Chapter 29
After she had announced her pregnancy to everyone that mattered, everyone treated her differently. She'd gotten various looks from her friends in concern, but since they weren't allowed to approach they kept themselves to comforting touches in the hallway or concerned looks in Potions class.
Malfoy had been with her every day, suffocating her with care. She had to growl at him when he tried to force-feed her at breakfast, and chewed him out when she sent in a request for muggle vitamin pills at the Owlery. Still, even though he was smothering her, he treated her like a sister. They squabbled a bit, they teased each other, and when she first vomited on his shoes any flirty tension between them quickly dissipated.
The most frustrating one to deal with was Severus. They'd been friends, colleagues in a sense regarding their roles in the war, but now he kept her at arm's length. She hated the fact that they were distant. Even after they made up. She tried to talk to him after class, but he would remind her of things she needed to do and effectively dismiss her.
However, even thought Severus wasn't teaching her or talking to her anymore, she might have been able to deal with it if Voldemort had been there to fill the void. That wasn't going to happen.
For the days immediately following the announcement, he was attentive in … different ways than Malfoy. He'd ensure she ate at night when she returned from school, making sure there were always sandwiches ready to take with their tea. He'd gotten them additional pillows for her to use to be completely comfortable on her side instead of her back or front. But he also started disappearing. He'd stay long enough to make her comfortable, make her eat, make her take her potions in the moring, and then he'd leave. Gone were the nights spent by the fire reading, gone was the sex that she had become addicted to, and gone was any semblance of caring.
Then, a week after the announcement, she stopped seeing him. She came home from Hogwarts to an empty bedroom, a plate of sandwiches, and a house elf eagerly setting out a single cup of tea. One cup.
"Mammsy?" she called, alerting the elf to her presence. "Where's your Master?"
Mammsy snapped her fingers and stirred the milk into the cup for her. "Master is not being here."
Hermione knew she wouldn't get anything else from the elf, and so sat down with her sandwich and tea. Wherever Voldemort was, he clearly had left instructions for Mammsy to ensure her health because the elf was in the room, monitoring her for the rest of the night. She needed to force Mammsy to leave when she went to bed so she didn't have eyes on her when she went to rest.
There was nothing for it to do that night, but she thought she'd see him the next day. That didn't happen, and she was once again under the watchful eye of Mammsy well into the evening.
The next morning, she woke to find Voldemort in her bed, but he slept through her preparations for school and the opportunity to talk to him went by unused. Still, he was with her now and surely he would be back to their nightly routine, or at least back to him taking care of her.
When she returned again to find Mammsy there, she sighed and just hoped he would be back soon. She felt from his core he wasn't at any estate. But the night went the same as several before, with nobody to talk to and nobody to be with. She was lonely, and she knew it. The Slytherins were fine, Draco was fine, but Severus and Voldemort were the two who understood what was happening with her. Voldemort was the one who she spent the most time alone with, at least before. She found herself immeasurably depressed
It happened again the next day. And the next.
Voldemort was ignoring her. At the beginning of their association, it would have been a blessing to only have him nearby to sleep or to bring Nagini back from her evening jaunts in the garden. Now, it made her mind whirl. Was he reconsidering the children? Would she find her tea spiked with abortis potion one day? Was he tired of her now that she was pregnant with his children, and going elsewhere for sex? That thought had her magic shudder violently, and, in a jealous rage, she let it out on the unsuspecting vases in the room. She blamed it on her pregnancy when asked by Mammsy; Hermione Granger would never admit to being jealous.
At least he was always in bed by morning, sleeping in and not speaking to her even if he was awake. He'd wish her a good day, or leave quickly, never taking more than a moment to see her. It was hell.
There was an opportunity to escape one day. A shift and a ripple through her magic, a set of old wards, barely there before that moment, had been linked to Severus. Voldemort wasn't home, and there was nothing to stop her from going there.
