Voldemort hesitated on the threshold of the Noble Pureblood Bistro. He liked to ruffle his hood a little, and give his robes a menacing swirl to get in the spirit before entering. Hermione did not. It might have been because Hermione was not a Pureblood, and therefore didn't know the elitist magnitude of entering that particular café; or it might have been because she was marveling over the stupidity of the name. Purebloods might be able to trace their lineage back to the shores of the Yangtze – or alternatively Tripoli – but long on originality they were not. Very few of them cared about this particular default in character, so long as their comrades were able to appreciate a well cut and crisply pressed robe - which they invariably were.
The bistro itself was adorable. It was the kind of place Hermione might have taken her ailing grandmother for Sunday tea. Well loved velvet poodle prints hung about the walls - the owner tried to justify their presence with some rambling tale about their being traced back to Salazar Slytherin, but everyone knew that he just liked to run his cheek along a good velvet poodle print. The Muggles were kept in a giant transparent lobster tank in the corner. Hermione's ailing grandmother probably wouldn't have approved of that particular décor element.
No sooner had the two entered than a Muggle man with an abundance of tattoos was plucked from the tank by the maitre-de, who wore high buttoned robes and a little lace fichu.
"Dance, Muggle, dance! Dance your feisty dance!" the wizard demanded.
"But you said I could be free!"
"Tomorrow you can be free," declared the Maitre-de, "tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life."
"What about tonight?"
"Tonight you dance. For our amusement."
"Man," thought the Muggle, as he broke into a fiery Russian jig "tomorrow is going to rock."
Sometimes Purebloods liked to watch Muggles do funny things. It wasn't anything personal, it just tickled them.
Rita Skeeter, for instance, seated somewhat apart from the rest of the crowd, seemed to find the spectacle both perverse and amusing. Her face had contorted itself into an amused grimace, which quickly turned into a full blown grimace when she caught sight of Hermione. Voldemort lingered slightly behind, clapping his hands in time to the Russian jig music.
"So." stated Rita, as Hermione descended into the chair across from the journalist.
"So," said Hermione.
"So, hello there!" exclaimed Voldemort, trotting over from the jig, "What a pleasure to meet you!"
Rita's face regressed into a further expression of shock and disgust, but after a moment journalistic vigor seemed to take hold, and she breathed, as Woodward must have breathed when first contacted by Deep Throat, "Voldemort."
"No, no, that mistake gets made all the time," replied Voldemort affably, "I am Willard – the stoically disfigured but abnormally genial Hogwarts caretaker."
It was at that point that a waiter shuffled over to their table and caught sight of Voldemort. In his hurry to fling himself prostrate at the Dark Lord's feet, rolls were strewn everywhere.
"My Lord," murmured the man, "you cannot imagine the honor you do me." Unfortunately, as he was prostrate, he murmured all this to the carpet, so that it sounded like something more along the lines of, "I'm bored, boo cannot be bagged the horror to do be." It's a little known fact that overlords would actually love to receive valuable input from underlings; it's just so hard to comprehend any of it when said underlings have their face submerged in shag carpeting.
"Ix-nay Oldermort-vay. Illard-way," replied Voldemort sagely.
"I see My Lord," whispered the waiter, "you are traveling incognito."
"No," replied Voldemort, "I am not Voldemort. I don't even know who Voldemort is. Or whoever this Lord is you're referring to. I am but Willard, a mild mannered caretaker tragically disfigured while trying to save a baby crup. Now, go away or I'll crucio you into next Tuesday."
Dark Lords are appalling liars. Nonetheless, the waiter did depart, kow-towing and crunching a vast assortment of rolls under his heel as he went.
"So," said Rita, leaning in Voldemort's direction very purposefully, and propping her chin upon her hands, "why don't you tell me all about how you saved that crup."
"Well, there was this crup..."
"Yes."
"And it was in danger! Horrible danger! So I rushed to its defense with bells on my toes."
"Danger from what, precisely?"
Voldemort turned desperately towards Hermione.
"I believe you told me he was in grave danger from a prowling pack of bowtruckles."
"Of course. They attacked me in the head, you know. So I sometimes forget things like that."
"That's dreadful," said Rita, "How did you fend them off?"
"With my hands! With nothing but my hands, clawing at their fiendish bodies, clawing like a madman! They came at me, one by one, but I held firm. Then one got me in the face. I collapsed after that, and awoke to find myself in St.Mungo's being treated for serious injuries."
