Ultio Sanguinus Cujus
Pretty darn dark little fic I threw together today, that came about from an old prompt on an HP Dark Fic site - "silver." Something to edit on - yay! (sidenote: I have NO IDEA why the thing doesn't put spaces where I put spaces. Nothing I've tried works. I'm IRKED)
"I'm practically giddy with anticipation - you've no idea..." Sounding more than out of place, Draco Malfoy's voice was boisterous, spreading a cheerful echo down the dark hallway through which he was leading her.
Hermione's senses were all but overwhelmed, the unholy stench surrounding her from her own skin and unseen sources made her stomach clench dangerously, no matter it had been empty for days. The cold was even worse in the hallway than in her cell, the heavy moisture causing the air to bite her flesh mercilessly.
He had been intermittently gracing her with vapid, gloating announcements since he'd retrieved her from her cell; it was how she learned she was going to die today. After hearing him mention it so casually, she stopped paying attention. Nausea, cold and starvation had mined her focus dry, but death drew her attention and refused to let it waver. How would it happen? When? Where? She was by turns numb to the idea and panicked by it.
"You'll probably think it a bit cliched... but you see, Granger, I wanted it almost from the moment I met all of you, so even ten years later, how could I deny it to myself?"
He'd stopped and looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to agree. His words held nothing of her brief future and had slipped from her mind almost as soon as she heard them. She simply peered back at him blankly and let her mind wander as had become her habit while imprisoned - she could sit for hours and dredge up the most obscure hexes and charms she had read about that might save her from this predicament - if only she had her wand.
If only she had her blasted wand.
"When was the last time you had food?" Surely such a question shouldn't be asked with such a satisfied grin? Her stomach clenched with agonizing intensity at the mention of it and she averted her gaze. Malfoy's Cruciatus curses were among the very worst, and she didn't want him to see the sarcastic derision in her eyes at his asking her such an inane question. Did he think she knew how long she'd been down there in the dark, with no window or light, no regular visits? Did he think she wanted to remember? There were times when it felt mere moments had passed since she'd been taken from the research table in her hideout at the abandoned Hogwarts. Mostly, however, it seemed years had passed since then. In the end, time ceased to matter when all there was to feel was pain, hunger and fear. The wretchedly simple incantations for sustenance charms chanted in her head mockingly and she winced as she always did when it happened.
Her captor smirked at her lack of response. "Ah, well. No matter, really. Hunger pangs will be the least of your worries in a few moments, I should think."
Malfoy could have been devastatingly handsome, were it not for the hideous cruelty that sparked in his eyes and twisted his pretty mouth when he flashed what should have been a smile.
"Merlin, but I pity you." She hadn't meant to say it out loud, no matter how quietly - the cut corridor was close and sound bounced easily, though her voice was raspy from lack of use and her tongue felt as dry as parchment. Watching the instant rage that flew over Malfoy's delicate features almost made her flinch. She stiffened her spine against her fear; she knew he was taking her to her death, so what did it matter how she died? Pain would end - fear, suffering, anguish - it would all be over soon. It had to be a good thing, surely, for it all to finally end.
"What's that? Pity? You pity me? Come now, Granger..." his long, elegant fingers crushed her chin harshly as he strode forward and pinned her to the wall behind her, grinding the back of her head against the jagged stone with all his surprising strength. "...Do you really want to anger me like this in your last moments?"
He sounded as if he were speaking Parseltongue, he hissed his words with such vehemence. She simply gazed into his blazing pale gray eyes and tried to gloat at the tinge of madness she found there. Her mind was accustomed by now to compartmentalizing her pain in order to deal with it and she lost interest in her captor as a litany of useful spells she could have thrown at him overtook her thoughts. If only she had her wand. She could feel the oozing of blood where he'd cut her scalp on the rough wall, but didn't allow herself to feel anything else.
Malfoy’s hand jerked from her chin and his stare bored into her own with more fury than she'd ever seen in him. "I had been thinking I would simply do it quickly and have it done, Granger, but you've reminded me why I always wanted you to suffer the most out of them all."
Though resigned to her fate, the animal instinct within her spooked yet again at the thought and she felt a huge rush of adrenaline surge into her veins. Her hands began to shake as her thoughts sharpened into sudden crystal clarity and her fear made her intensely angry.
Sounding very much like the old, pre-war Hermione, she spat at him, "Why? Because I've always pitied you? Because I was stupid and always thought and hoped you were smarter than this or that you would surely be too proud to bow to anyone, let alone a half-breed madman?"
He backhanded her almost lazily, but it really didn't take much to bring her down anymore.
"I am a Pureblood, you filth. The war is over and we won. Even great men follow great leaders, and that is what I have done. And now we who were faithful will receive our rewards. You are one of mine."
Her skin pebbled all over instantly with disbelief at the thought that she’d been reduced to a war prize, then her face crumpled with revulsion when she considered the extent to which the notion could be taken. He sneered, her distaste obvious, "Don't flatter yourself. The most I will sully myself with you is by dragging you to your death... perhaps soaking my hands a bit in your filthy blood. But before then, you're mine to do with as I please, and if you keep this up, it will please me endlessly to see you in as much pain as possible before I let you bleed to death."
He jerked her to her feet and shoved her ahead of him, "Go on; your execution awaits and I've many far more interesting things I could be doing."
Hermione had come to hate the voices in her head that had become so much more prevalent during her imprisonment. There was one now, telling her that she'd been tiresomely touted as the brightest witch of her age, and that she could surely beg to offer her services to Voldemort’s cause just so she could live. Another voice instantly railed that such an action would be the highest level of cowardice... that Harry would be ashamed she'd even thought it after all the fighting and loss they'd endured; he'd definitely never forgive her if she went through with it. She forced the first voice to silence, knowing such a life would be worse than death.
A third voice, the strongest, clearly stated that the old Hermione would have thought of a way out of this mess. There were means of devastating magic without wands, after all.
With a jolt, she focused on a remembered epiphany from her research through an ancient tome of dark, obscure rites just days before she'd been taken. She'd always struggled with wandless magic, succeeding only inconsistently no matter how hard she practiced, but the Dark Arts held a number of means that were inescapably foolproof once enacted: blood magic - the most powerful, and the most dreadful - harming the caster and the victim equally.
She'd devoured the information despite her unease of delving into the darkest of arts, and she remembered that the power of the curse was fueled by pure hate. She’d told herself she could never hate anyone enough to curse them like that - but like what? Something about revenge... Her mind was flitting all over the place from prolonged lack of food and water and the searing fear that pulsed in her veins the closer she walked to her proposed death and she couldn't recall anything more useful than how she'd found the curse so fascinating. It was disastrous and permanent, but actually fairly easy. What in Merlin's name was it?
