A/N: So I'm back! After a long break I was abruptly struck by inspiration, and the story continues! It's turned out to be in first-person, so I suggest you go back and reread the revised Chapter 1. Most of the content is the same, but I think it'll help with the flow if you can dig what I'm doing with perspective and past and present tenses.

I am enormously thankful to everyone who gave such supportive and interested reviews. I hope this story continues as you want it to. As always, I don't own anything from the HP universe, and be sure to review!

Spellbound

Chapter 2

There's nothing to do but think.

Blackness stretches out the night and wraps me in nothingness. I stare into it; I try to see, but my eyes ache from the effort. I curl up and try to blend in, to be as nothing as the air that surrounds me, but I am an interloper, a flashlight in the darkness, a cactus in the sea. I drown in this prism of obscurity and can only try to swim.

I think how the blackness that I can't see is my future, that my soul is becoming as useless as my eyes. I try to remember what those deep-sea fish look like—the ones with swollen eyes to see what little light there is—and I imagine what I would look like with those eyes. Perhaps that's what I do look like now.

Sometimes I close my eyes because I know seeing's useless. When I move around the pitiful dimensions of my cell I don't want to be confused by the lack of perception my mind can draw.

Other times I do try to see, and give myself headaches from looking. Occasionally I convince myself I see something, far away. I create pictures in my mind, envision distant objects, always out of reach. I never see what they are clearly—I only know I want to find them. The disappointment that follows this keeps me from trying it too often.

One would assume I would be plotting ways of escape, that I would focus my mind on facts and the situation at hand to be better prepared for when I am free; I don't. Instead, I've become surprisingly poetic in this sightless world. Ideas are so much more potent when they're as fluid and unreal as the pregnant oblivion surrounding me. I think—sense, contemplate, ponder, meditate, ruminate, reckon, cogitate, imagine, reflect—that my soul is somehow tangible and effected by these circumstances. I can feel it move, I can see it (and how I relish the sight of it!). It bends around my mind like my 'bed' wraps around my body. The loose hay covered in old muslin does little to keep my limbs from the hard stone floor, but my soul is impenetrable and sinuous, finding all of me and shining like the light I can remember. My soul is in me and around me, anxious to escape the torturous confines of skin and sinew, anxious to join with the universe, and angry at me for keeping it here.

I calm it as best I can.

I wonder at my own sentience and that of plants, or of the pile on which I sleep. Are we really any different? A plant would wither in the darkness; the heap of hay and fabric is dead plants already, and makes no change.

I lay on myself, then, and wonder if I am to die or if I am already dead.

I think I am about eighteen years old. I say this occasionally, in my more rational moments, and wonder what it means. So old in life, so old compared to other beings that have a year or a season to know existence—and yet young, an infant, a germinating seed compared to life or to thought. So young and so old to be in such darkness.

Time is a convention that does not often fill my thoughts, not since I was first captured. I used to contemplated how long it had been, how long I might have left; I used to judge what a day meant to me, what a year did.

I have no window and irregular meals; days mean nothing. Hours only mean more ways to number the days, and minutes and seconds only add to that number. I will not give Voldemort any more numbers than I must.

And so I seldom think of time.

It is for that reason, when events occur that bring me back to time, sight, and my own presence, that they are especially jarring.

He opened the door and light came in like an old friend with bad news. His boot was the first thing I saw. It was brown.

I am—I was—frightened, but not of what he could do to me. I was frightened of leaving the cocoon of my mind for this too-tangible world of shape and form, of thought with action. My fear made me dumb, in all meanings: mute and empty I sat as I had been, looking at him with eyes with over-dark pupils, too new and worn to even flinch from the brightness he brought.

He said nothing, which was for the best; I doubt I would've been able to understand language at all at that point. I hadn't been thinking in words in some... time.

In that way it began to return to me, the way Humans are. He pulled me down the hall with a firm grasp on my upper arm and I spoke in my mind to prepare myself for the words that would surely come. The halls were a blur, moving too fast for my weary eyes to understand, but my ears were well and attentive.

His breathing was even and determined; mine was weak and sporadic. The thick brown fabric of his pants and robe made soft noises as they met each other and bumped into the air. This noise reminded me of wind and I wondered how long it had been since I had heard that noise.

Time.

