Free to Leave

The clock chimed three. It was the first sound Ron had heard in a long while. There were no footsteps on the porch, no sound of doorknob turning around. There was nothing to indicate Hermione's awaited return.

Rubbing his eyes, he went to the kitchen, wishing for nothing more than a cup of strong burning coffee. Well, nothing more except for Hermione to come back. He accioed the coffee pot, overturning in process a couple of silly plates painted with colorful butterflies Luna bestowed upon them as a wedding gift. Their wedding… It happened a whole eternity ago, it seemed, yet he could bring every detail strong and vivid to life in front of his eyes. Hermione's dress of shimmering white and a lone lily of the valley attached to his green ("I don't care you can't stand the color green, Ronald Weasley, you're going to learn to appreciate style a bit more," Ginny had adamantly stated) dress robes everyone insisted suited him perfectly.

His heart started to hammer inside his chest with such a force that he expected his ribcage to burst open at every moment. It was all so perfect, almost too perfect to be true. Maybe that was why it wasn't destined to last, he said to himself, but he knew it was just an excuse he had made in his inability to face the truth. For too long had he blamed everything on destiny. It was destiny's fault his best friend had ended up to be head over heels for his wife. Maybe the destiny was to blame for the said best friend had to go and lose a duel against a vampire, but that was about it.

It wasn't destiny that raised a hand against Hermione when she had once after drinking a glass more of firewhiskey than her mind could process said that maybe if she had been with Harry he wouldn't have went on that mission, he wouldn't have become what he had. It was no one else except him, him and his long-time companion who went by the name of jealousy. And after that it started spiraling even deeper down than before. It wasn't like he was the only one who lost someone. Harry was his best friend, but he was Hermione's too. And more important than that, he was his sister's husband. More than a friend—a part of the family.

Yet he didn't want to acknowledge nobody's pain except for his own. He didn't want to see pain in anybody's eyes at the mention of Harry. Nobody's except Hermione's, but even that wasn't out of noble intentions. Every time she was feeling down, every time she cried or just unfocusedly stared in the distance while lounging in her own memories, his friend the jealousy whispered words of poison. She wasn't mourning Harry the friend, she was mourning Harry the lost lover. And every time jealousy would say that, he would go out and hammer himself at the nearest Muggle pub. Inebriated, he would come home, Hermione would screech at him, he would yell back, and more often than not, it would end up with a fight.

He treated her like shit, Ron grimly concluded as he groggily continued to prepare coffee, head in pain after the effects of alcohol had been annulled. It was curious how he had never even tried to think about that while using logic, until this night. The night he came home and Hermione wasn't there. Was she really so sick of him she was left with nothing else to do but leave without even saying goodbye?

Knowing Hermione, a bright and proud witch, he doubted she would disappear like a thief in the night. That knowledge, however, wasn't much of a consolation. It meant that something had happened, and that something might had even been Harry. Sure, the Ministry had assured them Harry hadn't been spotted in months, and they were perfectly safe at their current location, a small house not too far away from Exeter, but how many times had the ministry proven to be a trustworthy protector?

Ron didn't even know where could he look for her. Ginny and Luna knew nothing about her, and neither did Neville, nor George. All Hermione's favorite locations where closed this late at night and she wasn't the type of girl to go out at one of those noisy night-clubs. There was nothing he could do at the moment, but hope she would return soon and explain herself.

Pouring himself a cup of coffee that turned out not to be strong but bland and overly-sugared, he went back to the living room and dropped into the sofa from which he had a good view of the clock. He was going to wait until the morning, and if Hermione wouldn't come home, he'd raise hell in Ministry if needed, but a search party was going to be formed in less than an hour.

Hermione had never been much of a sleeper, but now came the day she hated herself for it. Sleeping through the unpleasant moments would surely be better than having to face the stinging pain in her neck. It hurt as though somebody stabbed her with a knitting needle and that pain was what forced her to snap her eyes open. As she did so, her brain immediately skidded to a halt. Where was she, in the name of Merlin?

Surrounding her were the white-and-black-stripe wallpapered walls of an unknown room which curiously enough didn't have a single window, and she was sprawled across a massive white bed and covered with a fuzzy and black fur blanket. There was nothing familiar about the place and she wondered whether she had accidentally apparated into someone's home last night when she had been running from Harry.

