Sorry for the delay, moving, ect…enjoy.
Tom raised himself up to leave. "Come with me," he ordered and clasped Hermione's forearm to drag her in the right direction.
Hermione startled, 'I need books! My notes! We can't leave yet. I have too much to prepare. I need a contingency plan in case this is a trap.' Often, when Hermione had too much to say building in her head, she resorted to unreasonable questions. Ones she knew she wasn't going to get answers to before the words could even come from her mouth. "Wait. Where are we going?"
"Asking where we are going does not change the destination we are going to. A modus operandi to live by: do not ask questions of others when you are capable of deducing the answers for yourself."
Indignantly, like a scolded child, Hermione immediately fired back, "Often, it is wise to let others do the work for you, particularly when the result is achieved faster yet with equal accuracy." Hermione when wrenched her arm from Tom's fingers, "My MO: I do not like to be touched."
Emotions were tangibly flaring out of control. Voldemort seemed to deliberate keeping his rebuttal to himself, but neither of the pair was known for being mellow. "I refuse to make this arrangement into a guardianship of a petulant child." Voldemort gesticulated with his hands at his sides in an attempt to control his emotion, but unable to completely stifle it. "Scores of people would, literally, kill to be in your position and you taunt me with some muggle, autistic bullshit about not liking to be touched."
The give and take of Hermione and Voldemort's argument had moved them into the gardens, Hermione inching away from Voldemort and he steadily pursuing her. "If I even knew what this arrangement was I could attempt to keep the status quo, but seeing as specifics are outside the realm of possibility, I'm making do with what little information I have. And 'muggle, autistic bullshit'. Really, Tom? That's the first thing you think of? I'm sure at the orphanage you were full of hugs. I could even venture a guess that you've heard that before, a long, long time ago. I just. Don't. Like. It." Hermione's words were volatile, fueled by her uncertainty, but her actions were those of fear.
Moments passed with both combatants tensed for the next barb. Finally, and with great deliberation, Tom exhaled the breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Hermione," he began slowly. "There is much that can be gained by our alliance. Magics that have no relevance to the war, to a good side or a bad side, only to the advancement and rediscovery of magic itself. I need to move freely around you and with you. I need to apparate you to places you have never been. I do not need to be distracted by your discomfort and your discomfort may get us killed. What needs to happen for this to work?"
Hermione didn't know how to respond, Voldemort's uncanny ability to seethe with emotion one moment and be completely rational the next was off-putting. As a child it was unusual for her to be touched. Later in life her teachers began to think it an issue, and Merlin the doctors, they all collaborated the same story: slightly autistic. Her parents could only be comforted by the fact that their child suffered from a form of autism directly associated with exceptionally high levels of intelligence. Yet, Tom must have suffered from the same diagnosis, only in an orphanage they probably weren't able to identify the genius associated with it. For the briefest of moments Hermione actually felt sorry for him. "You know don't you? You know why, so how could you just initiate contact with me?"
"I know I am stronger than you."
"And I know I am weaker than you."
"You have to trust that I won't use that strength against you."
"I can't," Hermione breathed. Her heart was pounding; her emotions were running wild; questions about Harry and Ron firing rapidly though her mind.
"Then you aren't going to like this." In an instant Tom wrapped his arms around her body. Hermione's body tensed by reflex, but before so could even think to push him away, the familiar tug of apparation was immediately overwhelmed by a powerful force applied from all directions, and the picturesque view of the Granger's garden was gone.
Days, hours, minutes, or seconds later Hermione was soaking wet. And naked. And notably not spliched. Her mind was reeling, clearly she had just apparated, but they must have travelled through quite a few anti-apparation wards or travelled at least a thousand meters - almost unheard of in the wizarding world and definitely a record for side-along apparation.
Hermione began treading water and was suddenly struck by a decidedly late streak of modesty. She made to cover herself before realizing the black sheen on the surface wasn't a reflection, but the color of the opaque liquid itself. "Sorry about our clothes. You would have had to take them off anyways and that kind of mass makes a lot of difference traveling great distances," Tom explained while depositing their wands outside of the tank they were floating in. After he was done tinkering at the edge he moved closer to Hermione saying, "here's how this is going to work: you will hold my hand, you will not let go when you start to panic, and you will be okay."
Voldemort paused.
Pure and blinding terror ensued. Hermione's legs and arms clamped to her sides in the full-body bind. There was no time to wax philosophical about the justice of the world, betrayal, or the fate of her body when her lifeless corpse was pulled from the liquid Hermione was more and more convinced was blood the further she sank to the bottom. True to his word, Tom's hand was firmly clasped her Hermione's but it was little comfort.
