Loyalty

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

I - the numbers.

It's been seven years.

Seven years since Harry Potter died and they won the war. Seven years since his Lord restored Barty's soul to him. Seven years since he was awarded a Mudblood prize.

And all is not well.

Seven years since he thought the world was theirs and that everything had been worth it. Seven years since he believed with every fibre that made him that the sacrifices he'd made had lead to everything he'd believed in. That the death of his mother, his imprisonment, the horrifying, soulless years in limbo, seven years since those seemed like worthwhile means to an end that they'd achieved.

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It's been six years since it became clear that the Dark Lord had no real interest in suppressing Mudbloods. Six years since Barty felt his loyalty begin to fray.

He'd been promised. Promised a utopia of purity.

But now the Mudbloods are back at Hogwarts, registered, certainly but encouraged to mix in the world. There aren't enough wizards left, the Lord told them. It is necessary.

I have researched, he told Barty in private. It is clear that combining the blood can make for stronger magic. You will trust me on this.

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It's been three years since he learned he'd been following a half-blood to hollow glory. His Mudblood told him, and he'd refused to believe her but –

He remembered her from classes. He'd checked. Researched.

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Two years since his Lord had ordered him to take a half-blood to wife and he'd refused. Two years since she'd enraptured him after all that time, since he accepted the wrongness of everything and determined to set the world burning.

Two years since he begun to plan and plot against him, alone in his room. Never speaking the words aloud -

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The reign lasted eight years in total, but now he is free. They are all free.

He has no master. He can't remember how long it has been since he had no master. He has killed him, just as he killed his father.

Loyalty goes both ways.

He'd had to kill the Dark Lord, though. The man had demanded a loyalty due only to gods, and he'd once believed Voldemort was almost a god and then he'd betrayed them with false promises, brought their world to its knees in a quest not for the pureblood Arcadia they'd imagined but for his own personal power.

And the world looks little changed from before the war, except emptier and poorer.

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It has been one year since he accepted his Mudblood was equal.

One year since she'd called him Brutus and tasked him from her chains.

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II: the girl.

She has more loyalty in her smallest toe than the purest bred Malfoy in his entire body and soul, and Barty respects loyalty. More than anything. But loyalty goes both ways. Voldemort's did not. It was demanded and when the demand changed you changed or broke.

But he was dead now, he was broken, and gone and they were free.

He hands her a wand. She's earned it, more than earned it, and he can only hope – the loyalty she felt, never gave up to those who'd died years before, loyalty he'd tried to destroy in every way possible – he can only hope that loyalty will be given to him.

He loves her, this brave, clever woman. She has all his loyalty now and if she leaves he thinks he will die. She ripped his world to pieces; slowly, gradually, agonisingly she shattered the very fibres of who he'd been piece by piece, and the she stitched him back up.

He had loathed her, before. Or - not loathed, not seen her as equal enough for that. Dismissed. She'd been handed to him as a great honour, Harry Potter's best friend, in recognition of his unwavering loyalty and sacrifices.

He hadn't wanted her - and a servant forbidden from using magic was pointless. But you did not refuse a gift from the Dark Lord, and he had been proud because they'd all wanted this one. They tried to barter for her, later, wanted to do unspeakable things, things he'd believed even Mudbloods were too low for.

It would be beastiality, he'd told Lucius. (How wrong he'd been).

She is my prize, to flaunt or not as I wish, he'd told Travers when the man begged for a turn with her at a Revel.

But they'd made him wonder –

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He'd kept her far away, first out of revulsion, and later out of fear at his own curiosity, warning her to stay out of sight, to clean and cook and assist the House Elf and never never never to show her face when he had guests. Let them think her dead or chained - anything but rape her on his floors.

It hadn't been kindness, not then.

Because he'd remembered the girl at that damned silly ball, how every male eye had been awed by her – how she'd been blossoming on the verge of womanhood

- and the temptation to do what they all expected he'd do anyway was – But he didn't. It was disgusting.

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He'd come home, five years ago, in a half-drunk and raging, ten minutes of Crucio (punishment for protesting) down the night Lord Voldemort told him the Mudbloods would no longer be confined to Hufflepuff and –

She'd put him to bed, washed his sweating face, fetched him a potion and for some reason he'd grabbed her hand and asked her how she'd cheated her way to top of the year when her magic was stolen and her blood running with filth.

She'd smiled at him, unbroken, and said, "I don't think you really believe that. You were my teacher, once, after all."

After that he'd locked up in a cage for a week.

But it hadn't worked. He'd tried torturing her for her insolence - for daring to exist, for daring to shine - with isolation and with curses, with starvation even and she'd refused to betray her friends, refused to betray her blood. She was wholly and completely loyal.

