"He's hot!"
That was the first phrase to break through the shocked silence, a strangled squeak barked amongst the crowd in a tone that was suspiciously familiar to Goyle's.
He is… hot, Hermione thought, even as terror thumped hotly through her blood, mingling deliciously with an odd sense of warped and twisted triumph. As if frozen in time Luna and Tonks held her, Tonks with her jaw open and her hair limp and yellowed, and Luna with an expression that seemed part impressed and part something else. Inappropriately interested, if Hermione had to guess.
Still, no one dared to move as the Dark Lord lifted slender arms and twitched long fingers. On the very tips of them stood out, in stark contrast to the unusual paleness of the flesh, blackened tips, as if they were ink-stained. That black consumed the bulk of their nails, sharp and pointed. His face, once abnormal and grotesque, was now host to sharp cheek-bones, full lips, and narrowed eyes of gleaming red. And, it was those eyes of red that twisted away from flexing palms to land squarely upon her.
She panted beneath the scrutiny and sent orders to her clumsy legs. Like a child learning to walk again she kicked and scrambled, placing one before the other. Graceless, she made to stand before him, despite the hands that held her biceps-protective and restraining.
For a moment, no one did anything more. It was just Hermione, breathing heavily, chest heaving from her own exertion of magic and shock and the Dark Lord, hosted in a body so otherworldly that Hermione hesitated to call it hauntingly beautiful. It felt wrong to think that of the highest power when they were supposed to be-
Then a yell came from a crowd, wild and accusing.
"She meant to kill our Lord! To sabotage He who is most high!"
Immediately the men at Voldemort's back began to move. Some reached for their wands, drawn to act by the idea of violence. Others, like Lucius and Snape, tossed looks over their shoulders, looking for the outlier.
Instinctively, Hermione's magic swept, seeking the one thing that she knew would bring her security and comfort.
By the time those disorientated Death Eaters had raised their wands in her direction-perhaps, to attempt a piss-poor arrest in reaction to a false accusation-the crowd had already shifted, shoved aside with cries of anxiousness into the pathway abruptly by magic that held no care.
But, it wasn't Hermione's magic that shoved at those around them like ragdolls.
It was Bellatrix's.
She stepped without care onto a woman who had been innocently standing in front of her, and Hermione only watched as the woman yowled. There, upon her taken platform, with heels digging into the back of her woman-step stool. Bellatrix bellowed, "Stand down!"
Some of those men did, quickly lowering wand and bowing head in deference to the Dark Lord's most powerful Hand.
Those that did not soon found themselves under Bellatrix's glare as she turned eagle eyes in their direction.
Off to the side, having taken advantage of a disorientated mob, stood the shouter. Mad with glee, Umbridge crowed, "I knew she was no good, look what she's done!"
She stood off to her right, dressed in usual affair, wand raised and pointed in her direction. Held as Hermione was, she could not reach for her wand, but she could reach for her tool. With a flex of her ability she knew several things:
Luna and Tonks had no intention of releasing her. Tonks, because of the rabid Black-blooded madness of those who thought they must die to protect. Her magic was so thick and suffocating against her skin that it stole her breath. Luna, in contrast, felt abnormal. Too calm. Too aware. Too sharp. As if she knew what could happen, or would happen, and was hyper focused on the outcome. Their hands didn't weaken, even when Hermione physically-and metaphysically-jerked. She was rooted, exposed, vulnerable.
And that seemed to drive Bellatrix all the more.
She stepped forward with a heavy stomp, unaware or uncaring of the woman she'd been standing on who screeched when the sharp point of her heel dug into a soft open spot. Hermione caught a quick glance of bubbling red, but said nothing. The comfort of a suckling socialite was hardly a reason for her to take her eyes off Umbridge.
"Put down your wand, Dolores." Bellatrix rumbled, her voice like shifting grinding rock. Her hair twisted like snapping tendrils in her own ambient magic, and Hermione felt mesmerized as she watched her step forward. Predator. Monster. And somehow all witch. "You've got it pointed at my betrothed, you might want to apologize for that."
The Dark Lord's body slowly twisted, their glowing eyes now turned from Hermione, so that they could half twist their upper torso and more carefully examine their… butt.
Umbridge screeched all the while, "Your betrothed is nothing more than a traitorous mudblood, sent by our enemies to sabotage our Lord!" She made a horrible uncouth sound, a hacking gurgle of her throat, before she turned her head and spit.
Right in Hermione's direction.
"Let me go." Hermione whispered with the sharp shrill sound of static in her ears and the thunderous curl of hate in her guts. Now, more than any other time, she wanted to dance. She wanted to hold Umbridge down, with magic and hands, and drive nails into the thickest portion of her flesh. She wanted to tear and rip and peel away skin until she could see the muscle and bone behind it. But more than that, she wanted to see what color her blood was. She wanted to check, to know, to make sure the color was the same as her own!
Luna tightened her grip as Tonks own loosened. She, ultimately, swept by her need to protect or not, could do little else but obey the constant grating pressure of Hermione's demand. Let me go, let me go, let me go-
Tonks whimpered beneath the pressure as Bellatrix yowled, her own magic tugging at the Black-blooded for war. It might have been why Andromeda, stiff backed and red, with an expression near feral, rudely shoved a blubbering man from her pathway as she approached, hands flexing and eyes beady and black. A splitting image of her sister, all softness gone.