The long, dark hallway suddenly curved to terminate in an arch of dim light that seemed just as dismal as any other area she'd seen so far in her prison and all thoughts of dark spells flew from her. A low susurrus of sound informed her that quite a group had assembled - most likely all the remaining Death Eaters - just to watch her die.
Mounting swells of sickening fear surged in her and she felt her heart begin to race as though to compensate for every beat she should have had in the future she would now never have. Beside her, Malfoy made a sound almost like a giggle and she knew she heard a hint of his madness in it.
"Wait just here. I want to go into the room and watch you as you come in. I want to see your face." Suiting action to words, he stepped from her side into what looked to be a large circular room. A lone, pale blue light shone on the center of the floor, but the darkness looming just beyond quickly swallowed its aura. Malfoy seemed to disappear from her sight for a split-second as he strode through the darkness and emerged into the sickly spotlight.
Once in the center, he bowed elegantly and raised his hands as he turned slowly in a circle until the low murmurs and hisses of conversation fell silent. Finally, he faced her, giving her a curt gesture to summon her forward. Without thought, she took a step and another before she faltered.
A sick, frigid finger of dread slid its way down her spine and made her draw her arms around herself. The room stank of endings... of blood, decay and the complex layers of a human body's futile struggle to live. It had been one thing to understand the thought that she was walking to her death, but the sudden reality of it was just too terrible to bear. She felt the urgent need to urinate, despite her extreme dehydration. Her knees began to shake uncontrollably and she found her breath coming in shallow gasps. She wanted to live... god, she wanted to live - life was too beautiful; she inhaled sharply and found herself relishing even the fetid stench, realizing suddenly that even ugliness had its own beauty... and there was too much to life that she'd never done, never seen, never said, never....
Malfoy grinned widely at her obvious distress, "Come here, Granger. Now."
How could he stand there, so cold and unyielding, as if calling her forward to dance at a party? Standing there in the pool of cold blue-gray light, his pale eyes sparkled from the shadows and his hair looked like molten platinum against the flat black of his fine clothes. He looked beautiful and not for the first time, her heart ached to see it. The same hopeless wish she'd had since fifth year overwhelmed her - he didn't have to be this way, didn't he know that? Didn't he know he could be so much more? Couldn't they all go back and start over?
She took a step backward, "Malfoy... "
"I said come here." A note of anger was in his voice now, just tingeing the outer edge of his otherwise bored-sounding voice.
She lingered just inside the doorway, not far enough into the room to see anything other than him, but she could feel the assembled audience shifting silently. There was no escape from this. She could run, but they would find her and she would still die. After everything she'd endured, she still couldn't quite believe this was happening. Surely there was a way to make it through this. "You... you don't have to do this, Malfoy. You don't."
Humoring her, he tilted his head slightly and smiled at her condescendingly, "Don't I?"
A pitiful plea welled in her throat before she quelled it at the last moment, ruthlessly shoving her notorious Gryffindor pride to the fore in a desperate attempt to maintain control and dignity. What was the point of talking now? She wasn't going to offer her services to the Dark Lord and certainly no one in that room was going to offer her mercy. She didn't want to die, but if it was so inescapable, she didn't want to be killed like an animal for sport.
Sheer panic simmered just beneath the thin veneer of her courage when she raised her chin, "Kill me if you have to, Malfoy, but you said yourself that you won. There's no point in being heartless about it... inhuman."
His teeth flashed in the shadows thrown over his face, and again she could see the terrible smile she'd come to loathe as he chuckled darkly, "But you're less than human, Granger. You're an abomination. It's my sworn, proud duty to eradicate you and your kind from my world however I see fit. Don't try to pull out whatever 'good' you think may be in my heart, you idiotic little Gryffindor. For you, there is none. Now get over here before I drag you here by your intestines."
A hissing snicker from behind Malfoy heralded an answering wave of them to slither through the crowd; he openly preened, basking in the approval of his comrades before pinning her with a warning glower.
Hope was guttering wildly in Hermione's chest, its dimming flame finally leaving her imprisoned in a horrifying numbness. What else could she do? She stepped forward, unsure with every step if her knees would give out, until she stood before her childhood nemesis and simply stared at the center of his chest, refusing awareness of anything else in the room. She wasn't going to allow herself to waste her last few moments of life pining over a Draco Malfoy who might have been, or over what was fair, or over the better world she had hoped and fought for when the war started. None of it mattered anymore and she now found herself wondering if Ron would be waiting for her on the other side. A new, if dismal, hope flickered to life and her numbness briefly turned into a dulled sort of anticipation.
"Take a look, Granger. There, first."
Numbly, her eyes followed his finger and she had to squint outside the circle of light into the gloom of the outer circle that lay just beyond in murky darkness. She squinted to focus her vision when she caught a glint off of bright silver and wondered what could be so pristine in such a horrible place. Malfoy stepped around her to watch her as he prodded her close enough to see...
A classic Roman marble pedestal stood before her, serving as host for its centerpiece: a grotesque, dismembered head perched on a silver platter next to remnants of a shattered wand. She closed her eyes and took a step backward instinctively, but Draco's arm swept around her shoulders and rocketed her forward as she heard him chuckle under his breath.
"Now, now, open your eyes, Granger. Say hullo to your old friend... or at least what's left of him." More laughter rolled through the crowd.
Friend? She hadn't been able to recognize anything familiar in the swollen, discolored, disfigured face in the scant moment she'd glimpsed it. Unbidden, her eyes lifted and she stared into the eyes of death. In that moment, it didn't matter that she had an audience or that she herself was about to die - in that moment, every ounce of hope, happiness and peace was slaughtered in her soul as she breathed the agonizing truth of discovery.
Her eyes skipped with pervasive horror over the obscured features before her. In the end, his broken glasses sitting askew on his forehead, his wild black hair and his scar were the only things that told her the remnant before her was unequivocally Harry Potter. His now-lidless eyes, once such a stunning emerald green, had gone to a yellowy, cloudy gray... the rest of him was torn flesh, crushed bone, gray skin stained with old blood... it was too hideous to comprehend. A painfully clear image came to her of the last time she'd seen him - flashing her a rare, weary smile at some final instruction or piece of information she'd given him as he'd been on his way out the door. Looking at the collection of destroyed features now, it seemed impossible that those ripped, desiccated lips had ever spoken a word, let alone inspired such hope to so many with something so simple as a smile.
"Oh, Harry..."
