Revelations

When Jasmine Potter woke up, she didn't recognise where she was. The room was unfamiliar, even if it looked quite nice, she would admit. But her instincts when confronted with unfamiliar rooms made her get up quickly, only to find herself feeling dizzy.

"I suggest you don't move quickly right now," she heard a male voice from her left. Turning her head towards the voice, she spotted a handsome teenager, perhaps a few years older than her sitting in an armchair, placing a book on the table next to the chair. He stood and walked over to the bed she was in.

"Where am I?" she demanded to know.

"You don't need to know that," he replied silkily and waved his wand over her without asking for permission, "Good, the potions we gave you have nearly finished their work. Honestly, did Madam Pomfrey ever actually check for health problems with you?"

"What?" Jasmine asked confused.

"You suffered from higher levels of domestic child abuse, Miss Potter. Even squib children don't get treated as badly as you obviously were by your muggle relatives. I won't call them family, as true family would never allow such treatment of one of their blood," he told her, "I diagnosed stunted growth, harm to your eyes, malnutrition, badly healed broken bones in several cases, blunt damage to nearly all parts of your body, consistent with beatings from a child, two concussions between the ages from six to ten and your magic reading showed two blocks on your core."

She blanched. She had known that the Dursleys were horrible, but to add two blocks on her core was shocking.

"The blocks, by the way, were placed after your parents died, therefore, they can't have been the type of known baby blocks for overly powerful magical children. The first block was placed when you were three and bound half of your magic. The second block was added when you were seven and bound an additional quarter. Meaning, you were operating with twenty-five percent of your overall magic. I have unblocked your core in four steps, as it would have harmed you permanently to undo them at once," he explained, "For your information, you were kept in a magically induced coma to avoid this causing extreme pain to you."

"Why would anybody do that? And why not undo the blocks when I started at Hogwarts? It had to have been noticed with how often I was sent to the hospital wing," she exclaimed horrified.

"Why is indeed a very good question, Miss Potter," he agreed, "I can't be absolutely sure, but the most probable suspect for placing the blocks is Albus Dumbledore. He alone knew where you were located to hide you from the followers of the Dark Lord after his fall. Now, why would the supposed Leader of the Light weaken the so-called heroine of the wizarding world that much? He can't argue about protection from uncontrolled magic, as then he would have lifted the blocks before you started your first year at Hogwarts."

Jasmine couldn't deny those arguments. But with that much of her core bound, how had she managed to do magic at all? And a high-level spell like the patronus among them? Was this why certain spells took much longer for her to learn than for Hermione? Even if they studied the same way together.

"I see you are confused. Well, I suggest we first deal with some things that will surprise you. Please sit up slowly and stand in front of the mirror over there," he pointed at a full-length mirror next to a wardrobe.

Not seeing any reason why not to do that, she followed the instructions of the teenager that seemed to be some kind of doctor. After all, he had a lot of knowledge about medicine. She was still a little dizzy, but not as much as during the first attempt. When she stumbled while trying to put weight on her legs, he steadied her, which caused a strange reaction with her magic. She felt heat coursing through her whole body, and a pull towards him. She looked at his face, being mesmerised by it for some reason.

"Now this is a surprise," he commented and lifted her chin, "Would I be correct that you feel an irresistible pull towards me?"

She could only nod, not understanding why this happened, but it didn't feel wrong, even if she knew she should mistrust him, as she didn't even know his name.

"That will make things a whole lot easier in the future, Jazzy," he purred her name, which made her body tingle in delight.

"What is this?" she brought out weakly.

"Your magic submits to mine. It happens regularly with compatible witches and wizards. Ninety percent of all compatible couples will have the witch be submissive to her partner, even if to different degrees, for the other ten percent it is the other way around. I guess nobody ever explained certain types of magic to you. But if the block also trapped your true nature, it would make sense that you react this strongly after it was freed," he caressed her cheek with his fingers, which felt wonderful for Jasmine.

He gently led her to stand before the mirror and told her to look into it. She did and was stunned at her appearance.

"That's me?" she asked astonished.

