Author's Note: Okay, warnings and stuff. Sexualesque content but nothing graphic and no one actually takes their clothes off. Yeah, figure that one out. I have more in mind for this, but I'll wait on your feedback to decide if I'm going to continue it or not.
Panting harshly while my body twitched involuntarily from the Cruciatus, I looked up into glowing red eyes and thought. This is it. This is how I die. Merciful Gods, please let it be quick. Maybe if I insulted him or something, he'd get angry enough to just kill me instead of playing with me or giving me to his minions to play with some more.
I was so glad that Harry and Ron had escaped. They'd tried to save me. They'd nearly succeeded, but I was so glad that they were gone. It was too late now. Voldemort was here. They couldn't beat him. Not today. Definitely not like this.
Voldemort inspected Bellatrix's "artwork" on my arm and his serpentine lips curled up. "Leave us," he said conversationally. There was a beat of silence and then the Death Eaters in the room were falling all over each other to get out.
When the door closed behind the last of them, I felt sickly certain that he had something terribly special planned for me. "Just fucking kill me!" I growled furiously at him.
His head tilted slightly to the side, and the look in his eyes… What was that? Curiosity?
No! No. I had to press him. I had to make him end it. Fuck, I am so scared. Tears stung my already aching eyes. I'm not ready to die. Please, shit- No. I'm already dead. I AM ALREADY DEAD! The only question is how much it will hurt. Make him angry. Push him.
I opened my mouth, and he interrupted.
"I wouldn't advise it," he said without inflection.
I froze. My whole body seized in sudden terror and I clenched my eyes shut. Fuck, he's reading my mind. Shit. No. This can't be happening. I can't betray them. Maybe I could kill myself. Maybe I could smash my head on the floor, or throw myself into the mirror and… No, he'd stop me before I could get any glass. I don't think he can use healing magic though, so if I can wound myself badly enough-
"Enough," he sounded exasperated. "I will not be giving you the chance to kill yourself. And, no, I don't need your eyes to get into your mind."
Fuck! I let my eyes come open, but I couldn't see past the tears clouding my vision. "What are you going to do with me?" I asked numbly. I was out of options. I'd never felt so completely, awfully helpless before. This was even worse than with Bellatrix. At least when she'd had me there had been some small chance. I just wanted to die and I couldn't even do that.
"I haven't decided yet," he muttered thoughtfully, sweeping around me with a grand swish of his robes as he sat in one of the chairs, his very presence making it a throne. "I don't think I'll kill you just yet. There are too many ways in which you could be useful to me. Many of my enemies are quite fond of you, are they not?"
"Most of them find me rather annoying, I think," I admitted. Somehow, the fact that I was completely out of options had empowered me as nothing else possibly could have. I didn't need bravery anymore. I was dead no matter what, and nothing I did was going to change that.
The hint of a smile touched those thin lips once more. "It is a pity you're a mudblood," he noted carelessly. "I would enjoy corrupting you, I think, but I would probably have to kill half my Death Eaters just to prove to the rest that I hadn't gone soft…" He made murdering half of his loyal followers sound like nothing more than an annoyance. "Unfortunately, Dumbledore's pathetic Order has been killing them off fast enough without my help. No matter. They'll be dealt with soon enough. Not soon enough for you though…"
I didn't let myself think. He was baiting me to think about things. I couldn't think.
"Such promise…" he muttered. Then, "I wonder…"
I couldn't help but flinch when I noticed that he was standing over me again. Merlin, this man scares the crap out of me! Even with the certainty that death was the most I could hope for, this man – this creature – managed to terrify me with his very proximity.
If he heard that thought, he didn't react. He stooped next to me and I suddenly found that I could not look away from his eyes even though they were on my chest rather than my face. His hand moved to hover over my breast, and then he lowered it terribly slowly until he was touching me.
I flinched but was too weak to try to crawl away from him. I wondered if I was bleeding to death. That would be great. I just wished that I'd get on with it already.
For one terrible moment, I feared that his touch was meant to be sexual as his hand settled between my breasts, but then I felt it. It was… It was icy cold and fiery hot. It was… It was so terribly heavy. I couldn't breathe. But no, I was breathing – gasping. The air tasted stale. Wrong. Unfulfilling. Was he smothering me? Was this torture or was he going to kill me? It was the former that I feared.