"I will never renounce Harry," she'd said. "I am proud of who I am and what I fought for."

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We're both human, she'd told him. And when you truly believed you didn't bother with any of this.

.

Then one day he'd come home a day early from a liaison trip with the Americas: ironically he'd assumed his father's old role as a diplomat and Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation – with a far greater need for it after the war, when his job was to soothe and persuade that Lord Voldemort knew what was best for Britain, and yes indeed the society was much improved already.

He'd gone into his study and she'd been in there, reading one of his books.

And he just hadn't cared, not really, not any more. Perhaps enough of him remembered her as an eager (brilliant?) student waving her hand in the air, essays longer than she was tall, or perhaps he, who loved books too, couldn't deny her one level of humanity.

She'd gasped, dropping it, horrified, but not scared, and if she had been scared maybe he'd have reacted as expected, but he didn't.

"You may read," he said. "When your chores are finished and never in this room. Do not take more than one book at a time, and if I find them damaged you will be hanging from your thumbs for a week."

"Thank you," she'd said, eyes shining with tears, like a child at Yule and he'd turned away, abruptly, confused.

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That had been the beginning of the end. He resisted for a while but then... he'd come home deliberately early, hoping to catch her out of the bounds he'd set again. He hadn't been disappointed; she'd been choosing a new book.

He'd still denied noticing her body to himself, then. Four years ago.

"Sit," he'd said.

If he hadn't been arguing with his Master about the reintroduction of Muggle Studies (more than one foolhardy teenage Wizard had been arrested by Muggles and their prestigious parents had actually argued – petitioned - for their children to be taught the basics of survival in the Muggle world) perhaps he wouldn't have been so curious about her, about her heritage.

She'd obeyed, perching warily on a chair by the desk.

"What was the last book you read?"

She'd named a rare tome on complicated Transfiguration theory.

He'd quizzed her on it, and she'd answered flawlessly, reciting passages of text without needing to refer to it, demonstrating and easy understanding of things he knew would be far beyond most of his peers.

"Go," he'd told her. "Just – go."

He'd felt himself unravelling.

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"Tell the girl she's to serve my supper," he'd told the house-elf one day, ignoring the voice in his head that said no, this way lies danger, ignoring the part of him that said you are lonely and she is company, beautiful and witty and clever and –

"What is this?" he asked, poking at the plate of leaves.

"Salad, Sir," she said, frowning.

"Salad?"

"It's healthy. And from the garden."

"From the garden?" he'd asked surprised. He didn't have a vegetable garden, and to his surprise she'd blushed.

"I've been growing things… there's not much for me to do in the house. Buttons won't let me cook or clean. I get bored."

Four years as his slave and she'd remained wholly Gryffindor.

He'd eaten it, though, and she'd smiled.

.

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One day, he'd told her to bring a book and join him. They'd sat by the fire, she on the floor, and he'd drank firewhiskey and she'd said,

Did you know Muggles have been to the moon?

And she told him tales, unbelievable tales – unfathomable and amazing – about the world she'd been born in.

He'd called her a liar and sent her to bed, but she'd persisted, daring him to go to the Muggle world and find out and he had and she'd been right.

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Three years since they'd begun to grow together, gradually, until she'd shared his meals and been company, and he'd begun to ache with need for her.

He'd made her a portkey necklace that would transport her to his side if any of his less savoury comrades became too curious about her, he'd given her books and potions to brew and they'd walked in the garden together and she'd shown him the flowers she'd planted as they came into bloom.

And he'd pretended not to ache for her, an ache that crept up on him, slipping through the cracks of his anger and despair at being betrayed by a man he'd worshipped like a god, through the puncture wounds of unlearning the doctrines of his childhood.

He'd breathed her in like spring breezes and one day, she'd set the table in the garden and it was midsummer and the jasmine she'd planted the year was lacing the air with its heady sharp scent and he'd pulled her onto his lap and kissed her, finally –

And it had been a revelation.

His skin had burned with her and it had been like falling upwards into the night sky, the stars bursting with golden warmth and –

She'd pulled away, and run into the house.

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III – the woman

He'd missed her. She'd hidden away for days, until finally he'd stormed up the stairs and into her room (filled with flowers and the names of those she loved written over and over in beautiful calligraphy on the walls, badly-drawn portraits of the boy-who-had-not-lived and the other one, whose name Barty couldn't remember and others, pictures and words like a mad woman's room, only it was beautiful and hauntingly, unspeakably sad and he felt -

he felt.)

He'd never seen her cry before, except under the most severe punishment – years before – but she cried that night.

I will not be your slave and your lover, she'd told him.

