Whom the Gods Would Destroy...

Title: Whom the Gods Would Destroy…
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Angst, Horror, Mystery
Warnings: Character Death, Graphic Violence, Adult Situations, Dark!fic
Summary: DH-EWE: The end of the world has come. Millions dead, magic waning, Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley are the last people left in Britain—left to pick up the pieces of their once great civilization. Why were they spared? Who is responsible for the death of a nation? These are the mysteries left as a legacy for two lost and lonely people.
Author's Notes: This is my first attempt at a Charlie/Hermione pairing, so please be gentle. This fic is very much inspired by my morbid obsession with ‘end of the world’ scenarios. There are few OCs in this fic, and I have tried to keep much in ‘canon’ as possible. WGWD is unbeta’d, so pardon the mistakes, please?




Whom the Gods Would Destroy…

Part 11




‘quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.’ –A Roman proverb






Hermione woke, shooting up in the hospital cot, searching for her wand. A pale hand held it out to her, and slowly she saw Charlie sitting on the edge of her bed, dressed in a pair of denims and a tight black tee shirt with his trench coat and holster over top.

“Merlin…” she sighed, realizing where she was and how she had gotten there. “How long have I…?”

“Just a night.”

Hermione grasped her wand and lay down slowly, staring up at the high ceiling of the Hospital Wing. She licked her lips and moved her eyes to Charlie, whose gaze was distant.

“Bad news?”

Charlie shook his head. “Nothing too bad. Harry’s alive.”

Hermione blinked. “What?” she gasped in a whisper.

He smiled and ran the back of his left hand against her cheek. “Ginny told me. I haven’t seen him yet, but he’s in a coma…”

Charlie’s touch soothed her. She felt a heat run from his hand to her cheek, downward into her body.

“Pomfrey’s been by, ordering more rest, but I very much doubt you’ll follow that order…”

Hermione smirked. “I want to know what is going on. What do the people here know?”

Charlie nodded. “Ron and the others will surely be by soon…”

Hermione listened to Charlie as he told her about Ron, Susan Bones, and Lucius Malfoy speaking with him the night before. She tried to remain calm. Charlie admitted that he did not know much, but from how the ‘Three’ reacted, they had had no idea about Regulus Black.

“I’ll see about getting something to eat, yeah?” Charlie said finally. “I laid out a change of clothes from the knapsack in the cabinet under the table.”

Hermione smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. Even as he touched her face again, Hermione wanted to be able to forget the anxiety that held her heart in a vise.

She rose after Charlie had left the screened in area, and began dressing, smirking at the fact, Charlie had set out her clothes. Hermione was nearly dressed, pulling up her denims when the screens shifted and a pale figure lumbered into view.

Hermione blinked at Lucius Malfoy’s face. In the sunlight, his skin was like alabaster, his eyes like flint. She slowly pulled her denims up her legs, sitting on the edge of the cot, turning her eyes away from the man who leaned on two canes, his Muggle clothes taking away some of the usual austerity of his overall appearance.

He was smirking. Hermione had felt his eyes upon her thighs, her plain white knickers.

“Would you like a seat, Mr. Malfoy?” Hermione said finally.

Lucius Malfoy moved to the chair that Hermione had noticed after Charlie left. Hermione regarded him coolly, taking in his Muggle denims, the dark green jumper, and the way his long silvery hair was pulled back into a ribbon. He looked ill, and the presence of canes to help him walk made Hermione wonder…


“What is it you want to know?”

Lucius Malfoy grinned. “Never has been a need for foreplay with you, my dear.”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

For years after the War, Lucius Malfoy had lingered on the periphery of her life. If it was not to embarrass her in public with untoward words, it was to eviscerate her books in reviews and letters to the Prophet. Lucius Malfoy knew very well that she was the writer of the ‘Mimsy the Mouse’ series of children’s books, commenting on blood bias, social injustice in the Wizarding world, and other issues. Lucius Malfoy was her loudest critic.

‘Propaganda,’ he had written, ‘rubbish, perpetuating hatred toward reformed Death Eaters, and any advocate of tradition.’

In public, Lucius was overly kind, trying to always engage Hermione in some sort of witty repartee. Hermione always wondered what Mrs. Malfoy thought of her husband’s behaviour toward a woman young enough to be his daughter. If Lucius Malfoy did not usually exude beauty and confidence, Hermione might think him lewd and perhaps mad.