Hermione's breath hitched in her throat and she doubled over, retching painfully as her empty stomach clenched in violent, futile spasms. She could hear laughter as if from a great distance, but it meant nothing to her. Her world was reduced to nothing more than the fathomless depths of despair in which she was drowning.
The while she'd been imprisoned, she'd held out the hope that Harry would save her somehow... that he was still out there, that he was still fighting. She didn't hear Malfoy as he recounted the story of how Harry had fallen; the blood pounding in her ears was far too loud. Harry... who'd lost more than anyone, from Ron to Dumbledore to Sirius; Harry... who'd fought so hard his entire life; Harry... her best friend and whom she'd loved like a brother was well and truly dead. Where the tears could come from in her parched body, she couldn't imagine, but a steady stream flowed down her cheeks.
She slumped against the pedestal's base and saw with terrifying finality the end of all things she'd known and hoped for. In a split-second, everything was gone. It felt as though she'd taken a diving leap into an abyss of absolute hopelessness and wave after wave of sickening goosebumps flowed over her flesh. Malfoy, true to form, reveled in her misery and the laughter of the Death Eaters was like a plague to her ears.
She could have been sitting for an hour, she didn't know, but a flitting thought passed that she should be standing bravely, untouched by the flagrant disrespect shown to Harry, save a burning rage that such a good man should be so wholly desecrated. The notion gave her instantaneous strength.
"Someday..." She pulled herself up and glared into the darkness where her audience sat in malicious judgment. "Someday you will regret everything you've done in the name of that madman. All of this will have been nothing but wasted effort and wasted lives and you, all of you 'Purebloods' will get exactly what you deserve. Your time is coming." If only her voice hadn't shaken so hard, she might have felt a deep satisfaction at the low murmur that briefly ran through the crowd at her outburst.
Malfoy sighed heavily, no doubt annoyed the attention had been diverted from his intended subject, "Yes, yes, you've always had a knack for boring me to tears. Your time is coming as well. More to the point, it's already here." He sneered nastily at her.
"I admit, you gave us a much better show than I expected. You Gryffindors are a chancy lot - never know what you'll get with each of you. That freak, Tonks, cried like a baby over her precious wolfman, and it was Neville who put up the biggest fight. Except for Perfect Potter, of course. Right, then. Up you go."
He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest and sneered down at her in a classic Malfoy pose. Whereas once, even a few moments ago, she would have felt a surge of loathing to see him standing that way, now she felt nothing.
After all, in the end, she realized he was her hope now. It all came down to the release he would give her. She slowly gained her feet and stood as proudly as she could through her severe trembling.
"Now then, before I usher you out of my ideal world, Granger, let's just take a quick stroll, hmm?" He pushed her forward and snatched her hair at the base of her skull to make sure her head remained upright. Walking in such a position was stilted, but he made a full circuit of the large room, forcing her to look at each and every head upon each and every pedestal. Everyone was here who'd disappeared, never to be found. Tonks, Remus, Moody, Arthur... Ginny, Luna, Neville. All of her friends and colleagues - all of them she and Harry hadn't been able to put to rest. Through her horror, she couldn't help but feel a strange mixture of sorrow in knowing they were dead and in relief at finally knowing what had become of them and knowing they weren't suffering anymore.
"Now then. See that one?" Malfoy stopped abruptly and waved a well-manicured hand at the pedestal to Harry's left, its silver tray occupied by what she recognized with a wrenching gasp as her own broken wand.
Malfoy grinned at her as if revealing a great secret, "That spot is yours, Mudblood. I told you it was a bit cliche - the head on a silver platter thing, but... oh, it's so satisfying to come in and see how much further Precious Potter and his motley band of misfits have gone to rot. And now you get to join him and my collection will be complete. Well, it will be. After I dig up the Weasel's carcass, that is."
She stared at the platter that would eventually hold her decaying head and quelled the treacherous thought of just begging Malfoy for a quick death... to get it over with. She knew if he knew she wanted it so desperately, he would do everything he could to postpone it. The sinister glint in his eyes told her it was already going to be bad enough.
"Pitied me, now didn't you say? Let's test the bounds of that, shall we? If you scream enough, I might curtail this. As I said, I've far better things I could be doing. Get back in the light. On your hands and knees, like the dog you are."
Somehow she managed to walk back to the center, but she refused to go down. She stood and stared at Malfoy's silhouette and lifted her chin again. A couple of lines from a play she'd read and loved had begun to spin through her mind in an endless litany: "As if the way one fell down matters," said one brother, to which the other brother replied, "When the fall is all there is... it matters."
It mattered - it did, she told herself again and again while Malfoy jeered at her stubbornness. If she bowed down on her own, if she broke - Voldemort would have won a more complete victory, and she refused to allow it. She thought of Harry and how he might have died - what he would have done or said. She thought of Ron and the way he'd kept fighting even after a vicious double cast of Sectumsempra had torn his legs from his body. He'd taken down four more Death Eaters before he bled out, and the last look frozen on his face was one of proud righteousness.
She remembered the very last time she'd seen Remus and Ginny. They were fighting back to back until a perfectly timed Expelliarmus hit them just as their Protego charm fell and before Ginny could finish casting another. She'd fought like a lioness, Remus like a madman. In the end, they were still dead, but they fought to the bitter end.
They'd all fought to their last breaths.
"Down, Mudblood. I won't tell you again."
"How can you live with being such a complete coward that you won't even face me in a civilized duel?" Her rage at her helplessness lived in her voice, and from the expression that flitted across Malfoy's pale features, in her face.
He sneered, probably annoyed that he'd allowed her to affect him, even marginally. "Duels are for civilized people, Granger. You? You're just an animal to be put down. Sectumsem--"
"Deflecto!" The spell was cast out of habit, ingrained in her from the earliest years. Her surprise was fleeting when it actually worked, no doubt fueled by her will to live and her fear. Malfoy’s curse bounced away and took a Death Eater instead, the misplaced victim hurled to the floor under a spray of his own blood.
With barely a blink to acknowledge her wandless magic, Malfoy strode forward and clutched Hermione's slender neck in his hands, squeezing until she was scrambling at his cruel hands desperately. "Did you think I won't kill you with my bare hands? This is what I wanted, Granger... to watch as the life went out of you - to feel your ending under my fingers."
She scratched at him despite herself, fighting for breath as hard as she could; she snagged his cheek with her broken nails and tore deep gouges there that forced a satisfactory howl out of him. She kicked at him, bit at him, beat whatever part of him she could reach with her fists as hard as she could until black stars shifted before her eyes. She was going down fighting... it was what she wanted... wasn't it?
Finally, Malfoy backhanded her and she spun to the floor, blood filling her mouth instantly. Malfoy whipped his wand out to point unwaveringly at her and she knew she didn't have it in her for another protection spell.
