humbuggirl: Fic Fall Victim (Hermione/Marcus, rating)
Title: Fall Victim
Author: HumbugGirl
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Set: 100.4
Prompt: 003 - Cold
Word Count: 3,989
Summary: “Something had snapped inside her as she had listened and in that instance, Hermione had simply known.”
Warnings: Character death. Angst.
A thick layer of frost covered the ground, making it crunch noisily beneath Hermione’s booted feet as she walked. With each step that she took, she was filled with the urge to wince and she had to work hard to keep her features passive, professional, cool. Making so much noise seemed disrespectful, but the men walking with her did not seem to care about that all that much. They were too busy talking, chuckling even. They certainly had not noticed that she had fallen silent.
Slowing her pace slightly, she let Ron and Moody walk on ahead a little way. When they were beyond hearing range, she let out a long sigh that she had been holding in. Her breath clouded instantly. It was nearly four in the morning and the world around her was perfectly dark except for the dim light from the waning moon above. It should have felt peaceful - the countryside was certainly beautiful enough. Yet the moonlight gave it an uncomfortably eerie quality and Hermione simply could not shake the knowledge of what supposedly lay over the next rise. It made her heart beat wildly in her chest.
She shivered, shoving her gloved hands deeper into the pockets of her heavy winter coat and hunching her shoulders slightly.
The call had come in at around one in the morning, though Hermione had not learned of it until nearly two hours later afterwards. She had been out on the town, enjoying herself - ‘taking a break from things’ at Harry’s insistence. “Don’t run your self into the ground,” her old friend had said in a kindly, worried voice. “You’re much too valuable for that.”
She had smiled and agreed, and a couple of hours later she had been dancing away to a pounding track that sounded identical to the one that had preceded it. The music had felt like it was seeping into her body, into her bones, before leaving it again like some glorious release. She had been sipping on some brightly coloured drink while laughing and joking with Ginny as they fended off the advances of a couple of men who really should have known better than to try in the first place. Indeed they had been giggling over something meaningless when she had first spied Ron making his way across the dance floor towards them. Now, Hermione could not even remember what they had been talking about.
At first, she had not noticed the sober expression on his face, or the tense way in which he held himself. She had assumed that he had simply decided to come and join them. She had waved to him and grinned broadly, ready to grab his arm when he came close enough and pull him right into the music.
It had taken Ginny’s startled exclamation for her to realise that there was something wrong. Ron had leaned close, gently grasping her elbow and above the thumping music, Hermione had caught the words, “…fight… Ilkley… nine dead… Death Eaters…”
Something had snapped inside her as she had listened and in that instance, Hermione had simply known. This was not like the other times when there had been a small voice whispering irksomely inside, suspecting that something had happened. This was a brilliant neon sign flashing ‘oh God, he’s dead’ at the front of her mind, growing brighter and brighter by the second.
Panic had flooded through her and she was immediately grateful that the dimmed lighting in the club meant that it was not as visible on her face as it might have been. It was like a protective cloak, covering her from the inquisitive eyes of her two friends. Not that Ginny was actually looking at her; she was peering off across the club as if in a daze, obviously preoccupied with concerns of her own. Ron, however, was watching her, with a tired expression on his face that made him look like he had not slept in a hundred or so years.
Hermione had turned to him, trying to shake off the racing mix of emotions plaguing her. “Where?” she mouthed, not even bothering to try and shout about the music.
Ron reached into his pocket and drew out a matchbox. “Portkey,” he mouthed in return and Hermione nodded, understand instantly.
They collected their coats left the club, pulling Ginny after them. Unlike Hermione and Ron, the red haired girl had not opted to go into Aurors after she left school so they left her at the closest Apparation point before leaving the city via the Portkey.
The moment that Hermione’s feet had hit the uneven ground of the moor, she had known they were not far from where the fight had taken place. It was an instinctive knowledge. Magic lingered in the air; it was almost palatable. A tart, biting taste that Hermione had grown to know only too well over the years.
Moody had met them, barking his greeting and his face just as stern as ever. After pleasantries, they had begun the short trek to the site of the battle, Hermione stumbling occasionally as she went. Boots with stiletto heals were really not suitable footwear for trampling about the Yorkshire countryside in the early hours of the morning - or any other time actually.
She reached the top of the rise only a few seconds later than Ron and Moody and paused there, staring down at the scene below. It was oddly familiar, in a strange way. Over the last three years, since Harry had defeated Voldemort, she had been to a lot of battle sites just like this one, where small groups of committed Death Eaters had been backed into a corner by Aurors. It could only ever lead to one thing.
