A/N - I have been holding onto this story for so long that I'm sure the person who sent me the prompt (Shamelessly Radiant !) has probably forgotten she sent me a prompt and that I even wrote this. I got, like, really carried away and turned what was supposed to be a one-shot into a multi-part fic (what's new, I guess).
Anyway, hopefully you all enjoy it. I'll update every other day or so.
"...It's been cold for years,
Won't you let it lie?"
-Bastille, 'Bad Blood'
PART ONE
I.
"What?"
Hermione looked up to see Ron and Harry watching her in curious confusion. Looking away from them, she rubbed at her ears and –when that wasn't enough- her temples and forehead.
"Are you alright, Hermione?" Ron asked, his fingers brushing her knee. "You've done this a few times already."
"I'm fine," she murmured, closing her eyes and pulling away from his touch. It lingered like ice on her hot skin, burning and chilling her to the bone. "Just tired, I guess."
"Go and lie down," Harry told her as he stood up and neared her. Taking the book she was reading out of her hands, he rested a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to move tonight. We need you…you know," he shrugged, swallowing, his words hanging in the air. Exhaustion wrote epics on his face and features, and she found herself again praying that all of this would just end itself; that they –especially Harry- could just be normal kids for once.
"We need you to be all there," he half laughed jokingly, but they all knew it wasn't funny. It was the truth.
She didn't meet their eyes as she left, silently lying down on her cot within the tent. Just before falling asleep, she pulled the mangled locket from her pocket, twisting the platinum chain up her arm and tucking the pendulum into her sleeve. Resting it over her chest, she felt the ghost of power and fear and the blind ignorance of the strength of youth settle around her.
It was everything they needed- everything she needed.
II.
"Hermione!"
She felt Ron's weight upon her, heavy and limp as they hit the stone grounds surrounding the castle.
"Ron?" She poked at the body covering her, screaming when she realized that he wasn't responding to her. The silence that followed was deafening, chilling every inch within her and making it difficult to even think. A few seconds passed, dragging on and tearing at her sanity, until she felt a wave of magic pass over her, heavy and disabling.
She managed to wedge a hand between their bodies, and felt his heart beating painfully slow against her palm. With a sigh of relief, she looked around the see that no one was standing, and those around her had the same empty stare that Ron did.
"Draco?"
Hermione froze, eyes widening as she watched Narcissa Malfoy stumble out of the forest and toward her son, who laid just a few feet from her. The witch sobbed lightly, clutching at her son's robes as calls rang out around them- she recognized none of their voices, and from the way Mrs. Malfoy unhurriedly wiped the tears from her face, she realized that they must have been the voices of remaining Death Eaters. They were nearing the castle.
She pushed Ron off of her. As blue eyes met brown, Hermione stood up, lifting her chin. "Whatever spell was used knocked them unconscious, but he isn't dead," glancing down at the others around them, she sniffled, fingers wrapping around the locket at her breast. "He shouldn't be, at least."
Narcissa stood as well, casually righting her elegant robes, barely stained by the filthy grit of war. If it hadn't been for the dark circles beneath her tired, red eyes, Hermione wouldn't have known the witch had even participated in the night before.
The voices called out again, and she recognized Bellatrix's shrill call instantly, tensing painfully.
The blonde pursed her lips and looked at a nearby body- it was Harry's. "Unconscious?" She questioned lowly, an emotion Hermione couldn't recognize catching in her throat.
"I think so."
She bent down over Harry, her fingers ghosting over his face before pressing into his pulse point. Her eyes met the younger witch's blankly.
"Hermione," Narcissa whispered, so quietly and gently that she had to remind herself that she'd been tortured on her floor. That she'd nearly died there. This woman wasn't her mother. She wasn't even an acquaintance. "Run."
III.
There was no room to think or breathe or acknowledge the burning in her lungs and tingling in her palms. There was nothing left. She'd been caught, barely twenty paces from the apparition point. Fear replaced her anger and exhaustion as she kneeled in the Forbidden Forrest, but she refused to let it show.
"Hermione Granger," Voldemort's voice was light and rough against her ears. He watched her blankly, as though she wasn't there at all, his hands clasped behind his back and head tilted in thought.
She stared bitterly at him from her place on the ground, her knees aching against the stone. Her thighs burned and calves cramped painfully, but she didn't fidget. She didn't even blink. Her jaw remained hard and eyes clear as she watched him. If she was going to die, she'd resolved to do it with dignity. She would not beg or plead. She would not take anything he attempted to offer –she imagined that he was sick in that way, after all.
"The Brightest Witch of her Age." He laughed, and for a moment –so quick, she thought she'd imagined it, but Bellatrix's sharp glance of wonder at her master told her it was true-, the sound came out warm and genuine, rich with life.