"Yes. The way you should have looked all the time. If not for those muggles," here he sneered the word with disgust in his voice, "stunting your growth, you would have never looked as if you were constantly starving. Not looked as if you were years younger than you are."

Jasmine couldn't argue. She had always been small and underfed. She knew that her weight was just not dangerously low for her age and height. Hermione had given her books that her parents had, both on how to change things for the better and what she should at least weigh for her age. Even if Hermione had ranted how she should have been taller than she was by now. But now everything was different. She absentmindedly noticed that she could see perfectly without her glasses and her body had changed drastically. She had grown at least twenty centimetres; she had developed more curves. Not as large as Lavender was developing, but larger than Hermione. Her black hair shone silkily, when before it had been dull, and now reached the middle of her back instead of her shoulders like before, her legs seemed toned, as did her arms. There seemed to be the muscle definition from all the work she did both at the Dursleys as well as on the Quidditch team. Definition that she couldn't get before, as all the food she managed to keep inside had been used up to keep her functioning.

She couldn't help herself touching her new body, which was made easy, as she only wore a short-sleeved t-shirt and shorts that went down to the middle of her thighs. What she didn't expect was the man standing behind her, putting his arms around her and pressing against her back. She knew enough to know that the bulge in his trousers was a sign of his arousal. It transferred to her, and more heat shot through her. It should terrify her how he could make her feel, but it didn't feel wrong. Instead she enjoyed it. She then felt him nibbling on her neck and she turned her head to give him better access, moaning appreciatively at the feeling it caused. She wanted to be touched by him so much. And he obliged. While he didn't do anything too forward, it was the first time she had ever allowed any boy or man to touch her this way.

Barty meanwhile enjoyed himself immensely. He hadn't expected that Jasmine Potter was a natural submissive witch and on top perfectly in tune with his magic. And on a high level as it seemed. This made the plans for the Dark Lord's rebirth ritual much easier. Jasmine would follow his demands without any chance to refuse. And now that her physical deficiencies had been remedied, he desired her. She was exactly the kind of witch he had wanted to marry when he had been younger. To find out that her magic perfectly submitted to his was an unexpected bonus. And the act he would perform during the ritual would equal a magical marriage. She would be his. What happened after the Dark Lord had risen again, they would have to see. But with this development there was absolutely no reason for the Dark Lord to harm her. She wouldn't get into his way ever again in the future.

He continued caressing her, driving her crazy with arousal. He knew he had to wait until the ritual to take the last step, but nothing said he couldn't play around until then and prepare her for what was to come.

Hermione Granger woke up inside a room she didn't recognise. She shot up in the bed she was in, noticing immediately that this wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. Her wand, when she looked for it, was also gone. While the room looked nice enough and the bed was comfortable, she understood immediately that she was a captive. She remembered walking to the Great Hall from her common room with Jazzy, and then darkness. She couldn't see Jazzy anywhere and tried to find out anything that could help her figure out what to do.

"Ah, I see you are awake, Miss Granger," a male voice stated.

"Pettigrew," she snarled, recognising the man from a few months previous, even if he had lost some weight and looked better than before. He seemed to have got a haircut and his teeth were white instead of yellow like before.

"Indeed."

"What do you want? Where is Jazzy?" she demanded to know.

"Always asking questions. But that is part of your lineage, so I expected it," answered Pettigrew.

"My lineage? What do you mean?" she was confused by that turn.

"When you and Jasmine were unconscious after my colleague stunned you both to kidnap you from Hogwarts to assist with a little project of ours, we decided to test Jasmine for the source of her parseltongue ability. As we had three more doses of the potion left over, we decided to use some to see where your magic comes from. Congratulations are in order. You aren't a mudblood as we first thought. You are actually a halfblood," Pettigrew informed her.

"A halfblood?" she asked surprised.

"Yes. Your father was Gilbert Rosenberg, a pureblood wizard from Germany, who was killed by hit wizards on a mission for the Dark Lord in August of 1979. I suspect that he slept with your mother while putting her under imperius and you were the result. We did that often back when the Dark Lord was rising to power. Muggle women are only good as whores anyway. While it wasn't approved to sire children that way, sometimes the contraceptive charms failed. I guess he obliviated your mother after he was done with her and let her go back to her normal life," shrugged Pettigrew, "Or he might have planned to take you away after he found out he had a child on the way, once you were born. His family tapestry would have told him that there was a magical child about to be born. But with him dying before that, you were left to grow up among muggles."

