A/N: Yes, yessss. Feed me :D I really appreciate and love the reviews, including the reassurances that this story is well written. I'm planning ahead, as I want to try to get as much of this story out as possible before my fall semester starts at college. It's my second to last semester, so busy busy! I've got plot bunnies for the next three chapters or so, so hopefully we'll be at chapter 7 before the end of this week!

Warnings: Slight ooc, bigotry, language, maturity.

Disclaimer: Just keep playing in the sand box.


She was reclining comfortably on a porch swing; the park where she'd frequent during the summers to read with the fresh air breezing by her face was clear and quiet. Dressed in her favorite light blue strapless sundress that flowed past her knees, her feet bare so her toes could feel the soft grass, and the newest book over magical theory from the famed Gilchrist Le'Monte nestled in her grasp, Hermione felt like she was in heaven.

It hadn't really occurred to her on how she got there. Why did it matter? Occasionally, she'd hear worried, raised voices, or loud banging, but every time she looked up, the trees just gently waved their branches at her. So she'd shrug it off and continue reading. She knew something was off, however, when she would look back at her book and see that there were no words in it.

"I could always lend you my copy."

She looked up. Standing before her with pale skin, sharp, dangerous red eyes, and thick jet-black hair, was none other than the Lord Voldemort. He seemed more human than Harry had described to her, and she found it near amusing at the juxtaposition of the most feared wizard of all time standing in a muggle park. She tilted her head to the side. "This book isn't due for public read for another two months." She lamented, stroking the spine before setting it on top of the bag that appeared on the ground nearby. Voldemort sat next to her, looking around.

"I know the author personally; he gave me an early release."

She raised her eyebrows. "Gave? Or was forced to?"

"Not everyone I meet gets tortured for me to get what I want." He said smoothly, rocking the swing with gently. The sun was bright in the sky, and Hermione was enjoying the warmth it brought. "Would you believe me if I said I am incredibly charismatic?"

She snorted. "I already knew that."

"How could you know?" One perfectly manicured eyebrow raised at her.

"You have a mass following of the most influential people within the Wizarding World, of which I am forced to put aside my opinions of them to recognize that not all of them are utter morons that can't think for themselves," she admitted, swinging her feet back and forth as the swing rocked from his ministrations. "They had money, power, and material excess. Which means you gave them something they wanted to hear."

He leaned back in the swing, nodding absentmindedly. "I didn't just give them what they wanted to hear, Miss Selwyn. Yes, I know all about that," he added when he noticed her surprised look. "Do you think I would not investigate why Potter's friend decided to wander to what could have been her death? I would not be alive today if I merely took what was given to me on a piece of parchment as truth."

Hermione grinned slightly at the memory.

"What should I do?" She was pacing outside of the Forbidden forest, the panic settling in over what she may end up doing. In her hands was her mother's diary, and desperately she flipped to the last page in hopes that there may be some indication, some advice over what to do. One did not simply talk to the most dangerous man in Great Britain, possibly the world.

Hermione didn't understand it. Rosemary Selwyn was an avid supporter of the Death Eaters, and by extension, Voldemort himself. She knew Dumbledore knew, and she had guessed from as early as 5 months into her pregnancy with Hermione that the headmaster posed a threat to her life and the life of her child. So if she had known that, had been in contact with people like Walburga Black, then why hadn't she placed any safeguards? She blinked.

Her mother may have been a Ravenclaw, but she was friends with a bunch of Slytherins.

She flipped to the blank pages after her mother's last entry and paused for a moment, trying to place herself in the shoes of a desperate witch who was trying to protect her daughter. Merely writing in invisible ink or spelling away a hidden entry wouldn't work against Dumbledore: he was too powerful to dupe like that. She was in deep thought before another tremor startled her out of her musings. She flinched; she'd bitten her lip and a tiny drop of blood hit the page. Worried, she was about to take her wand to it before any damage had been done, but the drop had disappeared.

A couple of drops later, and the writing began to reveal itself. Of course her mother would use blood magic. Hermione was the only one of her blood left, so no chances for mistakes.

