Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Captive Audience	By : magentasouth Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 44846 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from any part of the Harry Potter universe.

Chapter List
- 1-Ch 1
- 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 (just edited - no addition)
- 16-Ch 16
- 17-Ch 17
- 1
- 2
He never looked at her. That was the worst thing.

It shouldn’t be the worst thing but there it was.

Hermione leaned idly against the silver filigreed bars of her cage and watched disinterestedly while some minor death eater screamed and twitched on the stone floor of the great hall as Voldemort punished him.

When she had first seen this kind of display she had been horrified and felt almost overwhelming sympathy for the victim, but it happened too frequently to still affect her strongly.

She had been daydreaming and hadn’t really been listening as the quivering boy had confessed his fault. Something about dropping something, he’d broken something obviously.

It likely wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t. He was the third person who had been cursed by Voldemort this morning.

He was in a fairly intolerant mood today it seemed.

This too was not a rare occurrence.

Her generously sized cage was set off to the side of the raised dais on which Voldemort lounged in his massive, ornately carved black stone and silver inlaid throne, effortlessly holding the curse on the whimpering boy with a mien of faint irritated satisfaction.

The cage was raised on silver lion’s feet off the floor a small way. A kind of symbolic pedestal emphasizing that she was on display: a trophy.

She was... she supposed... a visual aid, perhaps. Nothing more. A symbol.

Daily, elves charmed her body clean and clothed her in luxurious gowns; red velvet, gold satin, occasionally pale pink gauzy sheaths. Clothing to emphasise that she was a Gryffindor princess, that she was female, that she was soft and vulnerable, that she was so very different to the figures in black that came and went in this room – the only room she had seen in the months since her capture.

She wasn’t bothered by the often somewhat revealing clothing.

Today, for example she was wearing a rather low cut strapless empire waist dress in blood red raw silk that reached to her mid thighs.

At least she was not naked or dressed in rags.

At least it was, for whatever irrational reason Voldemort had, her house affiliation and not her blood status that seemed to be the focus.

Sometimes she fantasized about being able to take a shower...or washing her hair with real shampoo. The elves cleaned it, charmed it to a glossy porcelain doll finish, but it smelled of nothing. It felt soft and silky but she couldn’t shake the feeling of not having washed her hair in months.

She wondered if she would be in the cage for the rest of her life.

She knew Harry was still out there. Voldemort couldn’t find him or Ron. They had vanished from the wizarding world apparently. There had been no reports of sightings for weeks and weeks.

Initially she had listened to all Voldemort's briefings with baited breath, strained her ears to hear anything that might be useful, imagining she might be rescued somehow and could relay her information to the order.

After months of that, of memorizing every detail she could, she began to slowly suspect that she wouldn’t be rescued after all. She still paid attention to the reports delivered to Voldemort before her, to reassure herself that Harry and Ron and the order members she knew about were still out there, still eluding capture, surviving attack after attack since the fall of the Ministry of Magic.

Those briefings were the minority, however. Most interactions she was witness to were more mundane and often quite horrible. Raids, various manipulations of individuals, finances, information about things she lacked the context to understand.

Professor Snape was here frequently. The first time he had come in and had recognised her in the cage he had appeared momentarily startled, before he trained his face into the same faintly disapproving sneer he had habitually worn in class and delivered a briefing to Voldemort on some potion he was working on.

Thereafter he seemed to pretend she wasn’t even there. He did not look over at her and if he happened to be facing in her direction for whatever reason, his eyes stared past her unseeingly.

It was almost as bad as Voldemort’s cold disinterest.

She felt she was a painting on the wall sometimes. Nobody ever spoke to her.

Most of the death eaters who came in, with the exception of professor Snape and Lucius Malfoy, leered at her in a vaguely threatening way when they did happen to look at her.

Bellatrix Lestrange had once stepped right up to the bars of her cage and crouched down, excitement glittering rabidly in her eyes.

Voldemort had chastised her mildly in a bored voice, “leave it alone Bella and return to your place."

IT.

Bellatrix had scowled through the gaps at Hermione and then brightened, wiggling her little finger at her as if she was a kitten in a box and returning to the lower level of the great hall.

She never left the cage.   It had become the entire world. A couple of metres cubed. She had learned to sleep on the hard metal floor, no pillows or blankets, even when it was very cold.

Food appeared periodically – simple fare, usually stew or rice but sometimes there was meat, once or twice she had been given fruit.

The rather primitive food appeared in a bone china service with golden spoon. There was never any need for a knife. There would be a pitcher of water and a ridiculously ornate golden goblet that would have been at home among the crown jewels. She had quickly learned to eat and drink as soon as the offerings materialized irrespective what else might be going on in the room, because they would vanish in a short time, a matter of minutes to perhaps an hour at best – and if she had not had her fill by then, she would have to wait for the next opportunity.

These opportunities were not regular or predictable. Once she had had to wait for two days and the thirst had been terrible.

She sometimes considered whether she might simply stop eating and drinking. One died of dehydration in a matter of days. But she found she did not want to die.

