Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Precious Mudblood	By : magentasouth Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 79302 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from any part of the Harry Potter universe

Chapter List
- 1-Precious Mudblood
- 2-Ch 2
- 3-Ch 3
- 4-Ch 4
- 5-Ch 5
- 6-Ch 6
- 7-Ch 7
- 8-ch 8
- 9-Ch 9
- 10-Ch 10
- 11-Ch 11
- 12-Ch 12
- 13-Ch 13
- 14-Ch 14
- 15-Ch 15
- 16-Ch 16
- 17-Ch 17
- 18-Ch 18
- 19-Ch 19
- 20-Ch 20
- 21-Ch 21
- 22-Ch 22
- 23-Ch 23
- 24-Ch 24
- 25-Ch 25
- 26-Ch 26
- 27-Ch 27
- 28-Ch 28
- 29-Ch 29
- 30-Ch 30
- 31-Ch 31
- 32-Ch 32
- 33-Ch 33
- 34-Ch 34
- 35-Ch 35
- 36-Ch 36
- 37-Ch 37
- 38-Ch 38
- 39-Ch 39
- 40-Ch 40
- 41-Ch 41
- 42-Ch 42 (edited. longer)
- 43-Ch 43
- 44-Ch 44
- 45-Ch 45
- 46-Ch 46
- 47-Ch 47
- 48-Ch 48
- 49-Ch 49
- 50-Ch 50
- 51-Ch 51
- 52-Ch 52
- 53-Ch 53
- 54-Ch 54
- 55-Ch 55
- 56-Ch 56
- 57-Ch 57
- 58-Ch 58
- 59-Ch 59
- 60-Ch 60
- 61-Ch 61
- 62-Ch 62
- 63-Ch 63
- 64-Ch 64
- 65-Ch 65
- 66-Ch 67
- 67-Ch 67
- 68-Ch 68
- 69-Ch 69
- 70-Ch 70
- 71-Ch 71
- 72-Ch 72
- 73-Ch 73
- 74-Ch 74
- 75-Ch 75
- 76-Chapter 76
- 77-Ch 77
- 78-Ch 78
- 79-Ch 79
- 80-Ch 80
- 5
- 6
- 7
The next time she awoke it was to the sound of voices
conversing somewhere.� Professor Snape
was speaking.�

�You could have woken me, my Lord.� It would have been no trouble�

Lord Voldemort responded sounding somewhat petulant - �it
would have troubled me.� I was tired.�
The mudblood could wait.�

�As you say, my Lord� Professor Snape responded
neutrally.�

She heard him come toward her but assumed that this was
probably because he had wanted her to hear him in order to avoid surprising her
and jarring her painfully.�

�Miss Granger.. I can tell you are awake. I have a potion
which will soon have you on your feet and ready for more target practice.� How is your mouth this morning?� Still tasting of your foot, i would imagine. Alas, I do not have a potion for that� �

She felt strong arms shifting her very carefully, like one
who understood exactly how limited her capacity for independent movement was at
this moment while her limbs felt like the bones were scraping across raw
nerves.�

She groaned at the sensation, trying to still her twanging muscles and
whispered weakly �Thank you Professor.�
I�m sorry to bother you. I�ll try not to tick the Dark Lord off again.� �

Professor Snape chuckled softly.

She was shocked!� He
leaned low toward her and whispered near her ear �You can try, Miss Granger,
but you will find that it is sometimes next to impossible not to �tick the Dark
Lord off�.��

She attempted not to look scandalized and felt she succeeded mostly.�

�I�m going to tilt your head so that you can swallow this, Miss
Granger.� Try to relax.� �

She attempted to let her body go limp and then she felt Professor
Snape sliding his cool hand through her hair and under the back of her
neck.�

She had never had any reason to ever
touch or be touched by professor Snape before and for a joyous minute she was
inexpressibly grateful to the Dark Lord for cruciating
her and forcing her to be in her current painful wonderful predicament.�

Professor Snape lifted her head very gently and she felt a small glass bottle
pressed to her lips but not yet tilted.

