A/N: Thank you to everyone who continues to read and review! No, this story is not abandoned as you can see. I just had a lot of trouble with this chapter, and I'm still not sure it's quite there, but I got tired of laboring over it. So, here you are!

Erised S'traeh

Hermione could feel sunlight warming her face. The scent of flowers and fresh linen tickled her nose, bringing a contented smile to her lips. It felt wonderful to stretch, to revel in having a physical body again, to luxuriate in the soft sheets she was wrapped in.

Opening her eyes, she found herself in her usual bedroom in Rivendell, her family all standing around her, happiness writ in their expressions. Arwen stood with Estel, their arms linked. Elrond was beside them, and for once seemed approving of their relationship. The floor length mirror of gilded gold that made up one third of Hermione's Gate stood against the wall, and within it were the images of Thranduil and Laerornien, both wearing thorny crowns and beaming at her. And Legolas, dear, sweet, handsome Legolas, was at her side, bending to press a kiss upon her cheek, making her skin tingle with both ice and heat and her magic spark within her.

She frowned up at him, her brow furrowing as she took in that strange reaction. But she had changed while her spirit wandered. She was the Grey Istar now, and there would surely be a period of adjustment while her new power settled.

Confident with that explanation, she allowed Legolas to help her from the bed, questions falling from her lips all the while. How long had she been asleep? Had the Ring been destroyed? Was the Shadow defeated?

"Long enough," Legolas answered her, his voice ringing like the sweet chime of a bell, and yet somehow deeper than before. His inner light too was brighter, or maybe it just appeared that way to the eyes of the Istari, and it made him so beautiful that it almost hurt to look upon him. Like the last star of morning, the sun brought to earth, lightning in a bottle, he was wonderful and untouchable and desirable and unknowable, and yet she yearned to know him, to understand, to have the truth of him spread beneath her fingertips and mapped out with her tongue.

He pulled her close and the way he moved was like a lion on the prowl for someone to devour. She didn't hear the rest of the answers to her many questions. She was engulfed in the musky scent of her husband, her nose twitching and her breath quickening at the pleasure of it. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be alone with him, to reconnect in the most primal way.

But there would be time for that later. She had duties to attend to.

Shaking her head as if to clear it, she smiled up at Legolas, certain that he was aware of the effect he had on her. Then she turned from him, moving to embrace Estel.

"Nana," her boy whispered into her hair, tucking her beneath his chin. It would never stop being odd, her little boy being taller than her.

"You must tell me what I missed," she ordered softly.

"It is a long story, Nana. For now it suffices to say that all is well and the world is at peace again. While we will have separate kingdoms, it has been decided that all will answer to a High King and Queen, in order to spread justice and equality from shore to shore. Never again will our enemy be able to muster forces against us."

Hermione leaned back to look at her mortal son, only now taking in the circlet on his brow and the richness of his clothes. Even his beard was finely combed. "And will you be this king?" she asked, knowing now why Elrond said nothing against Estel and Arwen's closeness: her boy had fulfilled Elrond's condition for their marriage by placing a crown upon his head.

Estel laughed, mischief sparkling in his bright blue eyes. "I have taken the Throne of Gondor, just as Arwen always believed I would, but I am not the High King. No, a council was called while you still slumbered, and a selection made by the Wise and Good of the land."

"And?" Hermione asked impatiently.

Estel smirked at her, Arwen's lips twitching in the corner of Hermione's vision. Even Elrond cracked a grin.

"Are you not the Elvenqueen?" Legolas' voice sounded from behind her. She shivered at the delicious timbre of it, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end even as her belly clenched with lust. Was it just their long separation that made her want him so? She faced him and was blinded anew by his impossible grace. How was it that she both wanted to rip his rich scarlet tunic from his body and yet felt unworthy of touching him, content to gaze upon him as if a priceless work of art? Her mouth dropped open, lips parted as her breath escaped her. There was a swooping sensation in her chest and tears pricked at her eyes, a deep all encompassing feeling of awe and wonder stealing her words.

He smiled and her tears fell, for it should not be possible that someone so perfect exist, and there was an alluring sorrow in knowing that nothing could ever quite compare to this moment, this vision of her husband dressed in red elf-silk with his white hair tumbling over his shoulders and galaxies swirling in his eyes.

"Me?" Hermione croaked in a bare whisper, her tongue like cotton in her mouth.

"Yes." Legolas reached for her and she was drowning again, her every sense overwhelmed by his presence. "You and I shall rule all of Arda together, and a new age shall begin. An age of prosperity and peace."

He kissed her, and she moaned, completely forgetting that they weren't alone, forgetting everything but the feel of his lips on hers and the taste of him, the flush of her skin as she was both burned and frozen by his touch.