Gingerly inspecting the wounds she'd inflicted on his cheek with the fingers of his left hand, Malfoy forced a smirk, "No more pitiful Deflectos, Granger? This ends here," he towered over her in a dramatic pose, playing to the audience. "You lost, Granger. Everyone and everything. You are last one left of your pitiful Order. On your knees. Now."
The last one? She couldn't be. Her mind skimmed the surface of such an impossible notion and recoiled.
The last one? The last one...
She blinked hard as suddenly every voice that plagued her mind began screaming at once the ancient dark curse she'd read about not long before her capture: Ultio sanguinus cujus - Revenge of Blood. In a flash, she remembered everything - thinking it was a horrible spell, Dark Magic at its vilest, but she’d been fascinated with it nonetheless, reading it again and again... perhaps now she knew why. Perhaps now she had enough hate and anger in her to make it work. The dark spell fed off of the negative memories and emotions of the caster, irrevocably stripping him or her of all magic utterly in the attempt to exact revenge in the most personal way possible... and she knew now - she was very ready to commit such a curse.
She bit her tongue to widen the existing wound created from Malfoy's backhand, and was rewarded with the mouthful of fresh blood she would need to make the spell work.
She moved to her knees, focusing on the smug embodiment of evil before her, allowing the rage and pain she felt to consume her. Every single one of her dreams had been reduced to nothing; everything she had ever worked for in her life was rendered absolutely pointless; all her loved ones had been destroyed - and for what?
She could sense her magic welled up in her, practically crackling around her in her high emotion and she seized it, her conscious thought working hard to focus it. Even as Malfoy took a last gloating glance around at his audience, she felt the final push toward committing such a horrible curse and murmured thickly through the dark fluid in her mouth, "Sanguis est vim!"
An intense, bizarre sensation swept over her - as if all of the blood in her body flowed from her core to her limbs in an instant. Suddenly, she doubled over on a gasping whimper when she felt the sharp pain of her magic literally ripping away as it transferred to her blood. Gasping in the wake of the brief agony, she could feel the astounding strength of her magic pulsing through her with every heartbeat and knew it was now or never.
Raising her glare to Malfoy's face, she stared him directly in the eyes with deep loathing and calm as she quickly gained her feet. Something flickered in his eyes upon seeing her with what was no doubt a sinister expression, but he merely sneered at her and took a breath to begin his torture. Without hesitation, Hermione spat directly into his face, the blood that had filled her mouth mingling with his own from the deep scratches she'd made. Never one to adapt quickly, Malfoy blinked in revulsion and quickly swiped at the offending fluid while Hermione murmured: "Sanguis teneam."
Malfoy instantly froze as if in shock and she knew the spell was flawless - her blood had mixed with his own and was holding him as if in a Petrificus Totalus. A surge of pride welled in her that the spell worked, even as a fleeting sense of guilt and remorse plagued her that she could resort to using blood magic at all.
The Death Eaters surrounding them in their comfortable seats seemed slow to become aware that something was wrong. She took advantage of the confusion to recite in a quick murmur for Draco's ears alone the simple words of her last curse, "With my will, I curse my blood to curse blood - Sanguinem mettere extinguo sanguine omni. From the power of my rage, my blood will blight womb and seed of all that suffer its touch. Sanguinus mei progenies afflictor - ultio sanguinus cujus!"
She could feel an enormous swell of a sickening black power surge and ebb within her, and Malfoy jerked violently as if shot while she swayed perilously on her feet. In the next breath, he stumbled from his stasis, nonplussed and obviously alarmed. His eyes were wide and wild, the whites showing all around the pale gray of his irises. "What did you do!? What did you do!? You filthy...! Crucio!!"
The pain was beyond excruciating, but a tiny kernel of thought whisked through her briefly as she fell - that she was pleased she'd found the strength to go down fighting. Just like all of her friends. She hadn't failed them; she hadn't failed herself.
Black-clad people were gathered around her now like a murder of crows, shoving and shouting amidst pure chaos. Some were laughing and wanted a closer look at her destruction, others were frantically questioning the oblivious Malfoy while still others were casting their own vengeful hexes at her. Malfoy, looking like a deranged fallen angel, was holding the Cruciatus on her without pause and only released her when another Death Eater's Sectumsempra curse hit her across the chest and neck. A spectacular spray of blood showered in a wide arc over himself and all the other Death Eaters shoving to get a good glimpse of her death.
Momentarily freed from the Cruciatus, Hermione barely croaked a pained laugh, knowing each person afflicted with even a mere drop of her blood had fallen to her curse.
As if awakening from a nightmare, Malfoy began shrieking that she'd cursed them all, that she wasn't to be killed yet so her curse could be reversed; he shouted for everyone to move away, but the anarchy was too complete. In a frenzy, he began hexing them himself, sending them flying away in twos and threes with powerful casts of Expelliarmus, not caring when pedestals were crashed and toppled, his precious collection disturbed in bright flashes of silver as now-empty trays clanged to ground.
No one dared cast on Malfoy himself, and the rest began to move away uncertainly, unsure of what was happening. The din was loud and fed the sense of chaos in the room when Malfoy turned to urgently shout what had happened to a small group behind him.
Lying in a widening pool of her own blood in the center of the room, only Hermione took notice of a perfectly pristine Death Eater stepping slightly closer from the far side of the room, careful to avoid blood-spattered Death Eaters retreating from the scene. The handsome man she finally recognized as Blaise Zabini shifted his empty stare from her to Draco's back, and he slowly smiled the vilest smile Hermione had ever seen.
Her vision was dimming and a ringing in her ears grew louder and louder, but she saw Zabini when he pointed his wand at her while still smiling evilly at Malfoy's turned back. She gasped a surprised, triumphant laugh before the green fire from Zabini's wand enveloped her, borne on the last sound of doom for the bloodstained Death Eaters - the sound that set her free:
"Avada Kedavra!"
::whistles:: Yay, darkfic.
I'll take whatever I can get out of myself!
Finding something that makes sense in helping with Latinon the 'net seems pretty hard - I found the term "Ultio Sanguinus Cujus" (Revenge of blood) on a Wiccan site, and it seems to hold up on the site I ended up on. The rest is just hobbled together by me after poring over this site (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin) for hours and trying every combo I could think of.
When I feel up to it, I'll get into verb tenses and see if I can't get a little more accurate, but here's what I meant by the things I chose:
Sanguinus est vim - Blood is power
Sanguinus teneam - Blood holds fast
Sanguinem mettere extinguo sanguine omni - I give my blood to annihilate blood
Sanguinus mei progenies afflictor - My blood destroys bloodlines
Oh, and the lines of the play come from "The Lion in Winter" by James Goldman. I highly, highly recommend it.
