed out.

"Ah, ah." Tom pulled back harshly on Avery's hair and visibly pressed the tip of his wand deeper into his neck, and Avery winced, stilling at the warning.

Avery's eyes, quickly becoming panicked, found hers, and seeing her laying bound before him, he whispered, "I'm sorry. I couldn't let you come by yourself. I couldn't, I—"

Tom's wand lit with a white light, and Avery's voice became silent.

"Touching," Tom remarked, watching as Avery continued to silently speak to her.

"It's okay," Hermione told Avery in a tight whisper, even though she didn't believe the words herself. "It'll be okay."

She thought she could make out the movement of his lips. I'm sorry, Hermione. I'm sorry, I tried.

"Do you love him?" Tom asked, the abruptness of his voice drawing her attention from Avery. His expression was entirely blank. Perfectly unreadable. Bored, almost.

Hermione looked to Avery and—fuck. She mightn't have loved Avery the way he wanted her to, she mightn’t dream of him, mightn’t ache for him when he was gone, but his eyes were wide and terrified, and he'd been her only rock, and so, she nodded.

"Yes," she whispered, more to Avery than to Tom, "I do."

Tom grunted, a light sound of disinterest. "Then I'll ask you once more, Hermione," he said calmly, conversationally, as if his wand wasn't pressing against Avery's jugular. "Only once. Where is it?"

"I—" Hermione's words tangled in her throat. She couldn't tell him. She couldn't or they’d both be doomed, but Avery's life depended on it.

As though he knew her struggle, Avery thrashed again, giving her the smallest of movements, the slightest of a shake of his head. Don't give him anything.

And so, Hermione shook her head and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tom's mask cracked and he gave a halfway smile, and then his wand flashed red.

Blood erupted from the line of the curse along Avery's neck, and Tom pulled his head back by his hair, tilting his head back as blood spurted from the wound.

"No!" Hermione screamed, lurching against Cygnus' bindings, "no, no no!"

The sounds Avery made were strangled, and he thrashed in Tom's grip, clawing at Tom's arms, his groans becoming thick, wet, gurgles.

Tom held him that way, upright, head tilted back, until the flow started to slow and Avery's arms slackened. Then he let Avery fall, collapsing down beside her.

Hermione bucked at her bindings, screaming through closed teeth as Avery fought for breath, and she could feel it reaching her, his blood that'd seeped along the stone. It was warm against her skin, and she tried to shuffle back.

"No, I'm sorry," she sobbed to Avery as his eyes became unfocused, "I'm sorry, I'm so sor—"

Tom climbed over her, dragging her over so she was flat on her back, and she screamed at him, bucking to get him off. He held her down with his own weight, stilling her head with a rough hold on her jaw.

Avery’s blood was on his face, flecks scattered across his cheek, but she could only see his eyes. Like his skin, they were flecked with red, and they drew her in as an onslaught of pressure set in around her head, his magic probing at her, piercing into her temples.

She wouldn't let it in though. She couldn't—couldn't, couldn't, couldn't—give in to it, no matter what he did to her. Tom not knowing what had become of his diary was all she had, it was the only thing left keeping her alive, and her Occlumency had to stay strong.

The pain abruptly let up, and Tom pressed her painfully into the stone and snarled, "tell - me."

"No. I'll never— ahh!"

The cruciatus curse started slow, this time, in ripping sensations along her nail beds, in the pulling of her joints, the extraction of her teeth. But then it went deeper, to the splitting of bone, the slicing of flesh, the tearing of tissue, the twisting of her spine, and oh— his torture in the forest had been nothing. The pain of his attempts of legillimency, nothing. Her skull was swelling, constricting and releasing, and she’d never met pain, not like this, and it went on and on—surely she would die, please, just let her—

Until it didn't.

"...do it?"

Hermione gasped for air, only at the brink of consciousness, feeling herself convulsing harshly with the aftermath of her muscles being ripped from their tendons.

