Beta: Dark Empress V
Chapter 18: About Flying
It was a particularly sultry day in August. The dark and usually cool cellar was filled with a suffocating heat. Even though the spells which had been put on the room made it impossible for nearly every creature to get into the cell (or to leave it) without permission, it seemed that this didn't apply to the countless flies and mosquitoes whirring around the room. Perhaps, and Hermione wouldn't put it past Claris, these mosquitoes had been caught, trained to be particularly bloodthirsty and then sent into their room to torment them.
Hermione sweated as she sat on the cool stone-floor listening to the music floating out of Ron's old wooden radio, which he had lent her after a bit of persuasion. The buzzing of the countless mosquitoes almost drowned out the excruciatingly sentimental songs of Celestina Warback. Next to her floated several fans made from newspapers pages, pushing some fresh air towards her and almost managing to create a soft breeze.
Hermione wore a short, orange, spaghetti-strap dress. The material was supposed to be cool, but she was dripping with sweat.
Voldemort didn't sweat, Hermione noticed jealously. However he managed it, he wasn't likely to inform her. Instead, he sat on the bed completely relaxed with the purring tom cat curled up in his lap and entertained his visitors with curious little tricks.
To distract himself from Celestina's songs and Hermione's moaning about Mrs. Weasley's passion for this, erm.. performer, the black-clad figure on the bed made the flies and mosquitoes fly in various unnatural formations.
Hermione knew he'd always possessed the power to control animals, but to see it with her own eyes was astonishing.
The animals crowded together, looking like a thick, black cloud. The cloud changed its form at his whim. First, he sent snakes buzzing across the room, then the formation took the shape of a school of fish, then a camel-caravan and finally, it turned into a dragon.
As the game started to bore him, the dragon transformed into a racing broom which drowned itself with a loud splash in the toilet.
Not exactly to Hermione's taste, but today she was so frustrated with the bugs that she laughed anyway.
„I whish I could do the same with Ron's broom, just drown it in the loo. He's really getting on my nerves with this whole Quidditch obsession." She confessed, rolling her eyes.
„You don't like Quidditch?" Voldemort asked, not sounding particularly interested as he got up from the bed to take the howling radio from Hermione and finally turn it off.
"No, but that battle is lost. Ron and Harry-", Hermione threw a sideways glance at her patient, whose eyes flashed an angry red as she mentioned these hated names- "They're both crazy about Quidditch. They want to fly on their brooms all day long. Look at what I must wear again." Hermione jumped up and parodied a catwalk model, showing off her orange dress sarcastically.
"It's a dress. So?" he commented, almost rolling his eyes at her dramatic expression .
„YES! A dress! Hermione answered shrilly, lifted the dress with both hands as if she were a princess walking down the stairs. "But it's ORANGE!" she wailed while she shook the piece of fabric angrily, so that a cooling breeze caressed her thighs.
„I hate orange! Ron put a extra charm on it so that I can't change the colour again. His Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, became Britain's Champions yesterday.. And they are", Hermione bowed subserviently to the imaginary Quidditch team," ORANGE! As orange as orange can be. And I absolutely LOATHE this colour!" she raged, drawing several almost hysterical breaths.
He chuckled quietly, watching her with a malicious glint in his eyes.
But she wasn't done ranting.
„And do you know what the worst thing is?" she bore down on him as if he were to blame for everything that was orange in the world.
„Do tell.. or don't.. Whatever you wish…" the tall figure replied in a sneering tone, sitting back on the bed and observing Hermione's fit of anger with something akin to fascination.
"ALL OF THE WEASLEYS HAVE ORANGE HAIR!" she yelled hysterically, kicking the wooden radio in disgust as if it was its fault that it belonged to the Weasley clan.
„And even worse… Ron wants to wear nothing but orange clothes for the rest of the week. ORANGE HAIR AND ORANGE CLOTHES! DO YOU NOW HOW AWFUL THIS LOOKS? AND HE EVEN CHARMED THE WALLS IN MY ROOM AT THE LEAKY CAULROON TO TURN ORANGE!" Hermione waved her arms theatrically and stamped her foot on the floor, so it made her look almost like a raging Rumpelstiltskin . "AND NOW HE'S GOING TO STAY WITH ME THE WHOLE WEEK AND I'M ABSOLUTELY SURE HE´S SITTING THERE RIGHT NOW, GUARDING THE WALL SO I WON'T CHANGE THE COLOUR AGAIN! AND SOME DAY WE WILL HAVE CHILDREN AND THEY WILL BE AS ORANGE AS HIM! I´M CONDEMNED TO SPEND THE REST OF MY DAYS WITH A FLYING CARROT" Hermione howled, seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The pale man sitting cross-legged on the bed couldn't suppress laughter any longer as he watched Hermione throw herself on the bed, sink her teeth into a pillow as if she wanted to tear it apart and thump her fist on the innocent cushion.