From her perch on the top of the hill, Hermione watched as two other Ministry Aurors hovered over the remains of two their comrades. In the dark they were visible only because of their matching uniforms. Nearby there was a third body, separate; distinguished by the dull rags that it was wearing. Hermione knew instantly that it was a Death Eater - had been a Death Eater. For a second, she stopped breathing and then she noticed the thin greying hair covering the corpse’s crown. Suddenly, air flooded back into her lungs.
One of the Aurors below broke off, starting up the incline towards Moody and Ron. Hermione hastened to join them, just drawing close in time to hear the young man say, “There are these three, five more in that direction and one more in a ditch, just over there, by the wall. We’ve cleared the area of the injured and checked for any more Death Eater activity. The… the bodies and the scene just need to be processed.”
Hermione stared at him, noting the nervous way he held himself and the way he looked more than a little grey in the face. Idly, she wondered whether head office would have been foolish enough to send a new recruit out on a job like this. At first glance he had barely looked old enough to have completed training. After closer inspection, Hermione decided that he did not even look as if he was old enough to have started training.
”Okay, lad,” Moody said, his gruff voice surprisingly gentle. “You two get off and we’ll finish up here.”
He nodded gratefully and turned sharply, the cloak of his uniform dancing around him as he did so.
“Come on,” Ron said, glancing over at her. “The quicker we do this then the sooner we can get out of the cold.”
Hermione nodded her head briefly in agreement, keeping her features neutral. She moved to follow him, then stopped as she realised that Moody’s eyes were on her and there was a frown on his features. Her heart fluttered wildly. Moody’s magical eye could detect a million different things.
“What on earth are you wearing, girlie?” he asked brusquely, sounding genuinely bewildered.
Her lips quirked into a small smile and she said, “Some of us actually enjoy a little down time occasionally, Alastor.”
The old Auror snorted, making his opinion on that particular subject clear. Hermione doubted that he had ever had a day off - or a night for that matter. Constant vigilance, she thought, with a smile.
Slowly, she made her way down the incline, not especially wanting to reach the bottom and also aware that one wrong move in her heals would send her plummeting down the hill. Now that they had been informed of where the next group of bodies lay, Hermione had no trouble seeing them in the dim moonlight. They were clumped together, clearly indicating that this had been the main point of the skirmish and as she approached, Hermione realised that there was actually only one Auror among them. The rest were Death Eaters.
“Went down fighting,” Moody said hoarsely, peering down at the body of the middle aged woman. Hermione joined him and felt a flicker of shock as she realised that she recognised the woman. Elfrida Muldoon… She had been one of the instructors at the Auror Academy when Hermione had been there.
Stepping away sharply, Hermione walked over to where Ron was bobbed down by one of the other bodies. He had just rolled it over onto its back in order to search the corpse’s pockets for any pieces of identification that might be on it. As the body flopped onto its back though, he stopped and instead reached for the pad of paper that he kept in his pocket for making notes.
“Theodore Nott,” he said as she approached.
Hermione frowned. “I thought he was taken last year by a task force on Jersey.”
“Apparently they were mistaken.” He snorted. “Only second rate teams of idiots are assigned there because they never thought the Death Eaters would bother with it.”
The brunette rolled her eyes at his tone and moved away letting her eyes skim over the next body and then the next. Breathing a little unsteadily, she told him, “I’m going to go check out the one by the wall.”
Ron nodded absently as he scribbled something down but gave on other indication that he had actually heard what she had said. He was completely oblivious to the tremor that had sounded in his friend’s voice; something that Hermione was glad of.
Hermione turned away and began to walk towards the dry-stone wall in the distance. Apprehension was beginning to well uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. None of the bodies that she had seen so had been his. They were all either too short or too fat. They did not have his svelte, muscular torso or broad, strong shoulders. Hermione knew that she should have been relieved by the fact, but she could not bring herself to feel that way. Not when there was still that sloshing feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach and a body that she had not as yet seen.
Her feet carried her unsteadily down the hill, not only because of her heals but because her legs had begun to tremble through both fatigue and those seemingly ever-present nerves. She nearly fell as the sharp heal of one of her boots caught in a particularly sodden patch of ground but even after that little incident, she still reached the bottom entirely too quickly.