It hurts. Oh Gods, it hurts! I felt like it was consuming me from within. The coldest cold that sent my entire body into uncontrolled shivers. The fiercest heat that drew sweat from every inch of my body but consumed it as quickly as it could escape. It built and built and built. Hotter. Colder. Stronger. Heavier. Crushing. Please just let me die!
He lifted his hand and my body arched upward, involuntarily following, maintaining the contact that was making me wish so badly for death.
He was smiling again, I realized in some small, detached part of my mind. Not that little smirk. It looked like a real smile. He was pleased by something. Extremely pleased.
Perfect. I read the word from his lips. My ears no longer seemed to be functioning. All that I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears so hard and fast that I wondered if my heart would be permanently damaged from the strain.
And then he released me, rising gracefully back to his full height. He touched his wand to the inside of his left wrist and the door burst open a moment later. Bellatrix fell to her knees, prostrating herself before him.
"Come in, Bella," he said quietly. She'd barely cleared the doors when they slammed closed behind her. After a long moment, he looked at her, his red eyes scrutinizing. "Bella, my darling," he said in what may have been his approximation of a croon. "You have long been my most loyal servant."
"Yes, my lord!" she cried like a psychopath. Which she was.
"Look at this mudblood," he entreated, gesturing toward me with one skeletal hand.
Bellatrix crept closer to him, her eyes falling to me.
I cringed beneath her gaze, but her affect was somewhat mollified by the man behind her.
"Shall I kill her for you, my lord?" Bellatrix asked hungrily.
"Not yet," he replied smoothly, sweeping up so close behind her as to nearly bring their bodies together.
Bellatrix shivered in near ecstasy in response to his proximity.
"I want you to feel something," he almost whispered into her ear before moving around her.
She swayed as he drew away from her like she was magnetically drawn to him.
He crouched at my side and I let my eyes fall closed, breathing more deeply as I prepared myself for more agony. He took her hand in one of his and directed it to rest on my chest as his had. I flinched as she touched me.
Then I felt it begin again. The heat burned me, but instead of the ice, this time I felt something different. It was sickly and slimy – somehow disgusting on a level that I had never before experienced. It felt utterly… wrong.
Ice and heat had somehow coexisted like the two opposing sides of a whole, but the heat could not exist with this.
I heard myself screaming as it grew into a terrible tempest. Then I heard another scream and my eyes focused on Bellatrix. She was screaming in agony, leaning away from me like she wanted to remove her hand but couldn't. I was hurting her.
And I smiled.
The pain became manageable as I embraced the fact that Bellatrix Lestrange was now the one being tormented. The fire grew hotter. So much hotter. It didn't hurt now. It felt… Merlin, it feels wonderful.
That sickly, disgusting presence burned beneath the fury of the heat. The sclera of her eyes grew pink, and then intensified to the bright hue of fresh blood, and still she screamed. I wanted her to die. I wanted it so badly.
Horrible red eyes rolled back, and she finally collapsed. She fell backward, away from me, and I turned my eyes to watch her body convulse a bit longer before she became still. Too still. She did not draw breath.
My eyes snapped back to Voldemort as his hand came once more to my breast.
I felt it again. Ice and heat. It still hurt, but not so badly. It felt… different. Better. …Right.
"What did you do to me?" I gasped.
"I have made you a murderer," he smiled.
My mouth fell open. My eyes rounded. Merlin, it was true. In that moment, I understood. The heat was my magic. My… soul. He had touched Bellatrix's soul to mine. He had known that I would kill her. I had wanted to kill her. I had… Gods, help me, I enjoyed it.
Then the ice... The ice was his soul. The ice that somehow coexisted with my fiery heat – that seemed to compliment it. It was Voldemort at his most base level.
It was still there. He was still touching me. I should have been sickened by the very thought of the way that he was presently violating me. It was worse than being raped. It was much, much worse. At least rape was only physical. I feared terribly that he was going to destroy my very soul – worse, make it more like his. Why wasn't I retching? Why wasn't I crying? Screaming? Anything?
He leaned down over me so that his mouth was right next to my ear. "Because you like it," he whispered.
And then I screamed.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
My cell door opened and I cringed away from the bright light that suddenly filled the room. A shadow stepped through the light. I recognized it instantly – how could I not? He'd come every day for… I'd lost track of the number of days. A month? Two? I didn't know.
