Chapter 9
Voldemort talks to me while I'm in my coma, lying on a dirty mattress under soiled sheets in a bedroom on the third floor of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
"In the world I see... You're playing Quidditch in the damp canyon forests around Big Ben. You will have a staff of permanently Imperiused Muggles waiting on you hand and foot for the rest of your life. You will cast your magic in the open, without fear or secrecy. You will live in a world of wizards, by wizards, for wizards, a powerful and mighty empire that will stand for all time."
I slept. I don't know how long I slept. But when I woke up, Voldemort was gone.
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place had become a living thing, wet inside from so many people sweating and breathing. So many wizards moving, the house itself moved. Castle Voldemort. I had to hug the walls, trapped inside this clockwork of house elves. Cooking and working and sleeping in teams with a coordination and efficiency that would have shamed real house elves.
I go into the kitchen and one wall is a mass of newspaper clippings. Walls are lined with manila files, racks of scrolls, acres of parchment spread out on tables. Labels of "Mischief", "Disinformation", "Muggle Baiting" catch my eyes. Other folders have other names. "Hogwarts School". "Diagon Alley". "Ministry of Magic". I move to look at one of them, and a pale skinny hand moves to block mine. It's Blondie, his face still wrapped in bandages and smelling of salve and ointment, the yellow-white widow's peak still visible above the wrappings.
"It's under control, sir."
Where's Voldemort?
"Sir, the first rule of Dumbledore's Army--"
Right, right. And as he moves his hand away, I look down and see a scar, a crude sketch of a flaming skull with a serpent coming out of the mouth, on the inside of his forearm.
I'm all alone, surrounded by house elves. My uncle dumped me. Voldemort dumped me. What comes next in Dumbledore's Army, only Voldemort knows. The second rule is you do not ask questions. I am Harry's Broken Heart, trying to kill itself with a gallon jug of cheap vodka that night out in the garden when Ginny comes up, looking around at all the house elves cooking, cleaning, washing, raking.
"Who are these people?"
I shrug. Grimmauld Place Soap Company.
"Can I come in?" she asks. He's not here, I tell her. Voldemort's gone, I say. Voldemort's went away. Voldemort's gone. She stares at me for a long moment, misery on her face, then turns and walks away. I toss a cigarette into the grass, take a pull on my jug of vodka, and head back towards the house.
When I get inside, there is a commotion. Tables being cleared off, house elves scrambling and ducking and moving. "We got wounded coming through," someone yells. "Clear some fucking room!"
What's going on. What happened?
"We were in the Department of Mysteries, going to do two things at once. Destroy the Ministry's supply of Time-turners, and disrupt the Muggle sewer system."
I saw the scene in my mind's eye as he talked. House elves readying spells to shatter all the hourglasses in the tight room, a dozen more house elves standing ready with those ridiculous vacuum cleaners that Muggles use, to suck up the time-turner dust and dump it in the Muggle's water treatment plant. Everything went according to plan, until.
"Someone must have called the Aurors... The Order of the Phoenix showed up, and they started blasting". Appearing so fast it was almost as if they had Apparated in, wands out. A running battle, spells and hexes flying fast and furious as the group tried to get out of the Ministry, outside the wards so they could Apparate home. Out of the Department of Mysteries, through the elevator shaft, into the fountained lobby, a desperate dash for the the fireplaces to get out of there, to go anywhere else.
"And then," the house elf's voice was tight with fury. "Dumbledore showed up." A powerful, towering figure, the most powerful wizard possibly of all time emerging in the Ministry Lobby. He hadn't taken Voldemort's threat seriously, and approved the use of Unforgiveables by Aurors. "And he... He got Hermione."
I yanked back the cover and looked at the body on the table. Bushy brown hair, slightly overlarge teeth, eyes staring vacantly into space. Big Ron, the old cheesebread, stumbled in, bleeding pus from a dozen boils on his face, neck, arms. "Dumbledore killed Hermione", he said dully.
"Those motherfuckers!" Big Ron sobbed.
"We gotta bury her. Get rid of the evidence," one of the house elves said. Blondie took up the call. "Bury her in the garden."
What?
"Take her to the garden and bury her. Come on people, move!" Blondie said.
They swarmed around her body like ghouls, and I dove in, pushing them away, shoving them back.