Hermione was shocked. Her father had been a Death Eater? Her parents had never said anything about her not being her father's daughter. Could it be that her mother had noticed her pregnancy and just assumed that she was pregnant from her husband due to the obliviation? She knew that her parents had had trouble having any children before her mother surprisingly noticed being pregnant with her. It was why she was an only child.

"Thanks to you actually having a decent heritage, you won't be killed, like we originally planned. We need all the witches and wizards in this country to repopulate once the Dark Lord has taken over. Instead, you will be re-educated in the true secrets of magic. Should be right up your line with how you insist on studying everything about magic you can get into your hands," commented Pettigrew.

"You planned to kill me?" asked Hermione horrified.

"Mudbloods don't have any worth for us. What you don't know, because Dumbledore keeps it under wraps, is that mudbloods are much weaker than proper purebloods. And with proper I don't mean the idiots that ignore the warnings that the healers have given for three centuries already that marrying too close to your own bloodline is dangerous for the offspring. Anybody that has even a basic understanding of breeding magical creatures knows that it is vital to keep at least five generations between the breeding pair to get strong offspring. The Crabbe and Goyle lines are a sad example of ignoring that. Parts of the Black line as well. Though with them it mainly shows in insanity instead of loss of magical potential," pointed Pettigrew out, "Thus, they never cared. I mean honestly, Sirius' parents were both Blacks before they married. And his mother was an insane shrew like no other. And this isn't my opinion, Sirius was the one to call her that the whole time."

Peter's face made it clear that in this he agreed with his former friend. He had clearly seen Walburga Black, probably during the time she collected Sirius and his brother from the Hogwarts Express for the school breaks. And from what Hermione knew thanks to her research about Sirius from the previous year, simply to see if she could find anything about his family that might give Jazzy an advantage if the man found her, she knew that in this Pettigrew told the truth.

"But many muggleborns in my year and the ones above and below get good grades at Hogwarts. Both in more theory-based subjects and wanded ones," she protested.

Pettigrew then began to dissect the true grades of the students in her year, as he had observed things while he was still acting as Ron's pet rat. Those students that were from good pureblood lines that made sure to not marry close cousins and have at least five generations between common ancestors were all among the leading students in her year. There were exceptions for lazy ones like Ron, but even Malfoy got great marks in all of his classes, which she hadn't expected. And good marks in theory didn't equal exceptional performance in their spells. In the lower years, it wasn't noticed as much, but the higher the requirements for a spell became in terms of needed magic, the more proper pureblood and halfblood students pulled ahead of their peers.

It became extremely clear with the ones on NEWT level. Nearly none of the muggleborn students got more than an E in any wanded class there, simply because they didn't have the power to gain the full effects of their spells, which cost them points. It wasn't as clear for the students, as there were too many stupid purebloods that didn't get better results than them though.

"You have a greatly limited base of information, Miss Granger, or perhaps I should start calling you by the name you will use from now on, Miss Rosenberg. That isn't surprising. Hogwarts does a lousy job in getting the supposed muggleborns brought to a level where they could converse equally with their wizard-raised counterparts. Mainly because the Board of Governors and Dumbledore consider it wasted time and money. They claim that mudbloods learn soon enough. Well, considering that many of them are probably descended from wizard lines that might even happen. Sometime years after it should have been taken care of."

Pettigrew stood from his chair and started walking towards a bookshelf at the wall. He pulled out a book and looked for a certain page, kept it open and then handed it to her. The page showed the statistics of the grades in OWL and NEWT exams in Great Britain from the years nineteen seventy-one to nineteen ninety-two. Hermione also saw that the statistics differentiated between Hogwarts, Crystal College, Shamrock Fields and home schooled in one diagram. Then there was a block diagram that informed about the grades reached by each blood status group. And here she saw that the statistic proved that most purebloods achieved grades in the rank of E to O in most subjects. The percentage of A was there but not as extensive as she had thought it would be.

