Disclaimer: I do not own any of Ms. Rowling's wonderful creations. Nor do I own any of the various songs that may be presented throughout the length of this fanfiction. The various songs will be named at the end of the fic, as well as in the chapter within which they lie.

Lesbian-Lover – I'm glad you enjoy it.

screwtheperfectlife – Well, he's not a demented maniac for nothing, you know.

Rylee Riddle – He knows that she's a mudblood. It would seem suspicious for Voldemort to be searching for the identity of a 7th Year Mudblood.

dramaqueen73190 – I'll consider your suggestion. I don't know for sure what I'll do. I do know that the story is actually drawing fairly close to its end, though.

Gemini-2006 – I'm glad you enjoy this so much. I'm flattered that you think that this is the best Harry Potter fic that you've read, but I would probably have to disagree. Not just out of modesty's sake, either. I have read a few really, really good fics.

CareBearErin – He pretty much already knows...he's just mad because she backed him into a corner. A mild spat, nothing more.

googlebear – I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Maugin – Well…I don't know for sure if I would say that...because it's common knowledge that I'm insane. Shh! Don't tell!

little mimi – I'm glad you enjoyed it.

keeper of the heart – Read what? The fic or Hermione/Voldie in general? The fic is new...and Hermione/Voldemort fics are unpopular with a lot of people. It angers me, because I love them.

blackwolfs900 – Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy it.

Sorry for the lateness of this update. I've actually had it ready for a little while now, but I've been putting it off to catch back up on Spinning Bottles, my Hermione/Sirius story. Also, this will probably be my last update until next week, due to finals. Sorry!

Yours,

Allison

Chapter 7

Hermione frowned as she went over the letter she had just recieved from one of the spies that she had inside of the ranks of the deatheaters. Sir Snake had first owled her at the beginning of the summer with a tiny message stating only "Look for my next." Since then, he had been writing to her regularly. She supposed that he thought that she was giving all of the information to McGonagall, at first, for his letters had been rather guarded. After a short time, however, when it had become apparent that McGonagall knew nothing about the letters being sent to Hermione, he had begun to include more detailed information. Nothing that could bring his loyalty into question with Voldemort, of course, but information all of the same.

He had just inadvertently given her the location of Nagini the snake.

Dragon Rider

I have recently returned from a trip to the cave Marus Orius. The cave was utterly in shambles from the spellwork of three witches and/or wizards. Spells, however, will be of little help in the Rainforest.

Sir Snake

Dragon Rider. Hermione fought back a smile. He couldn't possibly have known her animagus form, and yet there it was...plain as day. The entire letter was cryptic and to the point...as all of his letters were. Marus Orius must have been the cave in which the team had located the horcrux. That sentence was plain enough. The second sentence was a well-hidden compliment on the wandwork of Harry, Luna, and Draco. The third...now that was the interesting one. Nagini originated from the Amazon Rainforest...it made sense that Voldemort would hide her in the very place from which she came.

Burning the letter as per her agreement with Sir Snake, Hermione walked out of her room and down through the common room, heading towards the Room of Requirements. She was still lost in her thoughts and so didn't notice that she was being followed until she was being held against the wall by Goyle, while Crabbe drew back an arm to punch her.

peterpiperpickedapeckofpickledpeppers

Hermione leaned heavily on the wall as the doorway to the Room of Requirements appeared and she spoke through the blood that she was sure remained in her mouth. "Arimaeus, Barimaeus, Cerulaeus. Hermione." As the door slid open, she stumbled inside and was met with a roar of outrage. Biting back a groan, she straightened and watched the scene unfolding within the room. Pansy was lunging at Luna, who yelped and scrambled aside. On a second look, it became obvious that Pansy wasn't so much lunging at Luna as she was lunging away from Ron, who had quite obviously just put a handful of...something...down the back of Pansy's shirt.

"WEASLEY! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT! FROGS DOWN MY SHIRT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?" Pansy squealed, dancing around frantically to remove the offending creatures. Ron was doubled over laughing, and so had not noticed Hermione leaning against the wall, glaring as the scene continued unfolding. Ever since they had sworn Pansy, Parvati Patil, and Blaise into the Dragon Riders- so named not only because of Sir Snake's nickname for her but also because out of Herself, Ron, Draco, Harry, Luna, Ginny, and Neville...the only one who wasn't a dragon in animagus form was...ironically...Draco- the trouble had been escalating. Hermione was now officially ready to shove Ron's wand up his ass for pranking Pansy so often. It was excruciatingly obvious that he liked her. While Ron and Pansy glared daggers at each other, the other riders were staring fearfully at the increasingly infuriated Hermione.