What are you talking about, I yelled. This is not a fucking piece of evidence! This is a person! She's a friend of mine and you're not going to bury her in the fucking garden!
Blondie remained firm."She was killed serving Dumbledore's Army, sir."
This is Hermionie, I said.
"But sir, in Dumbledore's Army, we have no names."
No, listen to me, I said. This is woman and she has name, and it's Hermione Granger, all right?
"Hermione Granger," muttered one of the house elves.
She's dead now, because of us, all right? Do you understand that?
"I understand." The house elf looked up. "In death, a member of Dumbledore's Army has a name. Her name is Hermione Granger."
Ron looked down at the silent figure. "Her name is Hermione Granger."
They all began chanting now, her name is Hermione Granger, her name is Hermione Granger. Shut up, shut up, I said. Shut up shut up shut up. But they don't listen, and I turn and run up the stairs to Voldemort's room, finding all the old stubs from the Knight Bus tickets. I could hear them chanting in the kitchen below, and I continued to hear them long after I had left their voices behind.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
I went to all the cities on Voldemort's uesd ticket stubs, tavern-hopping. I didn't know how or why but I could look at fifty different bars and I just knew. I'm looking for Lord Voldemort, I would tell them. It's very important to talk to him.
"I wish I could help you. Sir." they would tell me. And then wink. Every city I went to, as soon as I set foot off the plane, I knew a wizard club was close. Voldemort had been busy. Setting up franchises, not just in England, but all over Europe. France. Spain. Denmark. Germany. Italy. Turkey. Greece. Am I asleep? Had I slept? Is Voldemort my bad dream, or am I Voldemort's?
Sometimes I could get stories out of people. What kind of stories? "No one knows what he looks like", says one person. "He has Permanent Polymorph done every three years," says another. They would ask me if it was true. If Lord Voldemort was building an army.
Going from Knight Bus to Knight Bus, sitting in oversize divans and recliners that side around like pinballs in a Muggle amusement park, time lost all meaning, I fell into a perpetual state of deja-vu. Everywhere I went, I felt I had already been there. It was like following an invisible man. The smell of dry blood. Dirty bare foot-prints circling each other. That aroma of old spell discharge like ozone and freon. The feel of the pentgram on a floor still warm from the duel the night before. I was always one step behind Voldemort. And in the backrooms of supermarkets, the kitchens of restaurants, they chant.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
Her name is Hermione Granger.
"Welcome back, sir. How are you?"
I'm in a bar, somewhere, somewhen. The bartender is looking at me, wearing a gigantic plastic cone around his head, the kind they use to keep dogs from licking stitches. His nametag reads "Mssr. Moony" in fancy cursive lettering.
Do you know me?
"Is this a test, sir?"
No, this is not a test.
"You were in here last Thursday," he says.
Thursday?
"You were standing exactly where you are now, asking how good our security is. It's tight as a drum, sir."
Who do you think I am?
"Are you sure this isn't a test?"
No, this is not a test.
"You're Lord Voldemort. You're the one who gave me this."
And he raises his arm up, and on his forearm is the skull-and-serpent mark, drawn on with ink and engraved by newt's blood.
Please return your seats to their full upright and locked position.
In the hotel, I'm on my hands and knees in front of the small personal fireplace for head-to-head Floo connection installed in my hotel room. I toss a pinch of powder in, shout her address, and soon Ginny is staring back at me.
"What?" she asks.
Ginny, it's me. Have ever done it?
"Done what?" she asks.
Have we ever had sex?
"What kind of a stupid question is that?"
Is it stupid because the answer is yes, or because the answer is no?
"Is this a trick?"
No, Ginny, I just need to know--
"--You mean, you want to know if we were just having sex or making love?"
We did make love.
"Is that what you're calling it?"
Just answer the question, Ginny, please. Did we do it or not?
That sets her off. "You fuck me, then snub me. You love me, you hate me. You show me your sensitive side, then you turn into a total asshole. Is that a pretty accurate description of our relationship, Voldemort?"
We have just lost thaumaturgical integrity.
What did you just say? I ask.
"What is wrong with you?"
What did you just call me? Say my name!
"Voldemort! Voldemort, you fucking freak!" she shrieks. "Though I'll be damned if I'll call you 'Lord', no idea where you came up with that. What's going on? I'm coming over." She knows not to use the Floo network to get to Grimmauld Place, so closes the connection as I yell, no wait, I'm not there. I stand up, move away from the fireplace, and Voldemort is suddenly behind me, looking very angry.
