Hermione walked up the path to Chateau de Voldemort/Willard/El Elegance Elegante (or, as some liked to call him, Mad Dog Who Kills Muggles) with a very slight sense of trepidation. She couldn't find a new pair of high heels and had been left only with her neon pink platforms. On a faintly romantic level she thought they'd be charming. They'd make Professor Snape think of their first, dreadfully uncomfortable, teeth grinding embrace! On a more pragmatic level, they weren't quite right. She still couldn't walk in them. She'd rather hoped that the Death-Eaters would be so tipsy on champagne mixed with Muggle blood that they wouldn't even notice her unsteady gait. They also clashed horribly with her dress as Narcissa Malfoy certainly would have noted.
As she ambled up to the gate she was caught by a man sporting a multicolored, feathery skull mask. "May I have the password, please?" he asked.
"Pardon?" Hermione replied.
"Look at the sign." A sign above his head read, 'Password, please.'
"I didn't know there was a password. Has Voldemort been watching Muggle movies again?"
"On the contrary, I would suggest that Stanley Kubrick has been watching Voldemort. You can tell from the robes and masks. May I have the password, please?"
"Pureblood?"
"No."
"Death to Mudbloods?"
"Don't be vulgar."
"Fidelio?"
"We're quite capable of coming up with our own password, thank you very much."
"Death Eaters are cute and cuddly?"
"Closer…"
"Oh. Yellow roses."
"Exactly!"
Hermione could have kicked herself for not having realized that immediately – but that would have been impossible in those pink heels. Instead, she nodded at the masked man and continued into the house. Upon entering the main room of Chez Voldemort she noticed her hosts seated in a most unhostly fashion at the wet bar. Bellatrix waved her hand, and gestured for her to join them.
"Hello," said Hermione, "have you seen Professor Snape anywhere?"
"I'm sure he's around somewhere," replied Bellatrix, "sit down with us for a minute though; we were just talking about whether it was in bad taste to fill the entire room with yellow roses."
Hermione hadn't noticed but the room was indeed filled with yellow roses overflowing, really. Just then, a petal flopped from the netting in the ceiling and floated onto her hair. She glanced up at it.
"Do you think it's too much?" queried Voldemort. "They filled me with joy like a watermelon. Don't be around at midnight though; we're going to drop all the petals."
"Their weight is estimated at about two tons," explained Bellatrix.
"And we'll be dropping them en masse," exclaimed Voldemort.
"But people will die," replied a rather shocked Hermione, "that's horrible!"
"No one we like," demurred Bellatrix.
"Really, Hermione, nobody said a Death Eater soiree wasn't a deadly bed of roses," quipped Voldemort. "Have a drink with us."
"No, no, I don't drink, and I was really hoping that I'd get back early enough to do a little research. I want to be impossibly fresh for when I read Dire and Deadly Draughts of Doom. You go ahead though."
"I'll have a glass of Firewhisky," Bellatrix remarked to the bartender.
"I'll have a Slaughtered Muggle on the Rocks," said Voldemort nonchalantly.
"That sounds distasteful," noted Hermione, "what is it, exactly?"
"Umm, it's very complex." replied Voldemort.
Bellatrix leaned over. "It's his special nickname for a Shirley Temple."
"Shh!" retorted Voldemort. "It is not."
"Yes it is," replied the bartender, "you already told me that when you said 'Slaughtered Muggle on the Rocks' I was to give you a Shirley Temple."
Bellatrix giggled. Voldemort looked mortified.
"I trust that this is just between us - do you have any idea the mayhem that would ensue if people knew of the Dark Lord's penchant for Shirley Temples?"
"Why don't you just drink scotch like all the other Dark Lords then?" suggested Bellatrix.
"Because I think my followers would be even more disturbed to know how after a drop or two I start singing the Gryffindor Fight song and do my Mad Eye Moody imitation."
"You're such a cute little overlord," replied Bellatrix, attempting to pinch his cheeks, and then failing miserably, as Voldemort had no cheeks.
"You're pretty cute yourself," said Voldemort, leaning over to nuzzle her cheek with the gaping hole where his nose used to be.
Hermione got the distinct impression that she was interrupting a tender couple moment. She was just about to ask where Severus was when Voldemort's usually skull like face turned a ghastly and unnatural flesh tone. He proceeded to nimbly hop over the bar, where Hermione and Bellatrix watched him crouch at the bartenders feet and murmur pitiably, "Don't let her know I'm here. She'll bring up my lack of nose again!"
Narcissa extended a languid hand to Bellatrix.
"Hello. How are you?" asked Bellatrix.
"I'm… it's not terrible… I feel so… I don't know what the word for it is actually."
"Happy?" prompted Hermione.
"Pleased?" suggested Bellatrix.
"Ecstatic, even?"
"Euphoric?"
"I think the phrase is…" Narcissa replied slowly, "so… not suicidal… and – temporarily – not overwhelmed by the ugliness, the unspeakable galloping ugliness and nausea inherent this bitter existential dilemma we so casually refer to as living."