In that moment, they were both twins. One in the same in intent-and though Andromeda would have denied it, she was no less blood-thirsty than any of them. They felt nearly the same to Hermione, both Bellatrix, or maybe, both that one being they were supposed to be.
Except something was missing.
"Rude," Narcissa sniffed delicately, a hand on the shoulder of her son as he jerked in her grip, stirred by Hermione's emotions and that of his aunts. His lips were parted, his eyes dilated. The power and movement to stir had taken him over completely. Only Narcissa, only the control, held him caged in his own body.
Her ability was terrifying.
Slowly, Narcissa gave a casual wave of her hand, and immediately Bellatrix and Andromeda paused in step. Their wands, once raised, stayed held in hand, but whatever spells had been on Bellatrix's lips could no longer be uttered. So she snarled and paced, like a wild animal, two steps to the left, two steps to the right, as if she could do nothing other than that, while Andromeda huffed in spot. Pissed, but sane.
Then the magic that held her rapid sisters swept over her and Hermione could do little use but brace herself as it did so. Perhaps, this is what it had felt like when Hermione had so arrogantly commanded Andromeda and Bellatrix. That crushing, heated, sense of invasion, as her very sense of self was coaxed nearly out of her flesh. She went limp, cowed and docile, as if some switch had been flipped that she'd never known she'd had. And maybe, once upon a time, that would not have been possible. But she'd been dwelling and fiddling and practically rolling around inside of Tonks and Andromeda's magic, intertwined in her quest for dominance.
It only made sense that Narcissa could exploit the similarities of their bond.
Tonks grip retightened, Luna giggled in her ear, and she her magic was silenced.
So, Narcissa said, "You're being an ungracious guest to our presented Lady Granger. All of you."
She tossed a disgusted look over shoulder and some of the men that called themselves His most frightening quivered before it. Even Lucius seemed unnerved as he dabbed at his forehead with an initial embroidered cloth. Only Snape was unmoved as he moved to the Dark Lord, who had since stopped instead Himself… Herself.
"It's true," Her voice spilled past new lips, husky and low and pulling. In the crowd those too weak to help themselves shivered and even Bellatrix had to suppress a twitch as she continued her snapping stalk. "You all know how I abhor violence at these events."
Snape stepped up, pale but steady of word. "My Lord?" He bowed deeply, so deeply that he fell to his knees in the action. He'd taken off his outer coating, the robe that had covered his lovely dragon-black vest, shirting, and slacks. Like a sacrifice he lifted it over his head in offering.
The Dark Lord turned to take it.
And that's when Hermione saw the rest of her… work. When she saw the iridescent scales that lined the length of Her back along her spine and the thin wisps of power that had coiled together at the base, wraith like and shadow in nature, but together they took on the form of a serpentine tail. Could anyway else see it? The power that sought to escape Her body, so grand in nature that it had twisted to fit Hermione's fractured perception of Her being?
No one else really reacted, though she caught Narcissa's eyes flick down quickly, then back up again.
Still, she could have just been admiring the shape of Her new arse-
"Granger," Voldemort said in a tone that pulled at Hermione's mind, giving birth to darker aspects.
Hermione swallowed thickly as she was finally released, and she ignored Umbridge crazed panting of excitement beyond her. Umbridge was not afraid of Bellatrix, not afraid of Andromeda, not afraid of… anything.
Her body ached with the longing to change that.
But she remained focus, her mind idly shuffling those more inappropriate feelings away in the face of far greater dangers.
The Dark Lord slid on Snape's robing with all the grace of someone who'd been born to the body She now inhabited. She seemed unbothered by Her new proportions and overall appearance. Hermione couldn't tell if that was due to the Dark Lord being pragmatic about it, or if She was quietly absolutely furious.
Hermione didn't dare brush her magic against Her to find out.
She didn't need to, for as soon as she entered Her field of influence her legs had lost all strength and she was on her knees before Her.
It beat at her body in a powerful way, alike and yet dissimilar to Narcissa's more casual invasion of herself. In one moment she was Hermione, in the next she was just… magic. Magic, with no other purpose than to obey and kneel and beg. Instinctively Hermione's forehead pressed against a nearby foot in an act of absolute deference. There was little else in her being in that moment than the ideal of pleasing. The Dark Lord's cold press stirred a thoughtlessness so deep that she forgot… she forgot all else.
It was exhilarating.
It was terrifying.
All she wanted to do in that moment was worship. It was her place. Her destiny. Her-
Then the magic peeled back, just a bit, leaving her cold and wanting, and she shivered as she turned a tear-streaked face to the Lord she'd recreated, unaware that she'd even been crying in the first place.
Amazing.
Even now, before her Lord, she wondered when she'd be able to make another feel so utterly small and singularly driven.
As if reading her thoughts Voldemort laughed, a wheezing feminine chuckle that felt like nails at the base of Hermione's spine.
Someone in the crowd moaned.