Yay.
"I'm practically giddy with anticipation - you've no idea..." Sounding more than out of place, Draco Malfoy's voice was boisterous, spreading a cheerful echo down the dark hallway through which he was leading her.
Hermione's senses were all but overwhelmed, the unholy stench surrounding her from her own skin and unseen sources made her stomach clench dangerously, no matter it had been empty for days. The cold was even worse in the hallway than in her cell, the heavy moisture causing the air to bite her flesh mercilessly.
He had been intermittently gracing her with vapid, gloating announcements since he'd retrieved her from her cell; it was how she learned she was going to die today. After hearing him mention it so casually, she stopped paying attention. Nausea, cold and starvation had mined her focus dry, but death drew her attention and refused to let it waver. How would it happen? When? Where? She was by turns numb to the idea and panicked by it.
"You'll probably think it a bit cliched... but you see, Granger, I wanted it almost from the moment I met all of you, so even ten years later, how could I deny it to myself?"
He'd stopped and looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to agree. His words held nothing of her brief future and had slipped from her mind almost as soon as she heard them. She simply peered back at him blankly and let her mind wander as had become her habit while imprisoned - she could sit for hours and dredge up the most obscure hexes and charms she had read about that might save her from this predicament - if only she had her wand.
If only she had her blasted wand.
"When was the last time you had food?" Surely such a question shouldn't be asked with such a satisfied grin? Her stomach clenched with agonizing intensity at the mention of it and she averted her gaze. Malfoy's Cruciatus curses were among the very worst, and she didn't want him to see the sarcastic derision in her eyes at his asking her such an inane question. Did he think she knew how long she'd been down there in the dark, with no window or light, no regular visits? Did he think she wanted to remember? There were times when it felt mere moments had passed since she'd been taken from the research table in her hideout at the abandoned Hogwarts. Mostly, however, it seemed years had passed since then. In the end, time ceased to matter when all there was to feel was pain, hunger and fear. The wretchedly simple incantations for sustenance charms chanted in her head mockingly and she winced as she always did when it happened.
Her captor smirked at her lack of response. "Ah, well. No matter, really. Hunger pangs will be the least of your worries in a few moments, I should think."
Malfoy could have been devastatingly handsome, were it not for the hideous cruelty that sparked in his eyes and twisted his pretty mouth when he flashed what should have been a smile.
"Merlin, but I pity you." She hadn't meant to say it out loud, no matter how quietly - the cut corridor was close and sound bounced easily, though her voice was raspy from lack of use and her tongue felt as dry as parchment. Watching the instant rage that flew over Malfoy's delicate features almost made her flinch. She stiffened her spine against her fear; she knew he was taking her to her death, so what did it matter how she died? Pain would end - fear, suffering, anguish - it would all be over soon. It had to be a good thing, surely, for it all to finally end.
"What's that? Pity? You pity me? Come now, Granger..." his long, elegant fingers crushed her chin harshly as he strode forward and pinned her to the wall behind her, grinding the back of her head against the jagged stone with all his surprising strength. "...Do you really want to anger me like this in your last moments?"
He sounded as if he were speaking Parseltongue, he hissed his words with such vehemence. She simply gazed into his blazing pale gray eyes and tried to gloat at the tinge of madness she found there. Her mind was accustomed by now to compartmentalizing her pain in order to deal with it and she lost interest in her captor as a litany of useful spells she could have thrown at him overtook her thoughts. If only she had her wand. She could feel the oozing of blood where he'd cut her scalp on the rough wall, but didn't allow herself to feel anything else.
Malfoy’s hand jerked from her chin and his stare bored into her own with more fury than she'd ever seen in him. "I had been thinking I would simply do it quickly and have it done, Granger, but you've reminded me why I always wanted you to suffer the most out of them all."
Though resigned to her fate, the animal instinct within her spooked yet again at the thought and she felt a huge rush of adrenaline surge into her veins. Her hands began to shake as her thoughts sharpened into sudden crystal clarity and her fear made her intensely angry.
Sounding very much like the old, pre-war Hermione, she spat at him, "Why? Because I've always pitied you? Because I was stupid and always thought and hoped you were smarter than this or that you would surely be too proud to bow to anyone, let alone a half-breed madman?"
He backhanded her almost lazily, but it really didn't take much to bring her down anymore.
"I am a Pureblood, you filth. The war is over and we won. Even great men follow great leaders, and that is what I have done. And now we who were faithful will receive our rewards. You are one of mine."
Her skin pebbled all over instantly with disbelief at the thought that she’d been reduced to a war prize, then her face crumpled with revulsion when she considered the extent to which the notion could be taken. He sneered, her distaste obvious, "Don't flatter yourself. The most I will sully myself with you is by dragging you to your death... perhaps soaking my hands a bit in your filthy blood. But before then, you're mine to do with as I please, and if you keep this up, it will please me endlessly to see you in as much pain as possible before I let you bleed to death."
He jerked her to her feet and shoved her ahead of him, "Go on; your execution awaits and I've many far more interesting things I could be doing."
Hermione had come to hate the voices in her head that had become so much more prevalent during her imprisonment. There was one now, telling her that she'd been tiresomely touted as the brightest witch of her age, and that she could surely beg to offer her services to Voldemort’s cause just so she could live. Another voice instantly railed that such an action would be the highest level of cowardice... that Harry would be ashamed she'd even thought it after all the fighting and loss they'd endured; he'd definitely never forgive her if she went through with it. She forced the first voice to silence, knowing such a life would be worse than death.
A third voice, the strongest, clearly stated that the old Hermione would have thought of a way out of this mess. There were means of devastating magic without wands, after all.
With a jolt, she focused on a remembered epiphany from her research through an ancient tome of dark, obscure rites just days before she'd been taken. She'd always struggled with wandless magic, succeeding only inconsistently no matter how hard she practiced, but the Dark Arts held a number of means that were inescapably foolproof once enacted: blood magic - the most powerful, and the most dreadful - harming the caster and the victim equally.
She'd devoured the information despite her unease of delving into the darkest of arts, and she remembered that the power of the curse was fueled by pure hate. She’d told herself she could never hate anyone enough to curse them like that - but like what? Something about revenge... Her mind was flitting all over the place from prolonged lack of food and water and the searing fear that pulsed in her veins the closer she walked to her proposed death and she couldn't recall anything more useful than how she'd found the curse so fascinating. It was disastrous and permanent, but actually fairly easy. What in Merlin's name was it?