"I feel happy, too," replied Hermione.
"I did not say 'happy,'" noted Narcissa promptly.
"I thought that to you that was happy," said Bellatrix.
"I'm never happy. I'm living proof of the collected works of Sartre and Camus – but not Kafka. I've trained the house-elves to work with pesticides. Oh God, life is a meaningless charade, death the ultimate absurdity, and Hermione, your shoes clash with that dress and you have yellow foliage in your mud colored hair. Now I want to die again."
"I thought it was kind of a cute color combination," remarked Bellatrix.
"Oh my God," whimpered Narcissa, "the Philistines I have to put up with!"
Voldemort, meanwhile was creeping out from under the wet bar and moving in a majestic, if frightened, fashion across the room. Voldemort wished he could overcome his pitiable insecurity about his looks, but was yet to find a psychiatrist who could help him become a happy, well adjusted Dark Lord. Whenever he went to one they asked when he first had his accident and he found he had to explain that his killing curse rebounded upon him. The physiatrist's face would crinkle, and sometimes they would laugh a disturbed laugh. They didn't seem to take him seriously. This reinforced Voldemort's insecurities and he invariably sent Bellatrix in to kill them in their sleep. He didn't feel like thinking about finding a new one tonight, and felt he'd be unable to bear the torrent of self-loathing any meeting with Narcissa would inspire.
So he was very relieved indeed when he bumped into a man who he imagined felt as insecure about his looks as he did. However, on closer inspection Voldemort realized that that man was an Ogre someone had brought along to dance and juggle for the guest's amusement. As the Ogre was only capable of rudimentary speech, Voldemort settled for talking with Severus Snape, who was standing nearby.
"Have you seen Hermione?" asked Severus.
"She was looking for you. Oh, I see. I see. You're looking for her, she's looking for you, you're looking, searching, pining for each other. Is that true love I smell in the air?"
"No. I imagine it's the Ogre standing next to us."
"I think tonight's the night. I do indeed."
"The night? My Lord, you haven't been drinking have you? I don't think this is a proper time for the Gryffindor fight song."
"Nonsense. If your life were a euphemistically indirect romance novel, tonight would be the night your 'love tulip' would bloom."
"My love tulip?"
"In her fallow fields."
"What?"
"Her cuckoo's nest."
"Cuckoos don't have nests."
"Well that certainly says something about our sex's approach towards female sexuality, doesn't it old chap?"
"You're out Dumbledoring Dumbledore again. Please stop."
"I just want to know what you're going to say to her. How are you going to approach it?"
"Approach what?"
"The bedding."
"Literally, how will I approach my sheets and blanket tonight?"
"No, bedding Hermione."
"Pardon me?"
"I think you should go up to her, embrace her around her waist, gaze into her chocolaty eyes until they melt and stream down her face and then say, 'Darling, I want you.'"
"That would never work with any woman."
"I think I know a little bit more about women than you do."
"With all due respect, you're a disfigured snake man."
"With all due respect, I can have you Avada Kedavera'd into next week."
"Quite right."
"What was your plan?"
"If I had a plan, which I don't, it would be to say that, oh, I suppose that I find her very tolerable and quite attractive and that I think it might be a mutually satisfactory experience if we were to go to bed together."
"That's horrible. That's worst thing I've ever heard."
"I think it's frank and honest."
"No. No. Absolutely not. You go up to her and you say, "I want you. I need you. I must, I must have you – or I shall surely die."
"If she were to seriously to buy into that sort of melodrama she would no longer be the kind of woman I would even consider having a physical relationship with."
"But romance, Severus! Panache! Dark meetings at graveyards in aphoristically stirring masks! Intrigue! Passion! Sacrifice! Decadence! It's what the Death Eaters are all about."
"I'm afraid when it comes to my life outside of the Death Eaters I much prefer living in an age of un-innocence."
"If my tear ducts still functioned, your cynicism would make me weep."
"Your tear ducts stopped functioning?"
"As you've so eloquently pointed out, I am a disfigured snake man. They kind of function, but pus comes out. It really scares people."
"Ah. Well, I really don't see why we haven't turned that more to our advantage in battle."
"Maybe I'm just a tiny bit self conscious about it."
"I suppose."
"Seriously Severus, what do you say to a woman whom you really like?
"Women I really like?"
"When you want to be extraordinarily charming in a boudoir situation."
"Well, 'would you like to spend the night?' I suppose."
"No wonder Narcissa Malfoy doesn't think this is a fit world to live in."
"What do you say?"
"That she's pushed me past the boundaries of passion. That my love for her is running free like a wild pony across the plains of my heart, eating the hay of our mutual lust."
"That's beyond bizarre, My Lord."
"That's what romance is, Severus. Nobody said it made sense."
"She still calls me Professor Snape. I still call her Miss Granger. We're not even on a first name basis."