“Charlie will be back at any moment…” Hermione began in an angry whisper.

“Afraid he might find us in a compromising position, Miss Granger. I am surprised you have latched onto another Weasley. Granted, Mr. Charles Weasley is so much more a man that his younger sibling…”

Hermione, again, rolled her eyes. “Really, Mr. Malfoy…”

“Lucius, my dear, as I always insisted before…”

“Lucius, then, get on with it,” Hermione ground out.

He grinned, resting his canes across his lap. “They’ll come to question you, Hermione,” he said unusually soft, his tone turning serious, his grin fading. “Weasley and Bones. They’ll ask you about Regulus Black, just as I am about to…”

Hermione’s golden eyes narrowed. “I thought I had killed him, but the Inferi move.”

Lucius cocked his head to the side. “Kill the dead, my dear. How so?”

Hermione told him quietly, again regretting that she had not confirmed the kill.

“Ah yes, the Muggle firearm you were carrying, it seems that the younger Mr. Weasley has it now. Has it done you much good otherwise?”

Hermione sighed. “You might find it quite interesting, Lucius. With no magic, Muggle weaponry might suit your taste for horror.”

Lucius chuckled. “I would not be adverse to the idea of learning, if you are my teacher, my dear… But the fact is, Regulus Black died, probably the same year you were born. And, if he did somehow live, someone must investigate the location of his supposed death…”

“What are you really trying to say, Lucius?”

There was a noise down the ward and Lucius straightened. “Find the cave, find the answer to that mystery, my dear.”

Hermione heard Charlie’s voice, along with Ron’s. Hermione licked her lips and stared hard at Lucius Malfoy.

“They will suggest your companion should go. They are weakening, you see, and soon they will be the same as me,” he whispered quickly. “They will not tell you who still has the strength to fight yet. There are few, I will say, who have so much raw magic left in them. By the end of the summer, we will die…”

The screens were parted just as Lucius finished his words, slightly cryptic that Hermione was still digesting them when Charlie set a tray of breakfast on the foot of her cot, sitting down next to her.

“Lucius,” Ron said softly, as way of greeting, and then drew his wand to Conjure crude chairs for himself and Susan Bones. Hermione eyed the Conjured chairs speculatively before Ron and Susan deposited themselves before her.

Hermione could feel her stomach clenching at the smell of cooked food, bacon, fresh eggs, non-moldy toast, and real butter.

“We’re sorry, Granger,” Susan began, “I know it is early and you are surely hungry, but we must speak with you.”

Hermione studied Susan’s pretty face, but could see, as if it were written upon her eyes. Susan was powerless, the marrow sucked out, and she was dying. The sight frightened Hermione. As she turned her attention to Ron, she saw only pain.

Charlie had mentioned that Ron’s face was disfigured and in the morning light streaming in from the high windows of the ward, the scar looked terrible.

“Charlie has told us of his trials, we should like to hear what you have discerned so far,” Ron said with an air of superiority.

Hermione stiffened and then she felt Charlie’s hand move behind her to touch the small of her back.

She began telling the ‘Three’ where she had been when it all began.





Charlie and Hermione ate, silently, upon her cot after the ‘Three’ had left. Breakfast was cold, the coffee almost icy. Albeit cold, the food was wonderful to Hermione.

Charlie explained that Hogwarts now had an overabundance of elves, some of the refugee families bringing their elves with them. Hermione smiled at the thought of elves, and the memories she had of a time when her naiveté made things so much simpler.

“I spoke with Ginny again, she said there’s over one thousand here, men, women, children, old folk. Some are still well, their ability intact, others who are dying. The worst are down the ward.

Food is growing scarce, since there is no way to bring any into the castle. She said there have been fights between families about various, trivial things. The usual kind of thing when you try to force one thousand people into a castle, I suppose.”

Hermione smiled as she chewed on her toast.

“Some of the Professors are holding classes for the younger students, just to keep them occupied. The adults help with the older students.”

“Have many students…died?”

Charlie did not know. “There are no longer any Houses, not officially. Lessons are basic, Ginny said, maybe a group of ten or more to each professor. McGonagall is mainly working to keep the castle and grounds in order, along with some remaining Ministry folk who were on holiday before everything happened.”

Hermione nodded. “And…the music?” she ventured.

