Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Serpentine Series	By : HarmonyB Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 12060 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING IN REGARDS TO THE HARRY POTTER FANDOM NOR DO I MAKE MONEY OFF OF THIS STORY.

Chapter List
- 34
- 35
- 36
"Hermione?" Harry said again, as though he was savoring the sound of her name after being deprived of saying it for so long. Then, like waking from a dream, he shook his head and said firmly, "Hermione, this is between Voldemort and me. He's right, you're interfering. You need to step aside."
Harmony said nothing to him. She didn't look away from her Master.
It was clear Harry was taken aback by her behavior, but he refused to lower his wand.
"My Lord," Harmony pleaded, as though trying to coax the blazing sun to stop shining. Several people gasped when they heard this. She didn't care. "My Lord, please, listen to me. You must leave here; you have to forget about this tonight."
Voldemort barked out a laugh, cold and humorless. "You're mad, woman. Why should I do that?"
"What are you saying, Hermione?" Harry exclaimed. "What has gotten into you? How can you call him that? Your Lord?"
Again Harmony ignored Harry. I'm saving your neck, she thought, but directed her words only to her Master. "You need to trust me now. You said that you did earlier, because you gave me the charm."
"I thought I could trust you," he said in a loud tone. "That was before I found out that you've been lying to me since the day we met."
"I never lied to you!" Harmony protested hotly. "I just didn't tell you the whole story. You never asked me about where I came from. You accepted me for who I was, and was proud of me all the same."
"I was proud of what you could do."
"But so what if I'm Muggle-Born! It's only my heritage. It has nothing to do with what power I'm capable of," Harmony insisted. "It doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything!" Master replied, his eyes wide. "Have you ever heard of a Mud-blood who ruled over Slytherin purebloods? It's inconceivable."
"But how can you say that?" she exclaimed. "You, yourself, have Muggle blood running through your veins."
The voices from the crowd stopped. No one dared breathe a sigh. It was as though the world had decided to stop turning.
Voldemort's eyes had gone cold, and he replied forcefully, "My mother was a direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin himself. That is more than most purebloods can prove." He paused, letting his words sink in. Then his eyes looked over her shoulder hostilely toward Harry. "Now get out of my way."
It was as though his words unleashed the gates to hell, and instantly a flood of Aurors stormed through the entrance to the Hall. With fifty or so witches and wizards blazing a trail of spells in their wake, the Great Hall was thrown into immediate chaos. The crowd of people scattered, causing a great deal of confusion as Aurors came with their eyes and wands trained on the Dark Lord at the center of the room.
Voldemort and his reluctant heir did not say another word, but exchanged a glance as their quarrel was momentarily forgotten. Harmony jumped closer to him, and with their combined power they conjured a Cascadia. Because their energies were united, the shield surrounding them rippled with countless shades of blue.
Some of the Aurors collided into the shield, which acted as a brick wall, and they crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The rest of the army lobbed spell after spell at them in hopes of weakening their defenses. But with the two of them combined, their Cascadia protection was unwavering.
When Harmony was sure that they were safe, she turned back to her Master. She was met with furious blue eyes that flashed fiercer than the blue light of their shield. With gritted teeth he shouted, "Damn you, woman! If you hadn't interfered, Potter would be dead! I would have no longer needed to deal with him!"
"You should have listened to me and left!" Harmony shouted back. "You could die if you don't."
"I could, but so what if I am mortal? I'm stronger than Potter is. I would have killed him!"
"Even if you did kill him now, then what? What would there be left then? A short period of self-gratification, and then nothing. You gain nothing by killing Harry Potter."
"I would be regarded as the most powerful wizard of all time," he insisted.
"There will be others to stop you."
"I will kill them, too."
Harmony opened her arms wide and motioned to the Great Hall all around them. "Look around you!" she shouted. "Where are all your followers that will defend you? They're all dead."
Master shook his head. "There are others. I can always find more who would grovel to stand by my side. And besides," he added softly after a pause, "there's still you. You will still learn to take my place if and when I pass."
Harmony dropped her arms at his words. She frowned and spoke in a quieter tone, "But I thought you no longer wanted me because I was Muggle-born."
"I have made my choice," Master said. "You will always have my Serpentine charm, you cannot avoid it. It is your fate. I have made my choice both with you, and with Potter. I will kill him tonight, as I have planned for a long time."