Harry.

What had happened? Hermione tried to rummage through her mind in search of a memory how had she managed to escape him last night, but didn't find any. Then how…

Her neck sent another wave of pain, as if trying to help her recall. Not yet leaving the warmth of the blanket, she reached out to rub the pained spot and immediately let out a small ouch. Bringing her hand to her eyes, she noticed a trace of something dark red on it—dried blood.

Oh no…

Images flashed in front of her mind. Harry smiling at her, drinking from her, kissing her…

"You're awake already… Wouldn't you want to get some rest, Mione?"

Hermione bolted up at the sound of that voice, cold and calm, so unlike normal Harry. As she did so, her eyes fell upon the figure of the voice's owner, sitting cross-legged in a white sofa, short nails scratching against its gilded armrest. She wondered how had she failed to notice him immediately. Was he hiding himself with some sort of a vampiric charm or a mere Disillusionment one?

Harry's head immediately snapped to look at her, in his eyes an emotion she couldn't decipher.

"You lost a lot of blood last night, it wouldn't be very smart for you to strain yourself too much."

Hermione ignored every word he said. "Where am I?" she demanded to know.

"A four-star hotel room in muggle London, my home for the last couple of weeks," he answered, not sounding irritated by the cold tone of her voice.

Hotel? Hermione wondered why would there be a windowless room inside any respectable hotel. It was hard to breath in here and hard to see too. Even though everything was white, the only source of light was a hanging lamp above the sofa Harry was sitting in.

"You're lying," she accused, not caring whether she would get to know how it was to anger a vampire.

Harry laughed curtly. "Mione… Mione… Still the sharpest pencil in the box, I see."

Hermione frowned at her pet nickname. It sounded foul and vulgar when coming out of the mouth of this creature which only looked like Harry, and not even one hundred percent so. Harry's eyes were clean-cut emeralds, not darkened and tinted with bloodlike hues.

The creature you had sex with last night, somewhere inside her mind a voice waspishly whispered.

"How did I got here?" she questioned further. Maybe that compliment came from a wrong person, but she was indeed the sharpest. She needed to think rationally, be calm and try to milk out every single detail from him instead of yelling and kicking if she ever wanted a chance to break free.

"You fainted… I apparated you here," he calmly explained. "You don't think I'd leave you there in such a state?"

Hermione was at loss for words. Did he expect her to apologize for thinking so and thank him for his hospitality?

"What time is it?"

"I don't know. Don't own a watch anymore. Not that I need it."

She nibbled at her lips, wondering for how long was he going to allow her to question him as though she was a judge and he a mere felon answering for a crime.

"Do you live here?" she wondered out loud, glancing around the pristine room. It was so unlike any dwelling of a vampire described in muggle novels, but then again, Harry had never liked dark places. Maybe there was still something of his personality left in that bloodthirsty shell, but she didn't dare to hope, not now.

"Sometimes… I never stay at one place for too long," Harry responded, languorously removing a stray hair from his eyes. "It would be suspicious you know, more than five persons dying from blood loss every couple of days in the same city."

Hermione gasped at how cold his description was. Harry who had once been shattered by the notion of having to kill someone to survive was now talking about his victims as though they were less than animals. She was sure even butchers sometimes felt sorry for the cattle they had to kill. Was it the way Harry viewed humans now? Like cattle or a cup of delicious pomegranate tea? She shook her head. She shouldn't even try to understand him. He was a monster and that was all she needed to know.

"If you didn't want to know, you shouldn't have asked," Harry remarked, blood-tinted eyes boring straight into hers.

"I have to know where am I," she briefly explained.

"I'm afraid I can't reveal to you the exact location of any of my hiding spots."

Any? So, there were more places he used like this one. Not that it surprised Hermione: that was a smart decision what with the Ministry looking for him through the whole Britain.

"So, I'm not even allowed to know where am I being held captive?" Hermione bristled against her better judgment, wrapping the fur blanker tighter around herself, not wanting his predatorish eyes raking across her nude body like they had done last night.

Harry laughed again, his eyebrows reaching upwards. "Captive? Why do you assume you're one?"

