THE MANOR
Disclaimer: Most of this is JKR's. Just a small bit is mine.
Chapter 17 – Voldemort Himself
Hermione stared at the man before her in mute terror. Lord Voldemort himself.
He was frightening to look at, maybe because he looked so much more normal than she had expected. He had a very pale face that looked just slightly familiar in some way, as if she had seen it before, yet at the same time, completely alien to look at. His face held regular, even handsome features that harked back to the days when he had been a "handsome Headboy" as Dumbledore had called him, and now, he looked almost ageless, although his thin lips were close to colourless. Voldemort's hair was dark, and was trimmed neatly, with just slight patches of grey near the temples.
He only vaguely resembled Harry's description of him when he had first risen again from spirit into physical form. Obviously, he had undergone yet more changes since last year, although there was still something about him that reminded her of a snake. The way his unnaturally long fingered hands moved sinuously, perhaps, the way his face looked almost bloodless. His pose was relaxed, languid, with those long-fingered hands resting naturally on the arms of the luxurious chair on which he sat. Like his followers, he wore dark, black robes. Voldemort was a tall man, not heavily built.
Most unnerving of all, though to Hermione, were his eyes. The fact that his dark blue eyes, not very big, nor very small, looked completely sane as they stared at her bemusedly. Not red with lunacy and madness, but completely sane.
'Hermione Granger,' he said, with a slight smile. 'Have a seat, and please don't mind the rudeness of the company that was here,' he gestured with a wave of one of his hands, and a seat flew over beneath Hermione. His voice, directed at her, was shockingly urbane.
Hermione gaped, but closed her mouth at once, stubbornly deciding to neither speak nor sit. She stood, as if he had said nothing, determined not to listen to a word Voldemort said. A flicker of amusement ran through those all too sane blue eyes as he saw through her act of defiance, and Hermione felt a crushing force on her lap. Succumbing, she fell onto the seat helplessly.
'Say "thank you,"' Voldemort said reprovingly as she collapsed down.
Hermione glared at him.
'Well, well, well …stubborn, aren't we. I don't mind,' Voldemort said, smiling chillingly. 'It suits me well.'
Hermione closed her eyes, and turned her head away.
'Why do you think you are here, Hermione?' Voldemort said, as Hermione stared fiercely at a portrait hanging on a wall, of one of the earlier Malfoys, a man who looked surprisingly similar to Draco, who was reading a book in an elegantly studious pose. She didn't like the way Voldemort called her by her first name, and she refused to speak, studying the portrait further.
Distract yourself, she ordered herself fiercely, and decided to analyse the painting in an attempt to block out Voldemort's voice. The play of light and colour on the portrait was amazing, and the way the focus of light just happened at the right spot, and how this man resembled Draco, and Lucius Malfoy, so much. The same eyes – grey, and hair colour, it seemed hereditary. The artist was not so skilled though, for the hair looked almost white in the picture, as opposed to the light, almost translucent colour it usually was. What book was it that the figure was reading? She scrutinised the book, could she make out the title –
'Continue in that vein, Hermione, and you will find yourself forced to speak, just as you were forced to sit. Would you like to say everything you know about anything to me?' Voldemort asked, voice dangerously sweet.
Hermione shuddered, jolted efficiently from her attempts to ignore him, and turned back reluctantly. Maybe it would be wiser to speak. Who knows, maybe one day she could tell her grandchildren that she had a conversation with the Darkest Lord of them all, and emerged unscathed, although she found that completely unlikely.
'Well, why do you think you are here?' Voldemort repeated his question, with no air of impatience.
'You captured me to get at Harry, Mr Riddle,' she said, a determined and firm tone of voice employed.
'Ah,' Voldemort said, smiling a little and seeing through her ploy of calling him by his original name. 'Do you really believe that?'
'Of course,' Hermione said. 'What other reason could there be for you to kidnap me?'
Voldemort took a sip from a wine glass that sat near him, and then marvelled the colour of the ruby red wine next to the candlelight. 'There is the possibility that I also captured you for yourself, and not just because of Harry Potter.'