Perhaps, they'd all felt that expression of Her authority.
"You've restored to me a body."
She was compelled to speak. "Y-yes, my Lord."
"But, forgive me. Could you answer this... ah, Lucius?
Quickly he was at Her side, shoulders shaking, "My Lord?"
"Tell me, Lucius. Your grandfather, Abraxas… what would he describe me as?"
For a moment Lucius was silent, suspiciously so, but then he spoke in strong tenor. "A… a man, my Lord."
"A man. Hm." Voldemort rolled the word around on Her tongue, and with that sibilant hiss, it seemed alien to all present. "And what am I now, Lucius?"
He spoke without hesitation, which Hermione thought must have taken a great amount of courage, "A woman, my Lord."
A woman, naked but for the robe She now wore, unbuttoned.
"A woman," Voldemort hissed, but did not seem entirely displeased. Slowly, a tongue-split and forked like a snakes-swept across Her lower lip, giving sight to wicked teeth that seemed just as sharp as any other monsters. Woman Voldemort may be, but Hermione saw no human. "Granger. This is not my body."
"My Lord," She bowed deep again, kept her head pressed near Voldemort's foot, and fought against the urge to debase herself by kissing it. She was not afraid of Her. She was Gryffindor, if a bit shaken. She was just…
"You're disappointed."
"Yes," Hermione hissed. Angry at herself. Ashamed by her own miscalculation. She had known it would return Him to form, had done the arithmancy to prove it. She hadn't known it would turn Him into a Her, however. It had been a small risk, only due to a change in minor ingredients that would share the same properties. She had just been so eager to prove herself, to show Her that she could attend even the most impossible of tasks. Stripping Voldemort of Their mutation should have been it. Instead, here she was, called mudblood before those meant to be her peers, and accused of treason.
Her mouth moved and her words split, she couldn't help it. If she were to die here. She needed Her to know… no, she needed Bellatrix to know that this was not her intention.
"The risk was very small, less than one percent after seven arithmetically gathered conclusions, in which only one you were turned into a small Burmese python. Some of the ritual's potions called for a particular weather condition, near impossible to catch as each year the weather can change abnormally. That was simulated in the bathing pot, and should have caused very little divergence in the execution once high power-yours-and blood-mine-combined. The paperwork and translations are hosted in my grimoire and Professor Snape could attest that I attended the ritual to potion assessment with no ill will or thoughts of sabotage."
The only thing that would have caused her downfall here would have been her arrogance.
Or… dear Merlin, was it her blood that had changed His body so?
Above her, Voldemort clicked Her tongue against the back of Her teeth. "I see. No, I would never think you capable of such sloppy assassination. My Golden Girl is better than that."
A nervous titter ran through the crowd but Umbridge was quick to yell, "My Lord! She did not do as you asked. She disobeyed-!"
"I'd like to see you attend to a potion of mastership level and not cause your subject to explode, Dolores!"
Hermione jerked as Snape rounded upon the flabbergasted woman, surprised by his vitriol.
"If anyone is to blame, it is me. I won't have you spew hatred toward my Lord's Firstborn, who attended her duty beyond expectation. Our Lord is not a puddle, a toad, or a small Burmese python. He is… S-she is beyond our expectations. A full body, flesh and bone and meat, Dolores, of beauty and unhindered magic!"
And it was true. The Dark Lord had oozed power before, but the force that caressed her skin and sung hypnotic prose to her essence just felt like more. More everything. If she weren't careful, she'd sway to the pull of that dance.
"The body is female presenting, physical, and merely a host for our Lord's magical might. It was crafted, painstakingly so, to be the perfect form our Lord could take. A combination of Hermione's Firstborn blood, and our Lord's primal magicks, has made this so!" Snape spat, as if he were lecturing an idiotic apprentice and not a woman with unearned power in the Ministry-house shamed or not.
"It is my belief that whether Lady Granger had done the ritual, or I, or Madam Malfoy, the end result would be the same. The perfect host for unhindered magic is this." Snape turned dramatically and shoved but arms out in awe with the spark of passion in his gaze. "I can feel it. They can feel it. You are my Lord and Master no matter your form, but this is no joke. This is the reality of the perfect fit!"
Then slowly, Snape lowered his arms, and Lucius was there, an arm wrapped around his shoulders, his presence strong and his eyes believing. It was a silent but clear announcement. Malfoy backed Snape's theory. He supported him.
"You can't all believe that nonsense." Umbridge sneered, uncaring. Her thirst for Hermione's degradation was too strong for reason, Hermione practically felt it. Still, she didn't dare lift her gaze from Voldemort's feet. "I'm willing to put Ministry backing behind a full investigation into Ms. Granger's actual reasoning for this escapade. She's made a mockery of Him."
"Do you feel women so incapable that you can't fathom our Lord's true form might be just that, a woman?"
A new unfamiliar voice cut through the crowd, callous and angry. It came from the direction of the Dark Lord's back, where the bulk of the Death Eaters She employed usually stood.
"What?" Umbridge barked.
"You heard me," the feminine voice drawled, accented in a way that was endearing and rough, "Do you think being a woman is the worst thing ever for our Lord? That, 'er physical gender makes Her somehow inherently weaker?"