I am your equal. You may own me on that man's whim, but you don't own me inside and you never, ever will. I am not a slave. I am Hermione Granger.

She'd told him he'd never called her by her name. How badly she wanted to see somewhere that wasn't his house, but how scared she was. How she scoured the newspapers, reading every single word to find a hint of her friends.

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He'd found one of her friends, the Luna girl. She'd been married off to Dolohov, an unfortunate fate, (punishment really, but you couldn't enslave or execute fertile purebloods these days) but the man had died after two years, killed. After that she'd been married to Theo Nott.

"From what I can tell she seems happy enough. Would it please you for her to visit?" he'd asked and the rapture on her face made him glow and pathetically, weakly, yearn to please her.

"You – you could do that?"

"Yes, Hermione. I will do my best, but I will need a good excuse lest anyone connect the dots. You are still safest here – there are many, even now, who desire to own you. If you were less famous… but no, even disguised I would not take you away from here."

"Luna's an expert in uncategorised magical creatures. Say you believe you have an infestation of Wrackspurts."

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Et tu, Brute? -

.

She'd started joining him for dinner again, but she'd kept her distance. Once Lord Voldemort himself had visited and she'd put on a simply amazing display of human hosue-elf, dirtying her face, and wearing her most ragged dress, one of the first he'd provided, and bowing her head, and Voldemort hadn't even bothered reading her mind. Just laughed and told her to bring him a drink.

But she'd kept her distance, returning to her room after she'd eaten, instead of reading with him or staying up late talking or playing chess, which he liked to do because he always won.

Until the day he told her he'd had enough, that betrayal and hypocrisy cut too deep. The day he'd asked her to share the brilliance of her mind, a mind after-all that was used to plotting against their master – a mind that, once removed from Potter had caused his downfall and death (something Bellatrix had been lauded for, and thank Merlin and Salazar the girl had come to him instead of her).

Yes, she'd said. Have you heard about Julius Caesar? There are mistakes we will not make.

And You are not good at plotting - you are brilliant but not... logical. The Triward cup was the most ridiculous and convoluted and over-dramatic assassination attempt I've ever seen. And there will be no room for Mark Anthonys here. No speech-making and drama. We will do it quietly.

He'd bought a copy of a play as she instructed, a year ago, on one of his trips abroad, and she'd read it to him in the evenings.

And at the end of one of them, he'd taken her hands and said, Please, Hermione. And she'd leaned in, and kissed him, and he'd felt that star-studded burning blazing joy again and he'd said there is nothing I would not do to free you, now. I am sorry. So sorry.

I know, she said.

And her naked body in the firelight had been golden and lithe and he'd never, ever imagined such bliss.

.

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The Notts were not the only ones who helped. It had taken a year of careful plotting, of secret meetings and agreements and obliviating those who would not join them. She'd master-minded and organised and stunned him with her extraordinary brilliance and he was just -

her messenger. Her right hand. Her wand.

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- Then fall, Caesar!

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And, when it was done, Theo was installed as Minister, and Barty had retired from the Ministry and accepted a place at Hogwarts.

A new order, they'd agreed.

Freedom.

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She's scared, her hands trembling as she takes the wand.

"It's been seven years," she says. "What if I can't…?"

"You can," he says. "You can. You are Hermione Granger, the greatest witch I have ever known."

(Not his equal. His better. He knows that now.)

And she says, "Lumos."

The light is almost blinding.

"Will you leave?" he asks, terrified.

"For a while. I need… to relearn how to be in the world."

"Let me help you. Hermione, I know I am undeserving but I love you. I would do anything."

"You have set me free," she says. "And for that I'll come back. But this has been my cage, and even though you have been far kinder than another man might have been – I know I've been lucky, really, so lucky - I just need to feel free again."

.

And so she leaves, she goes to the Muggle world to find her parents, to travel, to escape. She has money, she explains, savings and inheritance and she just needs to go.

He believes her promise to return though. She is loyal.

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It's three years since she left, to the day, when he gets her letter. He's the Headmaster of Hogwarts now, the natural affinity for teaching she'd once told him he had – I know you were pretending to be Moody, and you were cruel and harsh, but actually compared to most of the others you were really good.

Coming home, she writes. How's the garden?

He weeps. He does not deserve it.

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She takes her rightful place in the Ministry, and they whisper Saviour-Slave in awe because they know it was her and gradually she undoes some of the damage caused by years and years of bad management and war and an endless history of bigotry and –

He's happy. She has saved him, his slave who set him free.

She refuses to marry him, to take his name but she bears him - them - Brutus and Marcus and Julia. He does not make the mistakes his father did.

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Great prompt from SPE reviewer RobinQ, thank you. I hope you liked it!

What did you think guys?!

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