He gave Hermione a little smack on the butt and rescued his pillow from further abuse by the raging young Gryffindor.
But she was already laughing at her outburst herself. She sat up to face him and mussed up her hair in mock-despair.
"I hate Quittich, I really do. Have YOU ever played it?"
The Dark Lord made an exasperated face which explained to Hermione that he considered it to be beneath the dignity of such a powerful wizard as himself.
„No", he answered with a decisive shake of his head, but then his eyes wandered over to the tiny cellar window and his gaze seemed to take on an oddly longing expression. "But I did like to fly."
Suddenly, Hermione's mind was flooded with flashing images of Harry's last escape from the Dursley's the night he had come of age. The man who was now sitting so calmly next to her.. She saw him again as he had appeared that night – surrounded by his followers, shooting deadly curses at her and her dearest friends. It was all so surreal, like stories from someone else's life.
These memories made her shake her head rapidly, as if she thought she could banish them with the movement. She jumped off the bed and sank into a chair with a sigh, forgetting she wasn't wearing trousers and therefore relaxing her legs just a little more than was appropriate for someone in a skirt. "I really don´t like flying. Another reason why I hate Quittich so much. I never felt safe on a broom. I'm rather afraid of heights. I think I would die from fear if I ever had to fly without a broom." she mumbled quietly.
Embarrassed by that confession and realising her position on the chair probably made it possible for her patient to see her underwear, Hermione clapped her legs together, crossed her arms and lowered her eyes.
The pale man in front of her seemed to be suddenly spurred into action. He jumped from the bed in an uncharacteristically matter-of fact manner and walked over to the middle of the room, commanding briskly, "Come here, girl."
Uncertain as to what was going to happen, Hermione got up mechanically and followed his command with a feeling of foreboding. She stopped about two feet away from him, not bothering to hide her mistrust.
Voldemort stretched out his long, white arm, grasped the appalled Hermione on the back of her dress and drew her over to him, then pressed her back on his breast and clutched her with his arms as if he wanted to smother her.
"No… I…Please don't" Hermione pleaded terrified, trying to wriggle out of this stranglehold. What was this all about? He´d never given in to his urges so openly before. No matter how much she'd grown accustomed to him, now she was really frightened. Thrashing about in panic, Hermione tried to free herself, but to no avail, he was too strong.
"Keep still, it won't be painful." he commanded in a cold and dismissive voice which he hadn't used with her for quite some time now. Hermione obeyed and tried to control her growing fear. Where was her wand? Oh, right, she had it with her. It was stuffed under a strap of her bra.
The Dark Lord noticed the terrified glance she threw towards her weapon. "Take it. You´ll need it", he snarled in his usual imperious tone at the surprised and confused Hermione. His hands were still clasping her from behind, but she managed to free her arms and reach for her wand.
Uncertainly, she looked over her shoulder into the unreadable, pale face and the ruby red eyes which were now burning with an intensity she hadn't seen for quite some time.
„Look ahead and spread your arms", he thundered instead of offering an explanation, jerking his head impatiently forward.
Hermione yielded to her fate, deciding to trust her own resourcefulness and the weapon in her hand. With a sigh, she spread her arms slowly, feeling like an orange-red scarecrow.
Hermione noticed with uneasiness that he pulled her even closer, pressing her tight against his own body while his fingers started to wander upwards across her ribs. His hands paused just below her breasts. His thumbs were pressed to her back and the remaining fingers rested on her ribs. It didn't seem like the grasp was meant to prevent any serious physical resistance. Even so, she was very conscious of the tips of his forefingers pressing her breasts slightly upwards. It was frightening because she didn't have the slightest clue of what he wanted.
He paused for a moment in this position, and then she felt his fingers wander along her rib cage again, but his grasp was too strong to call this movement a caress. He seemed to be trying to get a firmer grip on her body.
It was so eerie. Her hot, sweating body felt every inch of the dark fabric of his clothes and his cold skin. It was rather nice to be pressed against his pleasantly cool chest. Hermione had a sudden, amusing thought about being hugged by a fridge. But this idea didn't help at all, because now she felt even hotter from nervousness. Her breathing accelerated and she felt that her skin was coated with a thin film of sweat which made her dress stick to her body.
