A/N: Thank You to Fightstar for the beta job! Voldemort quotes Homer when talking about Nepenthes.

Her arm was bruising. By tomorrow there would be finger shaped marks covering her upper arm if she did not get a chance to heal them soon. Assuming she would be alive tomorrow. No real hope in healing them anytime soon either.

The Death Eaters who held her arms were moving fast. Technically, they were ministry guards and not Death Eaters at all, but mask or no mask she would always call them so. Voldemort's thugs. Why didn't they just kill her? They had not even disarmed her. True, both arms were held so tightly that she could not reach the wand in her pocket, but still they must know it was there. Why this charade?

She had rushed out of her house the moment the last letter from Voldemort sunk in. He knew. She had been nothing but a pawn and worse she had sent Paul to his death. Cursing herself for never completely mastering the skill of apparating, she had flown to the nearest floo port. Splinching oneself, especially when apparating to a secret rebel camp, did not seem prudent in this political climate. She arrived in London with the dawn.

But she never made it to Paul's camp. Walking down the deserted alley, that held the secret entrance to the rebel camp, she was reminded of just why Muggles avoided such places. They were creepy and full shadows, where who knows what could be hiding.

When the hand fastened itself around her arm she shrieked.

"Hush girl," a rough voice hissed in her ear. Another figure appeared at her other side, claiming the right arm as well. "You need to come with us. We know that your friend is hiding in the building there and if you don't want to see the whole thing go up in flames you'll come easy. This way there is always the chance that he will chicken out and live to fight tomorrow."

The laughter, which followed that statement, chilled Hermione almost as much as the feeling of a wand pressed discretely into her back. Silently, she turned and allowed herself to be led away, but not before dropping one of her business cards onto the damp stones. It was a thin hope, but maybe Paul would see it and suspect something wrong. She had to do something for hope.

Yet, as her captors kept walking whatever hope she had died. Her mind rose up in rebellion and she saw Paul lying bloody and dead in a clump of flowers. That garden would not bloom again. But that was not Paul at all, it was Fred Weasley who died in a flower garden, miles away from this London street. She shook her head trying to clear it oh the past.

Mistaking her movement for fight, the man on her left gave her arm a violent shake. "Be still!" The wand at her back pressed harder and Hermione sighed and walked on with her ghosts.

After what seemed like a lifetime but which could not have been longer than an hour, they stopped in a doorway. It looked like any empty store front door except for the lack of dust on the handle. Clearly, this door was being used.

Muttering what sounded suspiciously like Alohomora, one of the men opened the door and led Hermione through. The inside looked like nothing so much as a hallway in a Muggle luxury hotel. Warm peach light filtered down onto cream colored walls, broken every so often by silent and shut doors. Tucked into empty corners, elegant tables stood backs to the wall, proudly displaying vases of flowers or an antique lamp. Under her feet, Hermione noticed an imitation Persian rug, run through with red and gold and green. The only things missing were numbers on the doors. Counting in her head she noticed that they stopped in front of door number 13, but the door which had brought them here had no distinguishing marks anymore and even with this information Hermione did not trust herself to find it again

After giving three sharp raps one of her guards turned the knob and held the door open for her. As soon as she stepped through it swung shut leaving her alone. Cautiously, Hermione pulled out her wand before turning from the door to inspect the room

If the outside resembled a Muggle hotel, this room looked like she imagined Galileo's quarters must have. It was stone, circular, and rather small. It had a large window cut into the ceiling looking up into the sky. Two chairs and a wooden table, draped in dark cloth upon which two books and several stacks of paper were placed, stood under the window and a plush brown rug covered half of the floor. A fireplace near where she stood had burned down only giving off a minimal glow. If the window was opened she was sure the room would be flooded with light, but the dark shutters were pulled resolutely shut.

At first she thought the room was empty. Robed and hooded, the figure blended into the shadows so well that, had he not moved she might never have seen him.

"You," she breathed, letting her wand hand fall limp to her side.

"Hermione, we are well-acquainted strangers, are we not?" He answered with a slight ironic bow, although his features remained hidden in the darkness of his hood.

"What are you doing here? Why... hum... I mean... shouldn't you be out crushing a harmless rebellion?" she asked in a rush. Her face, which had drained of its color with her original shock now flushed a deep pink as she struggled to make her posture perfectly straight and defiant.