�It tastes worse than skele-grow
but you will swallow it all, Miss Granger.� Professor Snape informed her before
tilting the bottle carefully.� She choked
it down and he carefully replaced her head upon the pillow.�

�That is all I can offer you at the moment.� You will remain here and try not to move for
a few hours.� You should be tolerably
mobile by late afternoon or early evening.��

Choirs of angels erupted in her head with fireworks
displays.� She gazed up at professor
Snape, who was even more devastatingly attractive when viewed from the vantage
point of a bed as he leaned over one�s face.�

�I won�t be able to go to Lucius Malfoy� she
whispered excitedly, as if sharing a secret.�

Professor Snape rolled his eyes.� �No, Miss Granger.� You will instead have the privilege of
remaining here in the Dark Lord�s bed all day, or at least until you can �tick
him off� again and he kicks you to the ground.� He replied deadpan.�

His forehead furrowed slightly.� �Have I
missed something?� Did Lucius at some point traumatize you in such a way that you
now fear him more than the Dark Lord himself?! �I find it difficult to imagine how this could
possibly have come about. You have barely met the man.��

Hermione shifted her eyes uneasily.� �I�m just afraid of him.� �It
might have had something to do with the things the Dark Lord was telling me
yesterday.��

Snape raised an eyebrow

�Indeed.��

�Well.. as
you�ve now correctly located the ultimate source of your fear I shall leave
you.�

�...alone.��

�..in the Dark Lord�s bed.�

�..Where you�re clearly far safer than you would be in a large room full of
pampered women and one Lucius Malfoy.��

�Incidentally..I do believe our
Lord will return shortly to ...how did he put it?.. �keep you company�.��

Hermione frowned up at him faintly.� �Thank you so much for that,
professor.� You have an amazing bedside
manner.� I feel so much better now.��

�I am pleased I could assist you to develop some perspective,
Miss Granger.� Rest well� He smirked and
swirled away, sweeping out of the room soundlessly, leaving her to her
thoughts.

She mused on her position.�
How was it that Professor Snape was always able to alert her in the most
obnoxious way possible to her own stupidity in the moments when she was least
willing to recognise it?� It had to be a
gift.�

Rodolphus had done it too, she reflected, although in
a completely different way.��

So ok.� Fine.� What have we learned?,
she thought to herself.�

1) The Dark Lord has his own agenda which, if I am not
careful, he will convince me is really my
agenda.�

2) I am not safe here.� Ever.� There is no
person here more dangerous than the one whose bed I am apparently in.

Thinking to herself she concluded that she also had barely
put up any real effort to find out which, if any, of her friends still lived �
she hadn�t the slightest idea whether even Harry, Ron or Ginny were here.� She hadn�t really asked.�

It hadn�t been top on her list among all this distracting
rubbish with choices and generosity and kisses and vampires and Lucius Malfoy.�

She didn�t even know what had happened at the battle or how
she came to be here.�

Well!� That was no
good.� She would have to try her best to
answer some of those questions today.�
She wondered vaguely whether being crucio�d on
top of recovering crucio injuries felt less or more
painful than the original crucio.�

Yawning, she let herself slip off to sleep again.

She woke to the feeling of a hand stroking her head gently;
fingers running through her long hair every so often.�

When she identified what the sensation was, she jerked awake
as if kicked, looking up.��

Lord Voldemort was sitting on the bed beside her, leaning
against the headboard of the bed, not paying any attention to her, reading a
book perched on his bent knee and stroking her absently.�

�Why do you keep
doing that?!� she tried not to sound disgusted.�

The Dark Lord replied dryly without looking up from his
reading �Apparently I lack a cat.�
Stroking something is supposed to be good for the blood pressure I
hear.� I�m sure you do want me to be calm..��

He turned the page and his eyes shifted to the top of the new page.�

Hermione tried to just stop.�
Stop thinking, stop reacting and wait.�
Lord Voldemort hadn�t stopped petting her.�

The sensation really wasn�t unpleasant actually, it was
just knowing who it was that was stroking her.�

Like being nuzzled up to by a cobra.�

If she made the wrong move.. hell... if she thought
the wrong thing then it could rapidly become a world of pain again.�

Her mind shifted to the next automatically recurring worry
on her mind.. �Do I still have to go to Lucius Malfoy today?� but here again, she paused.� Was he really a bigger threat than staying
where she was?�

Professor Snape was right, she hadn�t really thought much about Malfoy, or at
least not any worse than any death eater, until she�d spoken with Lord Voldemort
and even her fear hadn�t been based on much real reason.�

She frowned.�

The hand in her hair paused briefly and then continued to
stroke her, now and then delving to scratch fingernails against her scalp in a
way that she really couldn�t say wasn�t pleasurable. She tried to keep still
and not move her head to nudge the fingers into the places she wanted them.� No!� Distracting.� Argh.�� Focus!� YES.� The
Dark Lord wants something.� That�s
right.� I need to find out what the Dark
Lord wants.�� Lucius
isn�t important.��

She slid her eyes upward and to
the right to look at the strange serpentine man next to her, who was seemingly
totally absorbed in his reading.�

Would it be a very bad idea to
interrupt him to ask what the hell he really wanted from her?�

That probably wouldn�t go down well, would it.� He�d probably prefer her to just do all the things
he had planned for her with copious bundles of thanks and kowtowing and then
let herself be led by events somehow into what he wanted.�

�I want you to help repair my soul� the Dark Lord said
softly, without looking up.�

She blinked.�

�How am I supposed to do that?!�
she asked without thinking.�

�..And why would
you even want it?!� You�ve spent so much
effort damaging it!!��

She bit her tongue and clamped her hands over her mouth
looking him in shock and fear.�

The Dark Lord sighed. After a minute he spoke softly�

�When my horcruxes were still here and the pieces of
my soul were not with me but still..somehow
indefinably existent, the sacrifices i had made were...justified.� Or so it seemed to me at the time...��

�However, now I find myself apparently mortal again,
labouring under the effects of a fractured sliver of remaining soul, and
although I may have won the war � These are losses I cannot accept.� Will not accept.��

He turned and looked down upon her, his ruby eyes glinting unnaturally against
the pale of his face.�

He looked pensive, nervous even.� She
wondered if his mood was about to switch into hexing her for her involvement in
what he perceived as his losses.�

The hand on her head stopped scratching and stroking and she
felt cool impossibly smooth fingers slide down over her left cheek until the
Dark Lord was cupping her face.�

�You destroyed parts of my soul Hermione.� And I felt them.� I felt the pain of their loss every time you
tore one apart.�

She blanched.� She
wasn�t supposed to feel this way.� A tiny
core of sickly painful guilt welled in her chest.� She had had to do what she did.� It was the only way to defeat him.� The only way for Harry to have had a chance

�And yet..� the Dark Lord almost
whispered.� �Here we find ourselves.��

�You did not defeat me.� Harry fell.�
Was it worth it?��

�What happened at the battle?� she asked suddenly.� �What happened to Harry?� Where is he?�
Did you k-� did
you kill him?��

She felt tears wanting to push at her eyes again and her throat wanting to
close up.�

The Dark Lord hesitated...then sighed.�� It was Severus, in the end that made the
plan work.� Loyal Severus.� He posed as me, drawing Harry in�

�Further and further into the forbidden forest Harry pursued
him, while he spouted off insults and monologued � He
impersonated me most convincingly actually...�

The Dark Lord frowned momentarily as if irritated at this but appeared to let
the thought go a few moments later.�

�I had placed a large priority upon capturing you, Miss
Granger.� I sent a dedicated cadre of my
six best men to go and retrieve you in the midst of the chaos..as
unharmed as possible.. from the battlefield.��

�They accomplished their task quite acceptably..although.. I had almost forgotten your injuries�� Lord Voldemorts eyes appeared to snap out of focus for a moment
�I will perhaps have Severus see to that at some point soon I suppose.�

Hermione tried not to blush.�
The idea of Professor Snape
rubbing burn paste into her injuries.. Professor Snape
actually touching her breast! She
felt a rush of warmth rise to her cheeks and looked away. �

Voldemort flashed an irritated look at her and continued

�Avery brought you to me so that i
could pluck one of your hairs for the polyjuice
myself. �No mishaps, you understand?