"—didn't want to do this, not again." She could hear it now, that the voice was Tom's, distant and muffled. She opened her eyes, finding him over her, tendons tightening in his neck as though he were the one being tortured. "But you-you had to go and make me, didn't you? You just keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and you give me no choice."

Hermione couldn't make out what he was saying. What was he saying?

"—could've been so much more. You had so much potential, and you just threw it away!"

Hermione felt her tears streaming down her face, through into her hair. She didn't know what he was saying, but it didn't matter. "I'll never tell you a-anything. You'll have to kill me," she slurred, her voice morphing into a delirious laugh. "But if you do, it— gone. It'll be gone f-forever. You'll never know what happened to it."

Tom scowled down at her, and his mask was well and truly gone. He was wearing his anger, shaking with it. "Do you—" he interrupted himself, giving a quick, high laugh. "Do you think killing you is the worst I can do?"

He abruptly let her go, and moved back, straightening to a stand, and with a flick of his wand, she... she was untied.

It was so unexpected that at first, she thought she imagined it, and it was only after she'd rolled over and scrambled to her feet, her entire body protesting, that she noticed what he was doing. He'd started chanting, a combination of Latin words that weren't familiar to her, but whatever he was doing, he was using his whole body to channel it, and... she could feel it in the air.

The spell he was working on was tangible, cold and humid, like a thick, suffocating smog of frost being cast over the room. But she didn't recognise the words, and she could handle being cold, so she didn't waste her chance by staying to figure out what he was working on.

While Tom continued to chant, Hermione used the opportunity to stumble across the room and fumble at her bag for the only other weapon she had—her knife—but then, right as she took hold of it and slipped it up into her sleeve, from her peripheral vision—

Avery started to move.

Finished with his spell, Tom breathed heavily, stumbling back to lean on the front desk, his magic visibly tiring him. But despite it, he still managed to grin menacingly. "Best run, Hermione," he hissed, "he won't stop until he has your eyes."

Hermione stared in horror as Avery's body made it up onto hands and feet, and while she'd never seen an inferius with her own eyes, she'd read about them, seen them in books, had heard about them from Harry. Skeletal, half-rotted and rabid, they were the material of nightmares. But unlike the sketches of the Inferi presented in textbooks, unlike Harry's recollection of them, Avery was fresh, and other than the deep gash that extended halfway around his neck, it was only his clouded over eyes and the way he moved that gave him away as inferius.

With animalistic movements, joints bending at unnatural angles, he started closing in on her.

Her body just about screamed, but Hermione didn't hesitate. She took Tom's advice and ran.

Without her wand to help her, she stumbled haphazardly around the classroom's remaining desks, keeping as much space between her and inferius-Avery as she could, but it wouldn't hold out. He was throwing the remaining tables aside as he pursued her, clearing what was left of the obstacles in the room, and Hermione's body was close to its limit.

Fuck. Inferi, inferi, inferi—fire. She needed fire.

There was an ingredient cupboard at the back of the room, and Hermione stumbled towards it. She didn't stop and look as she reached it; she blindly grabbed any vial she could reach and lobbed them at Avery. Surely at least one of them would be flammable, surely, had to be.

"Avery!" she pleaded as he closed in, a vial of clear fluid smashing as it collided with his chest. "Avery, ple—"

Hermione ducked herself out of the way as he lunged at her, and he collided with the potions cabinet. Glassware smashed around him, and he roared rabidly.

But despite the shards of glass, despite the acidity of the ingredients that'd spilled over him, he didn't slow down. He just kept coming like they were nothing, and when he charged at her, her body just wouldn't move fast enough.

He barrelled her down, coming down on top of her, and his nails dug so tightly into her arms that they drew blood.

"Avery," she sobbed, "Avery, please don't do— ah!"

Inferius-Avery growled as he swiped across her face, his nails scratching deep into her cheek, and Hermione screamed, thrashing her limbs with all she had to get him off.