From what she read, halfbloods normally did well in their NEWTs, for OWLs it was a mixture. But clearly, if somebody qualified for the NEWT class, the grades were then going to be good. Muggleborns meanwhile mostly achieved E as their NEWT grade, even if in the OWL grades there was still a high percentage of O grades for them. This seemed to prove what Pettigrew had claimed.

One point she frowned about was that the Hogwarts students seemed to be behind the ones from Shamrock Fields. Crystal College was out of the NEWT group, as the school only taught up to OWL level and then the students would start working in some profession. It was set up to only offer OWL level classes. NEWTs could only be achieved at Hogwarts and Shamrock Fields or by hiring tutors for homeschooled students. It was information she hadn't seen before. Pettigrew had returned to his chair while she was reading and was sitting again.

"Ask yourself and be honest. Have you ever got any support for your studies from the teachers? Has anybody ever given you information about the wizarding world beyond telling you which books might help you? The most McGonagall ever did for you or other muggleborns in Gryffindor was the first meeting before you accepted your spots. Remember, I have been at Hogwarts for many years while being in my rat form. I was there since Percy Weasley was a first year. And that form allows me to spy undetected. During the school year, none of the heads of houses ever does anything outside of teaching classes, supervising clubs they decide to sponsor, which mostly connect to their classes, or doing patrols. None holds meetings with their house to assist the students in doing better.

"Sure, Snape has mandatory classes for Slytherin to give them certain advantages, but those are held by the prefects with material he hands them. He only quizzes the ones attending the courses after they are done and checks the reports of the prefects, both on paper and by using legilimency on them to check they didn't lie to him. Otherwise, he doesn't invest more time and work. Possibly because he doesn't have much free time with having to brew for the hospital wing next to selling some of his potions. Flitwick only checks if his Ravenclaws do well in their classes and if they have trouble, they get mandatory tutoring lessons with older students. He only cares for the grades of his house to not lose its status for the smart students," revealed Pettigrew.

Hermione, as much as she hated it, couldn't defend the teachers she had looked up to. She had invested a lot of time to learn all the things she felt she needed to know, and even Madam Pince didn't help a lot by telling her which books would have the information she wanted to have. And Professor McGonagall never visited the Gryffindor common room, outside of grave messages during the Chamber of Secrets drama and reprimanding them if they celebrated too long and loudly after winning at Quidditch or at the end of the year the house cup.

"What do you plan to do with me?" she asked to get the discussion back into a direction she felt immediately important, "And what about Jazzy?"

"Well, both of you will assist us with a ritual. Having two witches involved will increase the power that is freed in the process, which is good for our goals. Until then, we will ensure that you are in the best condition both physically and magically as we can manage. And don't hope to be rescued. Nobody can find you. After the ritual is performed, well, the Dark Lord has plans and having either of you interfere would make them more difficult to realise. Thus, you will continue being our captives. Depending on your behaviour, we will find positions where you can be useful for our goals. Be it that we marry you off to supporters of the Dark Lord to continue their lines or by working for us," commented Pettigrew easily.

"I will never support him," she growled while also glaring at Pettigrew.

"Many claimed that in the beginning and changed their mind. He is highly persuasive, and his goals and ideals are truly admirable. But I understand where you come from Miss Rosenberg. I was once a naïve little Gryffindor as well after all. Blinded by the illusion that Dumbledore likes to spin around his person. Did you know that a main reason why he defeated Grindelwald was that the forces against him had hunted him for months beforehand, leaving him little time to rest and recover his position? Sure, the duel between the two was impressive, I don't deny that, but at that point, Dumbledore had left the chase to others, among them Newt Scamander, until he finally stepped in and confronted Grindelwald. There are several theories, but history tends to forget that victories aren't gained by single persons. The group that weakened Grindelwald over those months leading up to the duel was essential in letting Dumbledore defeat him.

"But their names were forgotten outside of small mentions in history books. And with Binns being a bore and not teaching the children at Hogwarts anything useful, as ninety-eight percent fall asleep in class or play games, as they simply can't concentrate, nobody remedies that fact. And I checked when the Dark Lord told me that. It isn't a lie. Any history book that includes all the reports from the Grindelwald War will tell that Dumbledore only stepped up in April of 1945. Grindelwald was active from the 1920s on. Over two decades, Miss Rosenberg," explained Pettigrew.