Besides... if she didn’t eat, possibly the elves might just make the food appear directly in her stomach. She didn’t think it that unlikely a prospect. She hadn’t been to the bathroom in months now. Sometimes she felt the need... and then she didn’t. Presumably the waste went somewhere. She supposed it was just easier that way. Then he could keep her in her little prison on display perpetually without risking her ruining her porcelain doll appearance.

Since arriving, aside from the obvious distressing factor that she was Voldemort’s prisoner, nothing had actually happened to her. No one had tortured her – in fact no one had so much as threatened her. Voldemort hadn’t even spoken to her.

Not once!

She had gone from skimming through a book in Flourish and Blott's to waking on the floor of the cage with him looking down at her through the delicate curls and twills of the bars.

He hadn’t said anything, and she hadn’t had the courage to shout insults or challenges of a Gryffindor flavour up at him. He simply looked at her with interest, as if she were an unusual species of beetle that he was trying to catalogue under a microscope.   She had looked back for a while, apprehensively. His eyes were unnatural and unnerving. They glittered red and were bisected by black-slitted pupils like a snake.

The...hairless flatness... of his face... those slitted nostrils... he was something so alien that it actually offended the mind, it hurt to look upon him. She lowered her eyes and shivered.

When she next chanced a glance up some minutes later she was relieved to see he had gone.

At first, she had expected he would interrogate her. She had heard stories of the bodies the death eaters left to be found and she had just automatically assumed that she would soon be interrogated, tortured, perhaps executed - and was terrified every time he entered the room; death eaters did not enter the room when he was not in it, it seemed.

Over time it became more and more apparent that he was not in fact going to interrogate her at all. It was almost insulting: as if she couldn’t possibly know anything that would be of any interest to him.

She watched him almost constantly when he was in here.

She wasn’t afraid to look at him anymore - over time she had gotten used to his strange appearance and it wasn’t as if he ever noticed her looking at him anyway. He never even glanced in her direction.

It was understandable to watch him, she told herself, as there was hardly anything else for her to look at.

When he wasn’t in here, the room was shadowy, empty, silent. She had nothing to do with herself in the cage.

She had nothing to do with her mind. No books, no tasks,

nothing to do but lie around and daydream, reminisce on the time at Hogwarts, the time with her friends, with Harry, or think about the things that she had read about in the past, calculate arithmancy problems in her head...or think about him.

He was like a puzzle, of sorts.

What did he want from her? Was this all he required? That she sit here like some kind of doll on a shelf. What would happen over time? She was seventeen! Would she still be sitting around in a cage in pretty dresses when she was thirty?

She shivered... that was a ridiculous thought. For one, Harry would kill him long before then. Harry would win, she was sure. It was a matter of time. He would come and kill Voldemort and she would be released and then...

Her mind faltered at that point each time she fantasized about it. Even in her fantasy her logic would step in and say ‘and then Ginny would run to him and he would embrace her joyfully and kiss her and everyone would celebrate.’

Unfortunately, there was no way to fool herself into the happy daydream that Harry would release her from the cage after Voldemort had fallen and would suddenly look deep into her eyes and tell her that he loved her. That he had realised after she had been taken that it had been her he had wanted all along, not Ginny.

There was never any way to elude her own derisive internal snort of disbelief when she imagined wistfully how Harry would pull her close and slowly and tenderly kiss her.

She wished it were possible...   But Harry never even saw her. She was firmly relegated to the friend category for him, perhaps he even thought of her as a sister.

It was tragic.

For a while she had thought...perhaps she could get him to notice her if she changed her appearance... if she tried to look more like a girl – or at least more like lavender and parvati. He had noticed, in a mild kind of way and had even complimented her once or twice politely, jokingly, as a friend...as a brother might, but that was all.

Ron, on the other hand, had suddenly become shy and fumbling around her, had started doing things like pouring her pumpkin juice and sitting and staring at her moon eyed while she studied. It was terrible.

She didn’t know what to say to put him off without hurting his feelings so she just pretended not to notice.

She could never care for Ron that way; he really was just a friend. She liked him as a friend. He was just... not her type somehow. He was brash and loud and frequently uncouth, he was loyal and funny, she added quickly, but he was just.....

it seemed cruel to say that he was just...a little silly...a little foolish. Not that bright.   He wasn’t stupid – his skill in chess and even in quiddich proved that – but he was just... not that quick on the uptake in his regular dealings with others it seemed.

Harry on the other hand was very sharp when it came to others.

True, he could be a bit biased by his opinions of people and misunderstand things, but he was very observant, quiet, thoughtful, considerate, courageous, dashing, gorgeous... she trailed off..

She liked the way he looked...

She really was that shallow.

She couldn’t help judging herself critically for it. His black hair and those bright green eyes... He was beautiful. She liked the way he smelled too, especially when he came back from quiddich. It... it made her feel strange. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach when he would flop down next to her on the couch in the common room in his uniform and would lean on her, his head on her shoulder and smell so...good.. She would fight the urge to turn to him and confess her undying lust for him.