September 1st, 1979

My Dearest Hermione,

I'm getting weaker now. I know I cannot protect you from whatever Dumbledore has planned, and with scrutiny on any Purebloods who have Slytherin backgrounds, I cannot seek aid from those who would guide you on the right path. I can only hope that his plans for the greater good involve you still being alive. I want you to know, darling, that Mummy loves you. I have always loved you. Despite what you may be raised to think or do, I hope you don't think less of me regardless.

I had Walburga Black pass on a message to the Dark Lord over this situation. Should you be capable to, you need only give him the one word I've enclosed at the bottom of this entry. He will know that you come from me, and the bloodlines and power of which you carry. Whether or not your power now is temporary, the Dark Lord values magical blood, and you will be safe with him.

It is with this that I can at least give you a chance to reconcile with what will be robbed from you and from myself. Do great things. Bring power and fortune back to the Selwyn name. Most importantly, stand fast to what you believe is right based off of the facts and the logic. If you're anything like me, you'll understand what that means. I love you, my Hermione.

With all my heart,

Rosemary Selwyn

Attached to the bottom of the entry was a hastily scrawled word saying "Nightingale."

"That's how you knew so much when I showed you that," she realized, looking at him from her peripherals. "That word was associated with my bloodline, my mother, and-"

"Your power, yes." He interrupted, looking at her fully, his face cold and smooth. "Walburga had confided your mother's uncertainty behind the status of your magic. When I failed to register one of great magical power, even after my downfall, I had assumed Dumbledore had killed you. I did not consider that the old man had it in him to do something this dark."

"What he did was considered dark?"

Voldemort gave her an exasperated look, almost petulant. "He bound your magic as if he were your guardian, as if it were an animal needed to be trapped and tranquilized." He explained, his red eyes flashing. "Dark magic is magic used for dark purposes. There is no spell, no potion that is dark unless used for nefarious reasons."

"No good and evil, only power."

"Exactly," he nodded towards her, looking almost impressed. "A stinging hex that is powerful can cause pain likened to a cruciatus curse. A gentle stinging hex can be playful for small children still learning to come into their magic. Anything can be what you make of it."

Hermione looked thoughtful at his diatribe, before sighing. The swing slowly stopped as Voldemort got up from his seat. He turned and twiddled his wand slowly in his hands. "Are you ready to wake up, Miss Selwyn?" He asked. She knew he wasn't really asking her though. She needed to wake up.

"Wake up."

Her face crumpled slightly, and she could hear hushed voices within the room she was in. Her body lay resting on the most comfortable mattress she'd ever laid on in her life. But her body was so stiff, and her magical core pulsated, though contained, it still caused the healing stretches and tears to ache. She cracked her eyes open before quickly shutting them against the blinding light. Another hushed whisper later, a rustling movement to her left, and then a voice.

"Miss Selwyn, the curtains are closed. Please open your eyes."

Caramel eyes opened slowly to the voice of Narcissa Malfoy. Hermione had heard her voice only once before, but it was one you didn't forget. Soft, but commanding. The voice of elegance and power. The room was indeed darker, tolerably so, but she wasn't able to get much details due to the presence of the people within the room. Draco and Lucius Malfoy sat near the end of the bed, reclining on some leather chairs a couple feet away from her bed near the fire, while Bellatrix, who nearly startled the brunette, was standing next to Narcissa with an unreadable expression on her face.

Narcissa Malfoy had her long blonde hair pulled back away from her face in an elegant twist, her age hidden from the years of beauty and lucky genes. Ears adorned in the finest of jewelry, and dressed in deep Slytherin green robes with silver embroidery along the hems, sleeves, and collar line, she definitely looked like the Lady of the Manor. Her gray eyes met with hers as Hermione finally gained her bearings.

"Where am I?"

"You are still in Malfoy Manor," she replied, helping Hermione drink from a glass of water. She smiled small at the woman gratefully. "It is 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, the 20th of September, and you passed out yesterday at 1 o'clock in the morning. The healers have informed us of severe damage to your body caused by rapid magic expansion that your core was unable to contain, including broken ribs and extreme strain on your magical vascular system. Your body needs time to heal, and what needs healing cannot be healed overnight with potions."