Harmony thought about his words, particularly when he had mentioned "fate." It is your fate. That had been the second time tonight she had been told what her fate was. First by Claudia, about what she had seen in that future room in the mansion, then Master, about her unavoidable fate as a Mud-blood Slytherin leader.
For too long, Harmony decided, I've been told what my fate was and who I was supposed to become. But now, I believe I need to create a fate of my own. Harmony considered a plan of action, and decided it was the only way. She looked her Master straight in his eyes, brown to blue, and said, "If you kill Harry Potter, I would be your only hope of continuing your plans?"
"Correct," Master said. "As I have said, when Potter dies I will be considered the most powerful wizard alive, and you would be able to learn and grow into the leader I want for my followers without having to deal with any trouble from the boy. Without you, I will most likely never be able to create a new Serpentine charm to give to another, and my followers, my power, and—overall—my existence would diminish."
"So," Harmony paused, summing up his words in her head, "without me—"
"It's over."
Harmony gave him a small smile, nodded sadly, and then said, "That's what I wanted to hear." Then she stepped away from Master, and with a heavy sigh she brought her wand up and pointed it at the side of her head like a loaded gun.
Master's face fell in shock when he realized what she was planning to do. His shock was short-lived, as his face quickly contorted with rage.
"You infuriating woman! How dare you!"
"Make your choice about this," Harmony said in a hard voice. "Either you kill Potter tonight and I kill myself, or you forget about him and we combine our powers to Cascadia Maxima our way past these Aurors. We'll leave here."
Master growled. "How dare you threaten me with your death? You are my only hope to a successful future. It is—this is betrayal, pure and simple. I've planned this takeover for years. I won't leave," he insisted. "Besides, if I had wanted to leave I would have Apparated out of here the second the Aurors appeared."
The hand that held Harmony's wand began to sweat as she frowned, "Apparate? But you can't Apparate—"
"On Hogwarts grounds," Master finished, and then gave an evil smile. "With the Headmaster dead, and dangerous wizards gone rampant inside, the school broke the protective spell to allow Aurors quick access to neutralize the situation. Can't you feel it in the air, like you can move and breathe more freely? Oh!" Master pointed to something behind Harmony. "Looks like these Aurors are finally getting that message. Dim-witted fools."
Harmony didn't want to turn her back on Voldemort in case he tried to grab her wand away from her head. So she glanced over his shoulder to see outside the blue force field, and sure enough more witches and wizards were appearing out of the air with wands drawn.
With every new Auror, the stunning spells impacted their shield again and again with increasing intensity. When Harmony became aware that they were in more danger than she anticipated, she looked back at Master and asked him, "Well, what have you decided?"
Master glowered at her. A knot tightened in Harmony's stomach as she realized she must be the first person ever to push his pride this far. If she were him, the answer would have been simple, but Master never let anything get in the way of his pride. As he'd said before, he always got what he wanted, but now he had to choose between one or the other, his irrational vengeance, or his and her future.
As he painstakingly deliberated, Harmony could see he was in a real dilemma. His eyes glazed over in furious indecision.
The more time he took to consider, the more Harmony could feel the power of their shield diminishing. It wouldn't be long before the Aurors would fight their way past the Cascadia and get to their target inside. The lack of time only put more pressure on him, and his face grew red in fury and irritation.
Then, as if something clicked in his mind, he looked back at Harmony with an eerie sureness. In a flicker of a second, he raised his eyebrows and knit them together in a deep frown, as though he were hesitant, but his uncertainty was gone in a flash and with a sneer he gave Harmony his answer:
"Potter dies tonight."
Harmony released a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. She was overwhelmed with disappointment, feeling as though she could fall through the floor with the heaviness she held inside her, like her heart had dropped down into her stomach.
His rejection was more unbearable than she could have imagined. Even after all Master had taught her, after all they had shared, he was willing to toss her away as though she was nothing more than rubbish.
Harmony grimaced as though she had been served a massive blow to the stomach, and through gritted teeth she growled, "So you've made your choice." Her eyes stung painfully as hot tears threatened to fall.
Master said nothing, breathing heavily. He looked away from her as she spoke, out of shame? Anger? She couldn't tell. Now he watched her out of the corner of his blue eyes, as though he anticipated a bomb to go off any second.
Harmony took a deep breath so she could prepare herself to get into the mindset for self-destruction. Her wand felt like a burning hot coal against the side of her head. Her wand hand began to shake as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and trickled down her face.