The hair on her neck stood up and his breathing was louder in her ears as he pulled her so close that she felt the back of her head press against his collarbone. It reminded her of the time when he had caressed her head and neck, of the way his hand had burrowed into her hair with the softest whisper of a touch. The memory made a portion of her fear melt away to be replaced by a slowly spreading warmth of pleasure.
Hermione shifted her weight and leaned on her prisoner. „Tilt your head back" he instructed with a slight note of insecurity in his voice.
Hermione closed her eyes and her sensed sharpened. One could think that myriads of new nerve cells started to grow inside her precisely at this moment so that her skin became many times more sensitive to touch.
Although it could be hardly visible on the outside, Hermione was extremely lightheaded and suddenly almost faint as she felt the touch of his chin on her temple as his head turned towards her and suddenly his lips were pressed to her forehead. No, he was not kissing her, but she could still feel the barely perceptible touch of his thin, motionless lips.
Even though his breathing had been uneven just moments ago, now she felt his chest rise and fall more slowly. Every time he breathed in, his chest came a few millimetres closer, and moved away again as he exhaled. Every breath seemed to take an eternity. She heard him draw the air in through his nose.
He was smelling her.
Hermione felt unpleasantly naked. She was wet and sweaty and his unrestrained savouring of her scent made her feel exposed.
She opened her eyes and gazed shyly upwards, her temple gliding along his mouth. She saw that he had closed his eyes; the lids were not pressed together, but rested gently on one another.
His face wore an very unfamiliar, content expression; he seemed to have forgotten what he'd actually had in mind when he'called her to him.
His lips and chin slid across her skin in an almost caressing movement, wandering from her forehead to the tip of her ear, across her hairline to the back of her head, and then returning again to her temple. His mouth opened and closed slowly, as if he wanted to whisper something. He swallowed with apparent difficulty.
One of his hands released its grip on her, his thumb slipped forward so that the whole hand rested under her breast, and then slid with a slight pressure across her belly and paused an inch under her navel.
On the tip of her ear, she could feel a sharp intake of breath as the hand slid upwards again and pressed her closer to him.
Her rib cage heaved and she took a deep breath to help her take in everything that was happening. The scent of the room, the refreshingly cool skin which was pressed to her back, but which she could feel on her entire body and the sweet confusion that took possession of her mind..
She felt how he moistened his thin, suddenly dry lips with the warm, soft tip of his tongue. How his hands glided slowly over her belly and how his mouth was pressed more firmly to her forehead - this time, beyond any doubt, kissing her.
Slowly, very slowly, Hermione's head turned, still maintaining skin contact with his lips whose gentle touch on her forehead, her temples and her hair warmed her entire body and clutched at her very soul.
Her shoulders followed her head, and she turned around so that her entire unbelievably warm body clutched at the man before her as if she feared she would be blown away if there was even one millimetre of space between them.
Her arms sunk onto his upper arms, then slid downwards in a flowing movement. Her outstretched hands shifted forward with a gentle pressure and found their way to his lower back, sliding along his backbone over every single vertebra, up to his neck. A sensual touch that elicted a barely suppressed sigh.
Her hands clawed into his shoulders. She pulled herself upwards in one fluid movement, her lips slightly open as her warm, soft tongue wandered from his shoulder blades and over his neck to a spot beneath his earlobe.
Those large, white hands…how gentle they were, how unexpectedly wonderful it felt to be touched by them. Hands that cupped her face and stroked her cheeks; fingers that caressed her throat and then disappeared beneath her curls. Those strong hands that held her tight and wrapped her in a warm and soft blanket of security..
Those hands now slid gently over her neck and tilted her head upwards until her lips touched his. Those hands buried themselves in her curls and pulled her closer..
She hesitated a for a moment, but finally she allowed herself to open her mouth a little wider and to forget everything but the soft touch of the tongue that wandered along her lips. All her other senses blurred as his wet tongue tip met her own and slid over it, hot like fire, but somehow not burning her.
But that game was over before Hermione could reciprocate. Voldemort's head tilted away from her and he turned her rather abruptly around, pressed her back to his chest, and his hands again found the place on her ribs where he had grabbed her before.
Voldemort, fully composed again, pushed the now totally confused Hermione slightly away from him and pressed his hands around her ribs in an iron grip. He bent his elbows slightly, took a deep breath and then suddenly stretched his arms and lifted her high above his head in one fluid movement with a strength she wouldn't have expected even from him.
Her legs dangling in the air, Hemione feared that his strength could fail him any moment and he would let her fall. But he was holding held her so tight she felt as if she were standing on a solid, invisible platform. Warmth radiated from the fingertips underneath her breasts and spread through her in waves until her entire body seemed to glow. Tiny electric shocks erupted all over her skin and she almost believed she was giving off sparks when a cushion of colder air enclosed her body tightly and brought with it a feeling of unexpected stability.