Still, she hesitated. Her Occlumency practice had ended the previous week with her announcement, and Severus hadn't really spoken to her since. Showing up at some newly activated ward, clearly designed to hide someone from the world, without the assurance of regular Occlumency practice could have been a horrible idea.
The deciding factor was the thought that Dumbledore wouldn't have made Severus responsible for the wards if he didn't want her to show up at … wherever it was. She couldn't see the house through her magic, which told her it was Fidelius protected. So she popped out of the Sayre Mansion and landed herself on the doorstep of a large almost barn-like home.
The door was ajar, so she walked in with great trepidation. "Hello?"
Two heads turned to her, and she was blown aback. "Ollivander?"
"Miss Granger, what are you doing here?" Severus snarled at her.
She looked down. "If you didn't want me here, you shouldn't have set the wards."
"You presumptuous-"
Ollivander saved her though. He moved past Severus, blocking him from view and greeting her.
"Ah, Hermione Granger," the old man extended his arm to greet her. Hermione accepted it happily, expecting him to shake it, but Ollivander simply cupped her hand between both of his in an earnest gesture. "Vine and dragon heartstring, 10¾ inches. Excellent for the potentially great charms master. And my savior, so I hear."
Hermione flushed. "I suppose you weren't really awake at the time."
"Too true, too true," he hummed. "Has your wand served you well?"
There was a moment of hesitation. "Well, you see, my wand actually needed to be replaced."
He surveyed her form, assessing. "Yes, I suppose so. Well then, will you begrudge an old man the knowledge of what new wand has chosen you?"
She took it out of her holster and presented it to him, not even thinking about it. The demeanor of Ollivander was just so grandfatherly and such an authority that there never seemed to be anything you could hold back from him. It was the same trust you put in someone like Luna Lovegood, minus the exasperating disbelief.
"Kingwood, good," he agreed to himself. "Seems to be a custom, as well. Very detailed carving work. What is the core?"
"Manticore claw and centaur tail hair," she informed him quickly.
"I admit, your energy reminds me of many oak users as much as kingwood," Ollivander said distantly. "Perhaps like Severus."
That was enough for the Potions Master. Severus pulled her off to the side roughly as Ollivander looked at her wand, glaring at her harshly.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "You are supposed to be at the Dark Lord's side."
"Well, I guess no one wants me around now, do they?" Hermione said primly, yanking her arm from his hold. Severus showed little emotion, but she could see the tense in his jaw that came from her accusation. She sighed, tired of being angry. "He's gone. So since I have nowhere I need to be and no one who wants to see me, I decided to come see the new ward you set up. Is there a problem with that?"
His eyes narrowed into slits as he glared at her.
"No problem at all, no problem at all," Ollivander interjected, returning Hermione's wand to her hand. "I was all set to have no company here unless Albus could get away, you know. Miss Granger, you may visit any time you like. Between the two of us, I'm sure we can have some interesting discussions."
With his invitation and Snape's refusal to speak to her again for the remainder of the trip, her decision was finalized. She started popping in every day, meeting with the Order-protected Garrick Ollivander right before bedtime. He was as alone as she was, locked in the safe-house with no other occupants, and they found a lot to talk about … provided it was about wands. Ollivander spoke of three things exclusively – his family, wandmaking, and the previous wands he'd created and/or sold. So wands was the safest bet. His discourses on wand practice and creation were fascinating to her. He even offered her a chance to hold his wand, to see what she could sense from the little piece of wood.
He had told her it was hornbeam and dragon heartstring, but everything else she would be responsible for finding on her own. His shrewd eyes observing her in assessment, she let her magic encircle the wand and tell her everything about the piece of essential magical-wear.
It was strange, trying to read the wand like a person, but it seemed as though she could. A swish and a simple levitation charm told her that it was going to be impossible for her to control, but not only from incompatibility. Her magic deflected from the wand instead of going inside of it, and instead was pushed towards Ollivander. It was intensely loyal to its master. She got the sense that this wand was like a woodpecker, pecking away at one spot in its magic until it got its bugs.