"THAT. IS. ENOUGH!" She roared, wincing as drawing too deep a breath and expelling too much air too forcefully hurt the ribs that Crabbe and Goyle had just finished breaking. Pansy and Ron fell silent immediately, turning to look up at the founder of the Dragon Riders as she slowly walked down the steps and into the room.

"Grange...what's wrong?" Draco was immediately beside her. Harry and Ron weren't too far behind.

"Nothing...I'm fine. Back off, let me breathe!" She snapped at the boys. Stunned, Harry and Ron backed off immediately. Draco, however, wasn't going to le her off the hook that easily. He pulled up 'her' chair for her and helped her into it before slipping off to the couch and sitting. "I've found the snake." She announced. Their faces all perked up. "Now...don't say anything yet. It's a bit more complicated than we had hoped." She stated. "Draco, since you dragged me into this chair without allowing me to retrieve my bookbag and wand, will you grab them for me?" As he moved to comply, she looked at the group gathered before her.

"I daresay we may need another team for this one. Now...don't interrupt me until I've explained why." She said, holding one hand up. Taking her wand from Draco, Hermione paused and stood, waving her wand easily at the empty wall along which the door to her study resided. A map of the Amazon Jungle appeared and Hermione walked slowly towards the map. "Can any of you tell me what this is?" She looked back at them. When nobody spoke up, she nodded. "This is the Amazon Rainforest."

"Blimey..." Harry muttered from behind her, realizing the implications.

"Exactly." Hermione stated. "Now...as we can all apparate, I propose using all of us for this first task in groups of two to make it go by faster..." She pointed the wand at the map once more, pleased with herself for having learnt non-verbal spellcasting so well. A series of blue, green, yellow, purple, and red lines appeared on the map. "This...is the Amazon Rainforest divided into three mile by three mile plots of land. If we put a magical sensor at each corner of each square, we will know the moment that Nagini crosses one and into which plot she moves. However...can anyone tell me the problem with this plan?"

"How the bloody HELL are we going to manage to get all of those sensors up within the three-day-weekend coming up?" Pansy blurted.

"Ah, thank you Pansy." Hermione said mildly. "You've hit the nail on the head, precisely. It is for this reason that I suggest recruiting and swearing in some more members. I know..." She cut off Harry's protests. "That it will be hard to keep this many people in control...which is why we will be recruiting four members this time and among yourselves, you will vote in someone to help me. Not necessarily to be stuck here like I am...but someone to help me keep and enforce the order during meetings and such."

"It's doable...but I don't have the best feeling about it." Draco admitted.

"Think on it. That's all I ask." Hermione stated. "It's a big change. With that many people, we would be working with a group nearly the size of the Order of the Phoenix. Which means that it will be harder and harder to avoid detection by Voldemort. We can do it...our headquarters is, thus far, secure. However...christmas break is approaching swiftly. After that, it is only a limited time before we have to find another base of operations. Draco, Harry...you two work together the best for such things...I want you both to keep your eyes open on any further missions."

She looked at her notes for a moment before sighing softly. "Also, I want you all to keep an eye out for Crabbe and Goyle. They're becoming more and more agressive in their...opposition...to our little group. Even if they do not know exactly what it is we do when we disappear, they have worked out that they cannot get into this room without a password, even by following someone, so please watch out." She glanced at her notes once more. "And...that should be it. We'll have another meeting Wednesday night...you should bring a list of people that you feel would do well on this team. Also...to avoid the troubles that we ran into the last time we did this, I suggest you all get together and compile a list rather than compiling a list for each of you. Dismissed." She said.

As the others began to talk among themselves...getting started on the list even then...Hermione smiled and walked into her study to take a few healing potions and write a letter to Vlad.

ivegotalovelybunchofcoconutsdeedeedeedeedee

Voldemort stood silently at his window listening to the crickets. It was rather lonely without Nagini around...he'd forgotten just how much he relied on the snake's conversations. Now, he was leaning more and more upon Tigerlily and their correspondance. On edge, he looked towards his desk...waiting with bated breath for the chime to ring in his ear. It never came...and it was only when Riddler swooped by his head...barely missing him...that he remembered that on Sunday Nights, they wrote to each other via Riddler.

My dear Vlad-

I am afraid that circumstances- primarily the fact that I have several broken ribs which the healing potion seems to have missed the first time- will have to keep this letter short. I know you must be dreadfully lonely (ha ha) without me writing to you on the Insta-note parchment, so I figured that I had best send Riddler as soon as possible. Take care, dear one!