Hermione nodded slowly, understanding now the stiffness in her form. Magic traveled through a series of circuits throughout the body, with very similar pathways akin to the blood veins: it's where the theory of magic spurring from bloodlines originated. The excess magic her body had been unused to carrying because Dumbledore had suppressed it had rapidly stretched out these circuits instead of allowing them to grow with her age as it should have done naturally if her magic had been untouched.

She peered at herself slowly, making no sudden movements. Her chest, from her breasts to just above her hips, were wrapped in bandages, probably due to the broken ribs and the tears on her body she inflicted on herself accidentally. Perched above her heart, ingrained on her skin, was a glowing rune, which she roughly translated for it to say 'connect'. Gazing at her hands, she noticed those were bandaged too, and idly wondered if she could ask Voldemort what exactly her had drawn on her hand yesterday. She looked back at Mrs. Malfoy. "What all do you know?"

"I know that I have a cousin I never knew I had." She replied, a water smile emerging. "It is always a blessing to discover family. I also know about what Dumbledore has done." Hermione looked over to Bellatrix, who was clenching her fist, her face taunt with an emotion Hermione wasn't sure of. Narcissa looked at her sister with an imploring look.

"That filthy old man defiled one of the purest lines in existence." She spat out, her curls shifting with every slight head movement she made. "My own cousin was denied her birthright, being forced to live with Muggles, and now this." She gestured to Hermione's prone, broken body before looking away in anger. Hermione was taken aback.

"I could've been killed." She said simply. Bellatrix stared back at her in shock. "I could've been killed. He could've killed me as an infant, and my mother's bloodline would've ended with me. You can lament over me being raised by muggles; it won't change it." She said firmly, holding up her bandage hand when it looked like Bellatrix was going to interrupt. "It happened. I have suffered for it, suffered for trusting the man I thought I knew. But I am here now, and he is dead. I just want to move forward from it." Hermione said quietly, letting out a tired breath at how brash she sounded in disregarding Dumbledore. Regardless of what he had done, she could only remember a kind face, and it made it that much harder to dislike him.

"What will you do now?"

Hermione looked back up at Bellatrix's face, shocked at the lack of shouting, ranting, and raving she'd assumed the unbalanced witch would give. But all she could see was sanity and clarity, and Hermione was forced to rethink what she thought she knew about the Lestrange wife. She looked thoughtful, taking note of the hope that Narcissa and Bellatrix hid behind their eyes.

"Well, I can't go anywhere now," Hermione began slowly, wincing when she moved her should to stretch. "I need time to recover from this, but I don't really have a place to go-."

"You know you are more than welcome to stay here, Miss Selwyn." Lucius Malfoy had entered the conversation finally, his calculating gray eyes holding reserved approval. "I must say, I find myself much more accepting of Draco coming second to you in your final year at Hogwarts knowing who you truly are now. It makes so much more sense." Hermione pushed down the irked feelings that the remark brewed and tried the more civil approach.

"And how do you suppose that, Mr. Malfoy?"

Calm and collected, he leaned forward, his arms resting on his cane.

"Magic in those of purebloods or those of magical parents is natural; hereditary. To simply chalk it up to magical theory, as I am sure you're familiar with, magic cannot come from nothing. It must emerge somewhere, and from muggleborns who have their magic passed down from squibs or distant magical ancestors, it is simply unnatural; they have parents who never had magic, their body's genetic makeup is not prepared for the onslaught of magical power." He gestured to her, a smirk evident on his face. "Tell me, Miss Selwyn, name one muggleborn in history that has been above average naturally."

Hermione's face fell. Lily Potter couldn't be used as an example, because it wasn't natural for her. She had been a potions protege, which had not required magical power or magical prowess, but just good mathematics, logic, and an attention span beyond a teenage sex drive. But she'd been with Harry when he had discovered his mother's old school results. She had scored better than the entire class, but the entire class had been coasting average, and she had just been the queen of the average scores. She stared quietly at the patriarch.