'Impossible,' Hermione said, disbelieving him. 'I have nothing to do with your little fight, except that I am friends of Harry. But then again, maybe you want to kill me, Mr Riddle. I am Muggleborn after all,' she said, then added in an undertone. 'Like yourself.' She could hardly believe she was being so bold, but she felt a sort of "what gives" attitude, and felt fully ready to tell Voldemort exactly what she thought of his hypocritical behaviour.
'I am not about to kill you,' Voldemort said, a faint smile hovering on those colourless thin lips.
'Really?' Hermione said doubtfully. 'I come from a Muggle family, Mr Riddle,' she reminded him, almost tauntingly.
Voldemort stared at his wine glass momentarily lost in thought, then spoke, his voice as completely controlled as it had been previously. 'I am not like my followers, Hermione. I can see skill where it is. As you said, I am born of a Muggle father. I hated him, and his family. But, not all Muggles are fools. Just as not all purebloods are powerful.'
'Are you trying to recruit me?' Hermione asked, incredulous.
'You are the cleverest witch in your entire school. I don't believe anybody has been so dedicatedly intelligent as you since the days of my school days, when I was rather like you. I studied hard, and received very high marks, like the range of marks you get,' Voldemort said, a tinge of reminiscences in his face.
'Don't compare me to you,' Hermione whispered, horrified. 'Besides, weren't Harry's parents clever? They were supposed to be very smart.'
'Yes, of course. James Potter would be a very talented youth,' Voldemort said, eyes staring into the air, and not at Hermione. 'But he did not have the same devotion to learning we have. And he was not quite as talented as us, Hermione. He was just lucky, although not for long.' There was a hint of hatefully smug satisfaction at that statement.
'So?' Hermione asked defiantly.
'We are quite similar, Hermione Granger,' Voldemort said, looking at her now, his dark blue eyes terrifyingly direct. 'Both born of foolish Muggle families, but with an understanding far beyond theirs.' He tapped his fingers against the side of the chair. 'I need intelligent followers.'
'So you want me to join your side?' Hermione demanded. 'What would Malfoy or Pettigrew say to that?' she asked boldly.
'It matters not what those imbeciles say. My word is the law here,' Voldemort said, voice calmly confident.
'And I'm female,' Hermione added. 'I haven't seen a single female Death-Eater,' she pointed out.
'Does that matter? Fly in the face of tradition, Hermione. Wouldn't you like to do that?' he asked her, detached laughter in his voice.
'Of course,' Hermione said sarcastically. 'I'd love to join forces with a crazy insane man who leads a bunch of pure-blooded fanatics who just want to butcher most of the human race.'
'Do you think I'm crazy,' Voldemort said meditatively.
Hermione looked at him warily. 'Not now, you don't look it,' she admitted honestly.
'So would you say I had a reason for what I am doing aside from pure insanity?' Voldemort inquired, voice impassive.
Hermione sighed, forcing herself to psycho-analyse Lord Voldemort. 'Revenge maybe, Mr Riddle?' she suggested after a while. 'Revenge against your Muggle family?'
Voldemort gave a dry laugh. 'That is part of it,' he admitted.
Hermione grinned. 'Maybe it's the Oedipus complex,' she suggested lightly. 'It was your mother who died, after all.'
Voldemort raised his eyebrows. 'Maybe not,' he said, a little amused. 'And I didn't ask for you to find the most obscure reasons possible.'
Hermione shrugged, hiding a smirk. 'So, revenge,' she said again.
'That is not the only motive, Hermione. It was when I was younger, still angry, upset over my mother's death, my solitude. But I learnt to understand.'
'Enlighten me,' Hermione said, leaning back in her chair, arms crossed as she stared slightly insolently at Voldemort.
Voldemort sat still for a moment, before he began speaking. 'You think I want to "butcher most of the human race,"' he quoted Hermione's previous words. 'But have you ever considered how Muggles are slaughtering this world we live in? Muggles are like a disease on this world, Hermione, a virus that multiplies and continues without stopping. They are destroying the world, and they need to be stopped.'
He stopped his spiel, and stood up, using his wand to project an image into the air of the Earth.
'This is what the world looked like before humans started developing their so-called technology.' The globe that hovered was green and lush with life. Close ups featured animals bounding along happily, and humans living simple, but joyful lives. The globe vanished.
'This the world now, what it is like in the times of today.' A new globe appeared, replacing the other, and showed a world less green and more brown, with sprawling cities. Signs of industrialisation abounding.