I had him deposit you in the dungeons before returning to the battlefield. .. He
was most put out not to be able to
kill you there and then, until I reminded him how much more satisfying it would
be to kill you slowly at his pleasure.�

The Dark Lord smirked down at her thinly and she blinked uneasily

�oh come now Miss Granger, I didn�t say that he would be
allowed to do so � and it is indisputable that it would be more
satisfying for him to spend several hours in a room with you rather than
flicking an impersonal avada at you on the forest
floor, so It isn�t as if I even lied
to the poor fellow.� �

She shifted her eyes away and after a moment or two he
continued.� �When I joined Harry in the
clearing, in the guise of none other than yourself,
he didn�t look twice at me; told me to stay back. �And thus it was ridiculously easy to petrify
him when he wasn�t looking and take his hair.��

Hermione felt a leaden weight sinking through the pit of her
stomach.� It was plausible.� Harry would just tell her to stay out of
danger.. he�d never think to
test whether it was really her.. especially not if he
was looking at Voldemort at the time.
�She listened numbly.�

�I side-alonged him to a very..very
secure room here � a room with no entrance. �Only I can access it.� I didn�t want to leave any possibility for
unknown traitors to ruin things at the last minute.��

�I returned to the battlefield, resumed my form, fed polyjuice
to another poor wretch to transform them into Harry�s likeness and removed his
head, placing the corpse in stasis.��

�When I tossed the head and body in pieces
back out onto the battlefield, the news spread like wildfire that the saviour
was no more.��

Voldemort�s face betrayed dissatisfaction at the ruse.

�Some gave up and others fought on, but in the end, the
field was empty.��

�I took everyone, even the bodies � as you saw in the room
below.��

She shivered and he paused before he went on, more mildly� �I did not
quite intend to upset you in that manner.�
I had imagined it would be easier for you like that, what with your..background.. and that you would then not doubt their passing, not accuse
me of trying to pull the wool over your eyes and cling to the idea that they
were all quite alive and free and trying to rescue you.� I do know how very great the need is for some
faint hope that all is not truly lost.��

She looked away.�

�I have ..spoken.. with Rodolphus and he understands
how..unacceptable
it was for him to take advantage of you in the manner he did.��

Hermiones eyes darted back up to the
Dark Lords face distressed. She wanted to ask pleadingly �you didn�t hurt
him??� but she managed to stop herself.�
Of course �he hurt him.� She was talking to the bloody dark lord.� He hurt people for a laugh when he was bored
and he had been quite upset with her last night.� How much more upset had he been with Rodolphus? �

As her thoughts skipped wildly on beyond her control, the
Dark Lords face darkened somewhat.� �of course, Miss Granger.�
Your new favourite was
naturally disciplined for his indiscretions.�
He expects such correction
when he knows he has misbehaved. ��He
will be fine.� Vampires heal more rapidly
than silly little girls� he looked away.

She flinched.� She had messed up again.�
What did he want from her?!��

�I believe I have already told you� he said.� All traces of warmth now gone from his
voice.�

She steeled herself and looked back at him

�You do realise, Miss Granger that when I spoke to you of Lucius yesterday and apparently unsettled you with talk of his sadistic nature, that I by no means
intended to imply that he was the only
such individual here.�

He scrutinized her reaction.