The long, dark hallway suddenly curved to terminate in an arch of dim light that seemed just as dismal as any other area she'd seen so far in her prison and all thoughts of dark spells flew from her. A low susurrus of sound informed her that quite a group had assembled - most likely all the remaining Death Eaters - just to watch her die.
Mounting swells of sickening fear surged in her and she felt her heart begin to race as though to compensate for every beat she should have had in the future she would now never have. Beside her, Malfoy made a sound almost like a giggle and she knew she heard a hint of his madness in it.
"Wait just here. I want to go into the room and watch you as you come in. I want to see your face." Suiting action to words, he stepped from her side into what looked to be a large circular room. A lone, pale blue light shone on the center of the floor, but the darkness looming just beyond quickly swallowed its aura. Malfoy seemed to disappear from her sight for a split-second as he strode through the darkness and emerged into the sickly spotlight.
Once in the center, he bowed elegantly and raised his hands as he turned slowly in a circle until the low murmurs and hisses of conversation fell silent. Finally, he faced her, giving her a curt gesture to summon her forward. Without thought, she took a step and another before she faltered.
A sick, frigid finger of dread slid its way down her spine and made her draw her arms around herself. The room stank of endings... of blood, decay and the complex layers of a human body's futile struggle to live. It had been one thing to understand the thought that she was walking to her death, but the sudden reality of it was just too terrible to bear. She felt the urgent need to urinate, despite her extreme dehydration. Her knees began to shake uncontrollably and she found her breath coming in shallow gasps. She wanted to live... god, she wanted to live - life was too beautiful; she inhaled sharply and found herself relishing even the fetid stench, realizing suddenly that even ugliness had its own beauty... and there was too much to life that she'd never done, never seen, never said, never....
Malfoy grinned widely at her obvious distress, "Come here, Granger. Now."
How could he stand there, so cold and unyielding, as if calling her forward to dance at a party? Standing there in the pool of cold blue-gray light, his pale eyes sparkled from the shadows and his hair looked like molten platinum against the flat black of his fine clothes. He looked beautiful and not for the first time, her heart ached to see it. The same hopeless wish she'd had since fifth year overwhelmed her - he didn't have to be this way, didn't he know that? Didn't he know he could be so much more? Couldn't they all go back and start over?
She took a step backward, "Malfoy... "
"I said come here." A note of anger was in his voice now, just tingeing the outer edge of his otherwise bored-sounding voice.
She lingered just inside the doorway, not far enough into the room to see anything other than him, but she could feel the assembled audience shifting silently. There was no escape from this. She could run, but they would find her and she would still die. After everything she'd endured, she still couldn't quite believe this was happening. Surely there was a way to make it through this. "You... you don't have to do this, Malfoy. You don't."
Humoring her, he tilted his head slightly and smiled at her condescendingly, "Don't I?"
A pitiful plea welled in her throat before she quelled it at the last moment, ruthlessly shoving her notorious Gryffindor pride to the fore in a desperate attempt to maintain control and dignity. What was the point of talking now? She wasn't going to offer her services to the Dark Lord and certainly no one in that room was going to offer her mercy. She didn't want to die, but if it was so inescapable, she didn't want to be killed like an animal for sport.
Sheer panic simmered just beneath the thin veneer of her courage when she raised her chin, "Kill me if you have to, Malfoy, but you said yourself that you won. There's no point in being heartless about it... inhuman."
His teeth flashed in the shadows thrown over his face, and again she could see the terrible smile she'd come to loathe as he chuckled darkly, "But you're less than human, Granger. You're an abomination. It's my sworn, proud duty to eradicate you and your kind from my world however I see fit. Don't try to pull out whatever 'good' you think may be in my heart, you idiotic little Gryffindor. For you, there is none. Now get over here before I drag you here by your intestines."
A hissing snicker from behind Malfoy heralded an answering wave of them to slither through the crowd; he openly preened, basking in the approval of his comrades before pinning her with a warning glower.
Hope was guttering wildly in Hermione's chest, its dimming flame finally leaving her imprisoned in a horrifying numbness. What else could she do? She stepped forward, unsure with every step if her knees would give out, until she stood before her childhood nemesis and simply stared at the center of his chest, refusing awareness of anything else in the room. She wasn't going to allow herself to waste her last few moments of life pining over a Draco Malfoy who might have been, or over what was fair, or over the better world she had hoped and fought for when the war started. None of it mattered anymore and she now found herself wondering if Ron would be waiting for her on the other side. A new, if dismal, hope flickered to life and her numbness briefly turned into a dulled sort of anticipation.
"Take a look, Granger. There, first."
Numbly, her eyes followed his finger and she had to squint outside the circle of light into the gloom of the outer circle that lay just beyond in murky darkness. She squinted to focus her vision when she caught a glint off of bright silver and wondered what could be so pristine in such a horrible place. Malfoy stepped around her to watch her as he prodded her close enough to see...
A classic Roman marble pedestal stood before her, serving as host for its centerpiece: a grotesque, dismembered head perched on a silver platter next to remnants of a shattered wand. She closed her eyes and took a step backward instinctively, but Draco's arm swept around her shoulders and rocketed her forward as she heard him chuckle under his breath.
"Now, now, open your eyes, Granger. Say hullo to your old friend... or at least what's left of him." More laughter rolled through the crowd.
Friend? She hadn't been able to recognize anything familiar in the swollen, discolored, disfigured face in the scant moment she'd glimpsed it. Unbidden, her eyes lifted and she stared into the eyes of death. In that moment, it didn't matter that she had an audience or that she herself was about to die - in that moment, every ounce of hope, happiness and peace was slaughtered in her soul as she breathed the agonizing truth of discovery.
Her eyes skipped with pervasive horror over the obscured features before her. In the end, his broken glasses sitting askew on his forehead, his wild black hair and his scar were the only things that told her the remnant before her was unequivocally Harry Potter. His now-lidless eyes, once such a stunning emerald green, had gone to a yellowy, cloudy gray... the rest of him was torn flesh, crushed bone, gray skin stained with old blood... it was too hideous to comprehend. A painfully clear image came to her of the last time she'd seen him - flashing her a rare, weary smile at some final instruction or piece of information she'd given him as he'd been on his way out the door. Looking at the collection of destroyed features now, it seemed impossible that those ripped, desiccated lips had ever spoken a word, let alone inspired such hope to so many with something so simple as a smile.
"Oh, Harry..."
Hermione's breath hitched in her throat and she doubled over, retching painfully as her empty stomach clenched in violent, futile spasms. She could hear laughter as if from a great distance, but it meant nothing to her. Her world was reduced to nothing more than the fathomless depths of despair in which she was drowning.