After sharing this observation, Ollivander had taken it upon him to teach her in the art of wandmaking. It was a fascinating, something that she could use to distract her from the way Voldemort had been ignoring her, but also to help distract Ollivander from his boredom. She went through the floo to get to Diagon Alley and managed to retrieve a few dozen wands that he'd hidden away and bring them back to him, along with the wood rounds and some cores that remained in his broken shop. He taught her everything he knew, and she absorbed it with vigor.
More than that, she hadn't had a single reason to pursue art since she'd come to school. She always enjoyed drawing and painting, and the creative nature of carving the wands into an appealing shape that spoke to its personality was simple and yet creative enough to make her feel happy, a feeling she'd been ignorant to the last little while.
"I had been thinking of retiring, you know," Ollivander told her one day. He was teaching her the wood treatments used for long-lasting wands, including some amazing rituals used on the resin-based lacquers for longevity. She continued her application of the lacquer but nodded to indicate she was listening. "But I could never bear to take the time away from my wands to find an apprentice."
"It won't be the same in the alley without you," Hermione told him.
He gave her a weary smile. "Yes, yes, always an Ollivander's wand shop, always the mystical old man sharing a secret with the new generations. No, I should go to America and spend time with my daughter, not stay where I have outlived my time. Perhaps, when the war comes to an end, you would consider taking over Ollivander's for me, Hermione Granger."
She gaped at him in shock. Never had she considered doing this permanently. A year ago, even a few months ago, she always had wanted to work at the Ministry. Now, though, she didn't know. The Ministry seemed such a dark place to her, with people vying for power and handing over their dignity to the man who'd taken hers. She'd wanted to be Minister of Magic, the first female Minister, but the slog to get there suddenly seemed too much like her daily life living with Voldemort. She wanted, if she survived, to be on her own. What better way than owning her own shop?
"You'd just … hand over your shop to me?" Hermione stammered. "We've only just gotten to know each other."
"You saved my life, Miss Granger," Ollivander reminded her. "And you enjoy the art of the wand. I have no family who want the store, no apprentice to run it for me. From what I know of your new wand and your old one, you would do well running the shop."
He didn't demand an answer from her then, but told her the store was going to be there well until the end of the war, and he didn't need to decide what to do until he was free to see it again. With that, he sent her on her way with homework in carving and creating her first wand for herself before she saw him next.
"For me?" she clarified. "I already have a wand."
"Yes, the French thing," he looked at it with a curious look. "I don't disagree with the wand, but regardless of whether I did, wandmakers work with various types of magic that flow through nearly every magical being and wood. Not all wands are suited to the task, and for certain that wand is not. You will need a softer, more balanced equal to aid you in the craft."
She had brought him pieces of wood that week, trying to find the right wand wood for a wand-working wand. The thought made her head spin. Nearly all were dismissed. Finally, a piece of English oak she'd hand-harvested from the forests behind the Sayre Mansion seemed just the ticket.
That was at her ten to eleven week mark in her pregnancy. She was just starting to feel bloated and look a bit heavier in her front, but Voldemort hadn't noticed. Since he was avoiding their evening together, she used that time to carve the wand from the English oak she'd selected. It spoke to her the same way the kingwood did, and seemed to complement her other wand perfectly. She didn't know what core she'd use yet, but the lovely, light wood she was carving was brimming with a standalone energy, determined to have its own balance and to belong to someone whose magic was equally independent. The core would need to be perfectly harmonious to be accepted by this wood.
It was so funny that she had a dark and light wood wand, and yet she liked it. She thought Lavender Brown would have thought it unfair. There were mornings Hermione had to forgo her morning routine for wanting to strangle the irritating witch when she complained about coordinating her outfits with the yellowheart wand she carried.