�Most of my death
eaters enjoy such pursuits from time to time. �Some more heartily than
others. �Those in the inner circle
most particularly.� Lucius
is quite among friends in that respect.� Your
dear Professor delights in the
screams and suffering of children, particularly those he terms �brats�.� Contrary to the impressions of the order, he
was almost always present and very engaged at Death Eater revels, although he
often could not remain quite as long as he might have liked. �I assume you bore the brunt of his ill-humour
at the fact in his classroom on subsequent days.��

�And of course Rodolphus.� Our friend
Rodolphus...� He trailed off darkly.� �Rodolphus wasn�t
always a vampire, ..obviously. No � that is a
relatively recent ..lifestyle change.. for him.� But he was always a cruel and violent man.�

�Why do you think i offered him
mastery of my prisoners and slaves?� Why
do you imagine he eagerly accepted?��

�He is a formidable interrogator.� He appears to lack any trace of a conscience
or of empathy, which allows him to do the most fascinating things to others.�
He is Infinitely superior in the art to dear Lucius.� As I said � Lucius breaks his toys.�
Rodolphus... generally doesn�t. �He dislikes letting things go.��

�Toy-Bella, or Morel, as you referred to her in your memory,
has been here for several years.� He took
her when she was only a teenager..perhaps as old as
yourself.� The scars you saw on her body
were only the barest remnants of his handiwork.�
He left them there intentionally,
he liked to see the traces of his past encounters with her. He was quite..possessive..of the girl.� Disliked sharing her with the others.��

�I was disturbed that he had taken you to her so lightly; Killed
her so thoughtlessly after his long and patient effort to sculpt her into what
he wanted.�

�I needed to disabuse him of the notion that he might
replace her with you.��

Hermione gasped, her brows furrowing.� He wouldn�t have done that.� Would he?�
She felt distressed.� She couldn�t
trust anyone here, obviously.�

�It was probably your tears, Miss Granger. And perhaps your..hair..�

The Dark Lord reached and stroked her again and she shivered.

�But do not worry.�
You are quite safe now.� I shall not allow harm to come to you.�

She struggled with her mind and almost managed to prevent
the thought from articulating herself but it slid out anyway �the only person
who has really harmed me so far has been you�.�

The hand on her head paused and then slipped away.�

�And yet you continue to provoke me..�
Lord Voldemort mused.�

�What did you do to Harry?� she whispered.��

He gazed at her pensively.�
�You know i couldn�t risk his continued
threat, Miss Granger.�

�He seemed almost to be asking for her
understanding...but that couldn�t be.� Lord
Voldemort would not care about what she thought.

�if i had
simply tossed him in a cell somewhere and left him to rot, there would always
be that nagging thought in the back of my mind that he could..somehow.. escape and miraculously
twist fate around to end my life.�

�I considered removing all of his magic and keeping him as a
muggle pet; I considered removing his mind altogether, but I would not have been
able to sleep peacefully with the thought that Harry Potter might yet in some completely unpredictable and
accidental manner engineer my own demise. �That ridiculous prophesy would hang over my
head like an invisible Damocles sword forever.�

�I would have liked to kill him in grand ceremony before all
my death eaters but, again � they all believed I had bested him in battle.�

All except Severus of course, but he is very good at keeping silent counsel.��

�I could destroy Harry
in a fair duel of course.� Of that there
is no doubt in my mind.. but
I am not..stupid,
Miss Granger.�

I have been exposed to the Muggle world, as you yourself have and while I
despise it in many ways, there are some
parts that I appreciate: Science, Literature, the arts, and now � films.
Occasionally even television.��

�I have noticed , as a common theme running through so many muggle
stories, how tempting it seems to be for the �bad guy�� he snorted �to
inexplicably develop principles at the last minute and give the �hero� the
chance to destroy them in a fair fight, which he then invariably proceeds to
do, to greater or lesser extent assisted by seemingly random
circumstances.�

For that reason.. although it
was more difficult than you can possibly imagine for me to force myself to give
up the desire.. I did not duel Harry Potter.� �

�He is dead, Miss Granger.�
His death..actually pained me..� I felt..�

I still feel that it was beneath me
to dispatch him in the manner I did.�
This muggle notion of the fair fight i
imagine.��

Hermione felt like all the air had been vacuumed out of her
chest and replaced with sand.� �Harry�s
really dead?� she choked out.� Lord Voldemort�s
voice was so faint as to be almost unheard �yes��

She breathed out and it felt like all the colour had drained
out of things. �It was real now. �If Harry was gone, then it really was all over.� This was the world.� The empire of the Dark Lord.� There was no way back to her room at
Hogwarts, her classes, her friends, her life.