Charlie paused, his cold coffee poised at his lips. “No mention,” he whispered.

Hermione frowned. She had said nothing of it, as Charlie had said nothing.

“I want to go,” she whispered vaguely, her eyes moving to the high windows.

“What do you mean?”

Hermione shook her head and smiled. “I don’t know. I just want to see Harry.”

Charlie set his coffee down and reached to cup Hermione’s cheek. “He’s just down the ward…”

The scrape of the screens forced Hermione to blink and Charlie drop his hand.

“Hermione.”

Ron stood in the gap between the screens, still in his dragon hide armour.

“Come with me.”

Charlie’s face contorted and his mouth opened, and Hermione knew it was to rebuff his brother. Hermione rose quickly, and in passing Charlie, ran a hand over his chest.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, and moved to Ron’s dreary, scarred face.

She followed Ron as he limped down the ward, past screened off cots, past an exhausted looking Pomfrey and a few women carrying clean linens. Hermione followed Ron out into the corridor to the portrait hall and toward the other end of the castle. When Ron opened the door for the DADA classroom, it was to find the desks pushed away to the walls and lines of cots lining the room. Several people that Hermione did not know, watched her as she followed Ron down the row to the steps leading up to the DADA professor’s office.

It was then that Hermione wondered who had been teaching DADA.

The office was large; Hermione had only ever been inside twice, once during Remus’ tenure and again when the stonewalls were painted pink. The second time, the memory, made Hermione grimace. However, as she stepped inside the third time, it was to find the office much as she remembered it with Remus. The cases full of oddities and horrors were gone, but in the front section was only a desk with a chair, parchments on the desktop, forgotten.

Ron pushed through a curtained partition, glancing back for Hermione to follow. Closing the door behind her, Hermione continued to follow.

“This is for you,” Ron had said when she stepped into the back part of the office.

Hermione frowned, looking about. A fire raged in the fireplace across from a large bed with an arching canopy of red velvet. There was an oaken writing desk under the large casement window, and a large traveling trunk open with clothes, Ron’s she supposed. There was even a small lavatory off the room; something Hermione had never known existed.

Ron sat down in an armchair next to the fire, leaning forward to throw a log from a small, enchanted word box, onto the fire. Hermione stood still, taking in the room, unsure of what to say or how to ask why she was there.

“Have a seat then, get comfortable. I doubt you’ve had much comfort on the road,” Ron said, motioning to the adjacent armchair.

Hermione hesitated. “What did you mean by this is for me?”

Ron’s disfigured left eye twitched while the right side seemed to turn up into a smile.

“Your room, your place here, with us.”

Hermione sat slowly, sinking into the leather chair near the fire, the heat scalding on the fronts of her legs.

“What is this? A scheme to have me do something…”

Ron’s face contorted. “Of course not, luv. You need a place, and I thought you’d like this room with me…”

Hermione blinked, hoping she was mishearing her old friend and ex-lover. “With you?” she asked incredulously.

Ron’s face moved again, this time into a frown. “Is the idea so terrible?”

Hermione looked to the fire. “Ron…” she sighed. “Whatever idea hatched in your head…it is ludicrous and ill-borne.”

“Hermione…”

She rose, hugging herself. “What is that you really want, Ronald?”

Ron said nothing for a long while, watching Hermione pace on the rug before the foot of the bed.

“Nothing.”

“Liar,” she whispered.

Ron tried to speak, stuttering, and then, when he could manage words, it was just as Lucius had said.

“You don’t realize, Hermione, how terrible it has been here… There’s a food shortage, shortage of potions ingredients, medicines. So few can fly, or defend themselves…”

Hermione stopped in her pacing, hugging herself tighter.

“You want me to forage.”

Ron’s disfigured face tried to look sheepish.

“Did you hear nothing Charlie and I said?”

Ron did not answer as Hermione huffed and threw herself into the adjacent chair.

“I nearly killed myself trying to use magic when there was none. There are places where the magic, which is in very bedrock of this island, is gone. Not to mention Inferi, and the fact that I do not know who my enemy is or how to stop him.”

Ron gazed at her, unfazed, and it unnerved Hermione.

“The tactical situation, you and the other two have surely been handling things here?”

“Of course, the best we can.”

Hermione rested her left elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her temple on her fist. “You know your numbers. You know who is ‘ill’ and who is not. You know how much food you have to know you do not have enough. Have you even bothered to see who can fly on a broom and who cannot?”