As my eyes adjusted, I found that Rodolphus was behind him, carrying the tray that held my dinner and the retinue of potions I was forced to drink every day. I stared at him with as much hatred as I'd had Bellatrix. Voldemort took some sick pleasure in making that man serve me my meals after I had killed his wife. Rodolphus used it as an opportunity to get some small justice. He'd alternated between groping and slapping me, always careful to hide the bruises. He only did it when Voldemort wasn't present of course. For whatever reason, I didn't think that Voldemort wanted me abused. Or he was waiting to do it personally when the time was right. I wasn't sure.
He placed the tray at my side and stood back, waiting for his master.
Voldemort simply stared at me for a long moment, then I saw that small smile again. "I think she's ready for pain," he said quietly and my stomach clenched with dread.
A smile slithered onto the Death Eater's face and he turned eager eyes on me. He literally licked his lips.
"I'd like to show you a new way to bring pain," Voldemort said in that inscrutable way that he had.
My breath hitched. No. He isn't saying what I think he's saying. He can't be. No.
"Come," Voldemort bade as he crouched at my side. "No, you don't need your wand for this. It is primal magic." He touched my chest lightly, his eyes meeting mine. They looked… excited. "Here. Place your hand here."
I gulped. I should say something. I should warn Rodolphus. I opened my mouth, but I couldn't get any sound out. What had Voldemort done to me? Why couldn't I speak?
That brilliant red gaze was still locked on mine. That faint smile still on his lips. It was like we had some thrilling secret that was about to be shared.
And then the heavier hand of Rodolphus Lestrange was at my breast.
"Let me make the connection," Voldemort said, and that heat surged to life like a volcano coming out of hibernation.
I felt Rodolphus in the same way I'd felt Bellatrix and Voldemort. Rodolphus felt… I couldn't even equate it to a feeling. It was gray and slimy even though it had neither color nor real physical properties.
Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him. I chanted desperately in my mind, but then he got the hang of this "new way to bring pain" and his soul attacked mine. It grew heavier, and my soul lashed out without a conscious choice to do so. The Death Eater flinched as though from a physical blow and I felt the weight of his attack grow suddenly much heavier. I fought back instinctively, protecting myself.
The heat grew, multiplied, spread, expanded. His mouth opened in a silent scream as his eyes began to grow red. I stared into his eyes. The eyes of the man who had touched me. I could almost feel his agony.
I liked it.
And then he collapsed on top of me. I huffed under his sudden weight.
Voldemort flicked his wand negligently and the corpse flopped onto the floor, freeing me.
My stomach turned as my eyes met those horrible red orbs again. Lord Voldemort was pleased.
"Why?" I moaned.
"Because you are of more value to me," he replied simply.
And that summed it up for me. That was what it came down to for Voldemort. Value. To him. Life itself had no value unless it was his own or could benefit him.
"You believe that to be a failing," he noted.
There was something very wrong with the fact that his constant reading of my mind no longer unnerved me. It had become a matter of course.
"Are you trying to make me more like you?" I asked flatly.
"I already have," was his answer as he crouched again at my side and placed his hand on me. He did this every single day. I didn't even flinch at the cold, unnaturally boney hand anymore.
And then I felt him, and I tried hard not to, but I sighed. The touch of his soul had become almost necessary for me. I didn't feel whole in its absence.
"What are you doing to me?" I mumbled, my body quivering slightly at the pleasure.
"I am making you stronger," he said very quietly before his eyes drifted closed and he tilted his head back in what looked very much like… ecstasy.
His icy magic caressed mine like the touch of a lover and my breath came in short gasps of utter bliss. I knew that he was perverting my very soul, but I could no longer fight him. It felt too fucking good. His touch was not sexual. Never sexual. I wasn't sure if he even felt any such mundane urges anymore, but the way that his magic stroked mine felt like the most erotic thing I had ever imagined.
No, it was way more erotic than anything I'd ever imagined.
A moan slid up my throat and I became aware of moisture in my knickers. Our magic rose to a fever pitch. I fought for dominance, just as I had with Bellatrix and Rodolphus. I fought and I suspected that I may have killed him if I could have, but I could not best the icy ocean that was Lord Voldemort.