'If this fatal trend were to be continued, this is what the world would look like.' The last globe he showed in the air featured a blackened Earth, with multitudes of light from cities glowing, grey and brown oceans, and hardly any specks of green left. It was a horrific sight, and Hermione recoiled in revulsion.
'Muggles are keen to develop their so-called wonderful technology. They kill, they damage, they ruin the forests, the water, the lives of creatures, mutating, distorting,' Voldemort's voice sounded aloof as he spoke. 'They think nothing of the consequences of what we do. Everything we do is carefully balanced. Wizards live in a symbiotic relationship with the world. They feel the need to destroy. It must be stopped.'
'You want to kill them,' Hermione accused in a half-whisper.
'One must make sacrifices,' Voldemort said blandly, and Hermione stared at him in repulsion. He smiled, a smile without any humour in it. 'I will not exterminate the human race, but I will take care to educate them. In time, if they breed with us, Muggles will no longer exist, and the world will be one with the wizarding kind.'
Hermione stared at him in disbelief, then spoke. 'Your followers don't seem to share your mentality,' she noted to him, eyes suspicious. 'The idea of Muggles breeding with wizards would shock them.'
'An astute observation,' Voldemort commended her. 'My followers have their prejudices, their bigoted opinions. Quite old-fashioned really,' he actually sounded amused, and shrugged. 'I let them continue. They are too foolish to understand the purpose of their actions. And it satisfies my little need for vengeance,' he added, with a small, crafty smile.
'Death-Eaters?' Hermione questioned though. The name was designed to evoke fear, and made them sound like some sort of sinister cult.
'Have you ever thought of what the name means, Hermione?' Voldemort asked, smiling slightly. 'Death Eaters. We are devouring the death that threatens the world.'
'Do your followers really believe that?' Hermione asked doubtfully.
'Of course not. But I chose the name for them,' Voldemort said coolly.
Hermione sat, stubbornly watching him.
'You don't seem to understand me, Hermione. That fool Dumbledore certainly never did,' Voldemort said scornfully, 'and he sent all his minions to stop me.'
Hermione lifted her chin slightly at Voldemort's derisive treatment of Dumbledore.
'I'm not trying to exterminate the human race. I am trying to save them, and although the means are cruel, they are the only means,' Voldemort said gravely, his dark blue eyes piercingly direct.
'So you're now the Saviour, Mr Riddle?' Hermione said, laughing in his face. 'Many people have that delusion. And they have a name too. Madmen. And you still think you're the Saviour?'
A faint smile flitted onto his cold face. 'Not me,' Voldemort said, actually serious. 'But another.'
Hermione stared.
'Have you ever heard of the Prophecy, Hermione?' Voldemort asked her idly, playing again with his glass of dark red wine.
She shook her head mutely.
'The Prophecy tells of the cleansing of this world, the purification of it. And it will happen. Because of the Golden One …' Voldemort's voice trailed off as he stared pensively into his glass of wine.
'Who?' Hermione whispered, the slight light of fanaticism shining in his eyes frightening her.
'The Golden One. It is foreordained, what I am telling you. The world will be saved, and I will help the Golden One all I can to save it,' Voldemort said, smiling.
Hermione's mind was whirling. A Prophecy? With this mysterious "Golden One"?
'You accept my words, don't you,' Voldemort said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. 'You know what I say is true. That my motives are true. And that everything you were brainwashed into believing by Dumbledore was false. They label us Dark Wizards, evil wizards, who kill Muggles because we are fools. But trust me, Hermione. Not all Dark Wizards are fools. We are doing what we know is right,' he said, his voice certain and sure.
'That is a lie,' Hermione said, but her words sounded weak even to her own ears.
'No, Hermione, it isn't,' Voldemort said, his voice all too clear and resonating in the chamber so that it thundered into Hermione's ears.
'It is a lie!' Hermione cried out desperately, feeling a terrible pressure in her mind. Did it come from herself? Or from him? Or both?
Voldemort sensed Hermione's confusion. 'Will you join with us?' he asked her. 'Join with us and help save the human race,' he even sounded impassioned with his motives. 'You must join us.' The voice grew stronger, and the pressure in Hermione's mind grew stronger.
