Part 6: Part One: Chapter 29
"You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you."
~.O.~
DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES BREAK-IN: DUMBLEDORE ORCHESTRATED?
Just weeks ago The- Boy- Who- Lived once again has called out cries of He- Who- Must- Not- Be Named. According to a source within the Auror Department, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Grand Sorcerer, former Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot had called in a report of several Hogwarts children sneaking away from Hogwarts and into the Department of Mysteries at the behest of He- Who- Must- Not- Be- Named. To which they were then greeted by several suspected Death Eaters and were possibly put into mortal danger, as the wounded Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's best friend and once girlfriend can attest to. The girl supposedly having been felled by a Death Eater's spell, she has been confined to the Hogwarts Infirmary until further notice. The- Boy- Who- Lived and his supporters once again swear that the Dark Lord has risen again, something in which they have sworn to ever since the tragic events surrounding last year's Triwizard Tournament where Hogwarts student Cedric Diggory died honorably within the last competition.
There have been numerous speculations as to whether or not these events have occurred as Mr. Potter has said, or that Dumbledore, the once defeater of the last Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald, has primed his prize student to say in an effort to draw back on the attention that had been fading through the years to other topics than themselves. It seems as if The- Boy- Who- Lived has retained his attention seeking behavior most seen within that Triwizard Tournament that he subsequently won, a most appalling behavior that has been enabled and maybe even edged on by his esteemed Headmaster. We at the Daily Prophet, as well as those within the Ministry, are inclined to believe that events Mr. Potter have said was the work of the Dark Lord, have in fact been by the disorganized dealings of his loyal followers in which have escaped the Aurors. The subsequent events all coming to public light in an effort to kill the boy who killed their former master.
Former Minister Cornelius Fudge, who has since stepped down after the events of the Triwizard Tournament and now the Department of Mysteries break- in to make way for Pius Thicknesse, remains steadfast in disagreeing with the rumors of He- Who- Must- Not- Be- Named returning to the land of the living after Mr. Potter defeated him as a mere babe fifteen years ago. The currently esteemed Minister for Magic concurs with his predecessor's statements, as well with the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that they are making headway in catching several of those of the Dark Lord's followers and throwing them to the mercy of the dementors of Azkaban. Going further to explain that these rebellions have been attributed and organized by Azkaban escapee Sirius Black, his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black as well as her husband and brother- in- law, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, and several other high ranking Death Eaters closest to the deceased Dark Lord.
To see a picture of our new esteemed Minister for Magic, please reference the dashingly handsome and goateed picture below.
In other news regarding the most esteemed Wizarding school, Dolores Umbridge, former Undersecretary to Cornelius Fudge, High Inquisitor and temporary Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has retired to St. Mungo's due to injuries supposedly sustained during her tenure as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor…
Daily Prophet:
Rita Skeeter
~.O.~
Summer between 5th and and 6th year at Hogwarts
Hermione sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom of Malfoy Manor clad in her white ceremonial robes, watching as Narcissa twisted her hair up into an elegantly looking curly bun that she herself could have never imagined being her own hair. Or putting up herself as it always seemed to be in an eternally frizzy curled state that the blonde woman had tamed into some semblance of order. This was to be the day of her Marking, of her committing wholly and fully to Tom's cause, and she didn't particularly know how to feel about it. Anxious? Happy? All emotion she seemed to name that she was actually feeling was rudimentary and not exactly true, as if she could not possibly find the name to what the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach meant. It could have been either.
She raised her eyes to the woman behind her from the pale and emaciated rat missing a hand that she held like a baby in her arms, being careful not to jostle or jar her head lest she be poked by the innumerable pins being hidden in her curls. The Malfoy matriarch who she so loved had been quieter than her usual self since Bellatrix's death just days earlier, Tom finally deciding to end the unending screams from the dungeons below the house. Although Hermione had hurried things along as she saw Draco's mother losing her spark and ability to speak over the weeks Madame Lestrange had been tortured for almost killing the Dark Lord's most favorite girl, and being the end to the prophecy as well that he had very much wanted in his own hands.