The heat was stifling, the cold was burning in its intensity. The pain was decadent. The pleasure was exquisite. I never wanted it to end.
And then I felt him withdrawing. "No!" I cried, leaning into him, trying to hold the contact. My magic surged higher, stronger than it ever had, trying to keep him from escaping me.
There was a moment of hesitation, and then his hand came back down hard and he met my magic with a wave of his own that matched mine in strength and intensity.
I cried out as pure ecstasy filled me, consumed me, rent me to pieces and forged me anew. For a long time, I seemed to drift upon the icy ocean, the heat of my body supporting me on a cloud of steam where we met. Slowly, so slowly, I returned to a body numbed by pleasure. My eyes cracked open to settle on a pair of fiery red eyes that burned into mine.
"Utterly perfect," he whispered, those almost-not-there lips curled again.
"Why are you doing this to me?" I breathed, still lavishing the tingles of pleasure that yet curled in my middle. "What are you planning?"
"I never take anything for granted," he said quietly, his wand emerging from his sleeve. He tapped it against his left palm absently. "You, Hermione, are my deficiat tutum. My failsafe."
I opened my mouth to say something more, but then I realized that he'd called me Hermione. He'd never done that before. It had always been mudblood or something just as degrading.
I looked into his eyes and I realized that something had changed tonight. It wasn't the climax that I had finally reached. That didn't matter to Voldemort. It was the way I'd gone after him. The way I'd held onto him, my magic to his. My soul to his. Why did that matter to him?
"You will see," he said simply, lifting his wand to point at me. "Imperio," he said quietly and warmth filled my already foggy mind. "Eat," he ordered, gesturing toward the tray next to me.
I began to eat. The food was always good, but I had resisted in the beginning. I'd tried to starve myself to death. That had lasted less than a full day before Voldemort's Imperius curse had foiled my plans. I'd stopped trying to fight it. There was no point. No one could defeat Lord Voldemort's Imperius.
But… Well, I wasn't just anyone, was I?
I looked up at him and saw that his eyes had narrowed speculatively.
No, if I was "just anyone" he would have killed me a long time ago. There was something that he considered special or at least unique about me. Something that made me his definition of "perfect" for whatever cause he had in mind. I wondered… I had done something tonight that I wouldn't have thought was possible. I hadn't overcome him, I was sure, but I had held on when he'd meant to retreat. If only for a moment. I'd surprised him.
I worked to focus my mind through his Imperius, but then I realized that I'd already overcome it. Or… had he released me? No. No, he hadn't. I'd just defeated his Imperius with hardly an effort. I wasn't that strong, but… He was making me stronger. And our very souls had somehow become attuned…
"I could still kill you quite easily," he noted thoughtfully.
I nodded. I didn't question that for a moment. This man had been killing for more than fifty years, and he'd always been exceptional at it from what I'd heard. Yes, he could kill me. But he wouldn't. He hadn't spent the last month grooming me for… whatever it was, to just kill me now. No, he'd wanted me this way.
And then I saw it in his eyes. Satisfaction. This is exactly what he'd wanted. What he'd been waiting for.
I swallowed my last bit of food and dropped the flimsy spoon. "What happens now?" I wondered. I was way beyond fearing for myself. I'd accepted that my life had become his. I wouldn't serve him if I could possibly help it, but beyond that, I was his. His to torture, his to pleasure, his to… to feed his Death Eaters to, evidently.
"Now we progress to your education," he said simply, and I felt him enter my mind. I was so glad that Dumbledore had never told us his ultimate plans. There was only so much that Voldemort could learn from my mind – and he'd already scoured it completely. Since Harry did not seem to have been killed yet – I was sure I'd have heard the party upstairs – that must have meant that I didn't know enough to have led Voldemort to him. Harry had adapted. He was still fighting.
"Do you really still wish me dead?"
I blinked as I realized that I was suddenly standing on a grassy hill next to an old, lonely tree. I turned toward the unfamiliar voice and found myself looking at Tom Riddle when he'd been about my age.
I stumbled back, shocked. Voldemort did this with his mind? He brought me here? Why is he conversing with me in the body of his younger self?
Tom Riddle chuckled.
He has a nice laugh. I didn't expect that. And Gods, I don't remember him being that attractive. I'd seen Harry's memory of Tom Riddle from the diary, but… Maybe it was because I'd been looking through Harry's memory, but I did not think he'd been so… handsome.