Lightning in a bottle, she thought again, wondering if her hair was crackling with ozone. She reached for their bond, wishing to merge with her husband in all ways, and was confused by how far away he felt when he was standing right before her, body pressed to body.

Perhaps she was less of an elf now that she was Istari, and so her bonds were muffled for they could only occur between elves? She changed at her first rebirth, and so her second could be just as profound. Not an Elvenqueen, but a Maia. The High Queen of All Arda… And on the heels of that thought came another, one that struck her with the shock of cold water, and yet barely reached her, as if fighting through fog: Being queen of all Arda was exactly how the Ring had tried to corrupt her.

She pulled away from Legolas abruptly, her entire body trembling, though she knew not the cause. Even her teeth chattered, and she had to clench her jaw against the tremors.

She swallowed harshly, a dry gulp that sounded loud in the quiet of the room, and tried to gather her wits. "I can't," she said.

The vision the Ring had shown her was enough proof that she shouldn't be High Queen - that she could not be trusted with that level of power. The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. How like him was she?

And the Ring was not the first horcrux to tempt her. No, her first temptation came not from the Ring, but an emerald encrusted Locket filled with a sliver of soul.

She'd never told anyone. Not Harry. Not Ron. She'd never breathed aloud the things the Locket horcrux whispered to her in the space between thoughts; the dreams it sent; the longing it inspired and the promises it made for an intellectual equal, a man who thought her magic and her mind more attractive than all else; the imaginary life of magical research and absolute rule because only she could be trusted to be just in an unjust world.

She never spoke of how it wasn't Harry, but Tom Riddle she compared Ron to. She never let on that she wondered what would have happened had she been born earlier or Tom Riddle later. Would she have been the Dumbledore to his Grindlewald?

"I can't," she said again, voice stronger, more sure.

"Why not?" Legolas asked, stroking her cheek with one of his burning, freezing hands. The touch went straight to her groin, making her bite her lower lip as her nipples pebbled within the thin white gown she wore.

They were alone now. Estel, Arwen, and Elrond had discreetly left at some point, and the mirror where Thranduil and Laerornien had stood was dark, reflecting only the room.

"The Ring," she gasped as Legolas ran a hand down her thigh, her lips a hair's breadth from his. "This is what it showed me. Myself ruling Arda. So I must not."

"Of course that's what it showed you." Legolas was hiking her skirt up, her head falling back as he pressed kisses to the column of her throat, moving toward her breasts. His touch was so exquisite that any moment she would die.

"The Dark Lord is not a deceiver," Legolas said into her skin, his voice rumbling and rough. "Despite what stories claim. He tells the truth that no one wishes to see, rips away scales of self delusion to reveal the rot beneath. The Ring did not lie. It seduced. It knew that you were destined for greatness, that you were meant to be a mighty queen, so it showed you that truth to twist you to Sauron's purpose. That does not mean you should fear your fate. The power is in your grasp, beloved. You need only trust in me and reach out to take it."

He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her resolve weakening, her skirts bunched around her thighs. She could feel his arousal pressed between her legs and could not stop her hips from bucking against him. "You have that much faith in me?"

"Think of the good you could do," he told her between kisses. "You were brought into this world to be mine, to complete me, to rule Arda at my side. Of course I have faith in you, beloved." He moaned. "You did well to resist the Ring's siren call, but do not let it hinder your future. Trust in yourself, in the greatness of your purpose. All other ways are closed to you except the way already chosen."

Hermione froze.

"My love?" the elf holding her asked, lifting his rapturous face full of passion to look at her.

Hermione studied him, her eyes watering and tearing as if she was staring directly into the sun, and this time she saw him. His hair was not white, but black as night, seemingly made of spun shadow. His eyes were not blue, but a bright piercing gold flecked with spots of red, shining as if made from molten fire. His skin was so luminous he appeared made of moonbeams, a star given flesh, and his features were sharper than Legolas', though no less handsome. He looked like the Tom Riddle who plagued her human dreams might have if he were an elf as handsome as the day and fathomless as the sea, an aura of majesty about him that could not be put into words save to say it was like standing at the bottom of a waterfall and trying to speak in the vacuum of space. And it was then that she knew.

This was her last temptation.

They were still in their intimate clinch, her legs around him, his face level with her breasts, and his arousal pulsing hot and hard between her thighs. Very deliberately, she leaned down and kissed his noble forehead with its darkly slanting brows, ignoring the glint of the three jewels that winked at her from their places woven in his hair.

"Sauron," she breathed.

