Spoilers: All Harry Potter books, including the Deathly Hallows.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Hermione Granger or Tom Riddle or Lord Voldemort or etc. This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Pairing: Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort - Hermione Granger, so, if you're not a fan of them, please don't read!

Rating: M

Author's Note: Story starts with the final book, chapter thirty-four, which I've changed a bit. Harry and Ron are dead, and Voldemort demands Hermione's surrender. That's all I can explain: you will learn the rest of it in the story.

I try to keep my characters as close to the author's original ideas as possible.

And before I forget…

cosettex, I can't thank you enough for agreeing to 'beta' this story. You are great!

Disorder

Prologue: The Beginning

-1998 / Present-

Hermione looked at the dead Harry and Ron who she had summoned via the Resurrection Stone.

"Stay close to me," she said quietly.

Her body and mind felt odly disconnected now; her limbs working without conscious instruction. It was as if she were a passenger, not the driver of the body she was about to leave. The dead who walked beside her through the Forest were much more real to her now than the living back at the castle: Neville, Ginny, and all the others were the ones who felt like ghosts as she stumbled and slipped towards the end of her life, towards Voldemort...

A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent and watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded, others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene. Their faces were cruel, rough-hewn like a rock. Hermione saw Fenrir, skulking, chewing his long nails; the great, blond Rowle was dabbing at his bleeding lip. She saw Lucius Malfoy, who looked defeated and terrified, and Narcissa, whose eyes were sunken and full of apprehension.

Every eye was fixed upon Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, and his white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or else counting silently in his mind, and Hermione, standing still on the edge of the scene, thought absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek. Behind his head, still swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage, like a monstrous halo.

When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.

"No sign of her, my Lord," said Dolohov.

Voldemort's expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly, he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.

"My Lord -"

Bellatrix had spoken: she sat closest to Voldemort, dishevelled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.

Voldemort raised his hand to silence her, and she did not speak another word, but eyed him with godlike fascination.

"I thought she would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice; his eyes on the leaping flames. "I expected her to come."

Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Hermione, whose heart was now throwing itself against her ribs as though determined to escape the body she was about to cast aside. Her hands were sweating as she pulled off the Invisiblity Cloak and stuffed it beneath her robes, with her wand. She did not want to be tempted to fight.

"I was, it seems ... mistaken," said Voldemort.

"You weren't."

Hermione said it as loudly as she could, with all the force she could muster as she did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between her fingers. and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry and Ron vanish as she stepped forwards into the firelight. At this moment, she felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasp, even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Hermione, and he stared as Hermione moved towards him, with nothing but the fire between them.

Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Hermione, her chest heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake which coiled and uncoiled in its glittering cage.

Hermione could feel her wand against her chest, but she made no attempt to draw it. And still, Voldemort and Hermione looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the girl standing before him, and a singularly mirthless smile curled over his lipless mouth.

"Hermione Granger," he said, very sofly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "My vanishing lady."

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting, everything was waiting. Nagini struggled, Bellatrix panted, and Voldemort raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Hermione looked back into the red eyes, and she thought inexplicably of being with him, with Voldemort, feeling his lips on hers . . . .

Hermione stepped back to recover herself and suspected Voldemort had used magic to enter her head. She hated him. She hated herself, too, because of the disappointment she felt at their unfinished kiss they had partaken in in her head. He was smirking at her. Hermione wanted to die, and she wanted it to happen now, quickly, while she could still stand, before she lost control, before she betrayed fear -

She saw his mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

-One year later-

Upon the cliff sat a monument of stone, made of black granite. Engraved on the memorial plaque were the words:

Hermione Granger
1979-1998
Never forgotten.

As the sun set over the sea, its rays reflected on the gleaming granite, and illuminated the faces of Ginny and Neville who stood silently before the monument. A red-haired, plump woman stood separately from the youngsters, allowing them a last goodbye.

But the monument was not a tombstone, and nor was the cliff a graveyard. Her body, after all, had never been found, her clothes had, and they had been torn to bits and pieces.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of silence, Neville spoke, "I wish I could thank her for saving us almost as much as I wish we could have her back."

"Me, too," Ginny whispered, "I wish it hadn't been this way."