Her heart was pounding, threatening to thump its way right out of her chest. Blood rushed around her veins madly and yet her fingertips still tingled. There was no body on this side of the wall; she had to place her hands on the jagged top and lean forwards over the rough stone to see it. It took an extra special burst of courage and no small degree of morbid curiosity to do it.
Marcus.
She froze, unable to move, eyes wide. Bizarrely, she could not tear them away from the crooked line of his nose. Once, a long time ago, when they had been sharing a stolen afternoon together, he had told her that he had broken it two times in his life. The first time had been when he had fallen out of a first floor window at his family home. His father had refused to heal the break properly because when it had occurred, Marcus had been attempting to find out whether it would be possible to climb down the huge honeysuckle that covered the wall near his bedroom window.
“I was fourteen,” Marcus had told her, a wry smile turning up the corner of his lips. “And Adrian Pucey had promised to introduce me to the delights of firewhiskey if I managed to sneak out one night that week. Luckily, my dear Dad did not find out that little piece of information.”
The second time had, apparently, also been Adrian Pucey’s fault. He had dared Marcus to sneak into the girl’s dormitory in the Slytherin quarters and climb into Pansy Parkinson’s bed. Never one to back down from any sort of challenge, Marcus had diligently found a way past the complicated wards that were commonly used by members of that house, found Pansy’s bed, and slipped beneath the covers. In the pitch black, he had reached across to cheekily grope between the girl’s thighs only to end up touching something that certainly should not have been there. The next thing he had known, Draco Malfoy had smacked him hard between the eyes and broken his nose for the second time in his life.
After struggling to climb over the wall, Hermione dropped to her knees beside the prone figure on the ground. He was stretched out, flat on his back with one hand across his stomach and another flung out to the side near to a pile of what looked suspiciously like sheep shit. For a moment, she did not dare touch him. Just from looking, Hermione could tell that his body was wasted from its former glory and she did not want her fingertips to end up tracing finely outlined ribs or a concave region of flesh where there should have been the firm ripple of his stomach muscles. She did not want to find the wound that had killed him, if there was one.
She turned her attention back to his face, to the strong line of his jaw and the surprisingly full pout of his lips. While his cheeks were now shrunken, they were still rich, plump, and Hermione knew that if she was to touch them then they would still feel velvety, even if they were cold.
His eyes were mercifully closed. There were tears bubbling up, burning behind her eyes, which would certainly have spilled over if she had been confronted with those perfect dark orbs. Not that they would have been so beautiful now. After death, the eyes were one of the first things to deteriorate. They faded and became covered in a dull film that stole whatever liveliness they might have once possessed. It would not be Marcus’ dark dancing gaze looking back at her. It would be nothing.
Unbidden, a vision came to her. Those perfect eyes that she had once, a thousand years ago or so, mistakenly thought cool and bitter, skimming over her with such warmth that Hermione had been shocked to discover that they had not burned into her flesh.
She slammed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memory only to be assaulted by another equally brutal one - the last time they had seen each other. Abruptly it was once again months ago, and she was once again rather foolishly investigating suspected Death Eater activity at a port up north, in Hull, solo. There had been reports recently that the few remaining Death Eaters had become involved in the Muggle drugs trade, using it as a way of funding their activities. Hermione had taken it upon herself to discover the validity of such reports.
She did not know exactly what had gone wrong or how she had come to be discovered. The hiding place that she had chosen should have been perfect, and yet somehow she had been detected. What had followed had been a short but ferocious fire fight with Hermione on one side and six Death Eaters on the other. Her position compromised, Hermione had mentally tallied the odds of surviving and concluded that her best option was to run.
Darting in and out of the shadows, avoiding as best she could the Muggle workers who still worked loading and unloading ships even in the late hours of the night, Hermione had thrown curses and hexes over her shoulder at her pursuers. It had taken her an age to realise that she was not the only one firing at the Death Eaters. Looking around desperately, she had not noticed when a hand had grabbed her wrist and yanked her into one of the monumental warehouses. The next thing that she had truly been aware of, Hermione had been pressed hard against a male form - one that was doing his best to gain entrance to her mouth with his tongue.
Those lips were so familiar that her confusion fled immediately, replaced by a need that had been fuelled by weeks and months of not being able to touch him. It had always been that way, ever since their very first encounter under such similar circumstance. Before long even the Death Eaters outside - his comrades - were forgotten and rough, hard, sex against the wall of the warehouse had followed not soon after.
