A/N: Aaaand another chapter this weekend. Just because.
Thank you so much to all of you who favorite, review, or just follow along. It means a lot. :)
Hermione continued to stand in the doorway, shaking like a leaf. She felt the tears collecting in her eyes as she processed the information she had heard. Yes, she had seen Voldemort die, and she could confirm it twelve more times, but somehow, the person behind her was him and he was very much alive. She knew Harry had struggled with his mental health since the war, but not like this. Not enough to manufacture those haunting gray eyes that she had thought were a gift, a sign of closeness.
"Hermione…" And it was Demetri's voice, not Voldemort's, deep and soft and smooth, like a luxuriously soft blanket. It was nothing like the high-pitched, cold voice of Voldemort that she could still hear magically amplified as though it were just yesterday. But they are one and the same, she told herself forcefully as she tried to retain control over the sobs coming up from her throat.
She reached for her wand, but she was only halfway there when it flew behind her and into the hands of the dead man himself; she knew that's where it had gone even before she turned around and faced him. He didn't look different; handsome as he had ever been, wearing a green sweater almost the same shade as the odd vein that popped out of his forehead and dark jeans.
"So what happens now?" Hermione asked in an impressively controlled voice; tears streamed freely down her cheeks and she felt a tightness in her throat, but she didn't crumple and sit and hug her knees against herself like she desperately wanted.
"Hermione…" Demetri repeated in a voice that was both exasperated and sad. Voldemort, she corrected herself, and she couldn't stop a small sob from escaping.
"Stop saying my name," Hermione said in a pained voice. And she hated herself even more than she thought she could when she realized why she was the most upset: Voldemort hated muggle-borns and that meant he hated her. And that should be the last thing on her mind—how Voldemort might feel about her—but it wasn't. "You hate me," Hermione couldn't stop herself from saying through gritted teeth as she collapsed against the door, sliding down it as her tears overtook her.
He said her name a third time as he crossed the room and sat down tentatively across from her, reaching out before she half-screamed, "don't you dare fucking touch me."
"Hermione, we should talk about this," he said, his voice calm but with an edge of desperation.
"Talk about what? Talk about how you're Voldemort? Talk about how you've been fucking Voldemort this entire time?!" She jumped up and lunged at him, knocking him over before he used wandless magic to fling her against the wall, binding her hands behind her back.
"Thanks, dear," she responded to the attack, trying to put all of her anger into that last word.
"I'm not Voldemort," he said, "not really. While he was over here acting like an insane person"—what?, Hermione's confused brain asked internally—"I was halfway across the world, waiting for him to mess everything up. I was rooting for you, Hermione. I've always been rooting for you."
Hermione's mind was racing as she assessed her situation. He seemed to want her approval—maybe if she could convince him that she wanted to hear him out, just for a second, just long enough for him to release her, she could channel her feelings into wandless magic. And as she thought through it, she realized nothing was stopping her from doing wandless magic now. She put everything into trying to release her bonds, but they didn't even twitch.
She began to berate herself. If she hadn't felt so much loyalty to Voldemort, she would have told Harry her suspicions this morning. And then he would have known he hadn't just been seeing things; he would have stayed and they could have taken on Demetri—Voldemort!—together. "I don't know what you're talking about," she managed to choke out in a relatively calm voice, "but I'm willing to hear you out."
The feeling quickly left Voldemort's face as it was replaced by a familiar mask; if any emotion showed through, it was disappointment. He was quiet for a beat before responding in a voice just above a whisper. "The trouble is, Hermione, that I've always been gifted at Legilimency, and while you can likely feel that I'm not probing your mind, I know when you're lying to me."
Hermione's heart dropped. "Vol—" she began to plead, but closed her mouth and inwardly cursed as she quickly realized her mistake.
"I told you that it's not Voldemort," he said in a barely controlled voice. "I knew we still weren't ready to have this conversation."
"Still?" Hermione asked, feeling a sense of foreboding rise up in her chest, as if part of her knew what he was about to say.
He looked a bit sheepish; it didn't fit on his face. "This isn't exactly the first time we've discussed this."
"Demetri," she used his newly chosen name intentionally as she scanned her head for the best, true thing she could say in this situation. "I don't know how many times we've had this conversation—"
"This is the second time," he cut in, sounding defeated.
"The second time, then," Hermione repeated calmly, trying not to focus on the only thing she could think about—there had been a first conversation, but when? "No matter how many times we discuss this, there will never be a different conversation when I find out that you're"—she stopped herself from saying Voldemort—"Tom Riddle," she finished tentatively, not sure if that would be better.
The lack of reaction to the name told her it was slightly better, at least. "I know that's not true," he said with some conviction, but he seemed to be talking to himself more than to Hermione at this point, which was distressing. Hermione's heart sunk as she tried to ignore the logical conclusion—he had stopped trying to talk to her because he was planning on ensuring she didn't remember this talk, either.
He made eye contact with her again, which she forced herself not to break. "It's going much better this time. Last time, I was overconfident and brought it up, but this time I knew you weren't ready and then when Potter recognized me…" he trailed off, shaking his head, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
"Tom…" she said quietly, and he smiled sadly.
"Hermione, I know what you're going to ask, and I want to say yes."
"Then say yes," Hermione breathed.
Demetri looked at her blankly. "I can't do that, Hermione. I'm not doing this for me; I'm doing it for us."
Hermione opened her mouth to tell him there could no longer be any "us," but she didn't expect him to obliviate her wordlessly, wandlessly, and was not prepared at all when she began to feel memories move out of her reach.