From the other side of the room, Tom remarked with a loud, "that was close."

He continued to claw at her face, aiming for her eyes, and with nothing else left, Hermione slipped her table knife out from her sleeve. She swung out blindly, but she was so focused on protecting her face, that it was a pathetic shot. It barely scratched across his cheek, but inferius-Avery screamed. It was an awful, ear-splitting scream, like an animal being slaughtered, and he released her, rearing back like he'd been burned.

Hermione didn't immediately understand—it was just a table knife, and her cut hadn't even been deep, but— of course.

The venom.

With her moment of freedom, Hermione shuffled herself back along the stone, using the wall to help get back on her feet. She hobbled as far as she could, making it over what was left of the door and ducked out into the corridor.

Inferius-Avery, recovering from her blow, followed closely after her and she almost tripped over Cygnus as she went. But out there in the corridor, she almost wept with relief. Because even though she wouldn't call wandless magic one of her strengths, she could cast simple spells well enough, and now, in the open corridor lined with lanterns, it only took a simple one to summon one over and throw it at Avery.

She missed with her first lantern, but the second one met its mark, and he lit up. One of the potions ingredients must've been potent, because the candle ignited like he'd been doused in petrol.

Hermione gasped seeing it, his body being engulfed in flames, and she almost sobbed. While she knew that would finish it, it was also Avery, and she'd set him alight.

But he was already gone, she knew that, and at least it was fast. Inferi were incredibly susceptible to fire, and his raw screams died out in only a matter of seconds, his figure crumbling in the flames.

Hermione's relief didn't last long though. Now that Avery had fallen, she could see past him, and could see that Tom had followed them out into the corridor. He was watching from by the classroom door, and he looked… disappointed. Tired. At the end of his patience.

"No matter," he said, eying Avery's burning remains with a crinkled nose. "More enjoyable to do it myself, anyway."

He raised his wand and with all she had left, Hermione threw herself to the side to duck behind a stone-carved bust.

His first spell missed her only by a fraction, and then her cover was smashed open by his second.

She tried to run, tried to avoid him, but oh, she was exhausted, and his third spell threw her backward, winding her as she landed flat on her back.

From the impact of her landing, she'd dropped her knife, and she groaned as she stretched over, reaching out for it—

But Tom reached her first. He crouched down over her, tilting his head as he used the tip of his wand to brush her hair out of her eyes.

"No," she pleaded, and she shoved out at him even though her muscles didn't have much left to give. "Please, no more, please just do it—"

"Oh, Hermione," he cooed, bringing his hand to the good side of her face, stroking the side that Avery hadn't ripped his fingernails into as if to soothe her, and he groaned, "shh, Hermione. Don't do that. I hate it when you cry. You know what you do to me."

Her skin crawled at his touch, at the threat of not only physical torture—no, no, nonono, "just kill me," she sobbed, "please, just do it."

"Don't worry," he murmured softly, thumb dragging over her lip. "I'm going to. Whether I get the answer out of you or not, I'll let you go. But you have a choice to make. If you talk to me, if you make this easy," he paused, brushing away the stream of tears from her cheek, "we can make it quick. Nice and quick, just like Marvin. But if you don't... I'll be slow. I'll be so slow, I think I can even keep you going for weeks. I might even..." His eyes roamed over her face, lingering on her lips and he wiped her tears again. "Prefer it that way. But it's up to you."

With her other hand, she stretched as far as she could, and her fingers brushed upon the cold hilt of her knife. That was it, just a little more, just a little more—

"Talk to me," he purred, as if he weren't still wearing Avery's blood, as if the corridor didn’t stink with the smell of burned flesh. "Tell me where it is."

Hermione managed to get the hilt of the knife with her fingertip, and it was just enough for her to drag it slightly closer, just enough to get a good grip on it. She squeezed its hilt with all she had and looked him dead in the eye.

