Hermione fell forward into a pair of long, solid arms. Elegant hands steadied her, touching her for the first time in months. She would recognize them anywhere.
Her heart stuttered as he set her aright, then tipped up her chin to gaze down into her warm umber eyes.
"My dear Hermione." He was different than she remembered him, paler, cooler, like he'd given something of himself up. His eyes were darker, with pinpricks of crimson shining from the pupil. "I've missed you so."
Hermione turned her head from his grasp and stood up tall and proud. "I have not missed you, Voldemort."
He heard the contempt and merely smiled. "I don't know. You walked directly into my den. What am I to conclude, then, than that you wanted me to find you?"
"Conclude what you like; it doesn't change the truth."
"What is the truth, Hermione?" He tipped his head and watched her closely.
Hermione pursed her lips as she remembered Dumbledore falling to his death. "That you are a venomous, repulsive snake."
"Repulsive?" Voldemort chuckled. "You've never found me repulsive in the past." His fingers trailed her collarbone. "Quite the opposite."
She sneered. "When I was foolish enough to believe all your lies," she said. "When I was childish enough not to recognize what you were doing to me."
"What I was doing was preparing you for greatness. Hermione, my love, I intend to make you the one closest person on this earth to me in power and proximity," he explained with great patience. "You will have everything you could ever want and more."
"Everything? To include all your secrets?" she asked. He nodded. "Then tell me what the ring is. It's obviously not a normal memory fragment; the part of you in it remembers me from moment to moment."
Voldemort considered her closely, his fingers playing with loose curls around her shoulders. "Do you really want to know?"
She nodded.
"Then I'll tell you everything… in due time." He stroked across her shoulders and down her arms. "For now, I want to check that you're not carrying anything that could come back to haunt me. Antonin took your wand, but you're a clever girl." He circled her, his hand and the tip of his wand touching her back, her stomach, all along her body.
There's nothing to find, she told herself, ignoring any thought to the contrary as hard as she could.
He didn't see the ring beneath the hand cupping her nondominant fingers.
The Floo lit up and he turned his back to her with such confidence that Hermione wished she were more ade0pt at wandless magic. As it was, she knew a little, but it was better to bide her time before using her ring.
Voldemort stuck his head into the hearth and began to speak.
"What is it?" He paused. "Oh? That is excellent news. As soon as you have one, come immediately to me." He hummed. "Well, they have their uses. Good work, Antonin. I will see you soon."
He finished the call and turned to Hermione. He looked like a cat that had swallowed the canary, every bit proud of himself. "I will be able to show you sooner rather than later, it seems."
"Show me what?" she asked, a creeping feeling tingling along her spine.
Voldemort smiled and it was colder than anything she had ever seen when he wore his Professor Riddle persona. "All about Horcruxers, of course."
She swallowed through the fear multiplying her pulse. "Wh-what's a Horcrux?"
His smile widened and his white teeth were suddenly vicious. "I think you know, Hermione. In fact, I think that's why you were at Hogwarts tonight. Your little friend won't find the one hidden there. They don't even know what it is." He walked around his desk and toward her and Hermione cringed back. "And it's hardly the only one I've made."
"They already have the ring," she spat, then hissed at at her own stupidity.
Crimson danced like a flame in Tom's irises. "Yes, you've been naughty girl. But you'll make it up to me soon. Tonight, I'll create my fourth Horcrux."
Her eyes widened. "Ae you going to kill me, Tom?" Perhaps she would use the ring sooner than she thought.
"Of course not, my dear."
Hermione licked dry lips. "Then what do you—"
Voldemort held up a hand and she fell silent. He tipped his head like there was a chime only he could hear. "Ah, excellent. That didn't take as long as I'd thought it would." He pulled her toward him and she tried to shift away, but he kept a tight grasp around her waist. "Don't be so glum, my dear. Tonight is a night for celebration."
As he guided her through the house, Hermione vegan to take note of the house. It was an old English manor and had handsome hardwood floors and complementing wallpaper, but parts of it had fallen into disrepair. There were flicking lights and some out altogether, creating a heavily shadowed atmosphere.