He went rigid, and then pulled her closer still. "I prefer Tar-Mairon, or Annatar if you must." He tilted his head, locking eyes filled with dying planets on her face. "You see me."

"Yes."

"How?"

"All other ways are closed to you except the way already chosen. To which I say: You only offer dreams to damnation...The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. T.S. Eliot. 'Murder in the Cathedral.' Legolas would not know those words."

And indeed, he could not know those words. So used had Hermione become to the Unspeakable Geas stilling her tongue that she had long ceased trying to speak of her first life beyond generalities. And yet, Sauron was quoting twentieth century literature.

"How?" she echoed his question.

"I took them from your mind. Such a lovely place, a beautiful symphony. You invited me in, and here I made my home, basking in the presence of one whose heart desires order as I do." And now he looked upon her as if she were every bit as lovely and impossible and magnificent as he appeared to her, and she could not look away. "You are mine. My queen. You will never be more loved than you are in my arms. You will never be whole save for at my side. I will take the world and then give it to you. We will save them from themselves."

"Mairon," Hermione said, and the name rang between them and made the Lord of the Rings flinch back, pained by the sound of it. For however he wished it, he was Mairon no longer, and would not be again until he truly repented and threw himself upon the mercy of Manwe, which he was both too shamed and too prideful to do. But he had not began in evil, and still did not believe himself to be so, so Hermione stroked the Dark Lord's face as if comforting a small child in the midst of a nightmare, seeing her own arrogance reflected in him as the skin of her hand split open and left a trail of blood upon the Fallen Maia's cheek.

"No," she told him.

Sauron snarled and kissed her again, and this time it hurt, making her bones ache and her hair writhe like snakes.

"You do not have a choice," the Deceiver hissed at her, his fingers digging into her flesh. "You do not have the power to stand against me. Your soul has been sung into a new shape, yes, but I am greater still."

Hermione smiled through her pain. "There is always a choice. You wouldn't be trying so hard, Sauron the Seducer, if you didn't need me to agree. To give in. To let you have the last inch of me. And if I let you in, as you said, then this is my mind. My heart. My soul. You may be more powerful than I in the waking world, but here?" She gasped, her lungs scorching and black smoke curling from her nostrils. Sweat dripped down her face. And yet her voice echoed when she spoke once more. "Here I am limitless."

She gave Sauron one last kiss, and it was as chaste and soft as phoenix down. As pure as spring. It was a kiss of kindness and understanding and regret and the tenderness of it agonized Sauron as no weapon ever had. He dropped her, scrambling away, his hands clapped to his face as his skin withered, ruining his image of perfection.

Hermione climbed to her feet, watching him and thinking of another boy who made all the wrong choices.

Sauron's eyes widened and he stared, reverence warring with disbelief even as his face continued to crumple, his skin flaking off in puffs of ash.

"You weep for me?" he asked, his voice no longer melodic, but a strident screech that carried an undertone of hissing snakes and doomed screams.

"Not for you," she answered, only now feeling the tears that leaked from her eyes, clear tracks that shone like diamonds on her face. "For the man you never were."

Then she turned away from him, taking careful steps to stand before the enchanted mirror in the corner, noting as she did so that it was not a part of the Gate after all, for the filigree was wrong. Across the top scrolled the inscription erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

Hermione cleared her mind and demanded, "Show me the truth."

The surface of the mirror rippled, and Hermione saw herself lying in a sick room with Arwen sewing a banner at her bedside. Behind her loomed a tall pale creature, as twisted and ugly as Voldemort ever was. Part wolf and part snake, and with the wings of a bat and three cursed jewels snared in its tangled, stringy mane. "I have seen your heart and it is mine," the broken being rasped. "You know that I am doing what is right. They cannot see. Not like you and I."

"You're wrong, as I have been wrong in the past, as I may yet be wrong in the future." She thought of saying more, but for once realized the futility of it. For the truth of Sauron as he appeared in the mirror was an extreme of all her worst traits, what she could never allow herself to be, and she knew herself to be stubborn. And perhaps this was why the Valar had seen to reshape her, to send her to Olorin and have her take a new place in their song - she was as Sauron was meant to be before the corruption of Melkor.

So she said only, "Try for some remorse" to Sauron's reflection, even as he reached for her, covetous longing in his gaze and desperation in his grasping hands.

Then she stepped through the mirror and merged with her physical body.

At the very same moment she began to stir, the Great Red Eye appeared in all three remaining kingdoms of the elves within the enchanted windows of Hermione's Gate for a single second before the glass blackened and shattered and the gold melted into slag; and a howl of such intense loss, rage, and despair that even the Dark Spider Shelob fled before it echoed over Mordor.