Lightening could have struck her and it would have made more sense.
"And you will die no different than the rest of your filthy, wretched kind."
Her eyes shifted to where Narcissa stood with her husband, confusion flooding her. There was no way that they'd killed everyone that quickly. It'd barely been ten minutes. Once again, blue eyes met brown, quick and hard and reassuring; Hermione had no idea why the woman was helping her. All that mattered was that they weren't dead, and that Voldemort didn't know. At least not yet.
Narcissa looked back down at the ground, falsely grieving her son.
Hermione looked back at the Dark Lord.
He unclasped his hands and walked slowly around her. She felt his magic, picking and probing at her mind. She let him. There was nothing there.
"Any last words, Mudblood?" He asked, his voice more amused than anything else.
She clenched her jaw tighter, pressing her tongue to the back of her teeth to relieve the building pressure. There was nothing she really wanted to say, but she found herself weak, and death was closer now than it'd been when she was starving and on the run.
If he had a brow, it would have lifted as their eyes met. Her lips curled as she said, "Fuck you."
Bellatrix laughed, her cackles echoing against the woodland. Hermione didn't bother looking to see where she'd moved. Voldemort smirked, his rotting teeth drawing chills over the back of her neck, "Oh, dear."
He lifted his wand, "Avada Ke-"
For a moment, it seemed that time stood still. His eyes fastened on something at her neck, and it suddenly weighed painfully on her raw skin. The locket. Slytherin's locket. His.
"-davra," the rest of the spell fell from his mouth without thought, his wrist twisting the wrong way at the last moment.
She felt the spell, hot and cold and suffocating as it attempted to consume her. She felt like screaming, like clawing her heart from her chest, but nothing hurt. Not really. Where the chain sat around her neck, it felt as though ice was searing the metal to her skin, tugging over her body protectively. It distracted her, momentarily at least, from her surroundings.
She blinked, the world coming back into focus as shrieking filled her ears. Translucent fire surrounded Voldemort as he watched her, his face suddenly hard and curious in the chaos surrounding him. As the shrieking ended –it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but it felt like forever as she thought about it-, she realized that the locket must have still had bits of his life attached to it, and that it'd protected her from his wrath. Why?
Not knowing what to make of the situation, but incredibly aware of the fact that he was no longer holding his wand to her, she stood up, her body protesting superficially.
"I'm alive," she whispered, tearing her eyes away from Voldemort to look at her hands and run them over her body. Somehow, his past self had protected her from his present self, and she wrecked her brain in attempt to figure out how it was even possible. She gripped the locket in her first, ensuring its safety.
He was suddenly before her, eyes clear and more amber than red as he took the locket from her hand. Quiet curiosity surrounded them both, and she found herself even more surprised when he didn't tug the necklace from her neck. Instead, he let it fall onto her chest as he stepped away, looking around them.
She looked around, too.
"Are they dead?" She asked, but resolved a second later, "Merlin, they're dead. Are we- did you-" She inhaled deeply, releasing a shuddering breath that shook her chest.
She looked down at the locket to find that it'd restored itself, pretty and sparkling in her hands. It seemed different than it had before, slightly feminine in nature, but she found that she couldn't be sure. What she was sure of was the fact that it felt different. It was almost as though there was nothing there, but at the same time: everything.
Voldemort rounded on her instantly, and Hermione gasped at his appearance- he was younger, not quite as handsome as rumors had made him out to be, with a dark rage that seemed to permeate the world around him, hovering like darkness over his sharp features. He gripped her arm painfully, wand digging into her skin.
"How did you destroy the locket?"
His voice was low and charming, the type that could get someone to do anything with a simple suggestion. Yet, there was disgust in his tone. It distracted her. It caused her to feel small and insecure.
"I-I…I didn't. Ron did. With Gryffindor's sword."
"Yet you wear it around your neck. Why?"
"I don't know," she looked into his eyes. They weren't human, but they were no longer snake's eyes. "What happened? Why did…why am I alive?"
"Did you wear the locket before it was destroyed?"
"We all did."
He let her go as though he'd been burned. "Filth. Vermin. You are…disgusting." He looked around them, eyes sweeping over the dead bodies as though they were nothing.
"Was it feeding off of me?" She asked, her mind clicking back on. Somehow, fear didn't exist within her. It was as though it never had. "Is that why I'm still alive? Is that why it looks the way it did before we destroyed it? Because it needed me to," she didn't want to say live, "continue on?"
He just stared at her, blankly. Waiting, but not. Curious, but not.
"I'm alive because I kept it?"