Harmony had heard that people often saw glimpses of their life before they died, so she recalled memories of her own: friends she'd made, things she'd learned, dreams she'd had. She remembered that dream she had when she first came to Riddle mansion, of her parents in Hogsmeade, when they hadn't known who she was. Then she painfully remembered the end of the dream, when the cloaked man had opened his arms and embraced her.
Master.
Tears pouring, she remembered Ron and Harry. Through the pounding in her head she imagined both their voices shouting her name through the force field. Hermione? Hermione Granger? The sounds of their voices suddenly brought back so many memories.
She remembered the time she fought a three headed dog, destroyed a whole garden of Devil's Snare, conquered a giant game of wizard's chess, and helped Harry escape a wanted convict. They had even broken into the Ministry of Magic in search for prophesy.
She had done so much for Harry, her best and dearest friend. All of those wonderful and terrifying adventures had been to help Harry destroy the man she had now come to respect, the Dark Lord.
But he doesn't want me, Harmony thought as fresh tears poured out at this thought. Not anymore. How could I be so foolish as to think he would care if I lived or died? He's Lord Voldemort, and he doesn't care about anyone but himself. How could I forget that?
Harmony shut her eyes and gritted her teeth. This last action, then, she would do for Harry. It was the only thing she had left to give. With her gone, Harry would finally be able to destroy Lord Voldemort forever. An image of her Lord's face appeared behind her eyelids. Well, she thought, maybe I'll see him in the afterlife.
Harmony took one last deep breath, and then drove her wand deeper into her skull.
Suddenly, a warm hand snatched it, and in an instant it was gone. A second later, a deep green light flashed from its tip.
Voldemort's arms wound around her and he crushed her face into his chest. He whispered something in her ear, and Harmony grabbed fistfuls of his cloak as she fought off the urge to sob uncontrollably.
She could hardly believe it; it had all happened so quickly. She wondered if she was already dead. But that would have to mean they were both dead; that Harry had succeeded in killing Lord Voldemort.
The thought made her sad, but the feel of his arms around her comforted her like nothing else could before. She wiped her tears into his cloak as his familiar scent filled her nose. The blood was pounding in her ears, and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest, and she knew that without him, she never would have taken another breath.
Reality flooded into their warm cocoon with a fierce amount of force when Harmony heard gasps, and questions, and thunderous bursts of outrage all around them. She opened her eyes to see that their Cascadia had fallen.
"Hermione?" shouted voices all around her. "Hermione Granger?"
The loudest of the voices came from somewhere behind her, but Harmony didn't bother to see who the speaker was. She looked up into her Master's eyes instead, centering all of her attention on them as if there was nothing else in the universe.
"We are leaving," his pale lips intoned.
Harmony sighed in relief. And just like that, he was gone.
With the shield of the Cascadia dispersed, all the Aurors had made their way to the powerful wizard in one surge. A couple of stern-faced Aurors took hold of Master's arms from either side and forced him to unwrap them from Harmony. Countless others pointed their wands at his chest threateningly.
"No!" Harmony screamed when someone she couldn't see forced her arms from around his waist and began to drag her away. "Stop!"
The angry mob began to crowd around Voldemort, but he never took his eyes from her face.
"No!" Harmony shrieked. She felt a surge of anger flood her veins like scalding hot oil, and the power in her core suddenly surged forth and erupted like a fiery volcano. Blinding light pulsed out of her with every heartbeat, just like the first time, only now with ten times more force. With only Master in her vision, the Cascadia Maxima flew past him as if it were a puff of air, but everyone else was forced off their feet and slammed against the stone wall.
With his cloak whipping behind him like wings, Master came toward Harmony effortlessly. He held his hand out to her with a victorious smile. Harmony reached out, and faltered to one knee. The power coursing through her had not slackened, and she could feel herself growing weak. The tips of their fingers met, and a bolt of energy shot between them. Voldemort held both her hands in his while their shared power brought Harmony back onto her feet. With the light pulsing out of her in quicker intervals, she regarded his smiling face.
Gripping their hands tighter, Master bent his head down closer to hers. She felt his lips graze her ear as he gave her a command that she enthusiastically obeyed.
"Get us out of here."
Harmony quickly thought of a place that was small and isolated, someplace where they could be safe. Barely a second passed when a picture formed in her mind, and without a moment's hesitation, Harmony gripped Master's hands tighter and pulled him into the black void with her.
- 34
- 35
- 36
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Serpentine Series