When it was over, and she was slumped against the wall, her legs barely supporting her, Hermione had clung to his shoulders, to him, with such force that she knew she had to have bruised him. Marcus was leaning against her, towering over her even as he inclined his great height to meet hers. His tall frame was seemingly boneless and gradually he had sunk to his knees, burying his face in her stomach and breathing deeply. Hermione had stroked his thick black hair, trying to imprint the sensation of it on her fingertips, and hated the knowledge that before too long he would have to leave her once more to return to his black-clad, masked brothers.
Their relationship, she knew, was completely inexplicable. She had always known it. There was absolutely no reason on earth why someone like her should possibly want to be involved with a man like Marcus Flint. He was rough and crude, demanding in the extreme when they were together. His hands were rarely gentle with her, though oddly that was something that Hermione had come to appreciate, and sometimes when he kissed her it felt as if he was trying to perform the Kiss. Occasionally though, he would simply hold onto her. They might talk a little, tentatively touching on matters which went beyond their physical connection. It was those moments that Hermione truly valued because, just as she should not want him, there was no explanation for why he should want her.
Hermione knew there was nothing wrong with herself. She knew that there were plenty of men out there who love and treasure a woman like her in their life. None of those men were Death Eaters though. They had not been brought up to hate Muggle-born witches. Why Marcus was willing to forget her heritage had always been beyond Hermione’s ability to comprehend. On the rare occasions that other Muggle-born witches and wizards or ‘blood traitors’ had come up, he had been just as scathing as any other Death Eater would have been. Yet it had never seemed to be an issue between them; not after the first time they had been together at least and he had begun to seek her out.
Her reasons for wanting him were entirely selfish. It was simple really; when Marcus was around it was impossible to think of anything else but him. He was overwhelming in every sense. She could not spare a thought for her work, or her family, or those lingering memories of the war that still haunted her. Not when his hands were gliding over her body, making her feel things that should have shamed her instead of exciting her. Not when she could stretch out next to him, close her eyes, and pretend they were the only two people in the world.
Now, she shuddered and slowly reached out, tentatively brushing the features of his face, ignoring the coolness of his flesh, and finally tracing the line of his nose. Her fingers paused, halfway down and she frowned. Moving slightly so that she could see his face with greater ease, she once again ran her fingertip over area. Something felt… wrong. Unnatural.
There was a lump where previously there had been none. Hermione knew that for a fact. She had spent hours discovering every part of him, mapping his flesh so that she could recall it secretively when she was alone in her bedroom, in the house that she shared with her friends.
Her jaw tightened and she pushed herself up onto her knees, leaning over him to study the shape of his nose more closely. It was crooked - more so that it should have been. To her astonishment, Hermione realised that Marcus must once again have managed to get his nose broken.
Tears rose abruptly to her eyes, and this time, Hermione could not prevent them from spilling over. Furtively, she rubbed at her eyes, trying to force them away. It was silly, really, crying because Marcus had broken his nose at some point before he had died but she did not seem able to stop. The thought had hit her that she would never know exactly how he had come to do it. There would never be another lazy afternoon together in some cheap bed and breakfast when she had managed to escape from work and he had snuck away from the other Death Eaters to meet her. They would never simply loll around together, telling stories of their respective childhoods and finding odd little similarities that they would never have expected.
“Who is it?”
Hermione jumped, spinning around to look at the figure on the other side of the wall. Ron was leaned on top of it, his notebook still clutched in one hand, ready to write down whatever she told him.
“Marcus Flint,” Hermione breathed softly, hating the way that her voice came out shakily. Maybe, if she was lucky, then Ron would not pick up on it. He could be unusually dense occasionally and she prayed that this would be one of those times. She did not want him to react at all because staying steady, calm, around him suddenly seemed ridiculously difficult.
Something flickered through Ron’s eyes. “’Mione…” he began.
At least it was Ron, she thought; Ron who had been the one to figure out the strange nature of her relationship with the fugitive Death Eater. He had noticed her disappearing occasionally without telling anyone where she was going and when he had confronted her about it, Hermione had ended up having no choice but to tell him what she was doing. Oddly, he had never sought to continue the discussion even though he had clearly disapproved of the relationship. He had simply told her to be careful and that he would be there if she ever needed him to be. If it had been anyone else stood before her now, witnessing her vulnerable moment, then Hermione doubted that she would have been managing to hold things together as well as she was.
Hermione quickly raised a hand to stop him. “Don’t. I’m fine. Really,” she told him even though she suspected that they both knew it was a lie. She would probably never be fine again.