Finishing feeding the rat just as Narcissa completed taming her curls, she allows him to crawl reluctantly back into the cage it had spent the last year in darkness and loneliness within the basement of Severus' Spinner's End home. Conjured food and water on a daily basis could no nothing for the madness that came to it's mind in it's loneliness after all. Going to her bedroom door to emit her orange menace of a familiar, he immediately sprinted to the caged animal once the handle was turned while the creature squeaked in fright as the Kneazle pawed at the ward Hermione had erected to keep him from eating the smaller animal. Hermione shook her head at Crookshanks' antics as his paw visibly bounced back from the bubble around the cage, long suspecting that the tomcat simply liked playing with the ward more than frightening the former animagus turned rat.
Taking a seat beside the mother, her legs dangling sideways over the edge of the bed so as to not dirty it with her ballet flats, she asks, "Do you regret giving me and Lucius consent to tell Tom of Bellatrix's actions within the Department of Mysteries? To send her to her death?"
Narcissa looks to her with gray eyes so similar to her son's, the only thing that he seemed to have gained from the Black family along with the name depicting a constellation, being the epitome of Malfoy genetics with the signature hair and attitude. "I do not regret Bella's death, although I do miss her sometimes. The way she was as a child before she put the pure- blood mania our family instilled into their children over even her own sanity, and it had only gotten worse after she had returned from Azkaban." She paused for a moment, looking down to her twisting hands before raising her chin once again to put on a wobbly smile, "Are you nervous for your marking then, Sweet?"
Hermione shakes her head, grabbing onto the other woman's hand as she clearly read the anxiousness on her face, "Are you nervous for Draco's marking? Is that why you have really been upset, since Tom announced it?"
The blonde's expression spoke of much relief and gratefulness that Hermione was so intuitive so that she herself would not to have need to find a careful way to word the question, she twisted her slim fingers between the gaps of the younger girl's. "Yes, I am anxious for him. He is only a boy, you yourself are already seventeen."
Hermione smiled understandingly, if her parents ever figured the extent to what she was pledging herself to they would most likely still call her their little girl who had no business committing to such a thing. Even if they knew the reason for what she was doing it for.
"Have you changed your views in the past couple of years, of helping to resurrect Tom? Do you regret it?"
Narcissa looked down once again, "No, but my worries are still the same. I worry that Lucius and I will not be able to protect Draco from the Dark Lord if we were to somehow fall from favor once more, that we will not be able to protect our son. That we can not protect him if he fails the induction mission he is set."
"Do you truly believe that I would allow any harm to come to Draco at all, Narcissa?" She asked the concerned mother who looked to her with the most vulnerable expression the younger girl had ever seen grace her face, "That I would be able to let him fail anything the Dark Lord sets him to?"
She pushes Hermione's ever sentient curls that had fallen onto her cheek further back from her eyes, smiling waveringly, "I know how much you care for Draco, and no, I do not believe you would let anything happen to him if it were in your power to stop. But the Dark Lord does not take orders from anyone, Hermione. How could you be certain that you would be able to, despite everything you have done for him, and how much he seems to care for you?"
Hermione smiles a secret smile, her own slightly wavering lips betraying her no longer hidden nerves at the nights preceding that were not too far away, but she told Narcissa the truth. She was not in a state of nervousness for her Marking, but for the other event of the evening that Tom had informed her of just hours ago with anxiety written on his own face as if terrified that she would deny him.
She could no longer deny him anything any more than she could deny that she loved Severus… or Harry...
All the while, Narcissa looked to the young girl the previously aloof and cold Dark Lord seemed to love above all else, even above his own goals, and pitied her slightly at her absolute belief in the goodness of the Dark Lord. That she was more the Dark Lord than the Dark Lord himself at the thought that she could protect anyone other than herself from those much stronger than themselves. But all thoughts of these were wiped at the girl's next words of her own loyalty towards her family.
"Lucius and I had a conversation the day we came back to Malfoy Manor, did he tell you of it?" Hermione smiled at Narcissa's confusion, "He told me that we all became family the day that Severus brought me to you, and I intend to stand by that statement. You three are as much my family as Severus and my parents are."
Narcissa grabbed up the smaller girl up in a hug while laughing gleefully, "I've always wanted a little girl."