Ron sighed. “No. It was hard enough getting together a guard to watch the grounds. Everyone is frightened, even after months of huddling here, unsure as to why we are dying off, one by one.”

“But not everyone is,” Hermione said softly.

Ron shook his head, his short ginger hair catching the murky sunlight coming in from the casement window. “Not everyone.”

“Who?”

Ron hesitated, shifting in his chair. “George seems fine, Lucy, Audrey, mum. Part of the guard that you met last night, Muggle-borns and half-bloods. But it is hit and miss. Lucius believes that Pure-bloods with four or more generations of blood purity are the most susceptible.

Some lose strength, but do not waste away like others, dying. Lucius manages to stay alive somehow, with almost no magical ability. Susan has none left. I am growing weaker even, and Ginny…

But there are some that are almost stronger after all, as if they can focus magic easier than they ever could. Some of the children, the students, are mostly unaffected…”

Hermione stared at Ron coolly. “Who is strongest?”

Again, Ron hesitated. Then, “Creevey, Finch-Fletchley, Finnegan, Hannah Longbottom, Katie and Marcus Flint, and some of the children, Teddy Lupin, Gavin Chang-Davies, and Guin Bletchley. They are the only ones we have identified to have heightened magical ability. Then there is Charlie, and you…”

Of the children, Hermione only knew Teddy. She figured he must be a First Year. As for the others, Hermione knew who the parents were, but not the children or how old they were.

“There are others, we are sure, but they will not make themselves known. Fear keeps them from revealing themselves. Shell-shocked, I guess…”

Hermione nodded slowly, her eyes moving to the fire again.

“We want to organize those who still have some ability left, those who do not have children to attend to, or family left…”

Ron’s words were cold, but Hermione knew, deep down, Ron was just as shell-shocked as those in the castle.

“You and Charlie know what is out there, where we can go to forage for food and medicine, no matter if it is Muggle or not.”

Hermione sighed, bringing her thoughts back to the moment. “You want us to go as lead.”

Ron nodded. “If we could get everything in one place, as a group, it would hold us for a while, until we can somehow find a way to fight back. The problem is, we have been dug in for so long, and so many have died, I doubt we can fight back.

Malfoy failed to release the Seal, and there is no way to remove it now…”

Ron sounded doubtful, and Hermione wondered how much Ron did know about the Seal. In fact, as she studied Ron’s disfigured face, she wondered what he had been up to since the last time she had seen him.

When had been the last time, she wondered?

It was after the ceremony bestowing the Order of Merlin, certainly, but that had been eight years before. Maybe it had been at a naming ceremony or a birthday party for one of the Weasley children? Hermione shook her head of those memories, causing Ron to frown.

Hermione knew Ron had been an Auror, along with Harry, but was he an Auror when the Seal was enacted?

“We will get the maps ready, and the brooms. I’ll have Susan start talking to people, discreetly. Lucius will want to meet with you about what should be needed…”

Hermione snorted at the mention of Lucius. When had a Malfoy been such a humanitarian? Then again, Hermione supposed the Lucius wanted to survive, just like everyone else in the castle.

“Who is left of the Order?” Hermione asked, interrupting Ron’s audible musings.

Ron paused, blinking, causing the left side of his face to distort. “Us. Hagrid, who is helping to keep peace in the Forest... McGonagall is taking care of the students, keeping some normality to everything. Most of those attached to the Ministry are gone.

Much of the DA is here; some are, luckily, outside of Britain. Luna, Parvati, Lee Jordan, a few others…”

Hermione nodded. “And Death Eaters?”

Ron scoffed. “Too many. The Goyles and Crabbes, only Lucius and Astoria Malfoy are left, the Parkinsons sans Pansy who was one of the ‘sixty-seven,’ the Notts, the Averys, even the MacNairs.”

“And Azkaban?”

Ron rubbed the stubble on his chin and shrugged. “No word. It’s probably safer to stay there than be roaming the countryside.”

Hermione smirked. There were still many in Azkaban that would like nothing more than to see many witches and wizards die, not mention the entire Muggle population.

“We try to keep everyone calm, accommodate them as best we can in the castle. It is still a rough job… I sometimes wish I had not volunteered my name for the lottery…”

“Lottery?”