"Dolores is an idiot," Another voice called from Hermione's left, this one familiar. "She's always been an idiot. Even in school."
Now Umbridge was red-faced and shouting, "You dare say that, Skeeter, when you are nothing compared to me?"
"She's a damn Companion to a friggin' Malfoy. Who are you calling a nothing?" The first voice called.
"Shut up, Carrow!" Umbridge called back.
"You little rude fuck," Carrow, Alecto Carrow, hissed, "come over 'ere, with your prissy stick, and say that again."
Umbridge didn't move.
Instead, another woman's voice broke from the crowd, angry and low. "Do you have any other proof, other than that our Lord is not a man as to why you think Lady Granger tried to harm our Lord?"
"She doesn't, Parkinson." Rita called, "She just hates Muggleborns, I wrote an entire article about it once. They wouldn't let me publish it though. Not eye catching enough."
But the woman speaking, Parkinson, wasn't Pansy. Heck, it didn't even sound like it could have been Pansy's mother. This woman snorted, "Muggleborns don't exist. They've never existed. The Dark Lord said they've been Firstborns all along and that the political Light party tried to lie about their existence."
"Maybe she wants to sabotage our reborn lines?" A softer voice now.
Slowly, against the floor, Hermione began to smile. She took one breath. Then another…
And released a low undercurrent of my magic.
Though the Dark Lord held Her attention upon her, Hermione moved those invisible tendrils of her presence across the ballroom floor, eager to stir doubt and push emotion.
"Maybe she does!" Alecto barked, unaware that Hermione could feel and feed her ire. "Dandelion, what say you?"
Dandelion Parkinson huffed out a cruel laugh, "Maybe! I mean, she's the only one complaining."
Under his breath, she heard Goyle whisper to a now calmed Draco, "She's so hot!"
Soon, with a twitch of her lips, Narcissa joined in the hunt, practiced and apathetic, but secretly hungry. "It's a shame, honestly. She still hasn't learned."
Umbridge sputtered.
"Dandy," Narcissa called, and there was a sound of shuffling as she came closer. In a mock whisper, Narcissa husked, "Did you know that in court, but a few new moons ago, Dolores humiliated herself before our Lord and His… Her followers do badly that a call for disharmony was given?"
To this Dandy exclaimed, "No! Really?"
Beyond them Bellatrix cackled, a roaring snarling sound that echoed throughout the ballroom.
Alecto joined it with her own howling laughter.
"There will be no unification on court subjects until Umbridge pays for insulting Lady Granger's house. The house of Malfoy, naturally, and Black. Even Snape, have joined in this call. The Minister has made no move to force her apology, and so he too has found himself discredited due to a lack of powerful seats. And, if you didn't realize it, she still hasn't answered the call to resolve her insult. It was due first full moon-"
There was more shuffling, as another person approached, the softer voice. "Is that true, Narcissa?"
"Oh, it is, Lady Greengrass."
From the corner of her eye Hermione saw it, a small gathering of matriarchal women beginning to side-step the chaos at the center to share in the hen do Narcissa had crafted. When she spared a glance at the Dark Lord, all she saw was one brow raised in question.
She knows.
And why wouldn't she?
She's allowing it.
Maybe, the Dark Lord found amusement in the idle chatter, in the machinations that lowered tension among the ball goers and allowed the Dark Lord a measure of privacy with Her… Firstborn. Slowly, while Narcissa manipulated the crowds to matters of Umbridge's embarrassment, She crotched and with a clawed fingertip beneath her chin She whispered-
"Rise."
Immediately, her idle manipulation snapped, driven to collapse when her focus was tugged by Her essence. She rose breathlessly, consumed by the single order. Once she was standing, She gripped her chin and held her steady while She spoke beneath the ambiance of scandalized gasping.
Those that had not been drawn into Narcissa's web, strained to listen.
"It would be foolish to believe that your gift to me was anything but that, a gift. I feel it in your magic. I see it in your mind."
Hermione whined as pressure brushed across her consciousness, but the Dark Lord only teased at tearing her mentality asunder. She didn't press. Not yet.
"However, there is something about the idea of there being a chance I could have been turned into a…"
"Burmese python… sir."
"Yes, a Burmese python. Thank you, Lucius." Voldemort briefly lowered Her gaze to Hermione's lips, but soon that invasive red was back upon her own pools of shifting browns, "I think, for that, you may be punished."
There was weight at her ankles and hissing as a smooth body coiled around and away from her, only to begin a slow and strenuous crawl up the length of the Dark Lord's body. Soon, Nagini was semi-draped across the Dark Lord's shoulders, which neither dipped nor trembled beneath her weight. The snake nudged at an ear and Voldemort tilted Her head, listening to hissed whispers that Hermione nearly fell into, her own consciousness tugged at unusually in a way she had trouble perceiving...
Then Voldemort sighed, "Yes, I know, Nagini. Yes, the egg, of course. No, I wouldn't jeopardize…"
Hermione tried to swallow past her heaving breath as Voldemort conversed with Her snake, praying, begging, that She was speaking the Queen's English and that she wasn't understanding-
"Hermione."