'I'm going to die. I'm going to die a traitor to the cause. I didn't even muss up my room so it would look like I struggled. But after starting my new notebooks, who would believe me anyway.' With that thought, Hermione's body seized unnaturally as her brain forced her body to seek oxygen. The shock from the event caused her mind to go blank much before the pain of drowning registered.
To Hermione's left, Voldemort had been calmly waiting to feel Hermione's body seize in reflex. He extricated his fingers from her hand because the sensation would be too great. Through Voldemort was adept at holding his breath, his body surprised him by gasping nearly fifteen seconds before he was prepared. The shock of flooding his lungs with a liquid that burned like fire was too much for even Voldemort to endure. He left consciousness only seconds after Hermione.
Hermione woke alone and in a panic. She frantically patted her pockets for her wand and was relieved to find it at her hip. Instinct demanded she catalogue her surroundings. The tall matte grey walls to two of her sides rose at least twelve feet, they appeared to be part of a corridor, not thirty feet away the first of many breaks in the unnaturally homogenous walls started. Hermione ran to the nearest one and poked her head around the corner. Shrouded in poor light, Hermione was able to determine that it was a parallel corridor to the first, though shorter, and ended in a turn rather than dead end. Both halls were empty.
A maze. A giant maze. Hermione scolded herself for not realizing it sooner. It was exactly like the maze from the Triwizard Tournament, but colder and suspiciously empty.
"Hermione," Voldemort's voice said as though he were standing right next to her. The commanding tone was starting to rub her the wrong way, but she found it oddly comforting to know he was at least stuck here with her. "You have to figure this out, this is your maze."
'Great,' Hermione thought. 'He has a front row seat to watch me make my way though this thing and judge me.'
"No, I'm at the other end of the maze, only this is a maze your mind constructed," Voldemort responded to Hermione's thoughts.
The gaps in the walls closed around Hermione as soon as her brain registered the fact that she was going to have to navigate the monstrosity. Before she could even begin the maze, she found herself trapped in the single, long corridor she started in. 'How do I get to him? I'm stuck!'
"You aren't asking the right questions." Voldemort's snobbish voice declared omnipotently. His perfect annunciation did nothing to bolster Hermione's resolve. Everything looked impenetrable.
"But where even are we?" The wall in front of Hermione dissolved and opened into the corridor that had been there, but this time it was another dead end.
"We are physically in the tank, but we are experiencing a construct of your mind."
"How are you here with me?" Another wall fell, but Hermione was disappointed to find only another dead end.
"I am in the tank too. Think harder Hermione."
"I am thinking. This feels real, I really do feel trapped," Hermione reached out to feel her enclosure only to find the slippery feeling of the walls didn't match the rough texture she saw on the walls. She ran her fingers over the walls thinking deeply. "The liquid in the tank, what is it?" Hermione waited at the wall expectantly. Nothing happened. She looked back into the corridor, further down the wall another gap had been opened and she rushed through it.
"That was quicker than I expected. It is an oxygen saturated synthetic medium often used in advanced sensory deprivation tanks."
Questions were stacking up in Hermione's mind, the most pressing one being why was Voldemort doing all this, but now she knew she had to ask the right questions. She began to prioritize the questions in her mind. Every new answer would bring a slew of new questions so she had to pick carefully. Most likely any question she didn't ask the first time was going to be forgotten by the onslaught of new questions.
"Did you first hear of me during the war?"
Voldemort's laugh was surprisingly at ease, "No."
Multiple walls fell around Hermione, but she didn't move. She was waiting for him to continue. "No? That's all I get? NO." No response met Hermione's display.
This maze isn't like any maze you sketch out on paper; Hermione's mind had constructed a veritable labyrinth. With the last question, a swath had been cut out of the maze forty feet in every direction. Leaving only the bottom couple of feet of what had once been solid walls. Hermione spotted a Penrose staircase and wondered what train of thought would have kept her in that portion of the maze. Hermione moved forward, passing multiple avenues, before determinedly standing at a new dead end.
Hermione spoke deliberately this time. Knowing Voldemort was not inclined to give her all the necessary information up front, but also not being too specific as to limit his response. "What motivation do you have to continue with the politics you call a hobby?"
"The organization I am involved in doesn't disapprove of my extracurricular activities, which is a generous allowance considering what we are working towards. They happen to meet the same ends: the protection of all magical people." Vast swaths of walls were cut down during Voldemort's words.
Hermione did not advance into the newly cleared section. She looked meek and small in the widening enclosure. "Do those protections extend to people like me?"
"Yes."
The last of the maze fell away, all of it - the ground, the walls, the distance between Hermione and the end of the maze - everything except the last remaining six walls, a cube.
