Obliviate
Chapter 04
"But of course, Hermione." He offered her his hand. "Come with me."
When she placed her hand in his, the torches in the room, those which had inexplicably extinguished, just as inexplicably re-lit themselves. Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"Magic, I presume?" She tapped her glowing wand against his hand. "There is no need for this now."
"You must will your magic to do as you command. You must focus your desires into your magic, Hermione, and then focus your magic into your wand." Hermione closed her eyes and felt a tickle of warmth in her wand hand. No light is necessary. Extinguish. The wand light flickered and died. Hermione laughed gleefully.
"Oh, look!" She beamed at Lord Voldemort, squeezing his hand. "I did it!"
His thin lips quirked into a half smile. "So it would seem." He tugged on her hand and began leading her towards the door. "Now, that was a simple desire. I am nonetheless impressed that you did not even need to speak the incantation Nox. You will find that, unlike with simple desires, instinct is not enough when it comes to harnessing your complex desires. Speaking the spell will be necessary in order to unleash your magic…at least in the beginning."
Lord Voldemort led her across the hallway and into the room facing hers. It was empty save for a single table with a small black book and quill.
"Magic is part of your being, Hermione. It has and always will be." Lord Voldemort picked up the book and handed it to Hermione. "However, what are we if we remain unpracticed and uncultivated? What are we if we do nothing with our power? We are nothing but potential, and potential is nothing. Right now, dear Hermione, you are nothing but potential." He hissed. He motioned towards the quill on the table and handed her the book. "Begin your journey to become something. Sign this, Hermione, and swear to me that you will become everything you want to be."
Hermione looked down at the book. To sign it would be such a simple act. But Hermione knew that this act meant so much more than a simple signature. It was a promise to her Lord, but more importantly, it was a promise to herself.
To become everything I want to be…
"You Hermione, have – are – magic." His words echoed in her thoughts. Magic. Hermione examined her wand. It was still warm. She laid it on the table and held her hand over it.
She could feel the heat radiating on her palm.
Hermione looked at the book. Cautiously, she opened it to the first page. Hermione looked at her Lord. In his dark red eyes she saw the reflection of her own heart's passion. The desire to know.
I am nothing but potential.
Hermione's eyes hardened.
And potential is nothing.
Without knowledge, I am nothing.
What have I got to lose?
Lord Voldemort smiled.
Hermione picked up the quill and without even the slightest tremor, signed her name. A stinging pain shot through her hand. She hissed and flexed her right hand, now an angry shade of pink. Hermione looked down at the book and saw the red of her blood shine in stark contrast to the white of the page. Hermione.
It did not occur to her that this meant she remembered how to write.
"Very good, my sweet." Lord Voldemort purred. He gently brushed his thumb over her stinging hand. "Think of this as your contract to me, Hermione. You now have…certain responsibilities."
"What kind of responsibilities, my Lord?" She asked. Lord Voldemort did not reply immediately. He gently tugged the book out of her left hand with a lazy smirk.
"For now, we must content ourselves with the basics." He slid the book into a pocket of his robes where it was engulfed in the voluminous garment. Hermione noted that there wasn't even a bulge to indicate that the book was tucked away. "Come, Hermione." Lord Voldemort gestured for her to follow him through a doorway which had not been there a moment ago.
Hermione swallowed, eyes halfway closed, and walked forward slowly. She ran her hands up the sides of the entryway as though afraid it would disappear.
Then Hermione looked up, and her world changed.
The library was magnificent. Torchlight illuminated shelves upon shelves of books that were even taller than her Lord. As Hermione followed Lord Voldemort, she couldn't help from craning her neck and smiling at the rows of books that lined the room. There was a second and even a third floor of books above the ground floor, accessible by the several spiral staircases weaving up the walls.
Lord Voldemort led her through the stacks until they reached a sitting area on the other end of the library. There were several squashy looking armchairs and a desk surrounding a massive and ornately decorated hearth, and in it a roaring fire burned. Voldemort gestured for her to take a seat at the desk before he disappeared behind a monstrously tall shelf.
"I don't know where to begin!" Overwhelmed with delightful possibilities, Hermione practically danced over to the desk chair. Lord Voldemort appeared moments later from behind a bookshelf, carrying several enormous books. Hermione stared at them with a hungry gleam in her eyes.
"We need to start small." Voldemort said languidly, evidently enjoying her longing gaze. Hermione sniffed as Voldemort took a longer time than necessary to lay the books on the table. She immediately snatched the one on top.
"And this is your idea of small?" She said sardonically, smiling broadly as she flipped through Anatomy and Physiology of the Magickal versus the non-Magickal Person by Jacqueline Hyde.
"These textbooks contain the most fundamental information for understanding what it means to be human. These books describe the ontic self; the body, its' organs, their functions, how they make us breathe…" He leaned over her and slowly trailed a finger down her neck, "…and how our heat, how our blood, keeps us alive." Slowly, he took one of her hands and pressed it against her exposed neck. Hermione could feel a slight thumping against her palm.
"Wow," Hermione breathed. "That is incredible." She could feel the pounding under her skin deepen as he leaned closer to her, but did not know why.
"Read now, Hermione. I will remain in the vicinity, but as I have my own matters to attend you I cannot simply sit and acknowledge every single new bit of information you learn. Do not disturb me unless you absolutely require my attention." His words were strong but it was the silent or else reflected in his red eyes that made Hermione's pulse quicken even more. He went to sit by the fireplace, where he began to read a large, grey tome that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. Shaking her head and forcing herself not to focus on that distraction, Hermione returned her attention to the book in her hands.