"Do you still wish me dead?" he asked again.
Of course I still wished him dead! How could I not? So many people were dead because of him – at his hand or that of his Death Eaters. So many more would die, surely already had since I'd been here.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and suddenly realized that he was standing right behind me. I flinched but withheld my scream. Fuck, this is creepy.
He pressed himself against my back and I felt his hand slither up my stomach to rest between my breasts. It was utterly wrong how much I had come to enjoy that feeling. Utterly. Wrong.
But then I felt his magic licking out to touch mine and I forgot why it was wrong. "If I was dead, you'd never feel this again," he whispered, warm breath caressing my neck.
I shivered, my heart clenching painfully at the thought of never again feeling him touch me in this way. But. No. That isn't right. He needs to die. He absolutely fucking has to die. He is evil. He is the embodiment of fucking evil!
"Part of you likes it," he said in a hiss that was sinfully arousing.
I found my traitorous body leaning back to press more firmly against his. "What have you done to me?" I breathed shakily.
"The need you feel is your own, Hermione," he replied, his voice caressing my name sensuously.
His voice was deeper now. It was… Gods help me, it's fucking beautiful.
"Your soul craves mine. Never will you be whole without it."
I don't care, I don't care, I don't care! I'll die as well if that's what it takes!
"That is exactly what it would take," he crooned, his lips brushing my ear and causing me to shiver again. It was distressingly enjoyable.
"What do you mean?" I managed to murmur. Merlin, it's difficult to focus when he's doing that!
"You are bound to me now. If I die… You die."
"And if I die?"
"Then you die," he laughed quietly.
That's what I thought. Shit. "It won't stop Harry from killing you," I promised. And I believed it. He may hate himself for the rest of his life knowing that he'd killed me, but he would do it.
"Oh, I've no doubt the boy would try," he replied easily.
So that clearly isn't his plan. But then why does he need me? Why bond me to him? "How am I your failsafe? What is the point of this?"
"So curious. You remind me of myself as a boy," he said quietly and I felt his magic pressing more firmly against mine. I automatically pushed back and it became difficult to breathe. But in a really good way. Well, if anything about this situation could be considered "good".
"You're not going to tell me," I said breathlessly.
"No. Not today. You will know when you need to know." He sounded a little breathless too. I shouldn't enjoy the knowledge that I had done that to him. It should in no way make me happy to know that Lord Fucking Voldemort was getting pleasure from me. No, it shouldn't.
But it did.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Voldemort dismissed Draco as soon as he'd delivered my food, and I breathed a sigh of relief, as I did every day. Ever since Draco had replaced Rodolphus in bringing my meals, I had been terrified that he planned for me to kill Draco next. But Draco never put a hand on me whether he was supervised or not. He never even looked at me. I wasn't sure that I would actually kill him. Then again, it may be kill-or-be-killed if he attacked me. I was virtually certain that I wouldn't allow myself to die.
That was wrong. I had wanted to die when I'd first come here. By all that was right and logical, I should still want to die. Maybe even more than I had. Granted, I was no longer subjected to torture, and any secrets in my head had long since been taken, but I lived in this little fucking cell. There were no books. No form of entertainment at all except when Voldemort came to see me each night.
I'd been keeping myself sane one hour at a time. I slept as much as I could – just to pass the time. I paced circles around the room, counting off my steps. I'd counted all the bricks in the walls several times – by touch as the room was blackest black when I was alone. Sometimes I recited books from memory. There were a few, such as Hogwarts: A History, that I knew well enough. Other times, I dreamed up arithmantic equations and played with them in my mind – they were much more challenging when I couldn't work through them on parchment.
I did not know how long I had been here. Maybe four months. Maybe half a year. Maybe even more. Aside from the occasional raised voices drifting down from above, nothing ever changed. Including Voldemort's nightly visits. The content of those visits changed though, to an extent. It was the most interesting part of my life. I sometimes wondered if that was why he kept me so deprived the rest of the time. Just to make me look forward to seeing him. Or maybe he just didn't care about my comfort. I had a suspicion that I'd look forward to seeing him even if I was able to spend my days back at Hogwarts with Ron and Harry like old times.
"Good evening, pet," he said quietly.
"Good evening," I responded automatically.