Hermione laughed along with her, squeezing her back as they both fell back into the pillows covering the bed, slightly jarring Hermione's carefully made hair. "Maybe Draco will give you a little girl one day. Can you imagine him walking around trying to figure out how to put tiny pink bows in a little girl's hair?"
Neither of the giggling women, who were now free of nerves due to their somewhat emotional zig zagging, heard the door open to the boy in question. Both of them jumping as his drawling voice interrupted their gleeful attitudes, "What exactly are you two mad women giggling about in here?"
..
Hermione and Draco stood before Tom within the Malfoy Manor Ballroom, facing towards a small black sea of the amassed Death Eaters here to welcome the two new members into their ranks. Even if they had not known the girl was privy to more information in the last couple years than those twenty years her senior. The inner circle being made up of mostly the heads of the Pureblood families and their oldest children who bore Dark Marks, many of whom Hermione already knew the names and faces of during her year of attending meetings being cowled herself, she could pick out the builds of many who were in attendance. Even as Hermione had insisted on a private ceremony with the identity of the Dark Lord's smaller shadow being revealed at Draco's own ceremony, the bombshell dropped on her just hours ago that had contributed to the nervousness Narcissa had seen had prevented that.
She never had been one for crowds… even leading Dumbledore's Army… and how could this one possibly trust their newest member who was the sister of the boy who felled their Master…
Patience…
Looking to Draco in all his bare muscular chest normally hidden behind suits recently cut in the style of his father, she could feel the anxiety running of his own body as she grabbed his hand in just as much for his comfort as her own. Being that there have been issues with hiding the Dark Marks residing upon the forearm while within company in which it was better to be concealed, Tom had decided they should be moved to a place not commonly seen within the wizarding world as it were in the muggle communities. Once they were in a position to fully show their mark in like company, a simple spell uttered on the body part desired was to be said. Thus, Hermione was able to feel the warmth spreading from Tom's hand as he placed one on her shoulders bared by the low cut dress robes she wore herself, his other on Draco's taller shoulder. Looking up to the blonde boy, she smiled reassuringly into his gray eyes as she helped along to at least alleviate his tension by allowing a small amount of her magic flow from her hand into his, something Severus had taught her long ago from her long hours of studying slumped over books. Her love having stripped her bare and commanding her to lay on the floor upon her stomach as he lorded over her, giving her massages filled with his signature dark and satisfying taste of magic as he dug his thumbs between her shoulder blades and kneading into her stomach.
Turning once more to look into the crowd, she sought out Severus' build closest to her in the midst of the dark figures. As attuned to his magic as she was, she immediately picked him out with a little help from the glowing eyes staring at her from beneath his hooded cowl, the Death Eaters having done away with their bone masks in like company.
Taking a deep breath, Hermione pointed her chin forward in all the confidence she did not particularly feel as Tom squeezed their shoulders, signaling the beginning to their evening.
"Brothers and sisters, today we are gathered here to welcome two new members into our inner circle." His voice bounced off and echoed throughout the lovely marble and stone decorating the room, "Being the beginning of a new generation of Death Eaters, and those who are the first to be marked since my resurrection, I have made a new Mark to showcase their devotion to me, as well as our cause." He paused to allow Hermione to stand off to the side, Draco falling to his knees gently in preparation of his new bodily accessory, "Draco Malfoy, son of our loyally marked brother and sister Lucius and Narcissa seeks to follow in his parent's footsteps, willingly taking the newly minted Dark Mark upon his body and committing his lifeblood to us."
From where Hermione stood just behind Tom at his shoulder, the newly designed mark took ink within the middle of the blonde boy's back, and just between his muscular shoulder blades, the likeness of Nagini emerged to paint a beautiful contrast between the midnight tattoo and Draco's white skin. Much in the same way the original Dark Mark's snake twisted in and out of the skull piece, this revision did the same with it's own length of it's long body as it inverted it's slithering pathway, the head of the deadly snake hissing out it's long tongue along the back of Draco's neck instead of towards the end of a wrist.
Helping Draco to stand upon unsteady feet, the pain of the marking having felled him to both his hands as well as his knees, Tom allowed him to join the crowd and the arms of his now un-cowled parents before motioning Hermione to stand before him just as Draco had done. Replacing his fingers that caressed the smooth skin of her collarbone, she was short enough and he tall enough for her curls to reach the bottom of his chin, allowing him to speak once more to the crowd above her head.
