Chapter 35


Hermione thought it would be harder to lie to Voldemort. Harder to hide her guilt. It seemed that months of repressing her guilt from the current situation gave her a precedence of behavior for her to hold onto. Meaning … she distracted herself from it unhealthily. Whenever she found herself feeling anxious, she'd find a book and focus on theory and facts, or she'd sneak down to the ballroom and enter the ritual circle for more practice with her magic, or even just let her mind flit over all the properties in the back of her mind.

None of these helped when Voldemort seemed intent on romancing her.

She was up and about, eating her now salt-free and baby-friendly breakfast that the elves had been ordered to give her when Voldemort returned from wherever he went in the mornings. He caught her eye and gave her a heinous smile that made her swallow a little too harshly at her breakfast. He'd done something.

"I have a surprise," he announced, coming and giving her a passionate kiss. "You will enjoy this. When you're finished getting ready I will whisk you away to meet someone of influence in a faraway place. We'll meet them, and then take the rest of the day to ourselves."

His kiss was manipulative, trying to gain her compliance, and Hermione gave in with a secret, guilty satisfaction. "You're not going to tell me?"

"No, there's too much to do," Voldemort asserted, heading to her new wardrobe where he pulled a few boxes from it. They looked expensive, and Hermione cringed. He then grabbed a set of green robes with it. He set out the packages and outfit at the end of the bed for her inspection. "You will be adorned in finery today, a proper pure wife for the world to see. Including," he extended a small velvet box for her to have, "a ring."

Hermione's fingers froze at the lid. "I thought the collar already marked me as yours."

"To those familiar with the darker tradition, that is true," he agreed with a patronizing chuckle. "However there have been a few generations since they've been used. This ring will cover the ignorant as well, and appear like a gesture of goodwill towards your heritage."

Hermione put the ring box down as it had become suddenly heavy in her hand. He wanted to mark her again, with no thought of marking himself. No ring for the Dark Lord. No collar for him. Once again, she was reminded that she was a captive who'd fallen for her captor, not just a girl with a man. A slave to a master.

It was probably a romantic gesture, but it was given without display. Just given with her outfit, like it was a power-play instead of for her.

Voldemort, observing the gesture being discarded, swallowed his disappointment. He still had a chance. The girl had not opened the box, did not see the ring he was offering her, and as such could still be enticed to wear it willingly. He dove in, interrupting whatever thoughts had her rejecting the ring, and kissed her voraciously, desperately. One of his hands was behind her head, keeping her mouth fastened to his. His other hand searched for the ring box on the bed, saving it from her rejection.

He was addicted to her kisses. Her lips were soft as cream gliding against his and she tasted earthy war, but so sweet like she always had a cup of the white peach tea before he found her mouth. It made him hard to kiss her like this, devouring her as she lay on the bed. His hand wandered down to the bulging belly that that was changing everything. Knowing she carried his child only made him more desperate to claim her permanently.

He broke away, intent on his goal and knowing that if it went on any longer he would pin the little witch to the bed and bury himself in her again. "What you do to me, witch," he murmured against her skin. "Wear my ring. Let them know you're mine."

He popped open the box. Let her see the gorgeous bauble he'd procured for her, the silver band with ornamental silver strands twirling around three bright diamonds, polished by the goblins themselves. He wouldn't tell her which pureblood family vault he'd taken it from, but he knew it was gorgeous and to her tastes. The small look of awe in his bonded's face was enough to confirm it.

"But they don't know you're mine," Hermione insisted with a whisper, touching her collar. He knew the half-glazed look in her eye. She was still in a lusty mood, no matter what she told herself. She wanted him. He kissed her again, gentler this time. "This is all that matters, this is what marks me. I can't—I won't be marked again."

"The collar marks you as a slave, not as an equal," he pecked her lips once more. "We have shared our feelings, little witch, and I will not have anyone thinking you are anything less than my wife. Wear this and let me present you to them, let me make them see the power you have."

"So I trade the collar for the ring?" Hermione asked, not giving in quite yet.

He stifled a hiss. "Absolutely not. That collar keeps you safe."

She grimaced. "Then I'm sorry, but no. Not while you are unmarked."

His grip clearly tightened on the ring box and Hermione flinched, anticipating force. To her surprise, he stepped back and shut the box harshly. "I see."

Hermione watched guiltily as he stashed the box in the bedside table, his movements violent. "I'm sor-"

"Get dressed," he ordered swiftly. "We do not want to keep anyone waiting."

Her anxiety over denying him prompted her to do what he asked quickly and without hesitation. The green robes shrank slightly when she donned them, adjusting to her size to showcase her bulging belly. Her house-elf popped up and did her hair as Voldemort watched and instructed. She wouldn't have thought he card what she looked like, but he insisted on dark rouge lips, and a tight updo that her curls definitely couldn't have sustained without elf magic.

