If I Had A Heart

Four

Tom

Six Months Later...

I don't know what caused me to react the way I did when meeting my bride for the first time. I expected a homely looking witch who was intelligent but too shy for her own good. I knew that she was the brains behind her friendship with Potter and that Weasley boy she always socialized with. But I expected Rita Skeeter's reports to have had some accuracy to them, and not mere slander.

Bellatrix has gone off the rails again, and all because of her zealous obsession with me. In all honesty, her craziness has grown tedious and boring, indeed. I paced about my bedroom, nearly screaming in frustration. She's a mudblood! The very abomination that I want to eradicate off the face of the planet, and yet this slip of a girl is beginning to bewitch me.

I went to her adjoining suite, and sat on the edge of her bed. I smoothed back some curls from her face. So soft. So..pure. When was the last time I was with someone so pure? The answer was too long. I needed to annul this marriage, and soon. I had wanted to kill her so many times, to hurt her for worming her way into the black void that passed for my heart.

I rose, and just as I was about to leave, she said sleepily, "Please stay...Tom."

"That would be unwise."

"Are we not supposed to...you know? Be intimate?" Hermione inquired.

"Only if I cared to have a mudblood as my wife," I answered truthfully. "I don't."

She sat up, and said, "Well, it's not like I asked to share a bed with the godsdamned Dark Lord. I was forced into this just as much as you were."

I turned from the door, and sat back down on the bed. "Fine. We can both curse Albus Dumbledore. But I'm going to seek a way out of this arrangement legally, I can assure you."

Hermione scooted closer to me, and took one of my hands in hers. "What if you swore me to secrecy?" She suggested. "That way, if I make the Unbreakable Vow, and break it, I still die horribly as you want. It's plain to see that I was sent as a spy."

I don't know what compelled me to ask my next question, but I had to know it for some reason: "Why would you willingly give up your free will to me? I am everything you hate, the villain in this war. Why ever would you want anything to do with me?"

Hermione chuckled. "Because those same people didn't seem to give a damn about students bullying me in school. Pureblood snobs like my ex boyfriend who, while he matured over time, still gave me a hard time over not having magical parents. I can remember so many times I went to my Head of House and said that Millicent Bullstrode or whoever punched and kicked me, or Pansy Parkinson and her clique were berating me between classes, and Professor McGonagall did hardly anything."

This was news! I had not been aware of this. Certainly, she adjusted remarkably well to being the Dark Lady, and a part of me liked having a wife around. Only, she had the stigma of being muggleborn against her. But I had no idea that she was treated so abysmally. I never touched her in an intimate fashion, because I was trying to find a remedy to annul this marriage. But maybe, just maybe, I had found my match after all.

"I...I was not aware of this cruelty," I admitted, using legilimency to determine the truth of her words. When I found that her memories reflected this, I relaxed. "I still want to know why you would sleep with me?"

Hermione sighed. "Because I know that with you I can be my true self, Tom. I don't wish to change you, or anything but if I could just show you that not all of us muggleborns are scum, then I can demonstrate that by being a good wife to you."

I caressed her cheek, and brushed my thumb across her lips. She shivered in response. "I will reward you once you have sworn the vow, and not before. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Hermione replied. "But can you not kiss me? So I have something to look forward to?"

I didn't see any harm in that, so I pressed my lips to hers, and she ran my fingers through my hair as she kissed me back. Tingles like electricity ran from my mouth to hers as our tongues fought for dominance. I drew back in alarm, putting her away from me. I didn't know what else to say, but I slammed my bedroom door behind me and paced restlessly.

I was becoming too emotional, too attached to her. But was most alarming of all was how it felt damned perfect the way her mouth opened up underneath mine. What could I say in response? I never felt that with any witch. Ever.

A cold smile wreathed my lips. Well, if she betrayed her vow, then she would die, but if not, then I was completely wrong about all mudbloods, and I could free myself to care for my wife as a part of me wanted to. Yes, the last ultimate test. She did prove trustworthy with her wand in the first month of being with me, but now?

Yes, I wanted to see if she could be trusted as a wife at long last after I silenced her for good. For the first time ever, I felt optimistic about this arrangement, and it allowed me to enjoy kissing her. I slept in relative peace, and all because things were finally looking up on all fronts. I had no dreams, good or otherwise, which was a blessing in and of itself. But as always, time would tell in the end, and then and only then would I know if Hermione was my match and not before...