"Hermione Granger, a muggle- born by right and blessed as first of her line with magic by the gods also seeks to enter our ranks." The figures amassed murmured lowly throughout the ballroom, never having heard their Lord speak in such a way that contradicted their strenuous views on blood purity. Although, it seemed much had changed along with the decrease in fatal violence within the past year, and they made no assumptions as to the punishment they would no doubt receive should they speak out against this new regime. They would have to adapt.
"The friend of Harry Potter, the boy who will soon enough be made to see our new way of being, and the girl responsible for resurrecting our Order to its former glory now seeks a place among us as well." He paused, always one for the dramatic effects of anticipation could cause. "As a reward for the loyalty she has shared with us, she will be marked as our heir and successor." A shocked silence rang throughout the room like none before, her eyes meeting his blue ones over her shoulder as he simply smiled at her with all the calm in the world as if he could not feel her pulse beating wildly beneath his palms. As if he were simply giving her a trifling gift she never in a thousand years would have guessed at before his unmasking of his plans just hours before.
"She will be bound to us by blood, blessed with all the power that my esteemed bloodline of Salazar Slytherin has been passed on to me. From this point on, she will be answered to as if she were I myself in my absence, obeyed, and loved above all else. Once we have gained the Potter boy and all his power, his allegiance, we will finally be invincible against those who do not share our aims, all thanks to this young woman before me. With these decrees, Hermione Granger willingly takes her mark made within mine's own image, until the day should we both perish from this earth." With these words, Tom motions Severus up with one pale hand, telling Hermione and him both to kneel, Severus guiding Hermione down with a firm grip on both her forearms.
"I love you, Severus." He smiled at her calmly, always the rock where she felt as if the tide of her emotions would whisk her away. He kissed her lips just as the cold tip of Tom's wand lightly touched the middle of her back, the low cut of the dress allowing him easy access to her own spine.
"It will hurt, my dear girl." Tom says above her, all the while Hermione focusing on Severus' dark eyes. Then the pain started unlike any other she had felt, her eyes closing when it began to resonate throughout her bones all the way to her magical core residing just beside her soul.
Her eyes dropped to the floor as if she had no control of them, watching as Nagini, who had been wrapped around Tom's ankles during Draco's initiation, slithered between her and Severus' knees once her head fell to his shoulder to keep herself from yelling out at the excruciating pain centering on her spine. Centering on her blood that felt as if it were just on the cusp of boiling her alive and her bones jumping outside of her skin. All she could see was the white marble floor the green and purple snake was slithering between, a most feminine hissing of a voice fading into her ears as she fell into a deep slumber she would not awaken from for several weeks as her new magical bloodline settled into her veins.
"My new Mistress, true family at last. Together forever, as Master says."
Severus caught up Hermione's limp body within his arms once the ritual was completed, all Death Eaters lowering their cowls at the very rare and powerful magic their Lord had performed on their new illustrious Lady, at the power the girl must hold for living through the rare and dark magic preformed upon her very person. As Severus stood, each member of Hermione's new servants marveled at the fading red veins covering the girl's pale skin that could not hide the whitest mark they had seen, a mimicry of their new generation's Dark Mark made in the same color that graced their Dark Lord's forearm. The room fell to it's knees as the Dark Lord's highest esteemed sister and Lieutenant passed by them.
Nagini following on Severus' heels to watch over her new Lady in her most vulnerable state, the limbo she was held in as her unique magically signature recreated itself anew in the image of her loving Master's.
She will be most powerful indeed, Salazar Slytherin's dark blood saturated with power throughout his children's bloodline for hundreds of years… she will be even more powerful than his last born son...
~.O.~
Over the course of many weeks, Hermione's blood would boil within her veins, causing them to redden upon the surface of her skin and writhe as if her new family's crest animal were making it's way throughout her body. Her skin would pale a shade lighter than her own, her most beloved lion's mane Severus so loved waking to in the morning darkening to a color it should not have been until she aged several more years, her cheekbones sharpening themselves subtly to give her an appearance more like the Dark Lord's himself. She could be dubbed a sister much like how Ginerva Weasley had each of her brother's similar aspects within her face, although unique in her own way.