I don't know if the walk was short or long, or what those mean to me, but we arrived after a period to a room that was decidedly more accommodating than the one we had left. The floor was still stone, but the walls were plastered and painted and lined with bookshelves, art, and a large fireplace. There were wooden floor boards and crown moulding, and a wooden wainscoting on the lower third of the walls. There was a half-worn rug beneath over-stuffed chairs and a couch which radiated around a diminutive coffee table. There were flowers on an end table and a chess set in the corner.

It was then, after these words flooded into my mind unbidden that I remembered what this room was called:

A parlor.

Now I realize I should have felt shock at being brought to such a place, that I should have been suspicious or anxious to take advantage of whatever small luxury was temporarily available to me.

He regarded me with light green eyes. I noticed that his hair was blond-going-grey and his skin was a bit tan. He had small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

He said, "Don't touch anything."

I was alone abruptly, but only aware of my feet on the rug in the center of the room. I was barefoot, as I must have been, but only now that I could feel something did I realize it. The carpet was a caress for my feet, it was a pillow and a coat and told me secrets through whispering brushes of sensations I had forgotten. I was touching it.

Time passed again, as I stood feeling the carpet, transfixed. After a period, another door opened, this one on the opposite end of the room. My new eyes moved slowly up so they could take in everything.

It was another man, but this one I didn't need to describe to myself before he got an identity. He is a man by loosest definition only, my mind screamed too loudly, he is a murderer, he is evil, he is the enemy! I flinched slightly from my body's reaction. The man's mouth curved upwards as he saw I knew he was Lord Voldemort.

My eyes saw the way the light curved a path along his pale skin as he inclined his head toward me. He looked the same.

The thoughts that had formed slowly and deliberately in my mind came now with disturbing speed. His reappearance set fire to my mind until only thoughts and facts of him were left. I analyzed, saw, felt everything he had ever done to me and my friends—to my family—and I was pulsing with anger.

Which he saw.

"Hello, Hermione Granger."

And there I was, completely covered in what felt like centuries of dirt and grime, standing miserably on his slightly-worn rug, in a perfectly respectable sitting room. He named me, and I became pitiful. He named me and I stood there awkwardly in my anger, a person, a human, a witch—he made me these with his words, he mocked what I once was, he mocked what I had become.

What I had become because of him.

"Hello."

Was that my voice? That flimsy, pathetic thing? The syllables sounded foreign on my tongue. Did I even mean to say that? Surely I could have thought of something more forceful...

As I was thinking this—not used to juggling thought and reality—he moved closer and motioned to the sofa nearest to me.

"Have a seat. I can always have it cleaned later."

I considered talking back, but I was sorely out of practice, and after how amazing the rug felt, I couldn't imagine the sensory experience waiting for me.

So I sat, aware of the grime I was spreading, not caring as I sank into the heaven of cushions. I glanced up and he was seated across from me in one of the wing chairs, studying me with his calculating eyes. They were so very calculating... I thought of puzzles and people and our connection to the universe and then opened my eyes. He was watching me. It had become my practice to close my eyes when I thought; the images they created were far better than any darkness my cell allowed. Thinking quickly, flashing abruptly from philosophy to strategy, I realized I was giving him information just by my behavior. And I was making a spectacle of myself. And he was still watching me.

"Why am I here?" Words came at last!

"Would you rather be back in your cell?" He asked needlessly.

My eyes, if not already the size of a deep-sea-fish's, grew larger. "No! I only meant—Why am I here instead of there now?"

I realized that was not any clearer, but Lord Voldemort was apparently in a benevolent mood.

"I need you to do research for me. You are, I'm told, intelligent?" He looked to me in response.

My response was an expression that probably equaled the look of someone who was just hit rather hard by a bludger. Voldemort's expression wavered slightly; I took in that he was amused. I spoke quickly then:

"Why would I possibly do anything to help you?"

Expecting this, he continued with a slight nod of his head. "If you do not help me, you will be sent back to that little cell of yours and routinely tortured for five minutes every hour. Now, you could learn to sleep for short bursts, but it would be a short while before you would die from exhaustion. Not to mention, I'm sure the torture would interrupt whatever escapist fantasies have kept you going this long."

I'm sure my expression was frozen on my face. He left a pause for my commentary, then continued.

"If you do help me, you will stay in a room connecting to this one, given regular meals, decent clothes and a bathroom—where you can bathe, if you remember how."