"It's gone," she spat through her tears. "It's in pieces, and just like your ugly old ring, it's gone. It screamed when we killed it, just like you will when I kill you too."

And then she drove the knife deep into his chest.

But— her shot was high. Higher than she'd aimed for, wedging it in just under his collarbone. It wasn't a fatal blow, mightn't have even been enough for him to lose function of his arm.

Still, he reared back, making a surprised, agonised growl at the pain. He looked down, groaning as he inspected the handle protruding from his chest, and Hermione scarpered out from under him, pushing herself back until she reached the wall.

He glared down at her, giving a surprised sort of laugh, before he gripped at the handle and pulled the knife free.

"You're— a terrible fucking shot," he growled, throwing the knife across the corridor.

Using the wall to steady her, Hermione eased herself backed up to her feet. "I d-don't think so. How long do you think it will take?" she asked him. "A blow at the shoulder... that's quite close to your h-heart."

Tom scowled, not understanding, and stalked toward her.

"Will it protect you, I wonder? The blood of S-Slytherin?" she went on, stumbling a little bit as she moved back along the wall. "I don't think it will."

Tom scoffed, closing more of the distance, but then— he slowed. He blinked heavily, started to look a bit uneasy.

"Oh, no," she breathed, and an unhinged, disbelieving laugh slipped out. "Are you starting to feel it? Ninety seconds is all it takes, it says in the text books. First is general unease, then comes the c-clamminess. But then once it really sets in, your throat will start to close up, the tachycardia will begin, and you’ll lose your vision."

He scowled at her, recognition and disbelief written on his features.

"Basilisk venom really is quite potent, wouldn't you say?"

"That's not—" Tom's mouth twitched, and he took another step closer, "not possible."

"That pathetic knife was goblin made," she told him, unable to withhold her grin when he surged forward to lean an arm against the wall to steady himself. "I know I don’t need to explain the properties of goblin silver to you. And you gave me the venom yourself, when you tried to poison me."

His scowl dropped, only a little, and she could see it as it all came together on his face.

He lunged forward, reaching out for her, but she stepped back, just out of reach, and he fell to his knees, dropping his wand as he caught himself with the palms of his hands. His breathing was getting louder.

He looked up at her, rage and horror mixed in his eyes. "You— no. You didn’t.”

“Oh, you bet I did,” she sneered. “And without your ring, without your diary… you’ll be gone forever, entirely forgotten. No one else will ever know the name Voldemort.”

Tom made a strangled sound, and looking down at the stone beneath him, he laughed. It was high, and disbelieving, and it didn’t last long before he broke off to cough. His breathing became more textured, and though it was clear he was starting to struggle, he started to yell through it, coarse and desperate.

He yelled until his voice gave out, and he tried to keep himself up, tried to move, to get back up, but his arms gave out from beneath him.

Tom struggled as he tried to push himself up again, and the sound he made between breaths was somewhere between a whimper and a groan, and this time, when he looked up at her—

Oh. She’d never seen him look like that, hadn’t thought him capable, but he—

He was scared.

Hermione didn't know what overcame her. She must've been too exhausted to have any sense left, but she crouched down by his side and turned him onto his back with a forceful push on his shoulder.

"I'll stay with you while you go," she told him as she kneeled by his head, only halfway revelling in it, because while she'd dreamed of him being dead, given her life to the task of killing him, in that moment, he wasn't a monster anymore, not now. He was just a man, a young man, terrified of what was to become of him.

She reached for his face, placing a hand over his cheek to try to keep him calm. He grabbed at her hand in return, fingers closing over hers, and his touch was cold. It felt like he was trying to pull her away, to get her off, but his grip was weak, so she held on despite it. No one should be alone in their last moments.

"I—" He drew breath with a coarse wheeze, and his eyes weren't focussing properly anymore, weren't quite finding her, "—will find— you."