Ron nodded. “That’s how we were chosen. At first, after the last full-scale assault, everyone decided that a special council should be chosen. It was volunteer basis, and there were not many volunteers. There were five, at first. Me, Malfoy Sr. and Jr., Bones, and Ambrosius Flume. Flume was old; he died not long after Augusta Longbottom, leaving four.

Then Malfoy Jr. volunteered to release the Seal… No one else would go. Some good that did…” Ron trailed. “Now we are the ‘Three,’ and if we do not find food soon, we will lose all sense of order in this place,” Ron spat.

Silence filled the room as Hermione and Ron stared into the fire. When Ron spoke again, the subject had changed.

“You and Charlie…” he began, softly. “You two are…”

Hermione shifted in her chair. “Together? In a manner of speaking.”

Ron said nothing, never taking his blue eyes off the fire. Hermione could see the left, ruined corner of his mouth twitch and she wondered if there was some nerve damage associated with the scar.

“George and I thought for the longest time that Charlie might be gay…”

Hermione started laughing as Ron’s eyes moved from the fire. The laughter started softly until Hermione could not hold it back any longer, and cackled. Ron’s mouth twitched and slowly, he smiled.

“It seems like I have not heard laughter in months,” Ron said over Hermione’s guffaw.

Hermione felt tears in the corners of her eyes and wiped them away as her laughter began to end. She had not had a good laugh in a long time either.

“Even with students here, and George trying to entertain everyone, few have laughed,” Ron murmured, bringing back the darkness.

Ron rose stiffly. “Keep the room. Several families have already found their own places in the castle; some prefer to keep in groups. The Hospital Wing should remain clear, unless you are ill…”

Ron limped to the curtain, about to slip through when Hermione’s voice stopped him.

“Harry…” she started, Ron turning to look at her as she peeked over the back of the chair. “He was the only one of the ‘sixty-seven’ to survive?”

Ron turned toward Hermione, a frown on his disfigured face. “If you call it ‘surviving,’ Hermione.

If Harry pulls through somehow, it would be a miracle. Pomfrey is not hopeful. Between the strongest Imperius known to wizard kind and Ginny’s Stunner, Harry will probably never wake. In a way, I hope he doesn’t.”

Hermione was on her feet. “What do you mean by that?” she growled.

Ron’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t think he could handle the world as we know it coming to an end.

What did that Muggle poet say, the one you always liked so much…about the world ending?”

Hermione took a trembling breath, “’This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.’”

Ron nodded. “And we are whimpering, luv…”





At noon, Hermione had been hugged and kissed more in several hours than she had been in a lifetime. She had left her new abode to find several people waiting for her in the crowded DADA classroom. First, it had been Lavender Brown, then Padma Patil who apologized for being so brusque the night before, and said she was working in the Hospital Wing. There were others, some Hermione remembered from school, and some she did not.

By the time she made it to the History of Magic classroom and to the remnants of the Weasley family, Hermione felt wrought out. So many people had come up to her, so many people who were warm with life, but cold with fear. Hermione was not sure what these people wanted from her, they did not ask questions. Perhaps it was because she had made it to Hogwarts alive, she could not be sure.

Hermione found Molly and Ginny sitting together in a makeshift tent in the corner of the large classroom, cots and belongings crammed into the niche while Lucy Weasley, Percy’s oldest was reading from her Potions textbook with her uncle George under one of the casement windows. Molly had somehow managed to make a small smokeless fire in a magical brazier to heat and light the enclosed niche. Audrey was sleeping on one of the cots while Molly and Ginny sat on Conjured poufs around the brazier.

At the sight of Hermione, both women rose and embraced her. Molly was weeping, and to see her swollen face, it seemed Molly had been weeping for a very long time. Sitting next to Ginny, Molly asked how Hermione was feeling.

“Better. I’m just shocked, I suppose.”

Ginny’s arm wrapped about Hermione’s shoulders. “I would think so, after being out there…”

Hermione said nothing.

“It is wonderful to see you, darling,” Molly said, finally mastering her emotions. “And with Charlie…Merlin, you have no idea how happy I am.”

Ginny nodded. “We had feared the worst. No one has come from Wales…”

Hermione nodded. “It was fortunate that we found each other in London. Charlie saved me more than once there, and all the way north…”

“He is such a good boy,” Molly sighed. “His hair is too long, he’s too thin, but he’s alive.”