"You aren't alive," he told her coldly. "Not really."
The world spun around her for what felt like an eternity before finally going black.
IV.
Hermione woke up on the couch in the Headmaster's office. For a moment, it was as though nothing had happened. It still smelt the same, and she still felt the same; but, at the last second she felt someone probing at her mind, and her eyes popped open. Voldemort –Tom Riddle, really- was sitting on an arm chair, his jaw propped in his hand as he watched her; it was hard to read his expression, as he looked more crazed than he did anything else. She still couldn't imagine how he'd gotten through school on his charm and good looks; and, as his chuckle echoed against the high ceilings of the office, she realized that not only was he viewing her memories, but reading her thoughts as well.
"This is my twenty year old self," he informed her. His voice was smooth and soothing, which made her skin crawl, but the disgust from earlier was gone. He looked at his hands for a moment, as though he was in awe of himself, before putting his chin back in his palm and looking at her. "I believe I've just created that locket."
She sat up, cold, uncomfortable, and wandless. "Are we in 1946?"
"No. We are very much in 1996."
"You said I wasn't really alive earlier," she murmured, her hand pressing against her chest. Her heart was beating- quick and hard against her fingers.
He shook his head slightly, lips pursing for a moment. "My followers are dead- your friends are alive."
She couldn't hide her excitement, which was only dulled by his dark smirk.
"Oh, dear," he murmured, running his free hand through his thick curls. "My dear-"
She jerked, her eyes widening and blood seeming to burn in her veins.
"Do not feel so relieved, so fortunate, Miss Granger. You are the cause of this," he gestured to himself casually, "and the renewed state of my locket. Not to mention…"
He sat up, patting his inner arm as he lifted his chin in her direction.
Hermione tugged the sleeve of her sweater up, screaming when she saw the snake tattoo twisting delicately over her flesh.
"There is the matter of you baring my mark. A variation of it, of course, but it is mine -you are mine-, for all intents and purposes."
"What have you done to me? Why do I have this?"
"It is your own fault, for tampering with my things, girl. Do not look at me so cruelly. I've seen your mind, after all. I know what's in your heart, my dear." A slightly smug look formed over his dark features. "You wanted this, little Mudblood."
Her skin crawled at the gentleness of his cruel words. She was coming to understand how he'd gotten through school unnoticed, and wondered what it meant for her that she'd been found near him when the other's had awoken. They'd left her unconscious with him, after all. She couldn't have meant much at the moment.
"No," she murmured, not sure if it was to him or herself. Her mind reeled. "I wanted you and your supporters dead. I didn't want," she rubbed at her skin, watching as the snake twisted away from her touch. Her thoughts seemed to escape her for a moment, until she finally said, "This. I didn't want this."
Her eyes burned but she couldn't cry. The tears wouldn't come, even as she gasped and dry-heaved, her chest suddenly shaking with nerves and anger she couldn't make sense of, but understood nonetheless. She looked back at Voldemort to see that he was watching her, eyes vacant; she continued to feel him in her head and rubbed violently at her temples.
"Would you mind," she murmured, eyes falling closed. Almost instantly, he came to a standstill, as though he were playing a game of freeze. "How did this get here?"
"That is what I was attempting to determine, Miss Granger, before you politely asked me out of your conscious." She heard him move in the leather chair. "At this point, I daresay your guess is nearly as good as mine."
Her eyes opened instantly. He'd laced his fingers in his lap and drawn one leg over the other. Although his eyes were still vacant, his head was tilted in feigned interest. Dully, she asked, "Really?"
He smirked, and for a moment she could see the ghost of someone handsome and charming. She was grateful he wasn't that person anymore. He chuckled, tugging a hand through his curls, pulling them away from his face thoughtfully. "You're capable of wandless."
"I am."
"Summon the cup on the Headmaster's desk."
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"My dear, just do it. If you're capable of the task-"
She scowled, instantly angered by the suggestion of inability, and summoned the cup with a nonverbal. He smiled. As it landed in her hands, she pelted at him, and became surprised when he ducked instead of blocking it.
He was still smiling as he said, "Charming."
The staircase began to shift, and she was reminded of the state of her arm.
Voldemort sighed. "Do not think of the mark, girl. It is nothing. Concern yourself with the fact that we are currently the only beings capable of magic in Great Britain."
Her eyes widened. He finally met her gaze, jaw squaring and mouth tightening momentarily. Something flickered in his eyes. She wasn't sure what to consider it. Whether it was life or intrigue or the thought of possession. But, she felt the ghost of him against her chest, heavy and powerful and full of magic she didn't understand. Yet.