She blinked, her train of thought lost to the darker corners of her mind.
"My Lord?"
"I've a gift for you."
Voldemort released her chin and Hermione rocked back on her one heeled foot. From the crowd shuffled Pettigrew, whose gaze was penetrative and disgusting perverse. Still, he was dressed somewhat nicely, stuffed in a suit like too much misshapen meat, and without hesitation he handed the Dark Lord a strange and heavily decorated box.
"I'll think on it," Voldemort muttered, as She held onto the box with fingers that seemed both perfect and far too long. "What I will do. I think I'll have you come to my chambers. We should talk. Not just about your punishment of course, but I'm of a mind that a potion I'm meant to take should have an indisputable success rate. More than just ninety-nine percent. Perhaps, I'll have you across my… new lap."
Voldemort tapped a rhythm against the top of the box while Hermione trembled.
But She said nothing more after that, content in the knowledge that the body was stable and listening to Snape as he whispered he'd give Her a check-up later, to make certain of the fact. After all, Snape was right. Power was power. Where it was hosted held little meaning to someone like Her.
It was an aspect of the Dark Lord Hermione could now admire. It was also keeping her out of Azkaban and away from the threat of death.
Off to the side Umbridge stood shaking, swollen like a reddened balloon with a wand still lifted but no longer in direction. No, instead it was pointed toward Narcissa, sparking at the tip with the intention off-
Suddenly, Bellatrix was there. Her hand around Umbridge wrist, squeezing and clutching it so hard that Umbridge mouth popped open and her wand fell to the floor. Andromeda was beside her, wordlessly summoning the stick into her tightened grip. Still, even with the threat of attack diminished Bellatrix didn't release her. She held on, her muscles tight, her grip shrinking-
Umbridge wordlessly screamed when Bellatrix made a swift yanking motion and, instead of breaking her wrist, popped her arm out of its socket.
Andromeda gave a harsh wheezing laugh at the sight of her, one Hermione mirrored in her mania.
Bellatrix's lips were moving, but Hermione could read them:
If you ever point anything at my sister. If you think it. Perceive it. Wish it into being. I will take everything that you are, and display it.
Hermione's thighs clenched as she thought on it, as she imagined again the sight of that woman spread before her, chest open, heart without its cage-
Voldemort saw that, and chuckled and Hermione desperately tried to clear her thoughts.
Umbridge's veins were thick and on display as Andromeda roughly grabbed her, whispers low:
You took something I owned from me, with your idiotic laws and baseless lies. My husband was killed because of you, Dolores, and I want equal exchange for what was mine.
Then Umbridge suddenly collapsed, shoved to the ground as Andromeda did a motion in the air with her thumb. Her spell was wordless, wandless, and soon Umbridge was jerking, wheezing as Andromeda forcibly healed her in an unkind manner.
Bellatrix turned to her and snarled, displeased and Andromeda snarled back, more than a little unhinged from Hermione's… balance.
The Dark Lord clapped then, and everyone came to attention, even as Pius finally showed his face and tried to rough pull a head lolling Umbridge to her feet.
"We've held this up long enough. This is a night of celebration. Of triumph!" Her tone had changed to relaxed and pleased. "I am proud of you, Lady Granger. No matter the result. You've done something that hasn't been done in many years. Decades, even. You've earned your place among the pure."
If Umbridge had been more than dazed and barely conscious, she might have screamed at the sound of explosive clapping. The people were only peons, after all, moved in any direction Voldemort saw fit.
They were nothing against that.
Bellatrix was quick to toss protocol out the window. She embraced her from behind and held her off her feet. Despite their height difference, Bellatrix managed it without effort, clutching onto her like she was her greatest possession.
Hermione's laughter was joyous and relieved.
Then, Voldemort said, "Open the box."
Bellatrix placed her back on her uneven feet and the crowd's noise died down. They were all curious, now that the danger had passed and the ball could begin. Sheep, all of them. Except for one.
There, nearly swallowed in shadow, stood Professor McGonagall. Her expression was pinched, but there was relief in her eyes. Still, there was something off about her look, as if she were both happy and pained. Maybe, it was she and she alone who understood that something life changing could be in the box. Something Hermione may have only thought she wanted.
She opened it anyway.
And what she saw made her breathless.
There, among cushions of silk, rested a horcrux. One she'd thought destroyed and gone. One she swore had been destroyed and gone.
The Dark Lord's locket.
Behind her, Bellatrix tightened arms around her waist and brushed sweaty hair from her face. She said nothing, but the both of them knew… knew that this was… that the power that ebbed and flowed from it was real.
But no one else would realize it. No one but those who understood the darkest of magics. Who had been there right after Tonks had risen from that ritual slab. Different.
Slowly, Voldemort leaned forward. With Bellatrix's chin against the side of her neck, Voldemort took up space on the other. She was caged, engulfed in the chilling flesh of Voldemort at her front and the pounding heat of Bellatrix need at her back. Into her ear, Voldemort whispered-
"You think you know power. Think you've come to crave it. But I, girl. I know power. Have drowned in it. Did you think you could do it? Destroy something of mine? You and The Boy and the Traitor, laughing and choking on your own relief. But you were nothing then. Just a child fighting a god. And now? Now you're a woman, who was never truly a child, wanting to become a god."