The women chattered on while Hermione listened. All the while, she heard nothing about the ‘music,’ or about the fact that the lawn between the castle and the gates were littered with graves. Molly did not speak about her dead husband or grandchildren. Hermione could feel Ginny’s anxiety as Molly finally spoke of Jaime who was faring poorly in the Hospital Wing.

“Poppy won’t let us stay long now. Ginny’s beside herself, a child and a husband in there…”

“Mum, that’s enough,” Ginny finally said, sternly. The tone made Lucy pause in her reading and George to frown at Molly. “We’ve dwelled on that for too long. Poppy has Jaime stable, and Harry too…”

Molly’s eyes were swimming with tears again. “Yes, yes, you’re right.”

Conversation turned to the rumour of food rationing when suddenly there was a sound of a throat clearing outside the makeshift tent. Ginny rose before anyone else and pushed the flap aside.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Ginny…” a soft, elegant female voice said. “But Father is demanding to speak with Miss Granger.”

“Astoria, dear, come in,” Molly called.

Hermione peered around Ginny to look at Astoria Greengrass-Malfoy, a girl she barely remembered. Hermione knew her older sister Daphne, and found that Astoria was far prettier than Daphne with long golden blonde hair and large green eyes. Astoria wore a beautiful bustled dress, haute couture compared to what the rest of the refugees were wearing.

“I’m sorry, Molly, I really cannot stay. Father sent me as he is not feeling well, and after I bring Miss Granger to him, I must really see about getting the Malfoy elves working better with the others…”

Molly chuckled as Hermione rose. Hermione was surprised that the Weasleys and the Malfoys were on a first-name basis. In addition, it seemed that Astoria Malfoy was friendly with the Weasley women. Hermione moved to Ginny’s side, gazing at Astoria. At that sight of Hermione, Astoria studied her from head to toe, and then smiled oddly.

“I’ll be by later,” Hermione whispered to Ginny, who nodded and stepped back to let Hermione pass under the flap, which she realized was an old and worn Persian rug.

Astoria led Hermione around the cots in the room, no one bothering to look up. Hermione had to double her pace to keep up with Astoria’s long strides. The woman, now a widow, was taller by at least five inches.

When they began descending into the dungeons, Hermione snorted. Astoria glanced back, and spoke to her directly for the first time.

“You thinking: typical, right?”

Hermione smirked. “Right.”

Astoria drew her wand from a sash about her waist, out of dark green taffeta. “I was in Slytherin, but I hated the dungeons and the dormitories down here.”

The darkness of the dungeons was complete except for Astoria Malfoy’s wand light.

“Father took Snape’s old quarters, furthest away from the dormitories. Slughorn has the quarters attached to the Potions Lab.”

“He’s still here?” Hermione mused, thinking of the rotund Head of Slytherin fondly.

Astoria nodded. Hermione followed close as the cold of the dungeons and the distant drip of water made her shiver. It had been over a decade since she had stepped foot in the dungeons.

“Father is in a particular playful mood, I would be careful,” Astoria warned as they stopped before a dark oak door. “He has something up his sleeve.”

Hermione started to ask why Astoria would want to warn her, but already the last Malfoy wife was opening the door, the light inside blinding Hermione after the darkness.

Astoria stepped aside to let Hermione pass, her green eyes flashing with warning. When Hermione stepped inside the room, the door shut behind her and Hermione could hear Astoria’s footfalls fade into the distance.

Again, Hermione was in another room that was unfamiliar. She had never been in Severus Snape’s personal quarters before, and upon first inspection, was surprised. There were no green trimmed décor, no black walls, or empty windows. Instead, Hermione found herself in a room that reminded her of some Victorian drawing room with cream and mahogany papered and paneled walls. Under her feet was a hard wood floor, and the windows, magicked to overlook the Forbidden Forest, were far brighter and larger than the usual casement windows in the upper stories. Even the furniture, which was upholstered in dark browns and creams, was Victorian. And upon a fainting couch before the large dark marble fireplace, was Lucius Malfoy.

“Do come in, my dear.”

The fireplace was set into the same wall as the door and as Hermione stepped further into the room, she saw another door that was open, leading into a darker bedroom.

“Come, have a seat by the fire. It seems that the environmental Charms in this old castle have faded…”

Hermione took a breath and moved across the room to sit in a low armchair near the fainting couch. She sat with trepidation, Lucius Malfoy’s eyes watching her amusedly.