The while she'd been imprisoned, she'd held out the hope that Harry would save her somehow... that he was still out there, that he was still fighting. She didn't hear Malfoy as he recounted the story of how Harry had fallen; the blood pounding in her ears was far too loud. Harry... who'd lost more than anyone, from Ron to Dumbledore to Sirius; Harry... who'd fought so hard his entire life; Harry... her best friend and whom she'd loved like a brother was well and truly dead. Where the tears could come from in her parched body, she couldn't imagine, but a steady stream flowed down her cheeks.
She slumped against the pedestal's base and saw with terrifying finality the end of all things she'd known and hoped for. In a split-second, everything was gone. It felt as though she'd taken a diving leap into an abyss of absolute hopelessness and wave after wave of sickening goosebumps flowed over her flesh. Malfoy, true to form, reveled in her misery and the laughter of the Death Eaters was like a plague to her ears.
She could have been sitting for an hour, she didn't know, but a flitting thought passed that she should be standing bravely, untouched by the flagrant disrespect shown to Harry, save a burning rage that such a good man should be so wholly desecrated. The notion gave her instantaneous strength.
"Someday..." She pulled herself up and glared into the darkness where her audience sat in malicious judgment. "Someday you will regret everything you've done in the name of that madman. All of this will have been nothing but wasted effort and wasted lives and you, all of you 'Purebloods' will get exactly what you deserve. Your time is coming." If only her voice hadn't shaken so hard, she might have felt a deep satisfaction at the low murmur that briefly ran through the crowd at her outburst.
Malfoy sighed heavily, no doubt annoyed the attention had been diverted from his intended subject, "Yes, yes, you've always had a knack for boring me to tears. Your time is coming as well. More to the point, it's already here." He sneered nastily at her.
"I admit, you gave us a much better show than I expected. You Gryffindors are a chancy lot - never know what you'll get with each of you. That freak, Tonks, cried like a baby over her precious wolfman, and it was Neville who put up the biggest fight. Except for Perfect Potter, of course. Right, then. Up you go."
He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest and sneered down at her in a classic Malfoy pose. Whereas once, even a few moments ago, she would have felt a surge of loathing to see him standing that way, now she felt nothing.
After all, in the end, she realized he was her hope now. It all came down to the release he would give her. She slowly gained her feet and stood as proudly as she could through her severe trembling.
"Now then, before I usher you out of my ideal world, Granger, let's just take a quick stroll, hmm?" He pushed her forward and snatched her hair at the base of her skull to make sure her head remained upright. Walking in such a position was stilted, but he made a full circuit of the large room, forcing her to look at each and every head upon each and every pedestal. Everyone was here who'd disappeared, never to be found. Tonks, Remus, Moody, Arthur... Ginny, Luna, Neville. All of her friends and colleagues - all of them she and Harry hadn't been able to put to rest. Through her horror, she couldn't help but feel a strange mixture of sorrow in knowing they were dead and in relief at finally knowing what had become of them and knowing they weren't suffering anymore.
"Now then. See that one?" Malfoy stopped abruptly and waved a well-manicured hand at the pedestal to Harry's left, its silver tray occupied by what she recognized with a wrenching gasp as her own broken wand.
Malfoy grinned at her as if revealing a great secret, "That spot is yours, Mudblood. I told you it was a bit cliche - the head on a silver platter thing, but... oh, it's so satisfying to come in and see how much further Precious Potter and his motley band of misfits have gone to rot. And now you get to join him and my collection will be complete. Well, it will be. After I dig up the Weasel's carcass, that is."
She stared at the platter that would eventually hold her decaying head and quelled the treacherous thought of just begging Malfoy for a quick death... to get it over with. She knew if he knew she wanted it so desperately, he would do everything he could to postpone it. The sinister glint in his eyes told her it was already going to be bad enough.
"Pitied me, now didn't you say? Let's test the bounds of that, shall we? If you scream enough, I might curtail this. As I said, I've far better things I could be doing. Get back in the light. On your hands and knees, like the dog you are."
Somehow she managed to walk back to the center, but she refused to go down. She stood and stared at Malfoy's silhouette and lifted her chin again. A couple of lines from a play she'd read and loved had begun to spin through her mind in an endless litany: "As if the way one fell down matters," said one brother, to which the other brother replied, "When the fall is all there is... it matters."
It mattered - it did, she told herself again and again while Malfoy jeered at her stubbornness. If she bowed down on her own, if she broke - Voldemort would have won a more complete victory, and she refused to allow it. She thought of Harry and how he might have died - what he would have done or said. She thought of Ron and the way he'd kept fighting even after a vicious double cast of Sectumsempra had torn his legs from his body. He'd taken down four more Death Eaters before he bled out, and the last look frozen on his face was one of proud righteousness.
She remembered the very last time she'd seen Remus and Ginny. They were fighting back to back until a perfectly timed Expelliarmus hit them just as their Protego charm fell and before Ginny could finish casting another. She'd fought like a lioness, Remus like a madman. In the end, they were still dead, but they fought to the bitter end.
They'd all fought to their last breaths.
"Down, Mudblood. I won't tell you again."
"How can you live with being such a complete coward that you won't even face me in a civilized duel?" Her rage at her helplessness lived in her voice, and from the expression that flitted across Malfoy's pale features, in her face.
He sneered, probably annoyed that he'd allowed her to affect him, even marginally. "Duels are for civilized people, Granger. You? You're just an animal to be put down. Sectumsem--"
"Deflecto!" The spell was cast out of habit, ingrained in her from the earliest years. Her surprise was fleeting when it actually worked, no doubt fueled by her will to live and her fear. Malfoy’s curse bounced away and took a Death Eater instead, the misplaced victim hurled to the floor under a spray of his own blood.
With barely a blink to acknowledge her wandless magic, Malfoy strode forward and clutched Hermione's slender neck in his hands, squeezing until she was scrambling at his cruel hands desperately. "Did you think I won't kill you with my bare hands? This is what I wanted, Granger... to watch as the life went out of you - to feel your ending under my fingers."
She scratched at him despite herself, fighting for breath as hard as she could; she snagged his cheek with her broken nails and tore deep gouges there that forced a satisfactory howl out of him. She kicked at him, bit at him, beat whatever part of him she could reach with her fists as hard as she could until black stars shifted before her eyes. She was going down fighting... it was what she wanted... wasn't it?
Finally, Malfoy backhanded her and she spun to the floor, blood filling her mouth instantly. Malfoy whipped his wand out to point unwaveringly at her and she knew she didn't have it in her for another protection spell.