"But why do you consider them less than you?" She implored quietly. "Why kill people who can't match our magical power? Why not leave them alone?"

"We have to hide everyday," Narcissa had her hands in her lap, stare firm and fierce while she was staring at Hermione. "My magic sets me apart, as a superior, and yet I have to hid in fear of those who are too weak to control and contain it? If a magical child performs accidental magic for the first time outside of the house, the first priority is not to celebrate, as we should, but instead to look around quickly in the off chance some muggle freaks out about it." She clenched her robes firmly, her eyes trying to make Hermione understand.

"With the increase in integration of muggle culture and muggle ways, the superiority of magic is dying. Our culture is dying, Hermione." Bellatrix said firmly, her face confident and in disgust at the thought of muggles. "Everyday, our traditions that have been practiced for thousands of years are being outlawed as dark because we perform it, and not because of the magic itself which does no harm. They want to seem modern. But instead of carrying on the traditions and altering them in a modern fashion, they bring the filthy muggles and their ways into a world that's not theirs."

Hermione had honestly never thought about it that way. When considering the muggle world, she'd always heard complaints from her Chinese neighbors over the lack of respect for Chinese culture and mannerisms, but she'd always disregarded them because they were in the U.K., and it was unfair for British folk to know and be forced to memorize a minority from another country's way of life. If she had taken a moment, that thought process could have been applicable to here. Only they didn't see the muggle culture being brought into the wizarding world as cultural appropriation, they saw it as an invasion.

"The muggles and muggle-lovers are trying to make true wizarding traditions extinct, Gran—Hermione." Draco Malfoy drawled out, ignoring his mother's look over his slip. "It's war. A lesson needs to be taught. "And with the muggle-lovers in the Ministry slowly being rooted out, it's only a matter of time before wizarding culture can progress- the wizarding way. Not the muggle, non-magical way. Why apply a culture to a community that doesn't fit that culture?" He reasoned, and for once, Hermione couldn't counter it.

The Death Eaters and supporters had been painted as insane bigots. Hermione still wasn't totally convinced that they weren't, chalking her acceptance of their logic over a tired body and exhausted mental facilities. Dumbledore had said that they killed because they liked to kill, and that wizarding traditions of the purebloods could never be modernized.

But this was coming from the same man who bound her magic, erased her identity, and nearly killed her for the 'greater good'.

"Get out."

Hermione had never seen a room clear so fast before. She didn't need to pull herself out of her thoughts to know who had entered the room and ordered the powerful purebloods out. She gazed at the pale face once more, this time in the flesh and without the dire circumstances, and stared.

He definitely had a commanding presence, with his jet black robes in pristine condition, his red eyes sharp and piercing, and the magic, Hermione could definitely feel the magic. It crawled into the room, no, not crawled, slithered into the room like a million snakes, filling up each available space until it wrapped itself gentle around her frail form. She was about to give in and relax to the feeling and then she frowned and looked up at him.

It wasn't like she couldn't sense magic beforehand. The ability may have been muted, but she could always sense it before. Everyone's magic had a personality linked to the witch or wizard it belong to. But never had anyone's magic reacted to hers before. Other people's magic simply brushed past another person like as if one was walking in an air conditioned building from a hot day. One's magic didn't react to another's magic unless in battle. But his didn't.

Her magic reached out to his without her direction, mingling with his, who also seem very perplexed at the situation as well, with her coming to the conclusion that it wasn't him causing this either. She could feel his magic with her own, even inside her own body, and then, the aches throughout her system were easing to a more manageable pain that she could relax her body on the soft bed.

As she relaxed, she watched him cautiously, and was waiting for her instincts to tell her that this man was dangerous, to be feared, and that she needed to run. But it never came. He sat down on the chair Narcissa Malfoy had occupied prior, reclining leisurely, and staring intently at her. So, she decided to start.

"Why does it do that?" She gestured to the air. He seemed to understand, and looked up as if he could almost see the magic itself interacting in the strange way it was. But he wanted to change the topic.