For the first time in her life, Hermione hated herself for being right.
END
Author: HumbugGirl
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Set: 100.4
Prompt: 003 - Cold
Word Count: 3,989
Summary: “Something had snapped inside her as she had listened and in that instance, Hermione had simply known.”
Warnings: Character death. Angst.
A thick layer of frost covered the ground, making it crunch noisily beneath Hermione’s booted feet as she walked. With each step that she took, she was filled with the urge to wince and she had to work hard to keep her features passive, professional, cool. Making so much noise seemed disrespectful, but the men walking with her did not seem to care about that all that much. They were too busy talking, chuckling even. They certainly had not noticed that she had fallen silent.
Slowing her pace slightly, she let Ron and Moody walk on ahead a little way. When they were beyond hearing range, she let out a long sigh that she had been holding in. Her breath clouded instantly. It was nearly four in the morning and the world around her was perfectly dark except for the dim light from the waning moon above. It should have felt peaceful - the countryside was certainly beautiful enough. Yet the moonlight gave it an uncomfortably eerie quality and Hermione simply could not shake the knowledge of what supposedly lay over the next rise. It made her heart beat wildly in her chest.
She shivered, shoving her gloved hands deeper into the pockets of her heavy winter coat and hunching her shoulders slightly.
The call had come in at around one in the morning, though Hermione had not learned of it until nearly two hours later afterwards. She had been out on the town, enjoying herself - ‘taking a break from things’ at Harry’s insistence. “Don’t run your self into the ground,” her old friend had said in a kindly, worried voice. “You’re much too valuable for that.”
She had smiled and agreed, and a couple of hours later she had been dancing away to a pounding track that sounded identical to the one that had preceded it. The music had felt like it was seeping into her body, into her bones, before leaving it again like some glorious release. She had been sipping on some brightly coloured drink while laughing and joking with Ginny as they fended off the advances of a couple of men who really should have known better than to try in the first place. Indeed they had been giggling over something meaningless when she had first spied Ron making his way across the dance floor towards them. Now, Hermione could not even remember what they had been talking about.
At first, she had not noticed the sober expression on his face, or the tense way in which he held himself. She had assumed that he had simply decided to come and join them. She had waved to him and grinned broadly, ready to grab his arm when he came close enough and pull him right into the music.
It had taken Ginny’s startled exclamation for her to realise that there was something wrong. Ron had leaned close, gently grasping her elbow and above the thumping music, Hermione had caught the words, “…fight… Ilkley… nine dead… Death Eaters…”
Something had snapped inside her as she had listened and in that instance, Hermione had simply known. This was not like the other times when there had been a small voice whispering irksomely inside, suspecting that something had happened. This was a brilliant neon sign flashing ‘oh God, he’s dead’ at the front of her mind, growing brighter and brighter by the second.
Panic had flooded through her and she was immediately grateful that the dimmed lighting in the club meant that it was not as visible on her face as it might have been. It was like a protective cloak, covering her from the inquisitive eyes of her two friends. Not that Ginny was actually looking at her; she was peering off across the club as if in a daze, obviously preoccupied with concerns of her own. Ron, however, was watching her, with a tired expression on his face that made him look like he had not slept in a hundred or so years.
Hermione had turned to him, trying to shake off the racing mix of emotions plaguing her. “Where?” she mouthed, not even bothering to try and shout about the music.
Ron reached into his pocket and drew out a matchbox. “Portkey,” he mouthed in return and Hermione nodded, understand instantly.
They collected their coats left the club, pulling Ginny after them. Unlike Hermione and Ron, the red haired girl had not opted to go into Aurors after she left school so they left her at the closest Apparation point before leaving the city via the Portkey.
The moment that Hermione’s feet had hit the uneven ground of the moor, she had known they were not far from where the fight had taken place. It was an instinctive knowledge. Magic lingered in the air; it was almost palatable. A tart, biting taste that Hermione had grown to know only too well over the years.
Moody had met them, barking his greeting and his face just as stern as ever. After pleasantries, they had begun the short trek to the site of the battle, Hermione stumbling occasionally as she went. Boots with stiletto heals were really not suitable footwear for trampling about the Yorkshire countryside in the early hours of the morning - or any other time actually.
She reached the top of the rise only a few seconds later than Ron and Moody and paused there, staring down at the scene below. It was oddly familiar, in a strange way. Over the last three years, since Harry had defeated Voldemort, she had been to a lot of battle sites just like this one, where small groups of committed Death Eaters had been backed into a corner by Aurors. It could only ever lead to one thing.