When she looked in the mirror, she saw why. Voldemort was making her look older, more mature. Hair down was too young, and the rouge on her lips made her look more vivacious. Everything about her outfit, her makeup, and her hair was to send a specific appearance of age that she did not have. She was dressing like a woman of at least twenty-five.

"Who are we meeting?" she asked, worriedly. "Why are you making such an effort?"

"Portkeys will not harm the children at this point, correct?" he asked, not answering her own question.

She nodded. "Not until thirty weeks. Why-?"

"We are meeting with the Eastern European Magical Council," Voldemort informed her. "Britain may relish in rejecting me, but other countries see the advantage of earning my favour. The delegate from Bulgaria has already has chosen their side in this conflict, but with you by my side they want to negotiate an even greater involvement with the other nations of their pact. You are good for my image, my dear."

"A student wife is good for you?" she asked, incredulously.

He sneered, clearly still bitter from her rejection. "Traditionalists won't have an issue with me taking a young wife to secure my own lineage. Old magic advocates will appreciate the use of ancient binding magic in our marriage. And contemporaries view having a muggleborn wife as proof that I am not discriminatory. They can openly support me with you by my side."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably at the thought that she was helping his cause. "Then, I don't want to go. You know I can't help you, can't help Voldemort, win this."

"Do you differentiate between me and my name, wife?" he mocked.

Tension radiated off of him in waves, making her tense. She was not eager to make him angrier at her after his failed quasi-proposal, but the guilt rolling around in her system made her want to do nothing but curl up and take the day to cry. If she went, she was betraying Harry. If she didn't, she was adding insult to injury to him and he'd had enough of that growing up.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to soothe the anxious ache taking her over. "Not really. There's Voldemort, and then there's the other Voldemort. The man who wants world domination and the one who wants me to wear his ring."

"No, there is only me," he wrapped one arm around her and placed the other on her pregnant belly. "I want everything. A wife who is dutiful to me, children I can teach all the magic I've learned, and a world where I can control the idiots and imbeciles who want to destroy anything of value. I want my dreams fulfilled. You simply cannot accept that someone who would kill to bring about his dreams includes you as one of them."

Tears prickled her eyes and she took a gasping breath. "You can't say these things to me."

"After you were one who begged me to tell you I love you, little witch?" he smirked, bowing low over her face. "I know what you need now, and I can give it to you. I love you, little witch. My darling Hermione Granger."

She closed her eyes against his image and shook her head. "Do you still believe you're better than muggles?"

"Yes." Her heart plummeted to her stomach. "They have their uses, and they can be intelligent, but we have magic. It is everything."

"No." She pulled away as much as he allowed and glared up at him. "I thought you learned this, Voldemort, but magic isn't everything. Muggles live for accomplishment, family, love … there are so many things that are everything to them and me, and magic is just another tool to earn those things. One they don't have but have more than made up for with their own technology. They're not inferior because of something they can't control!"

She breathed deeply, trying to control the anger that covered her heart. "Is magic more important than your goal to bring down the Ministry, or more important than protecting your children? Because that's all I can hear from your mouth."

He released his grip on her then, just slightly, but enough that she left his grip. The stared at each other, one pair of eyes angry and the other cold.

"I can't help you," Hermione pleaded. "Please don't ask me to."

"Witch, this is twice you're denying me today," he noted calmly, though his eyes showed his anger. "I thought you wanted the oath released."

And there came the bribery. She knew that once he became this angry nothing would get him to be heartfelt. She needed the oath released so she could save Severus, and she would do what she had to to bring that about. The original plan needed the oath removed so she could willingly coordinate her drugging with her Potions Master.

Sighing, she nodded.

"Well then, I suggest you do everything I ask," his eyes burned into hers, making her flinch. "You have too much to lose, my dear, to defy me now."

"If you refuse, you don't get a wand," she pointed out, earning only a raised brow and smirk in return.

He swept closer, pulling her against him again. Her body melted against him. His voice growled low in her ear. "Witch, I don't need you to create a wand in order to get one. We're headed to Bulgaria, close enough to Russia to visit Gregorovitch in a moment. You, however, need me to remove the oath. I can go elsewhere for my aim. Don't pretend you have a leg to stand on when you're against me."

They glared at each other with bodies pressed tightly together. She normally would have stomped on his foot to get him to release her, then tried to hex him. But Severus was counting on her getting the oath removed so she could willingly ingest her sleeping draught. So she sagged in acquiescence.

"How much lying are you asking for?" Hermione asked. "You're just showing me off, right? Arm candy?"