"What do you remember after meeting me in the ballroom? Regarding what I said." He commanded in a soft, firm tone. Taken aback, Hermione pressed her memory to drudge up the painful events of yesterday, fast forwarding through her exhausting trek up to Malfoy Manor and the stunning entrance she made in the vast ballroom. Then,

"After all, it's not every day that the most powerful wizard in the world has the opportunity to be presented with his magical companion."

"Magical companion?" She parroted from her memory, looking to him for confirmation. It wasn't so much that he was the Dark Lord and she, a friend of the late Harry Potter, but scholars and practitioners of magic face with the unknown that only they could solve. The technicalities would have to come later. Voldemort nodded silently.

"You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as two identical magical signatures in any two people in the world, even mother and child." Hermione nodded along, her eyebrows furrowing.

"So we-"

"Yes and no." He cut her off, and was out of the chair and pacing the room, his robes billowing in his wake. He stood before the fireplace, his arm on the mantle, head resting against his forearm as he gazed into the flames. Hermione waited.

"Our magic is, by all intent and purposes, meant to be the same." He began, and Hermione felt the room grow cold despite the fire the moment she heard his undetected fury. "However, that meddlesome old fool was tampering with magics he hadn't bothered to research, to understand the consequences of suppressing someone's magic and not his own." Hermione remained silent. So was her magic damaged? Was she broken? Was this whole endeavor in vain, that she'd never access her correct magic ever again?

"No, your magic is not damaged, nor are you broken." He replied to her unvoiced thoughts, startling her out of the inner pity party that was building in her mind. It certainly was impressive that he hadn't needed to look at her eyes to hear what she was thinking. But was that a sign of his power, or their connection?

"Both. Now back onto the main issue at hand," He began again, the room becoming warm again after Hermione had shivered. "The runes on your hand and mine allowed me to channel my magic through your system to help your body cope with the magical strain before it was too late. Your magic was expanding your core, and mine was healing the damage so it wouldn't kill you. I combined the runes of othala and eiwhaz." He admitted, his palms open.

Othala was a rune, rooting in the concept of family and ancestry. Eiwhaz was another rune, but for life, endurance, and protection. The combination made it possible for him to filter his magic directly through her vascular circuits of magic to help alleviate the damage. It wouldn't have worked if their magic hadn't been compatible. It made sense, she realized, because they were both heirs to powerful wizards and extremely distant relatives, though they were so far apart that Hermione wouldn't really consider him any sort of family.

Not that the Dark Lord was family material.

"So what happens now?" She asked finally. Now that she was here, now that they knew who she really was, were they going to force her to give up information about the Order? Would they send her away because she was raised by Muggles?

"Now, you heal." Voldemort shrugged, his face calculating and almost thoughtful. "Your body took a heavy toll, and you are not used to such high and powerful amounts of magic. I can only theorize, as such." His cold, dangerous eyes flashed to her face. "It's not everyday I get to train with someone who matches me in both power and intelligence."

Hermione blanched and quickly wiped the emotion off her face. "What makes you think I'd train with you?"

"You'd rather walk around untrained with unintended consequences that could result from not being directed?"

"I'd rather not be trained by a man who killed my best friend's parents, orchestrated the murder of my best friend, and is widely considered a Dark wizard." She said firmly, her eyes avoiding the obviously amused Dark Lord. "I will find my own way of handling my magic, and I will do so without using dark magic or from a user of such. Just because Dumbledore did wrong by me, it doesn't mean I have to give up my morals."

Placing a long arm on each side of her head, Voldemort's eyes peered into her very soul, his magic almost constricting, like a boa. "You can delude yourself into that old fool's teachings. But you will crack, Miss Selwyn. You cannot do this without me, and if you must learn the hard way, do not expect sympathy from me. You will come to me when the time is right. I can only hope your stint with the muggles hasn't diminished your ability to deduce when that time is."

And with that final word, he strode from the room, the smirk still plastered on his face. She would come to him, and then he would have his reward.

How was it? Read, review, and tell me what you think! :D