Jörmungandr

Crickets, Cockroaches, and The Like

Hermione often dreamt of murdering Voldemort. A sword swung down on his neck, barely slowing for the bone. A quick green curse shot from dark woods. Poison in a drink at a party, a kiss and a wink and his men betraying him. A gut wound that rotted, a slit throat that sprayed, a coffin buried alive.

They had been vivid. Starting when she first held the locket in the forest all those years ago. The metal thread strung around her neck, colder than pearls, the thinnest wire of winter wind that slit her throat even after it had been removed.

Sometimes she dreamt of him as Tom Riddle.

The boy and the man, the version he was as he split his soul for the locket. She had hypothesized that whatever bit of himself he had placed inside, had projected into her subconscious and stuck there. A scratch on her mind, her magic.

That was the reason she saw different faces sometimes.

It was not much different. The killing was just as simple and messy, merciful or cruel. Whichever face he wore, name he took, he would die.

When she didn't have nightmares, she dreamt of murder.

Tonight, she dreamt of a field of white flowers that were thinner than razors and him, placing them in her hair. Weaving one through her curls. Tucking another gently behind her ear. They cut her scalp, but she did not mind. She smiled up at him. Told him thank you with blood running down her face, in her eyes, in her mouth.

She did not know which version of him this was. Which name he had chosen. Just that he had dark hair, and dark eyes, and touched her gently as he sliced her open with petals.

He responded muffled, she could not hear.

She could barely see. Her eyes stung with blood. He was so far away, so dim, so dark. There was an aperture closing and she tried to reach out, to touch him. He caught her hand.

Cold. He was cold. A river in winter.

"This is not the end," he said roughly. Thick with coughs. Faraway and dreamlike. Hermione could not respond; she was drowning in blood...

"I am dealing with it a great deal better than you are."

This was Riddle, clearer, sharp as if he spoke in her ear.

"Is it comparable?"

This was not Riddle.

A clatter, a thump, and she smelled blood.

Something hit her legs, over her knee. Writhing. Another on her chest, heavy. She tried to cough, to breathe, but its weight held her down. And when it slithered off, a handful of smaller things, little ropes running over her as if she was a ship to be tethered to harbor.

"Tom," not-Riddle chastised, "that is completely unnecessary."

"She is awake." Riddle said.

Hermione huffed.

Tom and Dumbledore were sitting at the tea table, chessboard gone. Tom was back in his uniform, tie perfect and green, ankle on his knee, with more bad tea in front of him. Neatly pressed and clean cut as always.

The circles under his eyes were darker than ever. Couldn't cover up that bitter, charred exhaustion with an ironing spell and a shower.

Dumbledore sat across from him, in the spot she had occupied an hour ago. The windows were still mirrors, the room still warm, the tension between the two still sharp.

There were about a thousand snakes in the room.

Hissing, spitting, slithering toward the two. Crawling over her as she slept. Little coral snakes, smaller vipers. Massive boas. A piebald anaconda crossed the branches of the tree to snap out at the professor. A black cobra wound around Riddle's shoulders and flared its neck. Vicious. Like a guard dog called to heel. Dumbledore had set a small ward around him, the snakes stopped a foot away, but they coiled restlessly, looking for a weakness to get through.