From her perch on the top of the hill, Hermione watched as two other Ministry Aurors hovered over the remains of two their comrades. In the dark they were visible only because of their matching uniforms. Nearby there was a third body, separate; distinguished by the dull rags that it was wearing. Hermione knew instantly that it was a Death Eater - had been a Death Eater. For a second, she stopped breathing and then she noticed the thin greying hair covering the corpse’s crown. Suddenly, air flooded back into her lungs.
One of the Aurors below broke off, starting up the incline towards Moody and Ron. Hermione hastened to join them, just drawing close in time to hear the young man say, “There are these three, five more in that direction and one more in a ditch, just over there, by the wall. We’ve cleared the area of the injured and checked for any more Death Eater activity. The… the bodies and the scene just need to be processed.”
Hermione stared at him, noting the nervous way he held himself and the way he looked more than a little grey in the face. Idly, she wondered whether head office would have been foolish enough to send a new recruit out on a job like this. At first glance he had barely looked old enough to have completed training. After closer inspection, Hermione decided that he did not even look as if he was old enough to have started training.
”Okay, lad,” Moody said, his gruff voice surprisingly gentle. “You two get off and we’ll finish up here.”
He nodded gratefully and turned sharply, the cloak of his uniform dancing around him as he did so.
“Come on,” Ron said, glancing over at her. “The quicker we do this then the sooner we can get out of the cold.”
Hermione nodded her head briefly in agreement, keeping her features neutral. She moved to follow him, then stopped as she realised that Moody’s eyes were on her and there was a frown on his features. Her heart fluttered wildly. Moody’s magical eye could detect a million different things.
“What on earth are you wearing, girlie?” he asked brusquely, sounding genuinely bewildered.
Her lips quirked into a small smile and she said, “Some of us actually enjoy a little down time occasionally, Alastor.”
The old Auror snorted, making his opinion on that particular subject clear. Hermione doubted that he had ever had a day off - or a night for that matter. Constant vigilance, she thought, with a smile.
Slowly, she made her way down the incline, not especially wanting to reach the bottom and also aware that one wrong move in her heals would send her plummeting down the hill. Now that they had been informed of where the next group of bodies lay, Hermione had no trouble seeing them in the dim moonlight. They were clumped together, clearly indicating that this had been the main point of the skirmish and as she approached, Hermione realised that there was actually only one Auror among them. The rest were Death Eaters.
“Went down fighting,” Moody said hoarsely, peering down at the body of the middle aged woman. Hermione joined him and felt a flicker of shock as she realised that she recognised the woman. Elfrida Muldoon… She had been one of the instructors at the Auror Academy when Hermione had been there.
Stepping away sharply, Hermione walked over to where Ron was bobbed down by one of the other bodies. He had just rolled it over onto its back in order to search the corpse’s pockets for any pieces of identification that might be on it. As the body flopped onto its back though, he stopped and instead reached for the pad of paper that he kept in his pocket for making notes.
“Theodore Nott,” he said as she approached.
Hermione frowned. “I thought he was taken last year by a task force on Jersey.”
“Apparently they were mistaken.” He snorted. “Only second rate teams of idiots are assigned there because they never thought the Death Eaters would bother with it.”
The brunette rolled her eyes at his tone and moved away letting her eyes skim over the next body and then the next. Breathing a little unsteadily, she told him, “I’m going to go check out the one by the wall.”
Ron nodded absently as he scribbled something down but gave on other indication that he had actually heard what she had said. He was completely oblivious to the tremor that had sounded in his friend’s voice; something that Hermione was glad of.
Hermione turned away and began to walk towards the dry-stone wall in the distance. Apprehension was beginning to well uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. None of the bodies that she had seen so had been his. They were all either too short or too fat. They did not have his svelte, muscular torso or broad, strong shoulders. Hermione knew that she should have been relieved by the fact, but she could not bring herself to feel that way. Not when there was still that sloshing feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach and a body that she had not as yet seen.
Her feet carried her unsteadily down the hill, not only because of her heals but because her legs had begun to tremble through both fatigue and those seemingly ever-present nerves. She nearly fell as the sharp heal of one of her boots caught in a particularly sodden patch of ground but even after that little incident, she still reached the bottom entirely too quickly.