Fingers moved to cup her own, so cold they burned. Voldemort gave them a gentle squeeze before She drew her claws up and toward the box and dipped inside. Her fingers grasped the chilling chain, and Hermione felt frozen by her own past terrors, by the knowledge that the thing Voldemort wished to put around her chest had once spoken her greatest agonies along her consciousness like the caress of a lover. It had pushed and shoved and tempted her to madness, to fall off the pinnacle of goodness into wretched oblivion. It had just been her and The Boy, sharing the burden. Falling quickly. Dangerously. Closer and closer toward-
"Shhh…." A voice in her ear. Bellatrix luring her back, pushing her mind toward the present.
"Please," Hermione whispered. She was not too proud to beg. Not so gone in her lust for more that she would risk buckling beneath the harshness of that Locket.
But Voldemort only lifted the chain, settled it's chill around her neck as Bellatrix adjusted to make it so. "Don't tremble, my dear. This isn't the same. Not like back then, when I sought to destroy. I only wish to elevate. To push you further. Closer and closer toward the place you should be."
Voldemort let the heavy Locket fall into place, and she felt suffocated by its presence. But the pain and harshness she expected didn't come. Instead, it was just a warm lump against her chest, one that made the Dark Mark buzz pleasantly upon her arm until she felt as if she were liquid clay, just waiting to be molded.
Bellatrix held her all the tighter when she groaned, a low and heated sound.
"You see? It likes you, adores you. Besides, this more than anything else, will make my message clear. I do apologize, my girl. I must admit I'm a tad selfish, and when one has the sort of magic I wield, they can afford to be greedy."
Voldemort stroked along the chain, swept a hand down to tug lightly on the Locket, then released it. And in doing so, released her. "You still have one more trial to finish, but you've done well enough for this. Keep my Locket safe, and it will do the same for you. That and so much more… it is time you returned to a different sort of school."
Then She turned to the crowd and stirred them up anew.
"Hermione Granger is Firstborn. Proven and true." Voldemort said, Her voice a great bellow that shook the chandeliers above. "She and those that are born of House Granger shall be recognized as Noble and in the decades to come, that nobility will become Ancient."
Around her the people roared, excited by this affirmation. And why wouldn't they be? The Dark Lord had claimed She'd deliver to them the pure. More blood to stuff into their own paltry weak lines. She had done so, Hermione was proof of that. But She intended to do so much more.
"Furthermore, we now share blood."
That seemed to quiet the crowd.
"It hums through my veins and powers this body that I have been gifted. To insult it, is to insult me." Several faces turned to search for Umbridge, but it appeared that Pius and her had long been swallowed by the crowd. "And so, I claim it, before magic and her wilde children. House Granger is now a branch on the Slytherin tree, it's Head is meant to answer to me. I am it's Lordtrix, it's Mother, and Sun. It bathes in my light, and acts for me."
There were cries from the crowd, positive and strengthening. The wards of the Manor hummed ominously, awake with the power to be. Though Voldemort spoke it, the people perceived it. It was an aspect that would soon become.
Her head ached with the pressure of it, as magic not her own pricked along her skin. The Locket felt as if it burned, and she wanted to writhe from the glory of it. With four simple words she would be done, forever more a child of Slytherin with magic seared blood and a voice that screeched among her thoughts.
You want to know power? I'll give it to you. You want to hold order? I'll teach you how.
And in return? You'll belong to me. That's balance.
Voldemort snatched up the Locket around her neck and held it up for all to see, with its shiny reflective S and haunting magic song. "Hermione Granger is now heir apparent to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin. Do you see it Albus?! This one belongs to me! So mote it be!"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Bellatrix found her outside the manor, out in the twinkling beauty of the snow covered gardens. She'd been nursing a flute of champagne, blanketed by the bodies of her peers and their excited congratulations. Slouched over and half-asleep, was her backrest Draco, whose lap she'd taken as a makeshift throne. Luna, laid across her lap on her belly, and Tonks as at her feet drawing stick figures in the snow. The soft and flushed Astoria was leaned against Draco, already asleep, while Goyle propped up her feet. Luna's own feet was in Pansy's lap, naked of shoes or socks, while Lavender drew figures on the soles.
They made for an odd picture, a makeshift puzzle work of gowns and suits, but it felt like harmony.
"Hermione," Bellatrix whispered, eyes as dark as the night.
She stood from her pile, to the sleepy tipsy groans of the others, and followed her.
Excitement, barely tapered, crackled along Bellatrix's limbs. She was clearly still wound up from the earlier moments of the ball. Hermione wondered if she'd been frightened. Maybe inflamed by the idea that Hermione might not survive. It was a pleasant thought, for Hermione would have felt the same. Driven forward to protect what she'd surmised was hers to own.
But now she was owned by another, claimed in a way that Hermione suspected was familial, but still powerful in it own right. She certainly didn't feel different. The Locket didn't whisper to her, didn't quake or sing. It slept, much like her Mark, while her scar tingled and ached, reactive to Bellatrix's aggressive need.