He crouched in front of me, looked into my eyes, and we were on the hilltop again. He always brought us to the hilltop. I didn't know why. He never told me anything that he didn't want to.
"We're going to try something different today, pet," said young Tom Riddle. He was always Tom Riddle in my mind. I didn't know why he did that either.
I turned to face him and he smiled at me. It was so wrong that someone as completely evil as him should be so astonishingly beautiful. Absolutely wrong. Of course, he wasn't beautiful anymore. But he had been.
He looked at me thoughtfully while all of that ran through my head. Of course, he heard it as clearly as if I'd spoken aloud. He was in my mind, after all.
"You wish to know why I look like this," he said quietly, taking my hands and pulling me to him so that we were mere inches apart. "I did not do this, Hermione. You are the one who determines how I appear here."
My jaw dropped. How was that possible? I couldn't have done this. I couldn't have! I'd only seen him through Harry's memory, and he hadn't looked like this – not really.
"But now you see me through my memory," he pointed out.
So maybe he wasn't this beautiful. Maybe he just saw himself that way.
He chuckled. "Believe what you like, pet. Now, on to today's lesson." He lifted my right hand to rest against the center of his chest.
My breath hitched. No. This isn't right. He's not going to… Why would he…? He always initiates our contact. He always controls it. Why would he…?
"So curious," he smirked. "You will know when you are meant to know."
Of course. He always said that.
He spread my palm flat against his chest, his hand pressed over it. It didn't feel cold like I knew that it really was, and it didn't feel boney. It felt… really nice.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked warily.
"Touch me," he said seductively.
He did not mean physically. I looked into his eyes and I tried to do as he said. I knew what it felt like. I'd felt it many, many times. I should be able to reproduce it. His eyes are beautiful. My distractible mind noted. At a distance, they looked black, but this close, they were brown. Like dark chocolate. Rich, and sinfully dark, but not black. Beautiful.
It was such a shame that he lost that. That he lost all of this beauty. He was like a gift to the world in all his dark glory. A gift he'd squandered.
I knew that he was listening to my every thought, but he didn't comment. Even on that last. I could see in his eyes that he'd heard it. They'd gone from smug to thoughtful.
There was so much more to this man than anyone else knew. So very much more. Dumbledore had liked to say that Voldemort was mad. Among the Order, "madman" was a favorite nickname for him. But he was not mad. Not at all. I actually suspected that he allowed himself to be perceived that way intentionally. To make others underestimate him. I had seen more of this man that anyone else alive, I was certain. I had felt his very soul, and it was not sickly like Bellatrix's soul. It wasn't even slimy like Rodolphus's soul. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't vile either. It was…
It was icy, unforgiving, merciless power. What else there was to him… The sadist, obviously. The man who valued ambition above all. He was the embodiment of ambition. He would go to any lengths to meet his ends. Most of his worst qualities were due to his childhood in that foul orphanage. Due to discovering that his mother was a rapist and his father an entitled imbecile with not the slightest redeeming grace beyond his appearance and his inheritance, the former of which he'd given to his unwanted son.
His dark chocolate eyes were practically smoldering now, but he did not interrupt my thoughts. I wondered why. Wasn't I supposed to be doing something? Oh, right. I was supposed to be "touching" him.
No, Lord Voldemort – Tom Riddle – was not mad at all. He was absolutely brilliant. He only "hated" mudbloods because it had garnered him followers. I understood now that it was a part of his dogma that would be phased out if he succeeded in taking over the wizarding world. He couldn't care less about blood status. He had a rather significant hatred of muggles, but not their wizarding offspring. It had taken me many days to wrap my head around that, but I understood it now. He'd taken pains to make that clear to me even while the hateful word remained permanently seared into my flesh from Bellatrix's cursed blade.
He'd shown me so many things these last months, made me believe so many things, I sometimes wondered if he hadn't tampered with my mind. But he hadn't. He hadn't forced me to believe anything. He'd convinced me. He'd shown me memory after memory. His memories. Some were disturbing. He'd shown me times in his childhood when he'd tortured other children at the orphanage. Sometimes he'd made them forget and others they'd simply been too terrified to ever say anything. He'd shown me when he killed his father. He'd shown me why he'd done it. What that hateful man had said to him. Which was why I was convinced that there was no way he got any of his intelligence from that man.