'No!' Hermione, whose shoulders had become bowed with her thoughts, straightened up with effort. 'No! Your words are lies.'
The pressure increased, and now she knew it came from both sides. That Voldemort was somehow using some mind power to force her into submission, but that also inside, she was fighting to determine the truth. And that the fight was veering dangerously on either side.
'No!' she almost wept in frustration.
'You are alone, Hermione. Choose,' Voldemort said, his voice almost golden in its persuasiveness.
'No! Harry will help me!' she moaned, trying to stop that excruciatingly agonising pressure in her mind. Harry would come and save her, he always did. She was not alone! Never alone!
'Pity, Hermione,' Voldemort said, voice Arctic-cold once more. 'I thought you were supposed to be intelligent. We will have to take more forceful measures,' he said, with an exaggerated sigh. 'I can't really afford to lose another potential ally.'
With that, he raised his wand. 'Imperio!'
Hermione felt the pressure on her mind release amazingly, causing pure joy, and she felt herself floating, floating above all fears and worries.
Say you will become a Death-Eater …
I will become a Death-Eater …
You accept …
I accept …
Almost subconsciously, Hermione felt her mouth begin to open to say those words that felt harmless to say. Just say it, something urged in her mind.
And then, something kicked in. She felt herself falling back into reality, but still shielded by her subconscious. Although she could not hear her surrounding, did not see nor feel anything, she became almost aware again, without any trivialities surrounding her. And the pressure was there again, immensely painful, and she felt the force of the Imperius Curse that Voldemort had thrown at her.
The floating abstractedness had gone, and she struggled to speak. It was difficult, almost like pushing against some invisible barrier, but she thrashed about in her mind, straining, striving to push through that barrier, to let herself speak, to withstand the weight of Voldemort's mind, and to block out that part of her that whispered at her to stop acting like a foolish, naïve girl.
Say it … say you will become a Death-Eater …
'I-I …'
Say it …
'I,' her mouth fought to form the vowels that her mind had not yet decided, 'I …'
Say it …
'I won't!' she cried out.
The words rang in her mind. She had done it, and she gazed at Voldemort levelly, brown eyes unwavering. 'I won't.'
His eyes flashed, and for a moment, they were touched with red. 'Really, Hermione?' he said, voice deceptively mild.
And the pressure increased.
It was unbearable, and she could feel her consciousness waver, falter and weaken under that agonising compulsion. It forced itself into her mind, delving into her every thought, finding her every weakness, every single vulnerable spot, and pulling it into bigger masses in her confused mind. That he may be telling the truth, that Voldemort was right, that Dumbledore, Harry and all the others were wrong …
I'm going mad, Hermione thought deliriously.
And then it stopped.
Just stopped.
Like that.
She gasped as the pressure fled, as her mind resumed itself.
'What is it, Wormtail?' Voldemort's cold voice snapped.
Hermione's eyes blinked open, and she looked to see Peter Pettigrew standing timidly, agitatedly, at the open doorway.
He muttered something, which she could not hear under the tension of her mind recuperating, while still suffering the aftershocks of that terrible intrusion. Voldemort beckoned to Pettigrew, and he moved over to him, and spoke in a low voice into his ear.
Voldemort looked at Hermione.
'We are not over yet, Hermione,' he purred.
Hermione shut her eyes in fear, as Voldemort and Pettigrew left, and then, left alone in the empty chamber, felt herself black out. Wonderfully, blissfully, mind light and free.
Author's notes: You may notice Voldemort's take on things may sound just a little familiar. Think Agent Smith of The Matrix, who compares the human race to a cancerous virus. I must admit I was a little bit influenced by Agent Smith's world view. And yes, Voldemort does seem just a little different to the books, but I refuse to believe that Tom Riddle could be so completely stupid. This is the dude who was Head Boy in his year, and probably got like a million O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. He's had a mixed up childhood, and plenty of time to think.
Has anybody read/heard that clip from AOL or Random House or Amazon? Interesting, just a little bit odd, especially Molly Weasley … I can't wait to read the Order of the Phoenix.
Cinnamon - glad you're enthusiastic! Sorry about Draco's non-appearance, but he takes up the whole of the next chapter, which is so hard to write! I keep getting stuck, and keep changing, and think I'm babbling … anyway, enjoy!