She hung in the air, suspended by invisible ropes like an oversized marionette, hardly registering the touch of the hands that still supported her.
Even though just moments ago her arms had felt heavy and she longed to drop them, now they rose up even higher, by themselves. She was hardly aware of the man standing beneath her, hearing only the incantations whispered by a strangely familiar voice.
The hated, but unfortunately also well-known feeling of his magic invading her being overwhelmed her as he took over her mind and slowly made her body forget every impulse from the senses.
No pictures flashed through her mind this time; everything she had been thinking about gradually melted away and she seemed to be floating in white nothingness. Her weight disappeared until she felt hollow and light, like a large orange balloon.
The voice was back. It enveloped her entire body and kept on repeating incantations in the same, strangely familiar language. Those words no longer belonged to the voice, but came from the very core of her being, and it felt completely natural. She didn't even have to hear them clearly to be able to repeat them; it seemed as though they etched themselves into her brain never to be forgotten again, exactly because they originated from her own body.
The incantations echoed inside her, spoken in her own voice, even though she hadn't opened her mouth. And yet, she seemed to be speaking, or at least thinking them herself now. Maybe it was because she neither heard nor felt him anymore. Something that felt as soft as cotton but at the same time as untouchable as air, was holding her aloft. Her toes were pointed downwards, making her look like a floating. Something lifted her higher and higher, like a piece of paper over a fan. Her head tilted backwards and its weight made her body arch gracefully, arms still spread out like wings.
But suddenly she felt her body again… Not very gently, her forehead banged against something cold and hard.
Voldemort wouldn't couldn't have thrown a stone at her, could he?
Her toes sank a bit and she no longer felt the pressure on her forehead….her upper body slid back into place until it was in line with her legs again.
Slowly and carefully she opened her eyes. She squinted as if she'd just emerged from complete darkness into bright sunlight. Her eyes encountered something warm and radiant, like sunshine.
But somehow it seemed to be rather yellow than white like the sun. And after a closer look she noticed that it was only the warm yellow hue of the wall in Voldemort's sickroom.
Where was her patient? She couldn't feel his touch anymore, neither on her back nor on her chest. Still standing on her toes, she tried to turn around. Then she tried to lower her spread arms, but threw them immediately upwards again as she felt on the verge of losing her balance.
But why? And what was..
That was when she noticed that the sunny yellow colour wasn't just all around her but also above her. And that the cold, hard thing her head had banged against was the ceiling.
A quick downward gaze confirmed her suspicions. She was floating four feet above the floor like a strange, orange caricature of an angel.
Horrified, Hermione started to wave her arms, toppled over and started spinning as if she'd just jumped into a deep pool and was trying to figure out how to get to the surface. This weightless suspension and uncertainty felt a lot like swimming. She tucked up her legs to stop "standing" on her toes and suddenly lost her balance. She dived forward and her body made a wild summersault in the air.
She screamed with fear, waved her arms and tried to grasp at something solid in the nothingness that surrounded her. It was hopeless, she couldn't hold on to air.
Suddenly she stopped spinning, but was now hanging upside down in the air, looking like someone put under the Levicorpus spell. She screamed woth fright and embarrassment as her dress slipped over her head and revealed her underpants and belly.
"Help me! Will you finally do something?! I'm falling!" Hermione screamed at the top of her lungs. Hermione noticed that the ground underneath seemed to float dangerously close. Her arms preformed a propeller-like movement because she wasn't sure what to do first - protect her face with her arms or pull her dress back in place to cover her bum.
Back on the ground, her prisoner lounged against the wall with his arms wrapped casually over his knees and an amused flicker in his eyes, observing her frantic attempts at staying afloat
Now she could even see the cat, who was jumping up with its claws outstretched, trying to catch her dangling hair.
"Take him away, he will pull me down!" The increasingly panicked Hermione begged as the cat clawed into her hair and tried to climb up on her curls.
„Spread your arms, it's no different than swimming." Voldemort advised her, barely suppressing a laugh. Helplessly whining, Hermione kept on spinning in the air while her knees scratched painfully against the ceiling.
Voldemort struggled to his feet with a theatrically exasperated sigh and grasped her head with one hand while untangling the tom cat from her hair with the other and dropping it to the eyes were now level with his, with the exception that she was suspended upside down in the air on some invisible rope with her legs dangling hopelessly while he was standing firmly on the ground, not even trying to conceal his amusement.
„I told you, it's like swimming", her flying teacher lectured her impatiently. Hermione wasn´t able to follow the instruction for fear that she would crash to the floor any second.
„Ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh" he stroked her cheeks soothingly, as if she were a child. "You´re not going to fall. You must not be afraid." His hands on her temples suddenly hurtled her into a horizontal line, so that she was now suspended in an almost-proper swimming position. Hermione spread her arms in an effort to gain some stability. Below, her teacher took a few steps along her body and - she was really thankful for this - pulled her dress back to cover her bum. Then he moved to support her belly for a short moment till her body finally foundthe perfect balance in the air.
With a contended nod he sat on the bed again and kept on watching the floating Gryffindor. "Now think of your wand and what I've told you about the way it works. You have to truly WANT it to do your bidding, you have to make it understand what it should do for you."
And it actually worked - when she concentrated really hard on what she did, she was able to float through the air as through water. If she spread her arms into a straight line, she stopped, but she could change her position with every movement. And even though there was nothing, absolutely nothing underneath her, she felt a slight pressure under her chest and stomach as if there was something she could rely on to protect her from falling down.
„It's an air cushion, similar to solidified air. You won't fall, it will support you." The man still lounging on the bed enlightened her with a smirk.
Hermione felt it again as she turned onto her back…soft and comfortable, as if a cover was spread under her.. She felt the pressure from underneath. Enough to stop her from falling but at the same time so flexible that she could move into whatever direction she wanted.
It was overwhelming, unbelievable,… mind-blowing. Hermione giggled, softly at first, but then louder and louder until a wild fit of laughter overcame her and she began to spin freely in the air again, which made her laugh even louder and more light-heartedly. She floated over the floor like a feather. No…it was even easier…even more wonderful, it was a feeling of limitless freedom and…there was no fear.
„If you want to come down, you just have to lower your arms and think of it. I've told you often enough, thoughts are more important than words…and you must not be afraid."
The self-appointed flying teacher stood in front of the tiny cellar window and observed how his student vanquished gravitation.
It was actually rather simple and felt as if she was being gradually let down on a rope. Hermione lowered herself to the floor slowly and felt completely safe. It was a clumsy process to pull her legs underneath her torso and back into a standing position, but the laws of gravity eventually won out as her toes connected with the floor and her weight was redistributed to its 'normal' configuration. Hermione struggled with the returning gravity and suddenly toppled like a wet sack at her teacher's feet.
He stood over her with crossed arms, doing nothing to help her up, but apparently bent on providing her with more explanation.
"I know you don't like it when I intrude upon your mind. But this time it was necessary. If I had told you what to do beforehand, you wouldn't have stayed in the air for one second because of the fear."
Arms crossed behind his back, he stepped over Hermione's crumpled form, paced through the room, and stopped beside the entrance to the room. The hated and coveted barrier that seprated him from his freedom. Then he turned and faced his student, lifting herself slowly from the floor. "You're safe as long you don't let the fear control you. Your thoughts decide whether you want to fly slower or faster. But you will never fall down."
Without deigning to look at her, he walked over to the cellar window and stared out. In an instant, he seemed to forget all about the young woman behind him and became caught up in a reverie filled with long-gone memories of flying and all the other things he would never be able to experience again.
Suddenly, Hermione felt a sudden urge to come up to this pale, lonesome figure and hug him. To stroke his white cheek and kiss him good-bye. Tender thoughts had stolen into her heartquite against her will. Tom Riddle had become a friend..no, so much more than a friend to Hermione Granger. And now, he didn´t even seem to notice her…
Hermione knew this glance. More and more often, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, he would sink into a dull, brooding silence. Maybe it was better to leave him alone with his memories. Her allotted time was over for today and the tomcat strode boldly through the room, seeking something he could misuse as a toilette. Her teacher seemed to have forgotten her presence altogether.
She still felt the slight tingle the of electric shocks that had erupted all over her skin as he made her float in the air.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, someday I will find the courage to do it. What will Ron and Harry say if I jump from the Astronomy Tower and they try to catch me on their silly brooms only to discover that it was completely unnecessary?
Oh yes, that was exactly the way she would do it, she decided proudly. And when they asked her where she had learned to fly.. Would they ever believe her if she told them that it was part of her correspondence charms of course?
No, of course they wouldn't. Because all her friends would very soon know for whom she had been caring at St Mungo's.. With whom she had willingly spent most of her free time.
As Hermione left the cheerfully painted cell, a single tear glistened in the corner of her eye.
Hours would pass, then minutes and then seconds. Whether it was more of each or less, it was certain that soon, very soon, he would die.
The trial was around the corner. Helplessly, Hermione observed as the end of her patient's life drew irrevocably closer and as the awareness of imminent death made his behaviour more and more disturbing.