He'd shown me other memories though. Memories of being ridiculed and ostracized, and generally humiliated by the other children at the orphanage before he got the hang of his instinctive magic – which was astonishingly impressive. Some of the things he'd shown me were so debasing and embarrassing, that I was convinced he'd have killed anyone else who garnered the smallest detail of such things.
I still didn't understand why. Why was it so important to him that I believe these things? Not just think, but believe. Why did he want me to see them at all? Despite literally hundreds of hours alone with my thoughts, that was a question that I couldn't begin to answer.
"You're becoming distracted, pet," he whispered.
I blinked at him. Right. I am. Okay. How did I touch him the way that he touched me? I remembered how I reached for him when he tried to withdraw. It had happened many times since that first. I was pretty sure that he did it just to test me – to push me. I couldn't fault him for it. It worked after all. Once he touched me, losing that contact was agony. It felt like my very soul was being ripped in half. I had no trouble believing that I would die if he did. None at all.
I let my eyes drift closed and reached within myself, to my heart that pulsed in rhythm with his. Beyond it, to the very core of my being. To the part that ached for him even while I was wishing him dead. The part of me that was relieved that I would die if he did because life could not be worth living in a world that he was not a part of.
My eyes flew open and I stared at him. "Have you made me into a Horcrux?" I asked fearfully.
And he laughed. It was deep and rich, and… a little off. The true humor behind it was tainted by the terminal bitterness and disdain that he held for the world in general. I didn't think he was capable of feeling happiness anymore. Excitement, yes. Accomplishment was probably as close as he could come. But not true happiness. That made me a little sad. It shouldn't have – he certainly wasn't saddened by it – but it did.
"I have enough horcruxes, pet," he replied as his mirth fell off to just a small smile. "You are infinitely more valuable than any horcrux."
Fuuuuck! I should NOT be so pleased to hear that. It wasn't that I was pleased to know that he valued me so much because that would keep me alive as nothing else possibly could. No, it simply pleased me to know that he valued me. That he wanted me on some level. Fuck, I'm turning into Bellatrix!
"Never that, pet," he smirked. "She had her uses, but she was ultimately insane. Your sanity yet holds strong, despite isolation, darkness, constant fear, and the feelings you're developing for the man you hate most in the world."
I gulped at his mention of "feelings". It disturbed me because it was true, no matter how much I wished to deny it. It was true, and I knew that he was utterly incapable of ever having "feelings" for me. Not those kinds of feelings.
"You're right," he said thoughtfully, running one long finger lightly down the side of my face as though my reaction to his touch was a subject of study. "But I was not always incapable of such feelings. There was a time when I think I may have found you… pleasing for more than your usefulness."
I studied him intently, trying to figure out the meaning of his words.
"Enough stalling," he said, suddenly harsh.
I nodded quickly. He was becoming impatient. My next reminder would be painful. Sadist.
He smirked.
I focused myself again, turning inward. To the part of me that yearned for him like a junkie for a fix. Yes… There it was.
I embraced it. Dove into it. Let it consume me.
Flame. Terrible, wonderful, intense flames. And I reached for him. It was as instinctive as joining my hands in the dark. My soul belonged nowhere so much as with his. And I felt him. Ice leapt to engulf me the instant that I touched it and I fought back. More intense than anything else I could imagine, our souls battled for dominance, neither gaining the upper hand. I couldn't tell if he was actually giving it his all, but I didn't expect that he was.
I knew now that I wouldn't kill him if I got the chance. I should, but there wasn't any point in lying to myself. There was no way that I could ever lay the killing blow against him personally. No way at all. Of course, I didn't expect that I'd ever be in a position to actually have that chance.
Such considerations drifted away as the pleasure of his contact intensified, overpowered my senses. My very mind. Heat and cold. Fire and ice. Pain and pleasure. Voldemort and I were utter opposites in most respects, but, like fire and ice – both of which could burn when severe enough – we had similarities. Intelligence, ambition, passion, the need to rise above the expectations of others… Even to this day he felt that in a distant sort of way. He'd never fully recovered from that hated little boy that didn't fit in at that vile boy's home.
I moaned in ecstasy and I fought to make my fire hotter and the ice burned increasingly frigid in response. My hand remained on his chest and the rest of my body sagged forward until my hand was trapped between our bodies, my head tucked under his chin.