"No. I came for you."

"Me?"

"Yes, I am afraid your little rebellion was not really enough of a challenge to warrant my actual presence. Lucius will handle it. I was more interested in finding you." Holding out his hand he slowly moved towards her.

She stared at the hand, its long fingers, its pale skin, for a moment longer then usual courtesy allowed before, finally, placing her own in its offered grasp. As soon as her skin touched his he changed the position allowing his fingers to twine shockingly, intimately with her own. Gently, he pulled her towards him, positioning them under the window.

"I thought we had a date on the battlefield?" she asked to cover how flustered she felt.

"I grew impatient. Besides, wars have uncertain outcomes and even a "Do not harm" order does not forgo all accidents."

"You would not enjoy the risk?"

"Only if I had stacked the outcome."

His eyes were dark but deeply red, like blood settling in pools, and they bore into her, demanding that she look, refusing to let her look away, not even when she heard the door open again. Not even when he spoke.

"Wormtail, bring it here." He turned then breaking eye contact and all of her fears and doubts came crashing in. Twisting away from him, he held her hand firm, yet she strained enough to catch a glimpse through the shutters on the window. Surely that could not be twilight already.

"Hermione", he said with a warning tone in his voice. Firmly, he pulled her back towards him. With a gasp, she felt her hip painfully bump against the corner of the table. In a way she was glad for it, the pain cleared her head a little and brought her back to the fact that this was real.

He must have seen something of this inner struggle in her eyes for he put his other hand on her shoulder steadying her for a moment before speaking.

"You have heard of the writer Homer, I assume?"

Mutely, she nodded.

"Did you know he was a wizard? Not a very great one, although he has been very useful. His books, mere poetry and history to Muggles, hold the secrets for some of the strongest potions the ancients knew. Do you know of Nepenthes?"

"No, I do not," she whispered.

"Ah it is one of the finest potions: 'a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his mother and his father died, not though men slew his brother or dear son with the sword before his face, and his own eyes beheld it.' According to the legend, it was this potion Helen of Troy would offer her guests, a great gift don't you think? And some say, this was what Paris gave to her to make her his. It is a potion which allows one to forget their burden of memory and to escape from their ghosts. It is a potion to make you free."

Despite herself, Hermione was letting his voice ensnare her again. It wrapped around her mind and drew her to him, even as the words intrigued her intellect. How easy the voice seemed to hiss to her unconsciousness: how easy it would be to just stop fighting. Just to give in.

The rush of cold air on her hand surprised her. For a moment she found herself staring at it completely disoriented. Of course Voldemort had just dropped her hand to pour a dark liquid from the flash Wormtail had brought into a cup, but for a moment she had felt truly lost with out that contact.

Turning back to her, Voldemort carefully placed the simple wooden cup into her hands, but he left his own cupped around them. "You said to me once," he murmured his voice low and insidious; "that you could not hold the memories you carry inside you and would give a passing through to my offer. Well I am changing my offer. Drink deep, my child, and come to me."

His eyes had caught hers again, yet even now he was not quite close enough for her to make out more than a shadow of his features under the hood. She lifted the cup to her lips, his hands following her gesture, but stopped just before tasting.

"Paul?"

"He is dead;" the voice was soft now, caressing even as it spoke tragedy. "You were right when you noted the coming twilight, in this room time moves as I will and the battle has already been fought and lost."

A strange emotion flickered in Hermione's eyes, regret and resignation but also relief. Slowly she took a sip of the potion.

The sound of her wand hitting the stone floor startled Wormtail. He had been standing at the doorway, not wanting to stay but not yet released from his master's presence. At the noise he glanced back at the pair. Voldemort gently took the cup from her hands and seemed to be considering something he read in her eyes. Throwing back his hood and smiling in a way that caused Wormtail to cringe, he looped his arm around Hermione's waist and lowered his head to claim her mouth.

Wormtail decided he need not wait to be formally released and scampered through the door. But before leaving, he turned and cast one last look over his shoulder at the embracing couple silhouetted in the dying firelight.

He paused to hear the door click closed behind him before he made his way back out onto the London street.

Fin

Thank you for sticking with me this long guys. Sorry about the huge break in updates. It is done. I also want to thank everyone who read this and especially thank everyone who reviewed, you guys are great!