"You broke your promise," he says.
Jesus, Voldemort.
"You fucking talked to her about me!"
What the fuck is going on here?
"I asked you for one simple thing..." Voldemort isn't listening to me.
Why do people think that I'm you? Voldemort rolls his eyes at me. "Sit", he says.
I sit on the thin mattress, and Voldemort leans back against the far wall. Now, answer me, I tell him. Why do people think I'm you?
"I think you know," he says.
No, I don't.
"Yes, you do. Why would anyone possibly confuse you with me?"
I... I don't know. And then there's a sudden flash of memory. I feel something in my mind breaking, and something else fixing at the same time. I see Dumbledore opening the door to the bathroom, only Voldemort isn't standing there... It's me. Voldemort smiles.
"You got it."
My head spins as everything falls apart and comes together, one set of memories being destroyed as another slowly takes it's place. Me over Dumbledore, telling him to not fuck with us. Pouring skrewts' blood over a drawing on my forearm. Voldemort isn't in these memories. Because...
We're the same person.
I don't understand.
"You were looking for a way to change your life," Voldemort says. "You could not do this on your own. All the ways you wished you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I'm smart, capable, and most importantly, I'm free in all the ways that you are not."
No...
I see myself standing in front of Grimmauld Place, yelling at Ginny. Voldemort's not here. Voldemort's gone.
This is impossible. This is crazy.
"People do it every day. They talk to themselves. They see themselves as they like to be. They don't have the courage you have, to just run with it." I see myself standing in an alley, hexing myself with my own wand. "Naturally, you're still wrestling with it. Sometimes you're still you." I see myself sitting in a tavern over a pitcher of butterbeer, talking to nobody. "Other times you imagine yourself watching me." I see myself standing in the center of the crowd of Wizard Club, reading off the rules. If this is your first night at wizard club, you have to duel. "Little by litle, you're just letting yourself become... Lord Voldemort!"
But you have a house.
"Rented in your name."
You have jobs, you have a whole life...
"You have night jobs, because you can't sleep. Or stay up and make soap."
Ginny... You're fucking Ginny, Voldemort.
"Actually, you're fucking Ginny, but it's all the same to her." I see myself and Ginny, tangled up in sheets, pounding and thumping and moaning and groaning.
Oh.
My.
God.
"Now you see our dilemma", Voldemort says. "She knows too much. We have to talk about how this might compromise our goals."
What are you saying? This is... This is bullshit, I'm not listening to this. You are insane.
"No, you are insane, and we definitely do not have time for this crap!" I try to stand, and I visualize more than I see two points of white light shooting out of Voldemort's wand to my face. It's called a changeover. Life keeps on, and none of the Muggles have any idea.
WHEN I WOKE UP, HOURS LATER, I had to sign out at the front desk for three dozen owls I don't remember sending. Owls I sent while I was asleep, and Voldemort was awake. Had I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Have I been Voldemort longer and longer?
Grimmauld Place was empty when I returned, a hollow shell of what was a living building. Dozens of empty cauldrons, potions, beakers, phials, everything you would need to start up your own potion brewing factory. All the house elves are gone. I don't know where they've gone. And I know that I don't know where they've gone. Deja vu all over again.
"With enough soap," Voldemort says, "You could blow up the whole world."
I think of the files and maps that still hang in the sitting room above. Oh, my God. I grab a file, the Floo powder, and shout the street address into the fireplace, sticking my head into the hearth. The other side is a large building of some kind. I can see a dozen other fireplaces in a massive lobby, a fountain with a statue of a wizard and an elf and a centaur standing in the middle. Hello, I shout. Is anybody there?
A wizard wanders into view, peering down at me. "Ministry's closed for the night, sir. You'll have to come back in the morning."
I need to talk to your supervisor, right away. The wizard laughs. "I'm it," he says.
Okay, listen to me. I think something really horrible is about to happen in your building, you've got to...
The wizard winks at me. "It's under control, sir."
Excuse me?
"Don't worry about us, sir. We're solid."
I yank my head out of the fireplace, coughing up soot and smoke, and look at the dozens of files in scrolls on the wall. I grab them all, and run.