Her heart was pounding, threatening to thump its way right out of her chest. Blood rushed around her veins madly and yet her fingertips still tingled. There was no body on this side of the wall; she had to place her hands on the jagged top and lean forwards over the rough stone to see it. It took an extra special burst of courage and no small degree of morbid curiosity to do it.
Marcus.
She froze, unable to move, eyes wide. Bizarrely, she could not tear them away from the crooked line of his nose. Once, a long time ago, when they had been sharing a stolen afternoon together, he had told her that he had broken it two times in his life. The first time had been when he had fallen out of a first floor window at his family home. His father had refused to heal the break properly because when it had occurred, Marcus had been attempting to find out whether it would be possible to climb down the huge honeysuckle that covered the wall near his bedroom window.
“I was fourteen,” Marcus had told her, a wry smile turning up the corner of his lips. “And Adrian Pucey had promised to introduce me to the delights of firewhiskey if I managed to sneak out one night that week. Luckily, my dear Dad did not find out that little piece of information.”
The second time had, apparently, also been Adrian Pucey’s fault. He had dared Marcus to sneak into the girl’s dormitory in the Slytherin quarters and climb into Pansy Parkinson’s bed. Never one to back down from any sort of challenge, Marcus had diligently found a way past the complicated wards that were commonly used by members of that house, found Pansy’s bed, and slipped beneath the covers. In the pitch black, he had reached across to cheekily grope between the girl’s thighs only to end up touching something that certainly should not have been there. The next thing he had known, Draco Malfoy had smacked him hard between the eyes and broken his nose for the second time in his life.
After struggling to climb over the wall, Hermione dropped to her knees beside the prone figure on the ground. He was stretched out, flat on his back with one hand across his stomach and another flung out to the side near to a pile of what looked suspiciously like sheep shit. For a moment, she did not dare touch him. Just from looking, Hermione could tell that his body was wasted from its former glory and she did not want her fingertips to end up tracing finely outlined ribs or a concave region of flesh where there should have been the firm ripple of his stomach muscles. She did not want to find the wound that had killed him, if there was one.
She turned her attention back to his face, to the strong line of his jaw and the surprisingly full pout of his lips. While his cheeks were now shrunken, they were still rich, plump, and Hermione knew that if she was to touch them then they would still feel velvety, even if they were cold.
His eyes were mercifully closed. There were tears bubbling up, burning behind her eyes, which would certainly have spilled over if she had been confronted with those perfect dark orbs. Not that they would have been so beautiful now. After death, the eyes were one of the first things to deteriorate. They faded and became covered in a dull film that stole whatever liveliness they might have once possessed. It would not be Marcus’ dark dancing gaze looking back at her. It would be nothing.
Unbidden, a vision came to her. Those perfect eyes that she had once, a thousand years ago or so, mistakenly thought cool and bitter, skimming over her with such warmth that Hermione had been shocked to discover that they had not burned into her flesh.
She slammed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memory only to be assaulted by another equally brutal one - the last time they had seen each other. Abruptly it was once again months ago, and she was once again rather foolishly investigating suspected Death Eater activity at a port up north, in Hull, solo. There had been reports recently that the few remaining Death Eaters had become involved in the Muggle drugs trade, using it as a way of funding their activities. Hermione had taken it upon herself to discover the validity of such reports.
She did not know exactly what had gone wrong or how she had come to be discovered. The hiding place that she had chosen should have been perfect, and yet somehow she had been detected. What had followed had been a short but ferocious fire fight with Hermione on one side and six Death Eaters on the other. Her position compromised, Hermione had mentally tallied the odds of surviving and concluded that her best option was to run.
Darting in and out of the shadows, avoiding as best she could the Muggle workers who still worked loading and unloading ships even in the late hours of the night, Hermione had thrown curses and hexes over her shoulder at her pursuers. It had taken her an age to realise that she was not the only one firing at the Death Eaters. Looking around desperately, she had not noticed when a hand had grabbed her wrist and yanked her into one of the monumental warehouses. The next thing that she had truly been aware of, Hermione had been pressed hard against a male form - one that was doing his best to gain entrance to her mouth with his tongue.
Those lips were so familiar that her confusion fled immediately, replaced by a need that had been fuelled by weeks and months of not being able to touch him. It had always been that way, ever since their very first encounter under such similar circumstance. Before long even the Death Eaters outside - his comrades - were forgotten and rough, hard, sex against the wall of the warehouse had followed not soon after.