Gingerly inspecting the wounds she'd inflicted on his cheek with the fingers of his left hand, Malfoy forced a smirk, "No more pitiful Deflectos, Granger? This ends here," he towered over her in a dramatic pose, playing to the audience. "You lost, Granger. Everyone and everything. You are last one left of your pitiful Order. On your knees. Now."
The last one? She couldn't be. Her mind skimmed the surface of such an impossible notion and recoiled.
The last one? The last one...
She blinked hard as suddenly every voice that plagued her mind began screaming at once the ancient dark curse she'd read about not long before her capture: Ultio sanguinus cujus - Revenge of Blood. In a flash, she remembered everything - thinking it was a horrible spell, Dark Magic at its vilest, but she’d been fascinated with it nonetheless, reading it again and again... perhaps now she knew why. Perhaps now she had enough hate and anger in her to make it work. The dark spell fed off of the negative memories and emotions of the caster, irrevocably stripping him or her of all magic utterly in the attempt to exact revenge in the most personal way possible... and she knew now - she was very ready to commit such a curse.
She bit her tongue to widen the existing wound created from Malfoy's backhand, and was rewarded with the mouthful of fresh blood she would need to make the spell work.
She moved to her knees, focusing on the smug embodiment of evil before her, allowing the rage and pain she felt to consume her. Every single one of her dreams had been reduced to nothing; everything she had ever worked for in her life was rendered absolutely pointless; all her loved ones had been destroyed - and for what?
She could sense her magic welled up in her, practically crackling around her in her high emotion and she seized it, her conscious thought working hard to focus it. Even as Malfoy took a last gloating glance around at his audience, she felt the final push toward committing such a horrible curse and murmured thickly through the dark fluid in her mouth, "Sanguis est vim!"
An intense, bizarre sensation swept over her - as if all of the blood in her body flowed from her core to her limbs in an instant. Suddenly, she doubled over on a gasping whimper when she felt the sharp pain of her magic literally ripping away as it transferred to her blood. Gasping in the wake of the brief agony, she could feel the astounding strength of her magic pulsing through her with every heartbeat and knew it was now or never.
Raising her glare to Malfoy's face, she stared him directly in the eyes with deep loathing and calm as she quickly gained her feet. Something flickered in his eyes upon seeing her with what was no doubt a sinister expression, but he merely sneered at her and took a breath to begin his torture. Without hesitation, Hermione spat directly into his face, the blood that had filled her mouth mingling with his own from the deep scratches she'd made. Never one to adapt quickly, Malfoy blinked in revulsion and quickly swiped at the offending fluid while Hermione murmured: "Sanguis teneam."
Malfoy instantly froze as if in shock and she knew the spell was flawless - her blood had mixed with his own and was holding him as if in a Petrificus Totalus. A surge of pride welled in her that the spell worked, even as a fleeting sense of guilt and remorse plagued her that she could resort to using blood magic at all.
The Death Eaters surrounding them in their comfortable seats seemed slow to become aware that something was wrong. She took advantage of the confusion to recite in a quick murmur for Draco's ears alone the simple words of her last curse, "With my will, I curse my blood to curse blood - Sanguinem mettere extinguo sanguine omni. From the power of my rage, my blood will blight womb and seed of all that suffer its touch. Sanguinus mei progenies afflictor - ultio sanguinus cujus!"
She could feel an enormous swell of a sickening black power surge and ebb within her, and Malfoy jerked violently as if shot while she swayed perilously on her feet. In the next breath, he stumbled from his stasis, nonplussed and obviously alarmed. His eyes were wide and wild, the whites showing all around the pale gray of his irises. "What did you do!? What did you do!? You filthy...! Crucio!!"
The pain was beyond excruciating, but a tiny kernel of thought whisked through her briefly as she fell - that she was pleased she'd found the strength to go down fighting. Just like all of her friends. She hadn't failed them; she hadn't failed herself.
Black-clad people were gathered around her now like a murder of crows, shoving and shouting amidst pure chaos. Some were laughing and wanted a closer look at her destruction, others were frantically questioning the oblivious Malfoy while still others were casting their own vengeful hexes at her. Malfoy, looking like a deranged fallen angel, was holding the Cruciatus on her without pause and only released her when another Death Eater's Sectumsempra curse hit her across the chest and neck. A spectacular spray of blood showered in a wide arc over himself and all the other Death Eaters shoving to get a good glimpse of her death.
Momentarily freed from the Cruciatus, Hermione barely croaked a pained laugh, knowing each person afflicted with even a mere drop of her blood had fallen to her curse.
As if awakening from a nightmare, Malfoy began shrieking that she'd cursed them all, that she wasn't to be killed yet so her curse could be reversed; he shouted for everyone to move away, but the anarchy was too complete. In a frenzy, he began hexing them himself, sending them flying away in twos and threes with powerful casts of Expelliarmus, not caring when pedestals were crashed and toppled, his precious collection disturbed in bright flashes of silver as now-empty trays clanged to ground.
No one dared cast on Malfoy himself, and the rest began to move away uncertainly, unsure of what was happening. The din was loud and fed the sense of chaos in the room when Malfoy turned to urgently shout what had happened to a small group behind him.
Lying in a widening pool of her own blood in the center of the room, only Hermione took notice of a perfectly pristine Death Eater stepping slightly closer from the far side of the room, careful to avoid blood-spattered Death Eaters retreating from the scene. The handsome man she finally recognized as Blaise Zabini shifted his empty stare from her to Draco's back, and he slowly smiled the vilest smile Hermione had ever seen.
Her vision was dimming and a ringing in her ears grew louder and louder, but she saw Zabini when he pointed his wand at her while still smiling evilly at Malfoy's turned back. She gasped a surprised, triumphant laugh before the green fire from Zabini's wand enveloped her, borne on the last sound of doom for the bloodstained Death Eaters - the sound that set her free:
"Avada Kedavra!"
::whistles:: Yay, darkfic.
I'll take whatever I can get out of myself!
Finding something that makes sense in helping with Latinon the 'net seems pretty hard - I found the term "Ultio Sanguinus Cujus" (Revenge of blood) on a Wiccan site, and it seems to hold up on the site I ended up on. The rest is just hobbled together by me after poring over this site (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin) for hours and trying every combo I could think of.
When I feel up to it, I'll get into verb tenses and see if I can't get a little more accurate, but here's what I meant by the things I chose:
Sanguinus est vim - Blood is power
Sanguinus teneam - Blood holds fast
Sanguinem mettere extinguo sanguine omni - I give my blood to annihilate blood
Sanguinus mei progenies afflictor - My blood destroys bloodlines
Oh, and the lines of the play come from "The Lion in Winter" by James Goldman. I highly, highly recommend it.
Yay.