Love,

Tigerlily

He frowned darkly, wondering how she had broken her ribs. Snatching up a piece of parchment, he wrote a quick response and handed it to Riddler. "Be swift, Riddler." He spoke, softly, resting a gentle hand on the owl's head. It had taken about a hundred Owl Treats and much coaxing, but the white owl with his question mark shaped specks trusted him again...if only barely. Riddler gave his cheek an affectionate nip before spreading his white wings and flying off swiftly, leaving Voldemort to sit down and ponder. Tigerlily was an impertinent chit. That was for certain. He was unused to having anyone stand up to him or tell him what they truly thought, so that was a major plus as well. And yet...

And yet, she was staunchly on the side of the light. She proved that time and time again. But she was intoxicating. Something about her drew him in...turned him to mush when he read her letters. Made him fiercely protective of her when she was hurt or sad. A less cynical, less sociopathical man would have said that he fancied her...but Voldemort was Voldemort. He simply didn't fancy people. Primarily not people who opposed him with everything they were.

Primarily not beautiful, smart...oh hell, who was he kidding? He fancied the chit, and there was little that he could say or do to prove to himself otherwise.

Especially not when he wanted to go to her and slaughter whomever had dared injure her.

theretheyareastandininarowbigonessmallones

Hermione was sitting on her bed sipping tea and reading when she heard a tap on the window. Looking up, she smiled and moved to let Riddler in, taking the letter from him as he sailed to his perch and landed on it, nipping at some of his food as he looked at her. She opened the letter and pulled it out.

Dearest Tigerlily

I sincerely hope that you feel better soon, my darling. I know that you probably will not feel up to it, but when you recieve this, will you let me know on the Insta-note so that I know that you are in one piece? I cannot help but worry about you...and to be quite honest, I must confess to having some dark thoughts towards whomever or whatever put you in this state.

Yours

Vlad

Hermione smiled faintly as she read the spiky handwriting. He was upset because she was injured! A feeling blossomed in her heart that was previously unthought of. She had never been one for relationships...especially long distance ones. But perhaps...perhaps...

He challenged her mind...something nobody her own age or directly older than her had done. She knew that, intellectually, they were a good match and she had a feeling that- despite all of his darker thoughts- they were brilliantly matched in all else as well. He had become very important to her in a short ammount of time, and she found herself longing to question him further on some of the theories that they had shared together. Too much of that, however, would mean breaking the rules that McGonagall had laid down...and so she had to remain ignorant.

It was probably better that she didn't have the opportunity to foolishly throw away any semblance of dignity that she retained around him. He didn't need to know that she sat around daydreaming about him, after all, and if he did somehow find out, it would likely just make him decide that she wasn't worth the time, or that he needed to stop 'leading her on.'

Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she walked to her desk and sat down, pulling out her quik quotes quill and setting it to verbatim before setting it and the green parchment on her desk.

"Vlad?" The quill immediately got to work.

jinglebelljinglebelljinglebellrockjinglebellschimeinjinglebelltime

Vlad? He smiled as he settled into the chair to answer her. The writing wasn't hers...which meant that she was likely using a quik quotes quill and simply speaking her answers aloud. She did this from time to time when she'd had a stressfull day.

Hello, dear Tigerlily. He wrote. Now, what exactly happened?

I...fell off of a broom. She was lying, he knew. She would lie once or twice before caving in to his gentle persuasion.

Dearest, do you honestly expect me to believe that?

Alright, alright... She was caving much more quickly than normal, he realized...surprised. She must have really had it hard that day. First, Professor Barkman accidentally-on-purpose dropped one of the heavier cauldrons on my right wrist, so I couldn't write to anyone today since it was broken...still is, more or less... He supressed a roar of rage. And then one of the many people who despise me for being a mudblood tripped me so that I fell down a set of stairs. He stood, pacing angrily. There was only one true thing to do...

Vlad? He moved to the desk and sat.

I am here, Tigerlily. I felt it better if I blew up something other than this piece of parchment in my rage. He looked at the toothpick-sized splinters that had once been his bedside table, bemused. I'm going to encase a charm in my next letter. Do not fear, it will not injure you.

What...?

I...simply...I simply care too much about you to allow you to get hurt at random... He wrote swiftly, biting his tongue.

snowinandblowinandbushelsoffun...iwishitwouldsnowhere...

Hermione felt sure that her heart stopped. "Do you mean that?" She asked, letting the quik quotes quill jet across the parchment. After a moment, she peered over to read.

With everything I am, my dear.

A thrill went through her from her toes upwards. "I care for you too, Vlad." She whispered. "I'll send Riddler to you in the morning."

Good. For now, my love, I suggest you get to sleep.

"I will..." She said. "Goodnight, Dear Vlad."

Goodnight, Tigerlily.