When it was over, and she was slumped against the wall, her legs barely supporting her, Hermione had clung to his shoulders, to him, with such force that she knew she had to have bruised him. Marcus was leaning against her, towering over her even as he inclined his great height to meet hers. His tall frame was seemingly boneless and gradually he had sunk to his knees, burying his face in her stomach and breathing deeply. Hermione had stroked his thick black hair, trying to imprint the sensation of it on her fingertips, and hated the knowledge that before too long he would have to leave her once more to return to his black-clad, masked brothers.
Their relationship, she knew, was completely inexplicable. She had always known it. There was absolutely no reason on earth why someone like her should possibly want to be involved with a man like Marcus Flint. He was rough and crude, demanding in the extreme when they were together. His hands were rarely gentle with her, though oddly that was something that Hermione had come to appreciate, and sometimes when he kissed her it felt as if he was trying to perform the Kiss. Occasionally though, he would simply hold onto her. They might talk a little, tentatively touching on matters which went beyond their physical connection. It was those moments that Hermione truly valued because, just as she should not want him, there was no explanation for why he should want her.
Hermione knew there was nothing wrong with herself. She knew that there were plenty of men out there who love and treasure a woman like her in their life. None of those men were Death Eaters though. They had not been brought up to hate Muggle-born witches. Why Marcus was willing to forget her heritage had always been beyond Hermione’s ability to comprehend. On the rare occasions that other Muggle-born witches and wizards or ‘blood traitors’ had come up, he had been just as scathing as any other Death Eater would have been. Yet it had never seemed to be an issue between them; not after the first time they had been together at least and he had begun to seek her out.
Her reasons for wanting him were entirely selfish. It was simple really; when Marcus was around it was impossible to think of anything else but him. He was overwhelming in every sense. She could not spare a thought for her work, or her family, or those lingering memories of the war that still haunted her. Not when his hands were gliding over her body, making her feel things that should have shamed her instead of exciting her. Not when she could stretch out next to him, close her eyes, and pretend they were the only two people in the world.
Now, she shuddered and slowly reached out, tentatively brushing the features of his face, ignoring the coolness of his flesh, and finally tracing the line of his nose. Her fingers paused, halfway down and she frowned. Moving slightly so that she could see his face with greater ease, she once again ran her fingertip over area. Something felt… wrong. Unnatural.
There was a lump where previously there had been none. Hermione knew that for a fact. She had spent hours discovering every part of him, mapping his flesh so that she could recall it secretively when she was alone in her bedroom, in the house that she shared with her friends.
Her jaw tightened and she pushed herself up onto her knees, leaning over him to study the shape of his nose more closely. It was crooked - more so that it should have been. To her astonishment, Hermione realised that Marcus must once again have managed to get his nose broken.
Tears rose abruptly to her eyes, and this time, Hermione could not prevent them from spilling over. Furtively, she rubbed at her eyes, trying to force them away. It was silly, really, crying because Marcus had broken his nose at some point before he had died but she did not seem able to stop. The thought had hit her that she would never know exactly how he had come to do it. There would never be another lazy afternoon together in some cheap bed and breakfast when she had managed to escape from work and he had snuck away from the other Death Eaters to meet her. They would never simply loll around together, telling stories of their respective childhoods and finding odd little similarities that they would never have expected.
“Who is it?”
Hermione jumped, spinning around to look at the figure on the other side of the wall. Ron was leaned on top of it, his notebook still clutched in one hand, ready to write down whatever she told him.
“Marcus Flint,” Hermione breathed softly, hating the way that her voice came out shakily. Maybe, if she was lucky, then Ron would not pick up on it. He could be unusually dense occasionally and she prayed that this would be one of those times. She did not want him to react at all because staying steady, calm, around him suddenly seemed ridiculously difficult.
Something flickered through Ron’s eyes. “’Mione…” he began.
At least it was Ron, she thought; Ron who had been the one to figure out the strange nature of her relationship with the fugitive Death Eater. He had noticed her disappearing occasionally without telling anyone where she was going and when he had confronted her about it, Hermione had ended up having no choice but to tell him what she was doing. Oddly, he had never sought to continue the discussion even though he had clearly disapproved of the relationship. He had simply told her to be careful and that he would be there if she ever needed him to be. If it had been anyone else stood before her now, witnessing her vulnerable moment, then Hermione doubted that she would have been managing to hold things together as well as she was.
Hermione quickly raised a hand to stop him. “Don’t. I’m fine. Really,” she told him even though she suspected that they both knew it was a lie. She would probably never be fine again.
For the first time in her life, Hermione hated herself for being right.
END