"Can I trust you?" Hermione whispered. The cube dissolved away, leaving only Tom.
"Yes, can I trust you?"
Hermione nodded, unable to speak. Looking at her feet in an attempt to escape the scrutiny of Tom's stare, Hermione was first to notice the influx of water. Tom immediately moved behind Hermione and wrapped his arms securely around her body. The water was rising fast. Hermione desperately wanted to cry out, to awaken, but only allowed herself to cling to Tom's forearms as the water began to violently slosh them around. Hermione was only able to catch her breath when the waves thrust them to the surface. Most of her attempts at catching a breath of air from above the water resulted in violently hacking up the liquid she had inhaled instead.
Thrashing around in the waves her mind had conjured was not a far cry from the reality she awoke to. Arms pulled at her from every direction. Huge palms whacked her small back. A military surplus blanket thickly suppressed her attempts at movement. Male voices called out for a mediwitch, but silenced as Hermione heaved black liquid all over their white marble floor. Two fingers grabbed her face and wrenched her head up. Hermione's sight was filled with Voldemort's smirking face, "welcome back."
Voldemort rose to leave and the man who had pulled Hermione out of the tank took his place behind Voldemort. They filed out the door without another word.
The pearly floor in front of Hermoine absorbed the black liquid she had just coughed up, the floor itself was incapable of taking on fluid, but a clever charm had made it appear so. 'So this is a wizard's floor," the thought dawned on Hermione. Though it may seem on obvious conclusion, she had just assumed Voldemort had transported her to a random, unknown location to continue her training in private. Hermione slowly gathered the wherewithal to assess her surroundings.
In early throws of sunlight, the room was not nearly as ominous. The room could have held the most gruesome torture device and the light spilling though the valleys in the mountains would cast a forgiving light on them. This particular room, however, was already beautiful in its own right. The marble floor Hermione had not been able to notice earlier caught the light in a spectacular array of color. Tiny clasts of carbonate were acting as prisms, the reflecting light often separating into a perfect spectrum of color.
Hermione ran her hand along the rim of the tank trying to process everything that had happened. She could only remember bits and pieces of the dream she just had, but the feeling of complete surrender to Tom lay thickly in her mind.
In her revere, Hermione's fingers caught on fabric. There, by the side of the tank, was a neatly folded stack of plain, white fabric and a rope. Hermione discarded the thick and unwieldily blanket she had been warm in. After some awkward negotiations with the bolt of fabric that unfurled, Hermione was able to fashion some sort of abaya. Only then did it occur to her that the rope must indicate the garment is a kolpos.
With too impeccable of timing to be a coincidence, Voldemort swept through the door wearing a similarly plain garment. "Come I have lots to show you."
Hermione interjected for Voldemort to wait, but found herself following him anyway, "I want to talk about this. We need a plan, a course of action. We need to figure this out."
Voldemort did not even slow his pace, "here, we do not tell each other truths, we must convince each other of them. In that vain the first thing I would like to do is introduce you to my death eaters. Don't cower silly girl. You should know better than to believe everything you read." Voldemort was a commanding presence, when he and Hermione rounded the corner into the great room, every head in the room turned. All five of them. Voldemort gestured for the nearest to rise and come forward, "Alecto Carrow: condensed matter casting, superfluidity. Antonin Dolohov: discovered Prions - a new biological principle of infection, also, skilled philosopher of population virus dymanics. Augustus Rookwood: humbles us all, able to quill even the most boastful reports into startlingly dry declarations of fact. Thorfinn Rowle: our literary genius who portrays us with a challenging vision of wizard's vulnerability. Leonid Avery: uses arithmancy to extrapolate collective decision making." Hermione was shaking hands furiously. With no time to process the information she was being given, she filed it away to pick apart later. "Well five out of seven, looks like you only have Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape to meet, but I suppose you've already met them in their public capacity."
"Only seven?" Hermione squeaked out. At the World Cup she surely had seen dozens, the Prophet had reports of many, many more.
"There are eight of us. Nine if you pass muster." Voldemort stared down his nose condescendingly. "Those people you see out on the streets with their wives' black linens draped over their heads aren't my death eaters." Voldemort laughed even more condescendingly. "I see Dumbledore failed to clarify his personal dispute with me is much different than the Order's need to quell the raging impersonators. Typical. Don't blame yourself girl, that decrepit old man could fool a snake into eating its own tail if only to make his own ouroboros."
Hermione felt inclined to trust him, trust the man who had been burned into her consciousness as dangerous and evil. All that didn't seem to matter now. All that mattered was learning more. Learning what these powerful men used their knowledge to do. And learning how she could do it too.
Thorfinn, the literary, stepped forward, "Welcome to Isis. We've been waiting for you."