It caused her to swallow thickly, a chill passing over her body. He half smirked, false tenderness in his gaze. "Hermione Granger," he murmured, "the Brightest of her Age. Noble Gryffindor's very own," he chuckled. "And mine to teach and guide-"
"They are going to put you in Azkaban. I will not be yours. Ever."
"Privy, of course," he continued as though he hadn't heard her, as though the sound of people climbing the stone staircase didn't echo through the room, "to all that I have learned and come to understand of this world…of the other."
Desire and yearning swept over her. Self-loathing followed. The snake moved, twisting carefully, as though encouraging her to take the bait willingly.
She swallowed.
"How can you remember? If you are yourself at twenty?"
"The state of my body does not interfere with my mind," he told her, the ghost of a sneer on his lips. It was the most vicious she'd seen him, and –because of how handsome he seemed- it looked as though he was fighting with himself. "How did I remain myself while attached to that professor? When I came out of the diary? When I came to being in that graveyard?" His voice was quiet, inspiring wonder.
She wasn't fooled. "This isn't the same. You had no horcrux this time."
He hummed thoughtfully, rubbing his bottom lip as he watched her. She looked away for fear of betraying something she didn't really understand.
"Consider: if I am unaware of the life I led, my goals are aligned with my twenty year old self. I am moments away from a journey of knowledge and self-awareness. England will soon be in the palm of my hand, Britain to follow nearly instantly." He placed his chin in his hand again, leaning on the arm of his chair, "And, I am inviting you to join me. To have a piece of that."
"I'm not interested."
He seemed dully disappointed. "Would you prefer I determined how to fix this on my own, my dear?"
She cringed. "I wouldn't dream of it-"
"I think that I've proven what I'm capable of, and now I'm aware of my own mistakes. I know what to do to ensure success the second time around." His eyes sparked again, with what she supposed was excitement. "Imagine being a part of rebuilding this world. Imagine being in control of that."
"I wouldn't, not even for a moment, believe that you're considering teaming up with me, Riddle," she hissed, and resisted backing down as his eyes sharpened. "I am a proud Muggleborn witch, not to mention incredibly intelligent and logical. Why would I believe that you're interested in offering me that kind of power? Why would you believe that I would take such an offer? From a known corrupt and racist monster, for that matter."
His brow quirked, and a look of wonder filtered over his face. It was endearing, and it shouldn't have been. At length, he said, "I have seen your heart, Hermione Granger. I know your fears and I know your desires, perhaps even better than you; and I can offer you fulfillment.
"Or, you may agree to their terms –should they be so kind as to offer you any, and I'm sure they will, if Harry Potter has any say in matter-, and live a puppet life in the shadow of their hesitant confidence and constant fear, given your circumstance," he nodded toward her arm.
"What are you thinking? That we attempt to overpower and rule-"
He laughed heartily as a small group of people finally entered the office. She didn't know any of them, but recognized that they were all Ministry Law Enforcement-types, and found herself moving cautiously down the couch, closer to Voldemort. He relaxed confidently, not hesitating to meet her gaze when she glanced at him. He winked, practically playfully, before shrugging his shoulders and flashing his palm to her in question.
Their eyes were still locked as the group spread out around them. She recognized Harry's voice, echoing up the stone staircase, but didn't move to see him. He was right –Voldemort was right-, they wouldn't trust her. At best, they would offer her anything she wanted, give her a powerful position, but he'd said it for himself: they would always hesitate. They would never trust her. Because she'd created the wizard she was sitting with. She'd brought him back to life by holding onto and nurturing his locket. She was still wearing it, even.
She realized that her fingers were wrapped around it.
"Hermione?" Harry asked, and she looked over slowly, as though it was a second or third thought. He was holding a wand in is hand like a security blanket, tapping it against his leg nervously.
She hadn't tugged her sleeve back down, and the snake was still moving over her skin, capturing all of their attention. The air of the office became heavy with their fear, and she found herself disgusted, despite everything.
They had no power. No magic. No –she would have hexed herself for thinking this way only hours ago- might. They had nothing but she and Voldemort, which was sickening and worrisome, because it meant that she had nothing. Not the help of the Ministry, or the means to trust the darkest wizard she'd ever known.
Hermione?
She started, eyes tearing away from her friend and focusing on Voldemort. His voice had filtered through her head, gentle and curious and questioning, and she wondered if he knew that's what he sounded like when he was terrorizing people. And as an afterthought, she considered how he was able to even communicate that way.
She had nothing.
The locket hummed. It wasn't a choice. Not really. But, she chose him, anyway.
A/N - Every update will be a full part, so they will be long like this one.
Full disclosure, as I post this, I have no idea how it ends. I still have to finish the last part :O We'll see...