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He didn’t have to tell me. I knew it the moment she was dragged into the room and tossed at my feet. Before she turned to glare at me, eyes filled with a lion’s rage, I knew.
This was the love of his life. Or my life. Though there was hardly a difference now.
“We found a rebel camp at the edge of Abernathy forest,” Amycus Carrow said. “Most of them scattered as we blasted at their defenses. She was helping the others escape.” He cowed as my eyes slid to him. “By the time we breached their wards, she was the only one left.”
This didn’t surprise either of us.
“Hermione,” the voice inside me crooned, and the name snaked up my spine, leaving a delicious tingle in its wake. I stared at her--at the lips that I’ve never touched yet can vividly recall how searing they feel against my skin. At her shock of curls, how soft they were when I plunged my fingers into them, fingers that were not my own. Now that I’ve finally, for the first time, seen her with my own eyes, the entirety of my being sang in her presence.
“Stop,” I growled, clutching the Elder wand tighter. The whole room froze. “Stop it.”
“My lord?” Carrow shuffled forward, head bent, shoulders hunched so high that they kissed the tips of his earlobes.
“Take her to the dungeons,” I snapped.
Carrow and his sister yanked Hermione up. She didn’t fight them, but her gaze never left mine. As she was shoved out of the room, I planted my feet like deep roots to keep myself from running after her. When the door shut behind them, I noticed the other Death Eaters standing silently around the room, some trying to blend into the walls or in the shadowed corners. “Leave me.” I trudged up the dais to my high-backed chair. By the time I sat down, I was alone--as alone as I could ever get.
“Both,” the voice said.
I pressed my face into my hands. “What?” I asked.
“You’re wondering if this surge of emotion is mine or yours. It’s both. It’s ours.”
I closed my eyes and reached inside myself. There I could see him clearer, the amusement in his green eyes, the smug tilt of his grin. “Stop speaking as if we’re one and the same,” I heard myself say out loud. “I am Lord Voldemort. And you are dead.”
“Only technically,” Harry Potter said. “But that’s not my fault, is it?”
I sighed heavily and slouched deeper in my seat. “You were less bothersome before I killed you,” I grumbled.
As if stoppering a laugh, Harry pressed a knuckle against his lips, which were half-hidden by his beard. He had been on the run for four years when I had finally caught him. His time in the wilderness had seeped into him, weathering away the vestiges of the boy and breeding in his place a rough and rugged man.
“These aren’t my feelings,” I said. “This is the first time I’ve laid eyes on her.”
“What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine,” Harry replied flippantly.
“You speak as if we’re married.”
“We’re more than that, Tom. Just...more.” Harry sobered. His eyes--so green, I thought. Were they this vibrant when he was alive?--bored into me. “We’re soulmates, you and I. I had you inside me my whole life. And now I’m in you for the rest of yours.”
Soulmates. My mind recoiled at the thought, but something deeper inside me felt the truth in his words. My tattered soul, the one at the threshold of the Great Beyond--it hadn’t pined for its missing parts, locked away inside the Horcruxes. It had held on to this plane of existence for him . And when he died at my hands, it only strengthened our bond. He became part of me. Our souls clicked together like pieces of a puzzle.
“What is she to me? To us?” I whispered. “If we own each other’s soul, what does she have of us?”
“She owns our heart.”
After hours of pacing the corridors of my castle arguing with myself--well, with him --I relented. I sought out a guard and ordered him to bring Hermione to my chambers. As I marched away, I pretended not to see the bafflement on the guard’s face.
I waited in one of my private parlors, my back at the door as I fumbled for a coherent thought. Why in the fuck did I let myself be persuaded? What was I going to say to this woman? As I searched for words, I stared at my blurred reflection in the window. I could hardly recognize myself anymore. Harry’s presence within me hadn’t just affected my soul; his essence, the wholeness of him, nourished my body. The deathly gray pallor of my flesh bloomed into the healthy milky-peach that I remembered from my youth. Although my face was still sharp and angular, it lost its ophidian features. The man that stared back at me in the reflection resembled the one I wore in my twenties, before my lust for immortality had overcome me. The only hint of the old monster was the vertical slit of my pupils.
Behind me, the door swung open, and the guard walked into the room with Hermione in tow. “Leave us,” I told the guard without turning around. He exited in a hurry, shutting the door behind him.
For a moment, a strained silence hung between us. Then she said, “I’m not afraid to die. So if you’re going to kill me, do it.”
I turned to face her. Belatedly, I realized my preparation was for naught--because seeing her standing there in the golden light of the fireplace, in the intimacy of this small space--for the first time in my life, my heart ached with a yearning. I let its current carry me to her.
Her brows furrowed at my approach. Her brown eyes pierced into me, searching.
“Hermione.” Her name tumbled out from my lips, caressing each syllable.
Her eyes blew open, and her lips parted in surprise.
“She knows,” Harry marveled.
But, just as quickly, her defenses went up, and she regarded me with a cold glare. “You’re mocking me,” she spat.
I stopped in front of her. I only had to hold out my hand to cradle the soft curve of her cheek, but I stopped short. She didn’t know me. She only knew the monster.
“Let me,” Harry said. “Please, Tom. Let me.”
In our time together, I had never let Harry come to the forefront. But between the tone of his beseechment, and the circumspect look in her eyes, and the way my hands craved the feel of her skin--
I sank into myself and let Harry take control.
“Hermione,” Harry said with my voice. “Love, it’s me.” We reached out for her and threaded our fingers between hers.
Tears slid down her cheeks as she stared at our clasped hands. “No,” she whispered.
“Look at me,” Harry pleaded. “Look at me, and if there’s any, any sliver of fairness in this world, see me .”
Her eyes raked up to meet ours--and recognition shone from them behind a sheen of tears. “My God.” Her hands flew to either side of our face. “Harry. It’s you. He’s taken you.”
My heart wrenched at her accusation. Our hands traced up her forearms and cuffed her wrists as Harry chuckled darkly. “No, love. I went to him.”
“Why?” Hermione cried.
“Because we belong to each other. Always have.”
Hermione’s gaze fell to the floor as she shook her head. Harry cupped her chin and tilted her face up. “Please don’t do that. You don’t know how long I’ve been dreaming of seeing you. How I’ve hungered for the sight of you.” He paused until she looked at us squarely. “We both have.”
“What?” Her face twisted in shock. “ How? ”
“Tom and I. We’ve always been together, in some way. Two halves of a whole. Separate, and the same.” My lips curled up in a smirk. “Well, not quite so separate anymore.”
“And he…” Hermione’s gaze darted over our face. “He feels what you feel?”
We nodded. I felt a glimmer of hope that she hadn’t pushed us away and tried to escape. “He’s not so bad, you know.” Our face contorted. “Not now, anyway. Now that I’ve known him, the real him. The one who grew up asking to be loved and was spurned instead. We had walked the same path.” We trailed a thumb lightly over her jawline. “Only I was lucky enough to find you.”
“This is madness,” she said. But she leaned towards us, gazing at us with raw longing.
I wanted to hold her, so we did, wrapping our arms around her thin frame. She rested her cheek on our chest. We buried our face into her curls. “The world has always been madness. It will never stop. But at least now we’re all together.”
She didn’t say anything in return. But after a few moments, her arms cautiously wrapped around our waist. And as we held onto each other, I felt, for the first time, truly complete. For though Harry and I were forever interlocked, I now realized that Hermione was the glue that would bond us.
Together. Always.