==REVISED VERSION==
A/N: Howdy! So, I got enormously tired of reading LV "romances" where the leading lady loves him as "Tom," or transforms him to be at least a little good, or goes back in time and love the small good part of him left, or loves everything he does except for all the evil stuff that defines his character, or the authors that make him mind-numbingly OOC just because they think the old Tom was hott (as do we ALL).
I'm sorry, but I think that's ridiculous. I've been yearning for a true LV pairing that shows why someone would fall in love with him, and, honestly, why I'm in love with him (my affections are, sadly, unreturned). So, read your little hearts out, and feel free to vent all of your feelings by REVIEWING!
Also, I don't own HP, Voldemort does.
Spellbound
Chapter 1
It was his power that drew me to him. It radiated off of him in beams that seemed to be shot straight at my heart; it was as if I was alone and frozen and he was the sun. I was helpless to resist.
It wasn't as if it was some intangible quality that he was helplessly given; he ingrained Power into himself, finding it, absorbing it, displaying it for the world as shamelessly as a whore displays her body. Voldemort was Power.
And as Hermione Granger, I hated him.
I was terrified, like the rest of them, enraged like the rest of them, disgusted like the rest of them… but there was always another level to my emotions about him.
I had noticed it in some of the other women at times, but none of them ever let their guard down. Voldemort was Evil above all else, and they were Good. They never felt any dichotomy about what they should do, about how they should feel about plotting the downfall of the greatest wizard of all time.
This was where I noticed I was separated from them. First, it was by the admiration I felt for him. The magic he was producing, the spells he invented, the way he twisted the old and new to form whatever he needed excited me more than frightened. Everyone else only saw the end result, not the talent and unimaginable intelligence getting those results required. In my fifth year, I discovered the second way I was different from the other Order members: I saw him that night at the Department of Mysteries. I watched Voldemort battle first Harry, then Dumbledore, and was transfixed. None of the others knew that I hid, disguised in a very un-Gryffindor-like way as my best friend battled against almost certain death.
I didn't show myself because I was lost to unimaginable and very ill-timed lust.
That entire year was Stress and Confusion above all else. Nothing made sense—the Ministry, the supposed Law Makers we had been taught to admire and obey, were being tyrannical idiots. I didn't know how to take this; Knowing and Following the rules had been of the canons of my character. They were my defining aspect—and that was all shattered.
So when I went to the Department of Mysteries that night I didn't know who I was. I was attempting unforgivables and using the dirtiest legal defensive magic I knew how. I had been wound so tight all year that all my fears and worries shot out of the tip of my wand in a blaze of cathartic rage. I was down to my most elemental aspect. All of my emotions were primal and inexplicable and my mind had been overcome by them. For the only time that I could remember, I didn't think.
And so when I came across the two of them fighting I only watched, hidden, bewitched.
At first I was frightened by the terrible snakelike wizard before me. Then, I was terrified for my dear friend who was being too quickly overcome. After that, my mind stopped thinking for a second. All I saw was the scene, all I felt was the magic surrounding them, and all I saw was him. Voldemort.
By now he was dueling with Dumbledore while Harry was frozen in the corner. Dumbledore was using all the strength and magic he possessed, but it wasn't to him that I was drawn.
Voldemort was holding back.
And I knew, then, what was going on. Just as I admired Voldemort, he admired Dumbledore. I heard the dark wizard's thoughts as surely as if they were his own—
What a horrible waste of a great wizard. It'd be a shame to kill him.
I watched as he performed magic I couldn't even dream of against the most lauded wizard in Europe—and to Voldemort, these were only parlor tricks! I could read it in his eyes like he was Hogwarts, a History—I saw the vague boredom, the desire he had for a challenge, and the conflicting respect he had for his closest second that existed.
That was when the lust hit.
Up to this point in my life, I had viewed sex as something that accompanied faithful, sweet love, an aspect of reproduction, something that the kids my age were beginning to explore. I had always looked in at it like an outsider; like a scientist doing a research study.
My relatively newly adult body had never felt the pure desire it had at that moment. My stomach clenched as I saw the graceful movements of his destructive wand; I had to blink to stop my vision from clouding as I watched his deliberate movements around the room; my chest heaved with ragged breaths as I saw the glint in his eye right before he performed a curse. The coil in my gut wound tighter until I was clutching the wall for support, bewildered and hindered by these new feelings.
This was the killer of hundreds! A man who employed the most evil methods imaginable for the most disastrous results ever seen! A murderer!
A conqueror.
And as abruptly and disturbingly as I felt this, my mind came back into focus. The battle was ending, people were running about, aurors were arriving en masse. I hurried back to where everyone thought I was lying unconscious from a curse—and he looked at me.
It's impossible, I know. I was disillusioned, and was rather good at the spell. Chaos surrounded them; he had just been thwarted again by "love," and was being steadily approached by aurors from every direction.
And yet he looked right where I stood, and gave a faint smile, if one could call whatever intent that laid behind that particular facial expression a smile. As quickly as I registered it, it and he were gone, abruptly disapparated from this mess in which I found myself.
I didn't have to fake my injuries; that was unfortunately real enough. I and several others were taken to St. Mungos. Everyone was in shock, so I didn't have to fake that either.
But while the others were haunted by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, I was only haunted by the unsought sensuousness of my body's conflicting reaction. His power and his murders weren't related somehow; my mind loathed his every incarnation, his every action, everything he represented. And yet somehow, my soul understood his need for power, the distances he was willing to go for knowledge. I thought about what he could do to his death eaters, the orders they would follow simply because he gave them, and swooned like a 13-year-old at a boy band concert.
Years passed, and no one knew of my feelings. I compartmentalized to the point of insanity; I wanted Harry to live, I also wanted Voldemort. I'm a mudblood! I reasoned. He'd kill me on the spot! But no logic I recited stopped my traitorous mind.
Even now, as I sit in his darkened prison, trapped between the cage of my thoughts and the one guarded by his own death eaters, I am helpless against my attraction. It is the most ridiculous thing I can think of to hinder me, the least logical reason for me to end up here, and the most atrocious way I could insult my friends.
My family.
My head rolls gently to the side, incapable of being supported by my tired neck. I feel my eyes beginning to water and struggle to keep any tears shed silent. I take a slow, deep breath and try to enjoy whatever un-nightmare-ish moment I am given.
Tomorrow, the interrogations will begin.
Oui? Non? REVIEW! And lemme knizzle. Por Favor. Grazie. Danke. &c.