"What?" she blurted out. "I'm not here by my own will. You manipulated me, brainwashed me, then after getting what you wanted brought me here when I was out cold. What part of it doesn't scream captive to you?"

"You're free to leave," Harry calmly noted, ignoring her outburst.

Leave? With each minute this whole situation made less and less sense to Hermione. Wasn't he bent on getting her for years and now when she was finally here, he said she was free to leave?

"I don't understand," she admitted, daring to look into his eyes again, combing for any betraying emotion inside them.

"I have no interest in having you here against your will," Harry explained simply, gracing her with a deceptively warm smile. Or maybe it was honest.

"Then—"

Hermione didn't get to say what she wanted for he pressed on, "I wish nothing more than to have you by my side, but not like a captive or someone blackmailed into being with me. I want you to be mine out of your desire, fully conscious of what're you getting yourself into."

Was it possible? Everything he was saying was so unlike the vampire she had knew for not long, but like Harry, considerate and kind human being she cherished for years. Hermione concluded he was playing a trick on her, wanting to use her emotions, luring her to believe there was still good inside him, luring her to willingly stay.

"You know that's not going to happen, do you?"

Harry nodded, a trace of what looked like sadness flying across his brows. "I do. I know there is nothing you see in me now that is worthy of your love, but I want to change that. And how will I do so by stealing your freedom?"

"You can't do so either way," Hermione deadpanned, feeling braver than she was last night as she realized he was not going to kill her if she stepped out of boundaries of polite behavior.

Harry grinned at her, and as much as she hated to admit it, it was the most handsome grin she had ever seen. "Don't you be so sure, Mione…"

"I'm completely sure I'll never want anything with a monster who drunk my blood and used mind tricks to coerce me into sex… You know that's a rape, don't you?" Hermione accused, not knowing who was more deserving of her rage. Sure, he had an upper hand with his vampiric abilities, but she wasn't a five-year-old untrained in Occlumency.

"Oh, please, don't act like you didn't want it. If what you say is true, it'd take a lot more than a minute to influence you to do anything. I merely pushed your desire up to the surface," he justified himself, sounding pleased with the fact she did indeed want him.

On the other hand, Hermione was displeased with his answer. She could deal better with all of this being a rape than for there to be a possibility that she indeed was more than willing to surrender herself. She was married, for Merlin's sake, and even though Ron wasn't a stellar husband, he had never cheated on her. Even if he had done so—though she doubted in everything but in his fidelity—he hadn't done it with a killer.

"I want to leave," Hermione requested, throwing him a look. The sooner she left, the better. She had no idea for long was she here, and what was she going to tell Ron, and where were they going to hide again. Or she was going to stay quiet about Harry? He had just told her she wasn't going to be forced into anything.

Harry nodded. "If that's what you wish… But only under one condition… Two of them, to be precise."

"I'm listening," Hermione mumbled, not sure whether she wanted to know anything his mind had come up with.

"First—you're going to wait here until I find you a dress, since I didn't want to bother picking up what little was left of your old clothes last night," Harry requested with a mischievous smile plastered upon his lips, causing her to hiss in annoyance. "Second—I'll have you tie your eyes when leading you out. I don't want you to say anything to the Ministry in a fit of rage, or someone to dig the info out with Legilimency. It's hard finding normal hideouts nowadays, and I must admit I grew quite fond of this place."

As furious as she was at the prospect of being led around with a blindfold, she had to admit he had the point. She was already mentally debating should she inform the authorities.

"Fine with me," Hermione agreed, still not willing to believe she was free to go. Her intuition told her this was no time to feel relaxed, for nobody knew what was to follow. She doubted—and was right to do so—the last night was not going to bear heavy consequences. She only didn't know how severe they were going to be.

A/N: I'm aware I promised to continue with this story years ago, but I was faced with a terrible writing block. I had trouble even coming up with a sentence, let alone a whole story. Anyways, writing again feels so good, and I hope I will be able to continue with my favorite hobby. Also, I owe a huge thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and a special thanks to dragonc825 for giving me a very nice idea for one of my future stories. Have fun reading, and if you feel like doing so, drop a quick review, any kind of feedback is appreciated.