Chapter III- Hurts Like Hell:
Guest (26/10, 27/10, 29/10)- Thank you!
Guest (29/10)- The first chapter ends in first year and chapter 2 is sixth year, so 5 years.
So as she saw it, Hermione had three options; a) get the hell out of there, b) continue to stand frozen like an ice statue, or c) use basic logic to explain why this couldn't possibly be so. She was always a sucker for logic. C it was.
"My father's name is James Potter," she told the figure who'd gained strength and now posed a much more intimidating threat. But she could stand tall too. "And he's dead."
"Your father's name is Tom Riddle," the man in the bed challenged. He may be more human now, but his eyes were still piercingly, disturbingly red, like lasers into her own. She felt desperately vulnerable beneath them. "And he is very much alive. Thanks to your return." Tom Riddle, why did that name sound so familiar? "I don't expect you to believe me immediately, in fact I'd be disappointed if you did. But I can prove it to you. Lucius, get the pensieve."
"Yes, my lord," Mr Malfoy eagerly obeyed, practically falling over his feet to do so, and that was when it hit her. Tom Marvolo Riddle. She'd read about him. It was the name of Lord Voldemort before the demon had been born. The man behind the monster.
But this couldn't be. "I-" Her family had destroyed him fifteen years ago. "How?" She'd heard the stories, myths, repeated to her like campfire tales or a mantra. They were the basis of her world, the foundation of her own story. She knew the characters like the back of her hand. Her mother, the powerless, desperate heroine. The Order, the friends too tragically late to do anything but eternally crave a do-over. Her father, the paragon of bravery who'd killed Voldemort and lost his own life in the process.
"That night when Severus saved Lily Potter it did almost kill me." Severus. A name she'd never heard in this story. An unsung hero? A bluff? "But instead, the last remaining piece of my soul went into my last remaining relative, who happened to be in the room, my one year old daughter. Today you gave it back to me and it returned me to the form I was before, that and the blood of my blood." She looked down at her hand and at the prick from his nail that she hadn't even noticed until now. Mr Malfoy returned with the pensieve then, placing it in front of her. He handed the dark wizard his wand but before he could put his own memories inside it Hermione cried out for him to stop. After all, how could she trust that he wasn't just manipulating these memories to gain her trust so she'd side against her family and friends. That seemed to hurt him a little, but regardless, he asked her "do you know how to do the memory extraction spell?" Reluctantly, she admitted she didn't, but Draco stepped out from behind her, volunteering himself. She nodded. She trusted him.
Her boyfriend placed his wand against the Dark Lord's temple and she watched as a silvery trail was drawn out, falling into the pensieve in front of her. Its colours swirled and as the fog cleared she glanced at Draco, who silently nodded, before she took a deep breath and dove in.
The cries of a baby were the first thing Hermione heard as she dropped into the memory. In a traditional, wooden king size bed, the parents stirred. "I'll get her," the voice who'd just spoken to her said, pressing a kiss to the head of his seemingly completely normal brunette bedfellow. She smiled, enamoured, and rolled over. Voldemort, looking just as he did today, had reached the cot now and was about to pick up the wailing child when he spotted something through the curtains. A few single lights in the otherwise darkness of night. The type of single lights that she knew from experience came from a lumos spell.
"Tom?" The woman was up now too, standing behind him, a trembling hand on his shoulder. "Merlin..." she exhaled, but he brushed her away, looking to his own arm, which didn't have the mark of his followers, leaving him with no way to contact them in this isolated area he'd created for family life. "Shush, shush," she cooed as she picked up the baby, looking out the window to the shadowy figures getting closer and closer. Voldemort placed a comforting hand on her arm, a sign of reassurance (a goodbye?) and then he left the room, casting a spell to lock her in, and also silencing the room. The jarring sound of the baby crying was replaced with an equally destructive crash as the attackers tried to break down the door below them. "You'll be safe," Voldemort mouthed, and then he hurried to the problem, dragging Hermione with him since this was his memory.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs the door crashed open and in burst a slew of familiar faces, a jab to the stomach. Her Uncle Sirius, Arthur, Dumbledore, Remus, and her fa- and James. "Give in Tom," her headmaster said. "You're defenceless, and far outnumbered."
