Title: Progression

Rating: PG

Word count: 784 words

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Prompt: 001-003. Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Notes: For Fanfic100 challenge. Again, a few themes repeated, but it's fun to play in drabbles anyway.

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I.

It was when she started reading up on the spells that Voldemort was known for using. Morsmordre. The Unforgivables. The Protean Charm. Harry never really stopped to think what it meant that she compiled and altered them for their own needs - the two boys usually took the fact that she was knowledgeable for granted to the point that they did not even want to know. When Harry asked her about the Protean Charm, she thought she might be caught in her new hobby, but Harry shrugged it away. He trusted her judgment.

She thought that she would not get burned. She thought that she would not become the next Half-Blood Prince, with spells like Sectusempra found in lost books that someone might use. She thought that she could control her desire to delve still deeper into the library where the bindings were muted in dust and the smell of old parchment and ink never came out of her clothes. She was stunned when she began to see the name "Riddle, Tom" in the back of the book, indicating that she was reading the very same books that Voldemort checked out half a century ago.

She really became afraid when she found the book that listed the proper anagram and the one spell, the one she could not find a reference of in any other book, written in the Dark Lord's own hand in the glossing margin. She knew that, before long, like Harry, she would use it.

And what would she become?

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II.

They were such children. Off on an adventure to vanquish the terrible foe. Sleeping in the middle of a clearing with a fire burning to the side, curled next to each other. In their sleep, limbs had twined together, and they were knotted like one strange, thin creature with glasses, bushy hair, and freckles.

Voldemort was amused.

He circled the clearing, keeping to the shadows, and his boots made little noise distinguishable from the general clamor of the forest's night. With each angle, he noticed something different, new, particular - the spine of a book in an uncomfortable place, the enticing sight of the tips of their wands poking out here and there - so careless tsk tsk - a hand in a highly inappropriate place, a shirt riding up the harsh line of ribs... It was fortunate for them that their escapade was so amusing to him, otherwise he would have killed them two weeks ago. Oh, he knew that it would have to be done eventually when they came too close to what they sought, but for now...

For know, he drank their nightmares, he followed them from the side, inconspicuous among their imaginary fears. He thought he might have been noticed by the girl, but she was also the one who fell asleep last and woke up first. In the firelight, her wide eyes would glimmer widely, and upon the secession of unconscious horror, she would jerk upright, looking around in disorientation. Then she would catch herself and slow her quickened heart before attempting conjure something suitable for breakfast. Voldemort liked how the two boys took advantage, but he also noted the few books that she brought with her on the journey, tomes that most people would not think would be useful in the darkest wild. Titles that he never expected that a friend to Harry Potter would be allowed to read.

He required a bit of time to consider her.

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III.

Hermione knew she would be the first to die. Strung up on a tree, hands bound at an awkward angle, the three of them forming a triangle so that Harry could watch them die. Voldemort paced between them. His step was elegant and understated, but the only word to describe his mood was glee. Because he had won. Voldemort won. And now Harry Potter could watch his friends die. But not Ron first - no, Harry had to be given a taste of the full anguish he would feel. Neither Voldemort nor Hermione were stupid. They knew that Ron was more important to him than her. Hermione thought, there with the rough bark digging into her back, that she could hate Harry for it.

The smooth wood of the Dark Lord's wand caressed her under her jaw, and he turned to see Harry's face as he whispered in her ear, "You could have been mine." She understood, and her face grew pale.

A spell. Not Avada Kedavra. There was no need to hurry. She could hear shouting from the boys, but it seemed insignificant. There was not even any pain, and for that she was grateful. There was just... weight... smothering... close.