The sun was setting when he took her out the high double doors and down a little hill. She squinted to hamek out where they were going and her blood froze when she made out the shapes of angels and marble structures and crosses.
He was taking her to a graveyard, straight to a large marble marker. He used his wand to unbind her wrists, then walked her backwards until her back slammed into the cross. Voldemort grinned, his eyes gleaming red, and took one hand in hers, and then the other, and pressed them both against either arm of the cross. With neither incantation nor wand, he bound her in place.
Voldemort cupped her cheek and she could only stare helplessly. "I would rather you have done this willingly, out of love for me. However, this has its appeal." He eyed her hungrily. "And you will come around soon enough."
"Never," she promised him.
"We shall see. After all, I have eternity to change your mind."
Such ominous words were as chilling as the grave upon which she stood. She would have preferred anything to being here in this moment, she thought. After all, she knew what he was going to do to he and what it required. And if there was one thing Hermione didn't want, it was to watch an innocent person slain and desecrated in order to be bound permanently to this monster of a man.
And his younger self tried to convince me that that once wasn't enough to corrupt him completely. It made her sick to think she would be a part of this.
"Don't do this, Tom." She would try anything to avoid the ceremony. "This won't go how you wish."
He stared out into the gathering darkness, watching for his sacrificial lamb to arrive. "My plans always come to fruition, love. You'll see. In time."
She sniffled and recentered herself with a deep breath. "I will never forgive you."
"You will. You are tender-hearted." He gazed out, eyes narrowed. "Ah, here comes our sacrifice now. I know you'll appreciate this."
From the shadows there slowly formed an awkward, growing shape. It revealed itself in time to be Antonin Dolohov and in his arms was Draco Malfoy, dead to the world, soon to be dead in truth.
"No!" She struggled against her invisible bonds, but they had no give for her. "Draco! Draco, wake up!"
"Here." Voldemort gestured to the gravesite beside Hermione's bondage. "Lay him down."
The Death Eater laid him almost gently; she could see the rise and fall of Draco's breaths, and she resisted the urge to begin counting them. He looked so pale, so frail against the marble statuary and the darkness of the earth. His hair was mussed and dirt streaked his cheeks.
"He was caught while trying to find you, of course. No sight of your other little friends," Voldemort told her. "They must have abandoned the pair of you."
Rather than hurt her more, it gave her something to hope for. Ron and Harry at least were safe. They had obeyed the plan.
"Please don't." Her gaze returned to her friend, the one who had chosen her as a companion more than a decade before. "Not him."
"You would rather I do this to some other innocent soul?" Voldemort teased. "That they should be the one whose death serves us so intimately? And here I thought there was a certain romance to. Having Draco serve as the conduit."
"You're a monster," she spat. " Draco, please! Please wake up."
Voldemort set to preparing the graveyard. He drew from his robes a vial of potion and set it atop a headstone. "Do you want him to be awake for this? That's remarkably cruel. Better he should sleep through the process than experience the horror that awaits. That will be all, Antonin." The Death eater gave a curt bow and took his leave.
Slowly, Voldemort stripped himself in the cool night. The stars themselves seemed to draw their light into his pale flesh, though there was no moon in the sky that night. It was cruel, how beautiful he was. He shone like a fallen angel, the only color the spill of red in his luminescent eyes.
"Tell me, Hermione, did you read the entire section on Horcruxes?"
She turned away from him coldly.
"You read the whole book, didn't you?" He chuckled. "What a perverse little thing you or curiosity makes. You should have been named Pandora."
Once he was fully stripped, he laid his cloak along the ground and used his foot to roll Draco's prone form atop it.
"Still, Hermione is a name full of poetry itself. Did you know there's another source for it other than the works of Shakespeare? The daughter of Love and War, Harmonia. She, too, loved a snake." He turned her chin to face him. He was all cool lines, shadows and highlights, in the darkness. "And like Cadmus and Harmonia, we will be eternal."