"So you don't actually know that you saved the crup?"
"What?" Voldemort was perplexed.
"You passed out before you actually saw whether or not the crup was saved. It could just as well be dead."
"Don't upset him this way, you'll only confuse him," whispered Hermione.
"If I'm only going to confuse him," Rita hissed back, "then why did you bring him?"
"He has essential information regarding an article I need done. If you'd ever give me a chance to talk about it."
"I will, I will, but right now I want to hear more about the crup."
"I did save that crup, I DID," insisted Voldemort firmly.
"Of course you did," soothed Rita. "Nobody would ever contest that. I just think it would have been so much easier had you just used a few elementary charms instead of going to all the trouble of clawing at it."
Voldemort looked sad. Not perplexed, not annoyed, just quietly depressed, and maybe a little sulky.
"I suppose it's really more plants I tend to," he sighed.
"You don't say!" squealed Rita, "I always specialized in herbology, I even worked in the field for a few years before getting into journalism."
"That's nice. Could we get to the article now?" suggested Hermione briskly.
"I still keep it up as a hobby, of course," continued Rita, leaning closer to Voldemort, "but lately I've been having the most terrible difficulties with my asphodel. Tell me, what do you use to help it grow?"
"Water?" supplied Voldemort lamely.
"Really," replied Rita, "how perfectly extraordinary."
"Just a natural green if somewhat disfigured thumb," replied Voldemort, chipper as ever.
In close proximity to the table a series of waiters had begun to congregate in subservient, worshipful positions of their own choosing.
"I think," declared Rita, jotting a few notes into her journal, "we might be able to talk about Miss Granger's article now."
"Of course," stated Hermione quickly, "it's really quite scandalous."
"Mmm-hmm," Rita replied, casting pointed glances at Voldemort and continuing to scribble in her notebook.
"Albus Dumbledore is having an affair with a sixth year student," declared Hermione.
Rita's head shot up from her parchment. She adjusted her spectacles. "Now," she said, "that really is interesting. Do you have proof?"
"Loads," promised Voldemort, dropping his heap of letters on the table.
Rita picked one up, recoiled at the still pungent perfume soaking it, and read aloud, with a tone of detached irony:
"Albus,
I remember the day we saw the happy phoenix.
Happy!
So happy!
I saw the phoenix again today
But today there was no happiness
Only death.
Not like the happy day.
Love and kisses,
Susan."
"My God," murmured Rita, "it's the worst poem ever."
"You haven't read his yet," chuckled Voldemort maniacally.
"But now I must," replied Rita, eagerly grabbing for another letter. "Ah, here we are," she stated, and read:
"Susan,
I love you like I'd love a sea monkey
If sea monkeys didn't die so quickly
I should hate to see you
Flinging your wormy body against the glass
But I would feed you a food pellet
Any time you wanted.
Albus."
"I stand corrected," stated Rita, "that's the worst poem ever written."
"If a man wrote that to me," mentioned Hermione, "I would lie awake at night worrying that he was going to transform me into a sea monkey."
"Then there would be no happiness. Only sea monkey-ness," replied Voldemort.
"Not like the happy day!" cackled Rita.
"When I take over the world poetry like this shall be verboten! I shall rule like angry god of intelligent metaphor," declared Voldemort in a fit of passion.
"When you take over the world?" queried Rita, jotting frantically in her journal.
"I mean..." Voldemort hesitated, "when I take over... Hogwarts."
"You're aspiring to take over Hogwarts?" Rita looked riveted.
"No. I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did."
"No, he didn't," replied Hermione. Then she leaned purposefully over to Rita and muttered, "the bowtruckles damaged his brain. Please, stop tormenting him."
"So then," said Rita, "I take it you're just bringing me this information out of the goodness of your hearts, because you sit around devising ways to advance my journalistic career?"
"Not quite," said Hermione.
"I didn't think so. What do you want in exchange?"
"Well, given Dumbledore's tastes," stated Voldemort, "he's been condoning some indiscretions pertaining to other teachers. Binns, for instance. Binns verbally assaults young women and gets away with it."
"So you want me to bring down Binns? That's all? Well, that's fine. I don't really give a damn about Binns."
"No, that's not all," stated Hermione. "There seems to be this really funny rumor about that I'm having an affair with Professor Snape. I'd like you to insure that he's set up to be a man of impeccable conduct. You could even infer that he was the one who was so appalled by the proceedings that he brought it to the public's attention."