"Those that serve your lord would go as far as betraying their best friends. You betrayed the Potters to him. He tried to kill Jazzy when she was just a baby," accused Hermione.

"Ah, yes, I gave up the secret of the fidelius charm. But I tried to make James see reason. I tried so many times. I knew he would never support my lord, but I thought that if he just separated from Dumbledore, he would manage to survive. Had James agreed to stay neutral, the Dark Lord would have let him and Lily be, even if it was a disgrace for him to marry a mudblood. You see, the Dark Lord knows that magical blood is precious. It was a war though. And in wars people die. You may have read about raids against public places. Well, those reports were highly exaggerated. Yes, we did raids. But mainly against muggles, which, as I told you, we couldn't care less about. Muggles are the reason why we have to hide like scared rabbits. We have to hide our powers because they would restart the witch hunts. And don't deny it. There are too many radical political leaders that would declare us as dangers to the public and have us killed one after the other, should they find out about magic still being around.

"And the reports that are free for the public to access are already censored by the Ministry. After all, who would want to admit that the aurors were much worse in fighting us than we were when we performed strikes against single targets? Did you know that in the beginning the Dark Lord led a political movement for reformation in our world? To eliminate the muggle influence from our society? To uphold our traditions? Traditions that Dumbledore erodes, replacing old celebrations like Samhain and Yule with Halloween and Christmas. After all, why would we, who suffered from the actions of the Christian church for centuries, believe in their god and celebrate their holidays?"

Hermione frowned, but had to admit, this was a good argument that couldn't be denied. While it was nice for the muggleborns to have celebrations that they knew at Hogwarts, she could see how others that didn't like the Christian faith would be annoyed at the much older and traditional celebrations being pushed aside. She felt that it would be better if both parts would be honoured. And if there were classes that taught about them, she would have enjoyed them to learn more about wizarding culture.

"If you think about it without the red tinted lenses of Dumbledore worship, you will realise that not everything is as books portray it. Especially books that the Ministry approves to be published. Ask eyewitnesses of the attack on Godric's Hollow in 1975 how things actually went. What the Death Eaters there did was holding a meeting where the Dark Lord spoke peacefully about his goals, about the future he envisioned. It were aurors that broke the meeting up with force, all because the Dark Lord supposedly failed to hand in the forms to get permission for it. A blatant lie by the way, he had got permission three weeks in advance. Ten civilians died from stray spells shot by the aurors. But the Ministry hushed that mistake, as they called it, up. It was a tragedy. Not a mistake. Three children lost both parents. Two children lost their father, the sole provider of their family. And their mother was seven months pregnant with her third child, thus unable to start working.

"Those aren't just things I made up; I can easily procure the people that suffered from the actions of the Ministry. And do you honestly believe they would let you ever have a high position? No matter how smart you are, no matter how incredible your grades are, just because they believe you a muggleborn, they will bar you from the positions where you should work in, as they don't want to give up their corruption and easy lives. Because if they allowed competent people to gain top positions, it would end the nepotism that grants them their cushy lives where despite being incompetent and corrupt, they earn loads of money each month and can place family members in similar positions."

Hermione didn't want to believe it. She had never found any book saying something like this.

"I can let you have the books that show a better picture about the truth. Remember, even the muggles know that history is written by the winner. And that corrupt governments like to hush up things they don't want to be known," commented Pettigrew, "You will be given three proper meals a day until it is time for the ritual. You can order tea or water during the day when you are thirsty. Your wand will be kept by us until we are sure how you will behave. As we know that bored captives are more likely to revolt, you may also have up to five books to read per day. Even you won't manage to get through them. You may choose from ten topics. A list will be delivered to you with dinner tonight. You can mark the ones you would like to read."

She glared at him, but knew he was in the stronger position.