Lucius lounged on the couch; still dressed in the out-of-place Muggle clothes Hermione had seen him earlier. His canes rested along the end of the fainting couch, and on the other end, Lucius leaned back, regarding Hermione’s face for a long moment.

“I should think Ron Weasley finally got around to asking something of you?”

“To lead a group of people to forage for supplies with millions of Inferi running about Britain? Yes.”

Lucius snorted. “And you, being such a heroine of the age, said yes?”

Hermione frowned. “Not exactly.”

Lucius’ pale face grew grave. “You realize that in approximately two days time, we are going to have to ration what food we have left for about one thousand men, women and children?”

“I have been made aware.”

Lucius said nothing, his grey eyes moving to Hermione’s jumper and the swell of her breasts for a moment and then back to her golden eyes.

“Do you know, my dear, how much food is needed to feed one thousand hungry people?”

Hermione did not answer.

“Do you know what these people have been doing since the world ended?”

Hermione sighed. “You’ll tell me…”

“Fucking.”

From Lucius Malfoy’s aristocratic mouth, the foul word was almost clean.

“Repopulation, many are thinking, trying in vain to keep the magical race alive.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “And you bring this up because?”

Lucius’ mouth twisted into a predatory grin. “I’ve been looking for a new wife, now that my progeny has died. Draco and Scorpius have died, my son killed my wife out of necessity, and taking my daughter-in-law will raise eyebrows…”

“You are disgusting…”

“That I am, my dear, but I am also practical…”

“This is not the time for this rubbish, Lucius.”

Lucius’ pale eyebrow rose. “Of course not, but I thought I would lay the offer on the table before someone else approaches you.”

Hermione stood, and began moving to the door.

“You haven’t heard my offer yet, Miss Granger…”

Hermione’s hand grasped the doorknob, and she paused, staring into the fine wood grain of the door. “I have more important things to do…”

“Such as finding out why Regulus Black is strangely alive?” Lucius asked coolly.

It was bait, she knew, but by the twist in Lucius’ question, it was clear that he had something to tell her. With groan, Hermione released the knob and returned to the chair to face Lucius again.

“I was not often in the confidence of the Dark Lord, but he did tell me, after learning that his precious locket had been taken by Black in ’79, about his Inferi in the cave…how special they were. The Dark Lord talked far too much, boasting about his ‘achievements.’”

Hermione shifted in the armchair, resting her elbows on the rests, listening.

“They were made of villagers in Cornwall. He did not take them all at one time, of course. It seemed that over the years, the Dark Lord took indigents, criminals, and troublemakers off the hands of the Muggles. Perhaps the only good he did do…

He picked those who were tenacious in life, killing them only to raise them again to be the guardians of the cave. I have never been to this cave myself, but the Dark Lord thought it to be one his greatest works of spellcraft. Of course, this was a mistake as Black was able to take the locket, only to be dragged down by the Inferi himself. Supposedly…

But the most important thing the Dark Lord had said about his Inferi was that they were more like golem than actual Inferi. Souls were still bound in the dead bodies, giving them some degree of free will and, dare I say, life?”

She considered the words. “Black can use magic because he is a golem?”

Lucius grinned. “A theory that I developed this morning.”

Hermione blinked. Golem were supposedly creatures made from inanimate matter…

“It is worth thinking about, I suppose,” Hermione conceded.

“You should also think of my offer… It does not have to be marriage…”

“And you say this because I am what? Strong? Because I still can use magic?”

“In part. You are young, you are fertile…”

Hermione rolled her eyes again. “And because you have some perverse desire to humiliate me.”

Lucius chuckled. “If you say so, my dear.”

“I am not some breeding mare, Lucius.”

“That you certainly are not. All the same, there will be others who will approach you, other families that have the instinctual need to continue their blood line, those who will stoop to take a Muggle-born to keep their power ‘alive.’”

Hermione fidgeted, exhaling slowly. “I think the matter of necessity would come first, then trying to stop our civilization from being destroyed a close second.”

“You would consign repopulating this country as third?”

Lucius’ pale, handsome face even more beautiful with the smirk. Hermione studied his face, and could not deny that there was a fey beauty to his features. He was aged, but not elderly…

“I will think about this ‘offer’ later… If at all.”

Lucius seemed rebuffed. “Very well then, but remember, I asked first.”



TBC...