"Some people could find that kinky."
"I think my responses are probably more effective than yours."
"But so bereft of feeling! You see, this is why I'm an Evil Overlord. The world needs someone to re-write its wretched, wretched dialogue."
At that very moment Hermione managed to evade Narcissa, who had now curled up in a fetal position at the other end of the hallway. Hermione secretly hoped she was rushed under a giant pile of rose-petals – a thought which immediately caused her to worry that she was buying too much into the death eater mentality. She scampered over as nimbly as she could in that footwear. She thought this was probably the time to be bold and gregarious in Snape's presence.
"Hello," she said, and proceeded to blush until her face matched her dress.
"Hello," replied Snape, averting his eyes.
"This is too sexy for words," said Voldemort, "I'll just bow out gracefully."
"You look quite nice in that dress," Severus said in a tone completely devoid of flirtatiousness.
'He's flirting with me!' thought Hermione. "It's supposed to be symbolic of my transformation from a girl into a luscious voluptuary."
"I suppose that's another way of putting it."
"I'm glad you like it. I wore it for you, you know."
"Oh. Well, that's interesting. I had Bellatrix pick it out and send it."
"I thought you would have picked it out yourself. You'd have spent hours coming the racks in some store with a name vaguely related to a store we actually know exists, like "Madame Malkin's Fancy-wear Upscale Venue" or "Flourish and Bott's Finery!"
"No. That would be a horrible idea. I wouldn't have known how to go about it. In my experience only two types of men really do, and they're either playing for the other team or caper around in women's lingerie in the privacy of their own homes. Contrary to the comments of my detractors, I'm hardly liberated enough to indulge in either of those lifestyles."
"Too bad."
For a moment Severus had thought that maybe he wouldn't have to go through the awkward motion's of seducing her at all! Maybe all she wanted was a gay friend to go shopping with. He wouldn't mind that terribly – at the moment any lust he felt was hugely subjugated by worry about how to phrase "Darling, I want you."
"I mean, it's too bad you didn't pick it out yourself. I would have been flattered. It's very attractive."
"It has writing on your bottom."
"What!?"
"It's just right over there," he pointed. "It's an ode to Voldemort in tiny, tiny stitching."
"Professor Snape, I believe you're just using that as an excuse to look at my bottom."
"No. I'm not. It's absolutely there."
"You don't have to come up with an excuse." Hermione's blush, which had been fading slightly, returned to its original scarlet hue. She didn't feel she was quite competent when it came to being a wanton seductress, but she hoped she'd get lots of practice. Or not. It wouldn't be so bad just to have a platonic male friend who sometimes flattered her by staring at her posterior. It could be quite nice, really.
"Perhaps not," said Severus. He tried to smirk in a manner reminiscent of Clark Gable . It made him look like a ferret. Slytherins were forever looking like ferrets at inopportune moments; it was one of the universal pitfalls of the house members.
Hermione couldn't bring herself to say anything, but gazed into his ferret-y eyes adoringly.
"Would you like to go upstairs?" asked Snape.
"Upstairs?" retorted Hermione. "Professor Snape, are you aware that asking me upstairs, into one of the rooms which will likely be a bedroom, has very specific connotations to many minds?"
'So much for subtlety,' thought Snape. "Well, yes. Yes I am."
"Oh, alright," said Hermione. "I was just checking. I wanted to make sure we were both on the same page. No need for sexual harassment issues to enter into this. Although, they do, in a way. It would certainly be frowned upon. But then, so much is frowned upon by bourgeois people that it's probably not worth worrying about."
"Quite," said Snape, as he wondered what he had gotten himself into. "Shall we?" he extended an arm and the couple began to walk up a spiral staircase which lead to Heaven. Upon realizing that staircase would not talk them to the upper floor of the house, but rather to an indefinite point in the sky, they got off it, and proceeded to walk up an entirely different stairway. They were only halfway up it when a song suddenly began to play:
Never seen you lookin' so lovely as you did tonight
Never seen you shine so bright
Never saw so many men
Ask you if you wanted to dance
Lookin' for a little romance
Given half the chance
I have never seen that dress you're wearing
Or the highlights in you hair that catch your eyes
I have been blind
Lady in Red
Is dancing with me
Severus gazed deeply into Hermione's eyes. Hermione gazed back at him. It would have been the moment when Voldemort would have told them both to tango, right there, on the stairs without any hint of sufficient leg room.
"I really hate this song," said Hermione.
"I know. It's too cliché for words," replied Severus. "Rather than stopping for the obligatory pulse pounding, heart throbbing dance, let's go upstairs."
"That sounds like an excellent idea," replied Hermione, whose pulse was already pounding without the dance.
A/N: Ourobouros has been nominated for a laughter award at the Multifaceted Harry Potter Fanfiction awards page which can be found here: http:magical-worlds.us/multifaceted/nominees.htm should anyone feel compelled to cast their vote for Ourobouros. Which, needless to say, would make me dance with joy.