"Are you worried?" Hermione answered.
Bellatrix snorted, "No. I'm… hungry."
For you.
"Come with me." Hermione husked.
They ran then, like children, panting down the halls of Malfoy manor and careful to keep out of the sight of those with curious eyes. Mostly, Hermione checked for Andromeda, but found her presence elsewhere-settled near wherever Narcissa dwelled.
Perfect.
They barely made it the library proper before Bellatrix was upon her. Heat and teeth and hooked fingers, all moving in tandem to mark her body as her own. There was something desperate in the kiss Hermione received, in the harsh press of lips and the invasion of tongue. It was all at once dominating, commanding, and needy.
It was only once they both fell upon the couch that Bellatrix stopped her ravaging kiss, leaving Hermione breathless and unfocused.
She whispered, "I'm right here, Bella. I'm not…"
Dead.
Discarded.
Mud.
Bellatrix took her lips again.
It was different this time, coaxing and seductive. Lips that were once bruising were now soft in their warmth. Pressing and tempting her own to part until she felt the wet heat of her tongue. Tentative brushing strokes soon turned to more explorative licks as their kiss deepened and Bellatrix had no problem at all swallowing Hermione's gasp as Bellatrix reached between them to spread her thighs.
She… she wouldn't. They couldn't.
But when had Bella ever been one for rules and decorum? Not now, not when she was there between them, rocking their hips together in a sensual rhythm. It did little to ease their growing desire, only heightened the sharp pain of arousal between them. They were both clothed, and yet wickedly intertwined in their rolling motions of something slow and torturous. If only Bellatrix hips were able to be angled just a little more. If only the presence against her clothed sex was more pressing, more demanding. She felt like their dance, dangerous and sensual, would only provoke their heated agitation.
What Hermione wanted to do. What she craved to do. Was hold Bellatrix down and grind in a rut. To spill everything that she was in a moment of bliss. To feel one with her magic until they were one in mind.
"Merlin, please," Hermione hissed when Bellatrix gripped the back of her head and pulled it back by her tumbled hair. She tugged once, twice, and again until Hermione cried out. Something soft and wanton as sweet pain crawled across her scalp.
"Our Lord is your Head," Bellatrix panted into her neck, lips over her pulse and tongue lapping at her sweat, "And we both must obey."
Then Bellatrix went to her ear, soft threats said like a loving caress, "But you will be my wife. Mine to torture. Mine to fuck."
She punctuated each word with a hard rock of her hips, as if she were capable of forcing each word into her body with that motion alone.
Hermione arched with the grip in her hair tightened and her other hand, free, moved to the base of her spine to tease and stroke.
"You'll be between my legs, on those pretty knees, with your mouth on my-"
Here Bellatrix hissed, as if the idea of Hermione's devotion was just far too much for her. Her face was flushed in her primal lust and the shadows behind her eyes twisted into monstrous storms.
Then Bellatrix scratched just so against a spot on her back and Hermione hissed. She thoughtlessly moved hooked hands to exposed arms and drew her nails downward in a wicked scratch. Bellatrix threw back her head from the pain and made a similar sound. Both of them. Animals. Wound up on one another.
But slowly, as if it pained her, Bellatrix began to slow her rocking. Her brow was pinched, her bottom lip held tightly between her sharp teeth. They both needed to stop, that much was certain, before their session-meant to soothe and reinstate them both in their place with one another-turned into another night of crucios and unfulfillment.
Still, Hermione couldn't help but tease her. She moaned out her name, and hooked one leg around the back of her neck and relished when Bellatrix faltered. She wanted her, even knowing the risk of punishment, and that made something wicked pool low in Hermione's belly.
But she didn't push, and soon, with a sigh, she released her betrothed.
"I'd consume you whole, Hermione." Bellatrix rumbled with half-lidded eyes.
Hermione nodded, "I know…"
Some portion of her desperately wanted to be. But Bellatrix had other plans.
"Stand up."
Bellatrix moved her toward the library fireplace, taking only a moment to adjust their clothing. Something that seemed to calm the shaking of her hands and the worried nibble she did on her bottom lip.
"Bellatrix?"
"Quiet," Bellatrix whispered. "This is something I need to do. Something I must do."
With a lingering glance at the Locket around her neck Bellatrix stepped back and began to reach under her dress.
Hermione licked her lips as her nostrils flared, eyeing the pale pretty skin of her lust-flushed thighs and the trickle of moisture there. Oh Merlin-
"Pervert." Bellatrix rumbled.
"Stay… out of my head." Hermione gasped, overwhelmed by a fresh wave of desire.
Bellatrix only chuckled as she removed, from her garter, a sheath.
Which, in turn, hosted the beautiful ornamental handle of a blade.
"My father was a traditionalist, the sort to tell his children all kinds of stories of ill repute, no matter their age." Bellatrix started, as she slowly knelt on the ground, "There was one story he always told us though, of a woman Head of the Most Ancient and Noble Blacks."