"Oh, I nearly forgot, in case you do anything that displeases the Dark Lord, not only you would be punished for that, but also your friend. The opposite is also true of course. The Dark Lord decided to gain some more assurance that you would cooperate a bit better that way. If you behave though, we might allow you occasional meetings with your friend," Pettigrew added.

Hermione knew that this was going to be a problem. If she knew anything about Jazzy, she would behave if only to protect her. And without her wand, it was improbable that she could escape the room. She had never learned any muggle skills to pick locks for example.

Pettigrew left the room and Hermione sagged down on the bed, trying to think of something she could do to get out of this horrible position before the ritual Pettigrew had mentioned could be performed.

Voldemort listened to the reports of Barty and Peter. Then he laughed loudly.

"This is irony in its most marvellous form. Oh, to imagine the look on Dumbledore's face when he finds out," he laughed.

Peter and Barty grinned as well.

"Make sure both girls are in good condition, that will be essential for the ritual. Barty, make the girl totally pliant until the winter solstice. Peter, continue undermining the belief of Gilbert's daughter. Her father was a powerful wizard. If she sees the kind of huge lies she has been fed ever since she found out about the wizarding world, she might take enough offence to that to be of direct use to us. While I doubt that she would ever fight for my goals, she might be a candidate to develop devices that make most of the services the ministry offers redundant. Yes, it would probably be a great idea to hand over her father's research into communication devices that replace the floo network for calls and that of her grandfather about the portal system of Japan. Going by your descriptions, Peter, she would even enjoy working on something like that," pondered Voldemort.

"Certainly, my Lord. By the way, who should play the part of her partner in the ritual? I am needed to perform the active parts like draining the fluid from the womb of the unicorn and adding the dragon heart to the potion," asked Peter.

"Hm, normally I would have let somebody that enjoys breaking mudbloods do the job, but in this case that isn't appropriate. We need somebody that would appeal to her," considered Voldemort.

"From what I noticed, she seems to have a thing for older wizards that are handsome," offered Peter, "she was among the ones blinded by that fraud Lockhart for the whole year."

"A good point, Peter, let me think. We don't have too many options after all, as until I have my body back, I can't be sure who of my Death Eaters are still fully loyal or would at least not act against me."

"Didn't Rabastan have a son in May of 1977?" asked Barty.

"He did," agreed Voldemort.

"While Rab, Rody and Bella were stupid how they went about finding out your location after your fall, they were always loyal, my Lord. And Rab was one of the best-looking wizards of our generation. His son, if he inherited his looks, would be suited to turn a witch's head. And the Lestrange line is due some fresh blood. Gilbert's family never married into British lines for at least ten generations," suggested Barty, "And while the Lestranges might prefer purebloods, their house rules clearly allow exceptions for powerful halfbloods that have highly compatible magic, as long as their magical lineage is appropriate. At least that was what Rab told me when we were still students."

"Where would the boy be raised?" asked Voldemort, "If he truly is his father's son, he would be perfect. And the girl is pretty, so I doubt it would be a hardship for him."

"He was taken in by the Carrows my Lord," answered Pettigrew, "I have seen him a few times around Hogwarts. He does look a lot like Rabastan, and he is magically powerful. From what I know, he shows a neutral stance towards the teachers to not be constantly harassed by them and the students. He even got the hat to send him to Ravenclaw. He's top of his year in Charms, Potions and Ancient Runes. Good in his other NEWT subjects of Arithmancy, Transfiguration and Herbology as well."

"Interesting choice in NEWT subjects. I guess the unreliable quality of Defence made him decide to not invest the time there," commented Barty, "And I know from experience that Arithmancy and Runes on NEWT level are demanding choices."

"Indeed. We need to contact him to get him briefed on the ritual. If Amycus raised him, he will be ready to enter my service like his father before him. Barty, you can sneak into Hogwarts most easily. They will be looking out for Peter and Potter will have reported his animagus form to Dumbledore. Thus, we can't risk him going," decided Voldemort.

"Of course, I will go early in the morning," confirmed Barty.

"Good, then things can continue like planned. Soon I will have a powerful body again and we can continue our conquest of this country," declared Voldemort, before telling Peter to bring him to his room, as he needed to take his potion again and then rest to concentrate his magic.

I hope you liked the start of the story.