"And is he a man of... impeccable conduct?" sneered Rita slightly.
"If you mean am I sleeping with him, I'm not."
"Well, you might as well be. I can set him up to be a man of impeccable conduct, after all. So society isn't going to think there's anything untoward going on. There's no administration to stop you. Dumbledore obviously wouldn't contest it. You have totally free rein to indulge all your schoolgirl fantasies with no repercussions at all. My word, aren't you the luckiest little devil that God ever made?"
"I certainly do not have schoolgirl fantasies – especially fantasies pertaining to Professor Snape. Nor do I think I'm likely to any time in the near future. Now, I'm leaving the copies of the correspondence between Professor Dumbledore and Susan in your care, I trust you'll make good use of them. But if you don't heed my wishes on Professor Snape, I think you'll have a very hard time finding a part of the administration that won't dismiss the Dumbledore/Susan fiasco – and in relation to that the Binns scandal – as patent fraud. This, unfortunately for you, would bring a very quick end to what could promise to be the story of the year, not to mention your career. However, if you insure that Professor Snape is unimpeachable, I'll be willing to offer an interview on what it was like to be sexually harassed by Professor Binns. I will weep. It will be tragic. Likewise, Professor Snape will voice his disgust at how Albus tried to give his young mistress a position as Professor Snape's potion's assistant."
Rita nodded.
"We're agreed then?" Hermione asked.
Rita nodded once more.
"I'm glad to hear it. Good day, Ms. Skeeter." Voldemort and Hermione strode away from the table, leaving Rita to pay for the drinks. However, Rita seemed to be experiencing a frantic giggling fit as she leafed through the Albus/Bones letters, and couldn't have minded too terribly much.
"Tell me," said Voldemort, as the two strode out the door, "do you really not have schoolgirl fantasies?"
"Not any I was going to admit to with her recording the whole conversation."
Voldemort looked surprised. "I hadn't thought of that," he mentioned. "So you do have fantasies?"
"You could say that. Does it shock you?"
"Should it?"
"It's not the sort of thing one goes about admitting to people, Willard."
"Don't worry, I think it's quite normal for there to be a certain sexual tension in any close friendship between a heterosexual man and woman. It always seems to be quite absurd for society to assume that laws or moral restrictions can make us regard everyone except immediately acceptable prospective spouses as gender neutral. But then, I have no morals."
"Yes, you do," chided Hermione affectionately.
"Not in the traditional sense. Though I do think she's right about the fact that you could have a liaison with Severus."
Hermione blushed.
"So you've thought about it."
"Only sometimes. I mean sometimes, when we're laughing about some silly piece of literature, or last week he was reading something – Bulgakov, I think – aloud, and I just felt really... you know."
"Overcome with a violent, lustful passion?"
"Emotionally attached."
"I know for a fact that Severus is very lonely."
"Everybody's lonely. It's the human condition."
"I also know that he'd really like to be in a relationship with you. A relationship that's more than just friendship." Voldemort knew no such thing, but the kow-towing waiters had infused him with a desire to spread love with a verve that would put Cupid to shame.
"I don't know," replied Hermione. "It would be fine and dandy now, but twenty years down the road don't you think I'd look back on it and be vaguely disturbed that there was a man twice my age – old enough to be my father – lusting after me? I mean, if I had a daughter, and she was sleeping with one of her teachers, I would be completely disgusted."
"But you two are an exemplary case."
"I'm pretty sure very couple who does something like that says that they're the exemplary case."
"But?"
"But you're right. I do want him. As more than just a friend. We'll see how it goes."
"I think you'd have to make the first move. He would never consider it – I think in his mind it would put him on par with Binns. Or Dumbledore, I suppose."
"We'll see."
"Is that a..."
"That's a "we'll see." Maybe. I might. I think he'd dismiss me, but I suppose it would get the urge out of the way."
"Well. I think it would be grand. I think it would be perfectly grand." Voldemort and Hermione trotted off happily into the sunset, a day of successful scheming behind them.
But it couldn't come as a great surprise to anyone when the next morning the Wizarding News Headlines read: VOLDEMORT – A.K.A. 'WILLARD' - SAVES BABY CRUP: FRIENDLY CRUPS NOW ON SIDE OF DARKNESS? Voldemort was depressed about this, until he realized that it meant that he could choose an entirely new name for his alter ego. He would be inconspicuous about it, of course. He was thinking of going by El Elegance Elegante.