Hermione took a steadying breath and watched as Bellatrix laid the sheath and blade across one of her hands. The sheath was a magnificent sight, a lioness arch and prepared to strike at a black gemmed sun. Intricate little runic symbols covered the bulk of it elsewhere, enhancing the beautiful carving of the red beast and the sun that had angered it.
While stroking the sheath, Bellatrix continued, "He never seemed to like her, but her stories were always brave. He said she'd come to abhor men, and wanted to marry a woman instead. There has never been much wrong with that, we're of a stock who worship power. Severus wasn't wrong when he said it, that the body is nothing compared to the magic."
And yet, the way Bellatrix eyed her body, as she stood barefoot before her, made Hermione think there was more to the statement.
"Don't misunderstand me though, I want to possess your body." She hissed, "But this was not the issue my father had with the tale. She was a predator, a huntress, and hungry. She slaughtered her opposers before she dealt out her political might. He hated that, thought it crude. But I, Hermione. I loved it." Bellatrix smiled, something wild. "Then, he told me, the story of when he found her. The wife she wanted. The wife she coveted. But that woman? She wasn't impressed with petty trinkets and declarations of love. Rings and the ilk. Baubles of courtship? Garbage."
And Hermione jumped slightly when Bellatrix turned her head and spat, rejecting the ideal of the sheep in the ballroom. "She was like me, Hermione. Built for more and most of it battle. But her to-be was smart, a bit like you I think."
Hermione tilted her head.
"She asked for it, a true declaration of loyalty. And so she made it. She worked on it for months. Toiled away at this sign, the ultimate symbol, of her intention."
Slowly, Bellatrix began to pull back the sheath, revealing the slick gleaming might of silver and magic-blessed metal. It was slightly curved and reflective, catching the light of the gas-lanterns overhead. It's body was unlike any she'd ever seen before, the end near the hilt lacking much metal. In fact, it was all twisting curls and writhing, like many twitching thin bodies. Yes, Hermione could see it now. The metal closest to the decorative hilt was made up of many metal snakes, all crawling over one another as they reached upward toward the tip, a tip which had a small imprint, crude in shape but still dynamic, of another lion. This one with chest out and proud as the snakes writhed before it.
"She made her to-be a blade and sheath of magic, her own. She did everything herself. The metal work, the carvings, the sheath. And then, together, they found an enemy to slaughter."
Slowly, Bellatrix reached out and grasped one of Hermione's trembling hands. She brought her finger down to the very point of the blade and carefully pressed. Hermione sucked in a breath as her blood trickled downward, coating the lion, staining it red as the snakes on it writhed and snapped.
"Hermione… I made this. I made this for you. With everything that I am, because you are mine." There was power in that word, power in Bellatrix's stance. Power in the darkness of her eyes… supplemented by frightening intensity. "Though the drawing is unpracticed, the metal is sure. I and Cassiopeia Black are of the same mind. And I, as Head of House Black, present this to you with the intention of wedding you in six weeks time."
With a slight tug she drew Hermione forward, down to her knees, until the blade was pressed between them and they were both panting from the passion of Bellatrix proclamation. "And before then, before I take you in ritual, before the eyes of all of magicks wilde children, we will kill together."
Hermione whimpered as Bellatrix pulled them closer together, smiling in that off and painfully sincere way.
"I know you want her. I've seen it, I've felt it. You will have her. As. Is. Tradition. That will be my gift to you." Bellatrix nipped along her neck, pulled flesh between her teeth and sucked before releasing it with an audible pop. "All you have to do is accept it."
And for a moment. One endless moment. She thought upon all her trials: the pains of her youth, the tortures of war, the grey of her existence, and the painfully vibrant now. She thought about Bellatrix, and her family. Of her new friends. Of William Weasley without all his fingers, and his child still shivering in fear of a house. She thought of The Boy, the Red One, and a broken Order, looking for anything and everyone to blame on their failures and her own hunger and needs, a taste of which was never enough.
Then she thought of her Lord, now Lady or trix.
And Her promise that there was yet still more.
Hermione did not hesitate, that had never been a choice.
"Yes."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
They sat on the couch before the fireplace and listened to the crackle and pop. There, in the silence, the rested, soothed after the events of the night. Though they both still burned, for different reasons, they felt no push or call to answer. Instead, they spoke in soft whispers, nonsense things that Bellatrix answered mindlessly, in her perfect French. Some of it Hermione understood as the drowsy musings of a woman who could feel their magic winding tightly. She'd learned some phrases from Andromeda's gasping lips during their lessons, and found the ebb and flow of toying with Bellatrix just as comforting. It was something nice to do while Hermione stroked along the blade while Bellatrix stroked along her arms and neck.
It was almost enough to make Hermione purr.
She was sure she did, but Bellatrix didn't seem to mind, even when company joined them.
But they didn't speak. Words weren't needed. Narcissa took one look at the blade upon her lap, nodded once, then found a book to read. She took to the closest chair and sat, legs folded beneath her, with a tumble of liquor Hermione thought might have been brandy.
Andromeda, close behind her, did much of the same. Kicking off her fancy heels before she squeezed in on Hermione's other side, jerked slightly as Hermione greeted her with a tug of magic, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
-and they sat like that, one connected family.
For once, Hermione was happy.