She initiated the first kiss, of course. It showed the oddity of their relationship that her hand on his cheek and her lips on his were neither shocking nor expected. They were just there, foreign, gentle, strange; a rush of thoughts and reactions tumbled through his head, and he froze.

She took his slight in stride, told him good night without malice or annoyance, and left him with something like confusion. The curtains had not even closed, and Hermione had kissed him. It reminded him vaguely of the way Nagini could encircle his body with hers – closeness and intimacy without insinuation.

Two days later, he caught her by the shoulder as she was about to leave. He did not have to say anything – his uncharacteristic hesitation spoke for him. Her fingers curled in his hair – it felt nice when they pressed against his scalp – and she led him, as she always did, but instead of stiffening against the kiss, he explored the new feeling, this awakening of the human body he inhabited.

The kiss was quick, nothing that Bellatrix or Narcissa would think anything of, but it hummed through his skin with novelty. He almost hated such a strong reaction to such a mundane and pointless thing like sexual attraction. He had once been above that, beyond it – he made a point to shed sexuality from himself the moment his ambition was in sight. Voldemort did not understand why he let Hermione coax it from him. He told himself it was simply a means to a goal – seduce the girl and win his freedom. But he sought the kiss, and he knew that the old excuse was tenuous at best when it came to them. When it was just Hermione, he knew where he was going – she had the chains and he had the lead. But with them, the chains did not matter, and she led.

He withdrew, let her drag him around the Alley, but he did not talk to her until she told him that he was allowed to leave, and the chains could be removed. He was still bound to her by a spell when they left Diagon Alley. His arms were light, and his eyes darted from dirty building to dirty building, but it wasn't the prison or the Alley that he had memorized to the minutest detail. He did not feel glee or delight, but joy. He had not felt the loss of his old body so keenly as when he realized what it meant to be completely human.

It was only a matter of time – five months later – before the Ministry finally released him for a probationary period, as long as he stayed with either Hermione, who had proven herself adequate according to the Ministry (with a few strings pulled within), Dumbledore, or Ministry Aurors. There was the expected controversy, but it did not have the same impact or intensity – most of the wizarding community in Great Britain had read Hermione's biography of the Dark Lord, and she was now a regular face for the wizarding world when they needed someone who wasn't running away from them. She was given no apologies for the beatings that she suffered before, but they did not continue.

Hermione brought him to her flat to stay, and he started in the living room, sleeping on the futon, learning about the Muggle gadgets around which Hermione was comfortable, and finding his own comfort in the magical objects she owned that he could use in spite of his state.

Hermione was conscious of his growing self-consciousness – they only kissed lightly, and never in the flat. Then she let him kiss her against her front door, and Voldemort felt the first twinge of contentment.

Four months found Crookshanks back in his usual corner on the futon and Voldemort in her bedroom. Neither of them loved each other, but that was not the point. Hermione liked being around him, liked knowing him, and Voldemort was less sensitive about discussing magical theory with her. He was officially free of probation, and Hermione took him to the cinema – which he enjoyed now and then – to celebrate. Then never talked about Harry, although Voldemort noticed that the letters had stopped.

It was just them. Hermione sometimes left him to his own devices – his money and the Tube – when she went to see some Order members, but she was increasingly disconnected from them. The threat of the Dark Lord had passed, and their lives settled back into their places, waiting serenely for the next threat – the children grew up and were replaced with new ones, some people got together, and others did not. Hermione never told him whether they condemned her company, but he thought that they didn't, and if some did, she did not care. He never met any of his old servants – if he did, he imagined he would be dead – not even Severus. Although he wandered, he never strayed – his path always led him back to Hermione and the passion she shared with him, passion that he had only ever reserved for advancement and politics.

She was what he needed for the transition from the towering figure of a Dark Lord to nothing but a simply Muggle, he would not deny that. But that was all it was, a transition.

Voldemort woke up as the sun peered sleepy and gray through the curtains. The bed was a single, but neither of them kicked in their sleep, and Hermione never saw the need to buy a bigger bed for them. She slept against him, but she did not hold him – her hands where tight against her chest, hands in fists, and her legs were straight against his thigh. She held herself in so tightly when she slept, Voldemort thought, amused. He touched her cheek, the curve of her shoulder and breast, as he had done many times before.

But he never was awake at this time of the morning, so what woke him up now?

That was when he felt it – the contentment had faded.

Voldemort stirred within his head, the real Voldemort, not this shadow of him. He remained dormant during the time it took for Hermione to integrate him into this new body, but he did not need Hermione for that. He did not need her anymore.

His hand paused on the swell of her hip.

She stirred, and he remembered the night before. She held him so tightly; they had fucked late into the night with desperation that matched their second try at sex. Almost as though she knew her Voldemort would slip away in the night. The sex was wonderful with her, but the memory was hollow as though the last year or so dripped into a discolored blur of gray watercolor. All he could see was the shadow, looking over a world he desired, familiar, heady, and powerful.

I can't, he thought. I don't have my magic anymore. I can't ever be that again, even if I wanted to. You're gone – the Dark Lord cannot be me.

Harry has it, Voldemort whispered. Harry has your magic. And if he can't give it to you, are you just going to be that girl's toy for the rest of your worthless life?

Voldemort shifted restlessly, turning away from Hermione and looking at the wall. Hermione did not keep him as a toy – they were both conveniences. She was no more beneath him than he was beneath her. It was her choice to give herself to him, and if he could love, he thought he might have for that. But that, too, was hollow, just words. There was pleasure with her, sexual, social, physical, every kind of pleasure. There was freedom – even in her sleep she did not hold him. And he could leave whenever he wanted, needed.

When he was young, he traveled the world – his body was manageable still, and his wanderlust remained, kindling his old ambition.

"Voldemort, why are you still here with me?" Hermione had asked after they came home from a Greek restaurant that Hermione had wanted to try.

"Because I don't want to leave yet," he had answered. It was not the response that she looked for, but it was one she accepted – maybe she thought he was not ready to leave rather than not wanting to leave. That was when the restlessness began, the need to wander through the city with Muggle money in his hand, unable to blend in with the crowd. Even when he looked, acted, dressed, and felt like a Muggle, he could never been one.

He will have power the Dark Lord knows not and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.

Iceland, he thought. Canada. But maybe not. Perhaps Romania again, or all the way to Russia.

For neither can live while the other survives.

The words resonated with Parseltongue and venom as his thoughts dwelled less and less on Hermione and more on leaving. He thought that Hermione – pretty, lovely, practical, useful girl – would understand, that she would see his manipulations and his gratitude in the same verisimilitude that led her to him in the first place. She was there, her warmth burning into his back, but Voldemort smiled grimly and felt the first icy touch of his journey. His return.

I will be the Dark Lord again.

He turned back to Hermione, kissed her mouth as lightly as the way she first kissed him.

He left no note, nothing but the empty spaces where he had been, the hollowness of the dresser drawers and closet and the few magical knickknacks missing. She cried, but she was not hurt, not as much as she thought she would be. She wished she had extinguished that lust that she could never touch, wished that she could have filled the hollow scar left from the spell. She had a feeling that Voldemort was back in a way that he had not been before, but the fear that should have twisted her stomach was not there. So when her mind turned to Harry, Ron, Remus, Severus, reflections of fading memories, she did not worry for them.

In the end, Hermione could only wish she would see him again and wish him well.