Fallen Dynasty (Dramione)

Fifteen - The Need to Know More

Crudelitatis mater avaritia est, pater furor.

Greed is the mother of cruelty, and rage the father.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

Draco was called by Voldemort shortly after they returned to the manor, leaving Hermione to transfigure back to her normal self.

As she brushed her frizzy curls and braided them down her back to get them out of her face, she thought hard. She didn't know she what the note that Draco left had said but the shit eating grin plastered on his face was enough to determine that it probably wasn't good.

Especially when he apparated back home, his knuckles bloodied and bruised and his face splashed with droplets of crimson. The bottom of his robes were covered with streaks of maroon and reeked of a metallic smell and death. The air around him crackled and sizzled, the dark magic and curses nearly suffocating her. The grin was still plastered across his sinister looking face.

The sight of him made her stomach flip.

Perhaps because she thought he was beautiful this way. With his knuckles bruised from hitting something when he was angry, covered in his enemy's blood, and a dangerous glint in his eyes. She should've loved when he was on his best behavior, but seeing him at his worst? How he lit up with such ferocity and his aura was wrecked with violence. Blood under his fingernails and pure venom on his lips. She found his spark, his flame inside, magnetizing. 

She shouldn't crave his chaos when he was once her peace, but she did. That peace didn't exist anymore. She could only crave what she had. His chaos meant he was alive and that meant everything to her.

He was her beautiful monster and a broken victim all at the same time. A villain of his true self.

"Who did you kill this time?" She humored him as he walked closer.

His expression softened at the sight of her and her stomach did that flip again. She liked it when he looked at her like that— like she was different to him than anyone else in the world. She missed that look. She missed it a lot.

"I lost count after the third wave of attack." He was careless, not minding that his arms were stained red and slick with the lifeline of many of his enemies or that he was dripping it on the marbled floor. "The prisoners revolted, so all of their executions were moved up a little early."

"Oh," she mumbled, her mind focusing on all who was in Voldemort's prison currently. Percy Weasley, Katie Bell, and Cho Chang flowed to the forefront. She didn't bother to ask if they were dead. If they weren't already, they were now. "By yourself?"

Draco chucked at her question. "Being outnumbered by a bunch of weak, starved, barely trained wizards doesn't mean much anymore. It doesn't matter how determined they are. I let them have their fun and then, I handled it."

"Are you ok?" She asked quietly, hands trembling as she fought the urge to reach out — to make sure none of that blood was his own.

He stared back at her for a moment before he smirked slightly, that damned dimple and twitch of the corner of his mouth the only indications of such a motion. "I'm fine, Hermione."

He exited the room, a trail of blood behind him as his robes grazed the floor. Her breath hitched at the sight, flashbacks of his dead body being dragged away from her filling her head.

Still to this day, she struggled with the fact that he was not murdered and was alive and well — as well as he could be. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself with what was in front of her, she still grieved a life lost. It was a difficult thing to process even when she was what they call brilliant.