Loss of vision and hallucinations were the last symptom of the poisoning, before cardiac arrest, and there was something... empowering about knowing his last thought, his last hallucination, was of her.

"Shh," she said, and his breathing had quickened, coming in short, rapid breaths, and he seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open. She kept hold of his hand, and stroked over the skin of his cheek.

"Goodbye, Tom," she whispered to him. He was slipping, eyes heavy and barely open, and she didn't know if he could hear her anymore, but she spoke to him regardless. "I won't miss you."

She held him until he drew his last breath and didn't let go until long after.

When it was over, after Tom had stilled and he was nothing more than an empty shell and Hermione felt like she could move again, she searched his pockets. She found the stone there, in the pocket of his robe, and she replaced it with Dumbledore's glasses.

There wouldn't be any question as to who was responsible for Dumbledore's death, not on her watch.

Before she left him, Hermione gave Tom a last, wistful look, feeling oddly... empty. She'd imagined killing him too many times to count, had imagined how the world would benefit from Voldemort never rising, and had always envisioned herself happy, proud, or at least a little triumphant at the end of it.

But now... she wasn't any of those things.

She left him there in the corridor, left the mess of the classroom and what was left of Avery's body, not wanting to tamper with what the Ministry would find. They were deeper in the dungeons than even the Slytherin common room, so she hoped no one would venture down there to find them until she reported what'd happened, especially considering the time of year.

Hermione went back over to Cygnus and took his wand, and proceeded to levitate him up to the infirmary—leaving him stunned, of course. Once she got him settled, she mended the larger of the cuts she'd received while she was there, the ones across her cheek and arms, before she hobbled back off.

But before she went to see Dippet, to report Tom and Avery's deaths and demand Cygnus be arrested, she stopped in again at Tom's chambers.

The portrait hadn't wanted to let her in when she got there, hadn't even bothered to speak with her, but Cygnus' wand wasn't entirely unyielding, and her confundus charm did the trick.

And inside— it was jarring.

The room was a mess. It'd been completely trashed, almost to the point of her doubting that she'd entered the right room. But it smelled like him, and she recognised his handwriting on the mess of papers. It was Tom's room, all right.

She wondered how it'd gotten that way. Had he done it himself? Had he been so enraged finding his ring and diary missing that he'd taken it out on his own things?

She hoped so.

Hermione started searching, and without needing to worry about being caught, it didn't take long. In his desk, third drawer down, sealed in with a tricky binding charm, was Dumbledore's wand. The Elder Wand.

Rightfully hers.

Hermione told herself it wasn't because she had the stone. It wasn't because she knew where the cloak was, and it wasn't because she wanted all three. No, Hermione told herself she was pocketing it because she couldn't allow the Elder Wand to end up in the wrong hands, and her own timeline had taught her that it being buried with Dumbledore wasn't good enough.

Well... that, and she was in need of a new wand now anyway.

With the wand stowed away, she moved to the next drawer down and fished out Tom's notebooks, the ones she'd come across the last time she snooped through his things. All of them. She didn't need to flick through them to know that they'd contain invaluable, dangerous, horrible information. It was too big a risk to leave them there for Dippet to decide what to do with, so she started piling them into her bag, one by one.

She stopped when she reached the last book, the newest of the lot. She didn't have much time, but her curiosity couldn't be helped. It couldn't, and she took a moment to flick through the pages.

And it— Hermione almost dropped it. It was full... of her.

...taunts me openly, in front of my class... the heir...

...knows of the Gaunts... Warren... have to kill her...

...If she dies, then then she is gone, but if she doesn't, then she knows, she must know...

...she is there each night, speaking in the darkness... sometimes with blood on her face... hands around my neck...

...cannot kill her...

Pages and pages, note after note after note— all about her.

Hermione couldn't bear to look at it. She snapped it shut and quickly added it to the rest of the pile.

Then, she wiped her eyes and went to see Dippet.