Voldemort sneered, "I may not have my wand, but I am far from defenceless- CONFRINGO!" The area where several members of the Order were gathered exploded and as they rolled away from the chaos Voldemort started to cast another wandless spell but James Potter sent an attempted Killing Curse his way. "LOCOMOTER MORTIS!" Yelled Sirius from behind.
"There's nowhere for you to run," Said James. "We put up the anti-apparation charm."
"You think I haven't made precautions in my own residence," Voldemort chuckled, though it was short and detached. When the Order members realised what was going on a series of "AVADA KEDAVRA"s were thrown at him, but proved fruitless as he disappeared, the green light almost brushing him.
They landed back at Malfoy Manor and for a moment Hermione thought they were done, but then she saw he younger looking Mr and Mrs Malfoy appear. "Tom!" Draco's mother, heavily pregnant, cried out as she saw him. Voldemort didn't waste any time, grabbing the wand he'd promised his wife he'd leave here for their weekend away. "What's wrong?"
"I need to get back," he said, his voice frazzled and cracked. "They're there. I need to save them. Quickly." Draco's father nodded.
"Let's go then," he said. His wife kissed him quickly on the cheek and they were back at the house. The tone was very different. Hermione knew what had happened before they even went back inside, Mr Malfoy seemed to as well. Voldemort himself was in denial as he ordered his friend to search downstairs while he'd go straight up. Instead, Mr Malfoy joined Hermione as they raced behind the most evil wizard to ever live, up to his bedroom where the spell was broken. Lying crumpled up on the floor was the woman who'd seemed so... alive earlier that night. "Sofia? Sofia!" His heart-wrenching scream tore apart Hermione's own empathetic heart. "I- I-" he glanced towards the cot and saw it was empty, gesturing Mr Malfoy to check it, unwilling to move himself from his position on the floor with his wife gathered up in his arms. His friend nodded and Voldemort's face collapsed into the limp shoulder he was holding, searching for comfort she couldn't give. At some point Mr Malfoy had left him to grieve and now it was just the two of them. "I swear to you Adele," he whispered in the now vacant room, his eyes fixed on the cot. "I will bring you home. And I will avenge your mother."
A new memory. A new night. A face burning with vengeance. "You don't have to do this alone."
"Of course I do."
They were back at Malfoy Manor. It was just Voldemort and Mr Malfoy this time. "We'll be here waiting when you're done then."
He nodded. "You're a true friend Lucius. Now it is time for me to go retrieve my daughter."
Godric's Hollow. She knew it from her textbooks. The place where Voldemort was defeated. Her history, as well as a vital part of the Wizarding World's. Voldemort paused for a moment, allowing her to take in the Tudor house where she'd spent a small portion of her life. Then he blew down the door. A man's voice from within shouted and as she followed the Dark Lord inside she saw her mother disappear up the stairs. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" Unlike the Order he didn't hesitate, a macabre smile twisting his features as James Potter crumbled. Not staying to gloat he moved swiftly up the stairs into the nursery where she saw her mother standing in front of both a baby her and Harry. And the baby her was clearly the same one she'd seen with the woman, Sofia, and Voldemort. "Step aside!" He roared. "Give me my daughter!"
"She's not yours she's mine!" Her mother, stubborn as ever, insisted. He outstretched his wand, and she wondered why he hadn't straight away like with James, why he'd given her the option to move, but the killing curse didn't hit her. Instead a man jumped in front of her, a man that was definitely not James Potter. "Severus? Severus!" She shrieked in the same voice Voldemort had used for his wife, but her eyes were fixed on the man himself. He was folding in on himself, collapsing into the shape she'd originally met this afternoon. She looked over to the 'baby her' but there was no clear sign she'd absorbed a part of her father's soul. If she hadn't glanced back she would have missed the figure that burst through the door, grabbing onto him and apparating away. It appeared Mr Malfoy hadn't followed instructions.
Falling back out of the pensieve into real life was like waking up from a nightmare into reality. The suffocating fog she had never before seen was finally clearing and she felt like she could breathe again. She glanced at Voldemort, who looked nervous. Much less confident than he had before, but she'd seen enough. She believed him. And she no longer believed her so called family.
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