�how did you do it?� she heard
herself asking in a voice tinged at the edges with hysteria.� The Dark Lord was looking away, out toward
the shadows at the edges of the room, away from her.�

�Does it really matter, Miss Granger?� he asked hollowly.�

She sat up galvanised, unreality drowning her mind.� She was on Lord Voldemorts
bed in the near dark with him telling
her about her best friend�s murder
and there was nothing she could do.�
Nowhere she could go.� This evil
man had had his hands in her hair! .. on her neck!, on
her CHEEK for fucks sake.. she had received comfort from Lord Voldemort and the
entire world had fallen � and he had used her
to bring it about.� HER hair, the hair he
kept touching. Did it remind him of
his victory? �Harry had lost because he
had trusted HER face on the battlefield.

�YES. IT FUCKING MATTERS!� She
screamed.� �TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO HIM!�

She scrambled to get off the bed and retreated across the
room.�

Lord Voldemort had not moved.� He had not even glanced at her.� He still stared darkly, his face turned
slightly away from her.� Shadows seemed
to pass over his features.� He looked
almost..haunted by something she couldn�t see.�

When he spoke, his voice was faint, thin, toneless.�

�I poisoned him.�

He turned to look at her now and his scarlet eyes were dull,
his face an emotionless mask.�

�While he slept, in stasis, stupefied.� He never even saw me.� I watched him slip away..
so quietly. Peacefully.� And then I reduced his body to atoms.�

She fell to her knees as if all her bones had been removed
and stared sightlessly at the floor in front of her, trying to understand what
he told her.�

Harry had been completely defenseless, he hadn�t even acknowledged him before he had murdered
him. He had put him to sleep like a fucking animal.�

The last thing on Harry�s mind had probably been the idea
that she had betrayed him.�

He died believing she had betrayed
him.�

She felt her stomach roil and wondered if she would be sick.�

She forced her eyes back up to look at Lord Voldemort, her face a mask of raw
aching hate.� He wasn�t looking at her.� His eyes had wandered off to the right
again.� Emotions flashed across his face
unreadable.

� I will never help you� she hissed coldly.�

His face snapped toward her and he had reached her before
she could blink, his hand at her throat and lifting
her till her toes barely scraped the floor, scrabbling for purchase.� Choking, she clawed at the white hand at her
neck, as implacable as iron.�

�Yes you will, mudblood.� You will see.�
You will.�

He lowered her gently, holding her firmly until it seemed
she could balance her own weight on her unsteady limbs.�

His flashing narrowed eyes dimmed slightly and again an unreadable expression
passed over his face.�

�You are very hurt and angry.� It is...understandable. I will not punish you
for it.��

He hesitated and his voice was soft again. �

�I have told you.. I� ..regret.. my decision in some ways.�
It seemed like the best solution at the time..�
his voice trailed off

�I think perhaps.. he.. we both.. deserved
more�

He turned away, his robes swishing� �Come along.� I will take you to your room.� It is clear you require some time to think
and there are things I must attend to now�

She trudged after him numbly.�

They passed out of his room into a small dim corridor decorated
in black and forest green tones with several doors leading off it.�

It was not the outside hall.� The colours
were entirely different and there were no portraits or decorations of any
kind.�

Like the bedroom it was dark and Spartan.�
Only his study had seemed somewhat brighter.��

He stopped at the second door and opened it into a room that
was as sharply different to the corridor as day to night.