It was not until she awoke, that the eyes Severus so loved had revealed their new brightly shining golden color as well, so similar yet different to her previous whiskey colored ones although she retained the cat- like pupils she loved on herself.
Severus stood above her as Nagini lifted her head from where she had curled around the girl's feet at the foot of the bed as they both heard her breathing change, just before those changed eyes opened slowly. The dark man grabbed her twitching hand, feeling the slim bones curl around his own, breathing out a sigh of relief at her infinitely more visible signs of life after almost a month of simply seeing her breathe in and out. Not even the barest hint of a twitch from behind her eye lids to signal dreams weaving tales in and out of her mind were to be shown to his worried person.
"Hermione," his deep voice made it's way into her ears, eyes still blinking the weeks of blurry sleep from them before he came into focus.
"Severus," her raspy voice prompting him to conjure a glass and water to slowly tip into her mouth until her stomach cramped with it's emptiness, craving food which he hastily called a House Elf to arrange. They said nothing until the small creature popped back into the room with a tray, bowing shyly to it's new Mistress and popping right back out to inform the Dark Lord of her new state of consciousness. As Hermione ate with gusto, silver fork clinking on fine china, she observed her worn and bearded love. "I quite like this look on you," she told him as she ran her fingers through the thick fur covering his lower face, telling of how long she had been asleep.
He grabbed up her hand himself, kissing the tips of her fingers before smiling softly with all the love he had for her bleeding through his small actions. "Don't get used to it, I simply did not have time. I wished to be by your side when you awoke."
She smiled as she finished her meal, the House Elf suddenly popping back in as if she had an eye on them the entire time. "Missus and Master of Potions are wished to see Master after Missus is well enough." Then the creature popped out of existence with the silver bed tray.
Hermione looked back to Severus who had not taken his eyes of her, smiling hesitatingly as she asks, "Do I look so different to you, Severus that you must re-memorize my face? Do you love me still?"
He smiles down at her, reaching out to twirl a newly shaded curl around his finger before allowing it to bounce back to her shoulder, "I would love you girl if you looked the twin to my own self."
She laughs at him, remaining slightly raspy still while reaching out to grab his face in a kiss, "Well, my love, I would be very much happy if I were to wake to a version of your handsome face upon mine, so much as I love you."
"I find that impossible to believe." He chuckles lightly, running his finger over her cheekbone. "Would you like to see it?" Conjuring a hand mirror, he allowed her to grab it from him.
Hermione was not at all startled once she saw her new features, Tom having told her that the ritual would most likely not simply change her blood so as to tie her to him by magic, but everything in between as well. As she stared into the mirror, she had to admit she did not look drastically changed from her previous self, something she blessed the gods for as she knew it would have caused much notice if she were to return to her friends with black hair and blue eyes. An absolute twin to her new brother. It simply seemed as if she had grown into her looks in a very short amount of time. From her face, her fingers ran down to her pearl necklace that was now stained black with the maturation of her core finally done. Closing her eyes, she felt the dormant power just rippling along her skin just waiting to be tapped into, as no doubt Severus could feel as well.
Placing the mirror on her bedside, she moved her covers to the more wrinkled part of the bed and twitched over to the edge to put her feet on the plush white carpet. Severus stood in preparation to help her stand, but instead she grabbed him around the waist, burying her face into his just as wrinkled shirt as the bed sheets.
"Have you gotten any sleep since the Marking?" She murmured into his stomach as his arms wrapped around her shoulders in his own hug.
"Every time I would lay beside you I couldn't help but keep watching your face, running my magic over you make sure you were still breathing." His deep voice said high above her head, fingers digging into her curls.
She looked up to him as he finally got her to her wobbly feet, having to hold onto her waist to steady her before she could even attempt the walk down the stairs to Tom's study in the silken nightgown that twisted around her ankles. As it was, he might just end up having to carry her down.
"Nothing like that will ever happen again, Severus." She held his cheeks in her hands, digging into the blackness featured there, stained with a few premature grey pieces of thick hair. Thinking all the while that maybe she did look slightly like him as he did Tom, "I promise, I will never let you feel something like that again."