It took months to fully clear her name. The incident in the lower dungeons on New Year’s Eve sent shockwaves not only throughout the castle, but through the entire magical community, and there were demands to publicise the killer of the bright Professor Riddle, the Avery family's heir, the esteemed Albus Dumbledore.

Hermione was on her own, no money, no family, no influence to fight for her. She made an easy target, and she spent days in holding with the Ministry, recounting her story over and over. She willingly gave them all of the memories of what’d happened—everything they could possibly need other than the detail of her time travel—and in the end, it was only because of fucking Cygnus that she was eventually released.

As the only other witness, he'd been taken in for questioning at the same time she had, and though the Blacks had dragged their feet and thrown as much money at the situation as they could, his extracted memories were all they needed, and were eventually deemed sufficient to corroborate her story.

It was a hurricane, sorting out the aftermath of killing Tom and keeping herself out of Azkaban. She was in and out of the Ministry, had to prepare for and testify at Cygnus' trial, her name had been publicly dragged through the mud, she was fired and rehired by Dippet twice throughout the whole process, and when it seemed to be over, she finally took the time she needed to grieve.

And so, it wasn't surprising, not really, that among it all, something rather important went entirely forgotten.

Hermione had made countless mistakes throughout her youth, but Klaus was the best one.

Klaus James Granger— born in September of nineteen fifty-three, a perfect little boy with brown eyes and a head full of hair. 'James', for Harry, because 'Harry' just didn't have the right ring to it, and 'Granger', because there wasn't a chance in hell she'd ever admit out loud to his paternity.

Over the years, Hermione actively avoided her memories of Tom. She never once brought him forth with the stone, and she didn't have any photographs of him, but she didn't need any of those things to know who Klaus took after. He was a small but spitting image of the monster of her nightmares, but thankfully, with none of his bite.

As he grew, it became apparent that he was sharp, like his father, and he developed a wicked sense of humour, one that tugged at her heart strings and reminded her of some of her first interactions with Tom, before his first attempts of killing her. But Klaus also had her curiosity, her freckles, her kindness, her warmth. He took after Tom, without doubt, but he took after her too, and after he entered her life, she couldn't imagine one without him.

He was her light. He filled the void that’d been left inside of her, the one that craved family, to love and be loved, and life with him by her side was better than any life she envisioned for herself.

She hadn't planned her life in the fifties, the life that came without Tom or Voldemort in it, but it felt like borrowed time, and with Klaus, she filled it with as many passions as she could squeeze into it.

She wrote more. She never stopped writing.

She invested in Sleekezy's Hair Potion, and when their improved strength concoction hit the shelves, she made a comfortable sum of money. But despite that, when Madam Spindle eventually announced her retirement from her position in the infirmary in fifty-eight and Dippet offered it to her, she took it. She didn't need to work, but Hogwarts was the only place that felt like home. She felt a little guilty for the position she'd taken from Madam Pomfrey, but she'd given enough, she decided. She was allowed to be selfish.

Klaus came with her—an arrangement she'd needed to strong arm Dippet into—and he spent his childhood years growing up between Hogwarts during the school year and a small house she'd bought just out of Nottingham in the holidays, giving him a blend of magical and muggle life. The other professors at Hogwarts seemed to love him—no surprises there—and even though she was certain Slughorn and Dippet knew… they never once asked who his father was.

She was careful with the Elder Wand, and more so with stone... but she wasn't perfect. She allowed herself to see Harry every now and then over the years, and she'd spoken with Avery several times, too.

And the cloak... well. It was a constant temptation. She wasn't perfect.

She dated over the years, but nothing really stuck. There must've been something about a woman who woke screaming more often than not, who flinched at abrupt touches, who couldn't stand the darkness, that seemed to be too much for most men. But that was all right. She didn't need a man. She had all she needed.

She had ups and downs. She made more mistakes.

But through it all... she lived.