She followed Lord Voldemort in and sighed miserably.� The very atmosphere in the room felt like she
was far away from the events of the past two days.�

The room was set in white and pale parchment yellow walls
with light grey flagstones on the floor.�
It was very large and bright.� A
four post double bed stood slightly off centre from the door.� Its curtains were black with golden filigree
and the coverings were gold with black filigree and tiny red markings which she
saw, as she drifted closer, were little lions. �

It was flanked by small tables with beautiful golden candelabras.�

On the wall a small distance away stood a large dark
polished wooden wardrobe and next to it a door, she presumed it led to a
bathroom.�

At one end of the room sunlight streamed
through large partially mullioned windows which exposed a view across a forest
and small lake.� It looked vaguely
alpine.�

There was a black velvet and gold cushioned window
seat beneath the windows that just begged to be huddled in with a thick
book.� A small table and chair stood a
short distance from the window, benefiting from the light.� It would be a pleasant place to take tea or
meals, she thought.�

She turned and in the bright cheeriness of the room the Dark
Lord seemed alien and unreal.� His white, strangely dimensionless face brighter even than the
walls.�

He scowled.�

At the other end of the room, beyond him, she could see a
fireplace burning merrily and around it.. bookcases covered the walls from floor to ceiling.� She was too far to see the spines but there
were at least two hundred books ordered neatly on the polished wooden
recesses.� In front of the fire sat two
chairs and a small table.��

She felt..well she felt like she
wished she could be pleased.. relieved.. �the room was
beautiful...peaceful...warm... �

Under other circumstances she would have eagerly rushed over
to inspect the bookcases. But as things were now.. her pretty room was a better class of cell.�

It had not escaped her that it was actually inside Lord Voldemorts�s chambers.�

He was not letting her very far out of his sight again it seemed. ��

�Miss Granger.� I will
leave you here to ..become comfortable.. with your new surroundings.�
Please call for dilly when you are ready to eat or if you require
additional items.� She will provide what
you request...within reason.�

Do not attempt to coerce her to help
you to leave this castle, or to free any prisoners either.� She is not allowed to talk to you about
myself or any other person here.� If you
persuade her to do so, she will only punish herself, as I�m sure you�re aware.��

�Perhaps later on we might visit one or two of your former
friends, if I find time and you are in better spirits.��

Better spirits she
thought cynically.� He means, if I am
more flatteringly compliant!� If I stop
holding my best friends murder against him unreasonably and play whatever
little game he has in store!

The Dark Lord bristled and huffed impatiently, tilting his
head up to glare at the ceiling as if exclaiming �what I have to put up with!�. �He faced her, eyes
hard but calm. �

�Hermione..� he began in the overly patient tones of
one attempting to explain something simple to a difficult child for the tenth
time�

�-You are said to be intelligent.� Able
to twist your mind around all manner of thought problems. Your performance at
Hogwarts was exceptional!� Here is a
thought problem for you.� Try to
imagine... hypothetically, that you
were in my place.� Try to let go of your
own perspective and moral standpoint for a moment
and place yourself in the role of Dark Lord.��

�To go to such trouble, to sacrifice so much..to elude death, only to discover that there yet remains
someone who can kill you.� More than can.. that there exists a boy who will kill you unless you kill him first.� A boy who, helpless, a child in swaddling
clothes very nearly does kill you.��

�You cannot possibly fathom the torment of the time-outside-time
that I passed, possessing small animals, weak and lost..
the indignities I suffered even at the hands of my own
servants, wrapped in cloth sharing the head of that stuttering fool,� being fed by Wormtail, a misshapen changeling
in his arms.� �

�...If I had known..what would happen..� his face twisted in introspective
fury ��Over and over confronted� and thwarted by this horrible BOY, this perverse twisted mirror, an
orphan like myself yet surrounded by people who care about him, show him
sympathy, asssssist him..�� The Dark Lord seemed on the verge of losing
his composure. His face was dark, his eyes fixed on a point only he could
see.�

His gaze flicked back to Hermione and he narrowed his eyes
at her as if she were personally responsible for the events of the last 17
years. �

�To come back from the void, not once, but three times!� To lose almost my entire soul and yet - to prevail
and.. to hold this ..boy in my grasp, finally..�
and incapacitated briefly - After so much
struggle and sacrifice...��

�If you can manage to set yourself aside for one moment, put yourself in my place in
that moment, Hermione. What would be your best course of action?�

He turned abruptly on the spot and stalked out of the room,
slamming the door.�
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Precious Mudblood