If he expected this last bit to injure me, he was sorely mistaken; I'd lived with my stench long enough to be used to it. If it offended him, all the better.

"Additionally, you'll have access to all my books. When you're not doing research—which I recommend should be little of your time—you may look into whatever you wish. I'm not a complicated master. If you are good, you will be rewarded. If you are bad, you will be severely punished."

"I will never help you." My voice was firm again, and interjected proudly.

He looked entertained, as if he'd been expecting all of this. His eyes watched me as his mouth slipped into a smirk.

"Hermione Granger..." He voice slid over my name, "Yes you will."

As this statement seemed to be leading to a close in our conversation, I leaned back into the couch, determined to appreciate whatever luxury I had time for.

Voldemort rose from his chair and started toward the door from which he had entered. He turned and spoke one last time to me.

"You will be returned to your cell. It is currently eight o'clock in the evening. At eight o'clock tomorrow morning your guard will come. If you acquiesce to helping me," his mouth nearly sang these two words at me, "then the guard will return you here. If you refuse, as you are so sure you will do, the guard will torture you. And fifty-five minutes later, he will return." The Dark Lord offered me one last manipulative glance. "Good night, Hermione."

He left, and I was alone, staring into where he'd gone, trying to see through to nothingness. The first man came back, the one with robes that sounded like wind, if I remembered what wind sounded like. Thoughts sped in a meaningless blur around my mind, creating a vortex, suffocating me, trapping me in a pointless loop of indecision and turmoil. Chaos was my mind and my soul and my heart and my breath—

We were back, back to the dreaded door that blocked out the light. I stood in front of it as the man with sandy-hair-going-grey held the door open. I gaped like the fish my eyes resembled. He pushed me in and I fell to the ground by my 'bed.'

"See you in the morning," was the last thing I heard as he slammed the door and brought me back—

here. I am where I was, where I always have been. Hopeless, disordered—and now, with words. With thoughts. With syntax and reality and decisions—

No, not decisions, one decision. One one one decision that will be easy for me to make, because I am Hermione Granger—

My cell feels smaller when I say this, but I say it anyway—

I am Hermione Granger, and I cannot betray everyone I love, everyone who is still alive, everyone who is dead. I am Hermione Granger.

I pause as I wait for my mind to begin its slow digression toward pondering what a name is, what a person is, what reality is, and how nothing is real at all in my little ink blot world.

But I'm still Hermione Granger. And my cell is still my cell, agonizingly as real as I am, as my stench is, as this hard floor is—and is it? Is it darker now that my eyes have seen light?

I was blind, but now I can't see! I want—I didn't used to want—but I want—I can't--!

Words topple through my mind like falling rocks in a landslide. I'm crashing. I'm sitting. I'm not moving and I'm suffocating—dying—but alive, oh, god, I'm still alive. How can I be alive when I'm not in the world? Everything's gone and I feel nothing and I see nothing and I am nothing. How can I be Hermione Granger when I'm not alive?

I am alive!

I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.

I am alive I am alive I am alive alive alive alive

and the door swings open and light comes in like an old friend with bad news. But I'm sick and can't she come again later? cough cough.

He won't come back later. He's here, now, with wand in hand, standing above my collapsed form, asking me a question.

And I hear myself say, "No."

I don't know how I said the word so firmly when I've been unable to think anything firmly, but just as I am congratulating myself he moves his wand in a swift motion.

I wanted to feel something? I wanted reality? I wanted to be alive in the world?

My body shudders on the ground, epilepsing manically. Pain shoots through every synapse of my brain; every word I think is painful. Every struggling gasp I heave is painful. Every jump my tired muscles make is excruciating and it's time, timeless, classic in its intensity. It will never leave me, this pain is all there is for me, another kind of deprivation, I'm alone, scattered, pain—

"I'll do it!"

and it's over. I'm just laying on the ground in a small puddle of light. I'm immobile, I'm broken, I don't know how to move anymore. He scoops me up and I can't feel the pain I know my body feels. He murmurs something like, "good girl," and we're down the hall again, my eyes closed this time because I don't want to see. I'm in a ball, I'm clutching onto his robes, onto my captor; he pulls my talons away from him, as he is no doubt disgusted by me. I am dropped down onto the bed and he walks away from me, brushing my remains off of those windy brown robes of his. As he is closing this door he says,

"Welcome home."