Hermione opened Hyde's book to the first page and read the first sentence. She then decided she had no idea what was going on. What on earth was a 'muggle?' She opened her mouth and looked up. Her Lord seemed immersed in whatever it was that he was reading, and she had no desire to tempt his wrath.
Well, I guess I'll just have to figure this out on my own.
She had to read the first chapter three times before realizing that the word 'muggle' was being used in contrast with 'wizard' and thus were respectively referring to the terms 'non-Magickal' and 'Magickal' of the book's title. After this dawned on her, the book went from being nearly incomprehensible to enlightening.
Hermione found it remarkable that, anatomically, there were no differences between wizards and muggles. She was sure that those who performed magic, such as herself and her Lord, had to possess a certain physical attribute that allowed them to harness magic. But no, it seemed. What was it, then, that allowed a human to be magical? Or what was it that suppressed it in so many? According to the statistics presented in the book, muggles outnumbered the magical nearly fifteen to one. Why was this? Didn't magic inherently make a person more powerful? Hermione remembered that strange, amazing warmth that vibrated through her entire body when she cast a spell. To not be able to harness that power…worse, to be completely ignorant to its existence, was a painful thought.
It was not until she was well over 150 pages in that Hermione realized something truly alarming. Hesitantly, she asked,
"My Lord...I have not read very much, but it seems that there are certain limitations as to what a human being, magical or not, can actually do." Hermione bit her lip. "When I signed that book…you told me to swear to become whatever I wanted to be…but…there seem to be some things a human cannot do." Slowly, he looked up from his book and turned to face her. Hermione, nervous about his reaction, hastily added, "But this is a very basic text and I am sure magic makes many more things possible than what could-"
"Yes, it does indeed Hermione." Thankfully, he did not look or sound irritated. Voldemort looked thoughtful more than anything else. "However, as you'll read in the next book," he pointed towards Jonathan Hocke's Theory of Magickal Lawthere are a few "natural laws of magic" that are considered basic fundamental principles that govern the entire population of the magical. An example of such is the universal inability to truly reanimate a human after death; bringing back either the body or the mind is possible, but the combination of the two is considered impossible." It must have been a trick of the eyes, but Hermione swore he smirked at this. Hermione found the idea of bringing any part of one's own self back from the dead disturbing. "It is not a supremely rare occurrence that the mind leaves its' imprint in the world of the living. These minds take the figure of the person they once were, and they are called ghosts. Ghosts are neither inherently malevolent nor helpful, but their attitude depends on who they were when alive, and the manner in which they died." He then turned back to his book, evidently dismissing her.
Fascinated, Hermione returned to her readings, feeling both elated and slightly perturbed. She desperately wanted to know how a person became a ghost, and was equally as interested as to how a body could be brought back –she hadn't missed the fact that he had not gone into depth about that. But why would anyone do that? Hermione pushed her luck by raising another question.
"My Lord, if a person is dead, and their mind does not leave an imprint, how is it that their body can be brought back? Wouldn't they be a shell of a human?" Voldemort did not look up, but he hummed to let her know that he had heard.
"Another wizard must bring them back. Now, that is a rare occurrence. Very few wizards and witches have had even the magical ability to bring back the dead. It is quite a feat, to be able to harness life in such a way that a corpse is reanimated."
"But it's not really life, is it? You said that it's either the mind or the body that comes back; not both."
Voldemort did now sound annoyed when he responded: "Yes, Hermione. Therein lies the rub." Though she wanted to continue the conversation, his tone indicated he was in no mood to reply to her anymore. She returned to her reading, mind whirring. Fleeting images crossed through her mind, of humans with empty eyes and gaping mouths. What if her Lord had never found her? Would she be a listless cadaver, the mere prop of some great, frightening, unknown entity?
She quickly shook the thought away. She had much to be thankful for, thanks to her Master.
xxx
The chapters flew by, and Hermione did not know how long she read for; the vague concept of time was still slightly perplexing to her, but the hands of the large grandfather clock had moved four numerals since she had first opened the book. As the clock continued to move at its never changing pace, Hermione began to slow down. It was taking her longer and longer to finish each page, and the words were beginning to blur and move together.
Sleep…
Hermione laid her head against the spine of the book. Her lashes tickled the pages as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Her gaze wandered towards her Lord, who had yet to move from his armchair. As her eyelids grew heavier, she lost focus, and Voldemort's figure began to blur and melt into the fire.
On the cusp of oblivion, an echo of a past life began to whisper words unknown yet achingly familiar.
"…to be wish'd. To die, to sleep, perchance to dream…" Hermione murmured. Voldemort sharply turned his head towards her, but by the time Hermione's words had reached him, she was already asleep. He slowly walked over to her. The girl was dead to the world. She breathed steadily, mouth slightly open. Voldemort brushed an errant curl off her face. He lifted her out of the chair and into his arms. As he carried Hermione back to her room, she spoke softly,
"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…"
Voldemort laid Hermione down on the mattress. He watched her as she burrowed her head in the pillow and waited to see if she said more of that which should have been forgotten.
But she spoke no more.
After a long moment, Voldemort leaned over her. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…" he whispered into her ear, causing her hair to flutter gently across her face. Hermione moaned lightly in her sleep but otherwise did not stir.
"…when we have shuffled off this mortal coil." Lord Voldemort then kissed her forehead lightly and swept out of the room like a shadow. He paused at the threshold, turning to Hermione's sleeping form with a smile of nightmares painted across his pale face.
"Sweet dreams, Hermione."
The door closed behind him with a click, leaving Hermione alone in the dark.