His breathing was ragged, his heart racing beneath my fingers.
I waited for him to pull away, but he didn't this time. Instead he pushed harder. The weight grew. The pain intensified. I cried out, unsure if it was in pain or pleasure. I pushed back. I threw myself against him. The pain and weight receded, and I heard him groan. It was an animalistic sound that I had never heard from him before. It spurred me on as nothing else could have.
My whole body trembled. I was right at the edge.
He pushed just a bit harder and I slammed myself against him once more.
And then something purely astonishing happened. For just an instant, I gained control. It felt like…
There are no words! Fire engulfed ice. The entire world seemed to turn to steam. Everything. Reality. Magic. Life. Death. Everything that there was or ever had been simply ceased to exist. The sense of raw power that enveloped me was the most sublime high I had ever known.
I screamed in ecstasy. Agony. Wonder.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I must have actually fainted. I was lying on my back on that hill, staring up at that old, lonely tree. Voldemort wasn't there.
I pulled myself up and looked around for him. That's when I realized that something was different. There was a small cottage on the next hill over that had never seen there before.
I turned slowly in a circle, searching for him. Where…?
Then I spotted him. He was standing near the cottage. I approached slowly, wondering if I had upset him terribly by gaining control. Would he kill me for it? He'd said that I was extremely valuable, but if he thought there was the slimmest chance that I might be a threat, I was certain that would eclipse my value instantly.
Was I a threat though? Even if I could kill him, I wouldn't. I couldn't. Not ever.
I stopped when I neared him, looking curiously at the wand he was pointing at me. I lifted my eyes to his. Those beautiful eyes…
But the look in them now was… unexpected. He looked… wary? Of me? Surely he knew better than to think I was a threat.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
I blinked slowly, struggling to understand what he was doing. Had he put me into some kind of memory? A memory that I could interact with?
"Answer me!" he snarled.
"I'm Hermione Granger," I said uncertainly.
"That name means nothing to me," he snapped. "What are you doing here?"
My mouth fell open. No. This isn't possible. It's a trick. It has to be a trick.
"Tom?" I said hesitantly.
His eyes narrowed, "You know who I am?"
Oh holy mother of fuck. I cleared my throat uneasily. "You, um… You don't know who I am?"
"How would I?" he asked disdainfully. He was looking at me like he suspected that I was insane.
But Voldemort knew that I was perfectly sane. He'd just told me so.
I looked down at myself. My clothes. In my mind – or his, I was never really sure – I was always wearing the clothes I'd been wearing that day I was captured. Now I was wearing the shapeless little dress that looked like it had been enlarged from a house elf frock. The only thing they'd ever given me to wear in my cell. It was fairly clean, since Voldemort didn't like for me to be filthy, but that was as much as could be said for it. And in my hand… It was my wand. Gods, I hadn't seen that since the day I'd been captured.
If I was wearing this… If I had my wand… I was no longer in my mind or his. I was really here. I was… It didn't seem possible, but the proof seemed to be pointing a very familiar wand at me.
I gulped around my heart, which seemed to have worked its way into my throat. "What, ah… What year is it?" I asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
He frowned at me. "It's 1944."
Had he meant to send me here? Had I somehow done this when I'd taken control? Time travel was incredibly complex. It couldn't be done by accident unless perhaps one was experimenting with time travel intentionally. I hadn't been. How…?
And then it started to line up. So many little hints that he'd let drop.
"There was a time when I think I may have found you… pleasing for more than your usefulness."
"You remind me of myself as a boy."
"You will know when you are meant to know."
It would explain why he'd been so adamant about making me believe him. Because he couldn't control me now. Not here. Not as he could there.
I was his failsafe. His deficiat tutum. He was sending me back to help his younger self. To ensure that the future turned out the way he wanted it.
A laugh bubbled up my throat, almost hysterical even to my own ears. It grew on itself until it echoed across the hills and bounced off the cottage. I would know when I needed to know. I didn't know if I should consider this fate mercy or the worst sort of torment.
I laughed until my knees gave out and my stomach ached. Lord Voldemort was right. We would never defeat him.
Okay. There it is. My first Tomione. So, do I continue? Or should I quit while I'm ahead? I'd say to be honest, but please try not to damage my delicate sense of self. Other than that, let me know your thoughts.