Not wanting Voldemort to know of her lessons with the wandmaker, whenever she went to bed for the night she would hide the wand in the wardrobe. It was away from his view, and from his inattention the past little while she'd be shocked if he suddenly wanted to help her dress.
By the end of the week, she was finished carving the piece and was hunting for a core for the wand before sealing it. None of the cores she'd managed to salvage from Ollivander's were harmonious with the English oak, and so she kept her magic outstretched at Hogwarts and Sayre Mansion for a fit. She found a few tress across the grounds that would make for amazing wands from the woods, and made sure the elves didn't throw out any large branches until she checked for that energy and took the branches that were good for wands, but she was still coreless. Still, she was building her own collection of woods and cores for when she re-opened Ollivander's – if she did – after the war and she was proud.
It was strange that wandmaking and her bond with Voldemort were so similar. When the core met the wood it needed, it hummed in a circuit of magical transference, the same as with her and the Dark Lord. It made her wonder …
One day, while getting dressed, she spoke to him for the first time in two weeks.
"I'd like some of your blood, if I can," she asked politely, knowing it would get a strong reaction from him. Blood magic was dark, and using it against him was something he wouldn't allow. She could even use it to undo her collar.
His relaxed posture in bed was ruined the moment the words left her mouth. He sat up rigid, glaring.
"No."
"It's not for dark magic, or to take off my collar," she told him casually. "It's for an experiment with our magics."
"I take care to not let a single hair of mine fall into my followers hands," he told her. "Blood is not something I allow to be extracted."
"I could take it while you sleep," she grumbled quietly.
"And Nagini would bite you before you managed it."
She sighed. No hiding it from him, then. "It's really nothing nefarious. I've been working on wandcrafting, if you must know, and I think a wand with your blood could actually work the same way our bond does if I were to use it. If you need to, I could let you stay within sight of your blood at all times and show you me sealing it inside if it's compatible."
That made him take a moment to think. "You wish to use my blood to create a second wand for yourself?"
"Wandmakers all have two or three wands they use depending on the wand they're making," she told him, careful not to let him know that Ollivander was tutoring her. "And it's good practice, you know, to make a wand compatible with your magic."
"I wasn't aware this was something you wanted to do," he mused from the bed. "Most wives in the inner circle take up beauty charms or cooking if they want a hobby, you know."
"Firstly, I'm not doing this for a hobby," Hermione glared back at him. "Not that you care. And secondly, that's sexist."
"Different culture," was all he offered.
She sighed. "Fine, I'll find some other core. But nothing has worked so far."
"And you have a surplus of heartstring and phoenix feather on hand, do you?" he said with a quirk of his brow. "How are you learning all this, little witch?"
The question was filled with dark intent, as if he knew exactly who was teaching her the craft. "Will you throw me in a cell?"
"As if I could," he scoffed. "Even if you weren't pregnant, you could apparate out of any of my properties in a heartbeat. Still, a good idea for the witch who releases my wandmaker and then flaunts it in front of me."
"I've simply become friends with him," she insisted, buttoning up the last of her shirt buttons and grabbing her robe. "Any friend of Ollivander's has to be interested in wandmaking. He may make exceptions for family, but he really isn't interested in very much else. Classic Hornbeam."
"If you are his prodigy, perhaps I should interrogate you, wife," he growled at her. "If I thought you would cooperate."
"If it's about Harry's wand, I don't know," Hermione glared at him over her shoulder. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be going to school."
He didn't stop her, and they didn't talk again for another week. Hermione was going to burst.
Sorry for leaving this one for so long! My anxiety meds stopped working about a month ago and I couldn't change until now. I've started a new one that might be working, but I have been having crazy lucid nightmares that leave me rattled. Either way, I have about four more chapters I'm putting the finishing touches on, so I hope I'll have more regular updates from now on. Thank you for all the fantastic reviews! It really makes me feel fantastic!