His eyes shone with victory as he stole her lips for his own. His breath fanned across her lips sensitively as he told her, "You will walk beside me proudly, and even if you internally disagree with what I say you will be non-committal and encouraging. A proper pureblood wife."

She rolled her eyes. "Mudblood forever, dear. Isn't that why you wanted me along?"


It was a night of listening to Voldemort speak on archaic fears and new ones, everything muggles to do to them if they didn't assume a role of control. He spoke about the futility of hiding magic, and his perceived benefits of revealing themselves. More than that – as apparently revealing himself to the world was open for negotiation if the price was right – he spoke about the old magics and that wizards and witches had become too selfish.

Maybe. Maybe in some ways he was right. Maybe it was selfish to not perform an ancient ritual, or to marry for advantage, or many of the things that had changed with the new ages of progress. But Hermione had something that Voldemort didn't – a value of human life. He wanted culls and sweeps of death so the world could work at a perfect level, a utopia. If reading taught her anything, its that those that want utopia often create hell instead of heaven. What good was perfection if it came at the cost of any and all happiness?

Listening to him talk like that with all the Ministers on the European Magical Council, even if he wasn't telling them all the details of the horror his plans would bring, it solidified Hermione's resolve. She wanted to be selfish, the very thing Voldemort was railing against, but her selfishness was in keeping him in her life. She had romanticized their relationship, and she knew that if they had dated or courted she would never have continued with him. Not with their different views on the world. But how he made her feel … she wanted to keep his intellect and his care for her in her life.

She would follow through with her plan with Severus, and she wouldn't change her mind. Severus deserved to live, he deserved a chance to be happy without a Master hanging over him. And Voldemort … he'd never change. Not enough to matter.

That night she went for a walk in the back of the estate, walking among the rows of trees in the orchard, finding them lacking for her purposes, and then heading back towards the woods. She found some with bowtruckles, a few types of fir tree and then some lime and rowan. None of them fit with Voldemort.

Still, she gave gifts to the bowtruckles and took a branch or two from each tree she found. If she was going to live and take over for Ollivander, she needed to collect consistently.

Maybe she was looking for the wrong type of tree. She had kingwood and English oak, two woods that fit with her and Voldemort's combined magic but worked with hers alone. Maybe she needed to look at it in a similar light – her magic felt … whole with his, but without felt like, well, her: strong, too stubborn, and life-filled. English oak had a pensive quality too, while kingwood had a mentality of unending conflict and perseverance.

For Voldemort … he was changing, but proud. Never overt changes, but small enough to get away with it. He was a Slytherin to the core, but intelligent and impassioned. A wand that could handle that … none of the lighter wands, definitely not gorse wood. Not ebony, as it was too unchanging. His current wand was a yew wand, but she'd learned from picking her English oak branch that magic rarely lets you become reliant on one type, and preferred diversity. So it needed to compliment yew too, be a harmonious anti-thesis to it, if she had to describe the feeling she needed to find.

Yew went with Earth magic, so something more water or fire based. It also fell within the life/death circle of the ritual circle. Something less abstract and more fire or water-centric, then, for his new wand. And it needed to be less suitable for offense than his current wand, but another aspect of his magic. Maybe … he had been so protective of her and her children. Maybe a more defensive wand, still just as straightforward, but focused differently.

Holly? At the thought, she hesitated profoundly. That was Harry's wand wood, and while she knew it depended largely upon the core for its qualities, she didn't want to start comparing him with her husband.

Not holly if she could help it. There were other wands Voldemort would be compatible with, for sure. There were always at least ten different woods that would work for a wizard, as it largely depended on the core anyways. She knew what core she would use – her own blood or hair, whatever the wand felt was most compatible – and needed to find the wood for it.

Hermione wandered for a little longer, her bag filled with various branches and the remainder of the wood lice. There were just enough to distract the bowtruckles in one last tree, so she refrained from getting branches from some other trees that seemed to be magical for fear of leaving without a piece of wood for Voldemort.

In poor spirits at her failed venture, she started to head back to the Mansion. Part of her held out hope that she'd find the tree on the way, so she didn't apparate, but the mossy ground and horrid weather made her even more melancholy. She needed the oath removed, so she needed to make him an excellent wand.

Something odd caught her attention. It was a wood that seemed in sync, but it was a spruce. They were rarely inhabited by bowtruckles, as the majority of bowtruckle species were leafed and preferred to hide in less spiky settings. Yet, this Norway Spruce seemed to have at least one little guy in it.

She knew this was the tree. Carefully selecting the piece she'd cut off ahead of time, Hermione pulled out her Tupperware of woodlice and laid the open container on the ground at the foot of the tree. Two or three of the spiky things crawled to find their food and Hermione did a quick cut with her magic before leaving with her prickly prize. A happy thought made her nearly dance a little jig; she had the wand wood.