He was so damn noble and true, there was no way he would ever risk ruining their friendship for a little fooling around.

Even if he had been at all interested in her, and he gave her no reason to even hope that he might be, there was Ginny standing there looking at him adoringly... and there was Ron standing there looking at her adoringly.

Always.

She didn’t want to think it but a part of her cursed the entire bloody Weasley family. They were a pain in the neck. But it was ok. That was life. You couldn’t always have the one you wanted. She would feel happy for Harry when he was free from this whole war and could marry Ginny and have a family. She would. It was what he most wanted.

She would wish him well and would apply herself to her further studies after she had re-sat the NEWTS and at some point she would meet someone else who could give her that butterflies feeling that Harry gave her.

She sighed. She would force herself to be happy for Harry... and if she distanced herself a bit from the joyous couple simply because she couldn’t stand to look at him so deliriously happy in his life with Ginny, that was perfectly understandable and nothing to feel bad about.

She heard the door in the stone wall at the end of the room close. The young death eater had departed while her attention was elsewhere yet again.

Voldemort sprawled regally in his throne, his expression one of distraction, pensive thought and now only faint irritation.

She mused on her impression of him, as she not infrequently did when he was present for her to observe.

Voldemort had a manner about him that was almost like Professor Snape...although he didn’t resemble him in any respect whatsoever.

It was hard to explain.

There was a dignity to his person. He commanded respect. Automatically. One could not but react to his presence with trepidation and awe.

But while professor Snape was stiff, polished, harsh, like stone – Voldemort flowed.

He was elegant and sinuform like dark liquid. He moved as if not restricted by the standard laws of physics. It was quite fascinating to watch.

His voice too, when he spoke to his death eaters, was interesting, layered. It was quite high and airy, like a woodwind instrument, with unusual harmonics suggesting that it, at least in part, did not reach the senses by means of the rarification and compression of the intervening air currents. It was as if it resonated in the mind.

She found over time... that she quite liked the sensation.

Of course that was probably due, in large measure, to the illusion that had condensed over the last month that she was not really there.

She was some kind of observer outside the events around her. As such nothing bad could ever happen to her. It was like a continual ongoing theatre piece she was watching these days. And among the many themes in this piece, one was the fascination with Voldemort’s voice.

Once in a while, like this morning (afternoon? Evening?) She had a vague self destructive hankering to hear him address her in that voice. Specifically: for him to turn his attention on her – to notice her.

Of course that was completely stupid, she told herself. As things were she could count her lucky stars that Voldemort did not appear to be interested in her in any way at all. It meant that she could continue her life unharmed and while away the days without being asked to betray her friends, free from pain or... or... molestation.

An unexpected click from very close nearby startled her.

She watched, not quite comprehending, as a section of the side of her cage swung open silently. There was an unfathomable hole in her world!

She had grown used to viewing everything through the filigree filter, to the extent that she almost didn’t even see it anymore. Now there was this...area... of space that seemed too full... too bright. As if it weren’t really real.

Voldemort spoke now. “Come here” he said softly, dangerously.

In her experience, people were usually cursed soon after he used this voice and she scanned the room, looking for whoever had come in that he was addressing. The room was empty.

She looked back at the gap in her world. Could he be talking to her?!

“Do not make me tell you again” he warned sharply.

She jerked into life, pulling herself up the wall to stand and walking to the door of the cage, stepping down onto the stone of the dais. She paused, glancing around her uneasily. She felt...vulnerable... out here; exposed and raw. She wanted to go back inside the cage with its illusion of protection from Voldemort’s theatre of cruelty and obedience. If she was out here anything could happen to her.

She forced herself to move, walking gingerly to the side of Voldemort’s throne and looking down at him.

It felt... wrong... to look at him from this angle. He was always above her as she sat on the floor of the cage.

He still hadn’t looked at her although she had the disturbing sense that his attention was fixed upon her.

She swallowed anxiously. The terror she hadn’t felt in weeks, perhaps months, was rapidly building in her.

She hesitated and then lowered herself to her knees.

After a few seconds he turned to her. There was a small degree of approval in his red eyes as they roved over her.

She felt a tiny amount better from this position. On her knees looking up at him he looked more familiar, more like he did from inside the cage.

His right hand lifted from the arm of his throne and reached toward her slowly. She forced herself with some difficulty not to flinch back away from it. His pale features twisted faintly and the slitted eyes narrowed.

“You do not want me to touch you” he observed quietly.

His hand reached her and his fingers combed slightly through her long silky perfectly coiffed ringlets. He wound a curl around his finger, tugging it out and letting it spring back.

She was confused. What could she possibly respond to that? He was Lord Voldemort! Of course she didn’t want him to touch her. It went without saying. It was a conclusion automatically derivable from the fact that she was Hermione granger, best friend of Harry Potter, muggleborn, and he was Lord Voldemort the evil despot who was trying to kill him and rid the wizarding world of muggleborns. It was simply assumed. A given.

“Give me your hand” he demanded mildly.

She hesitated and then offered her right hand up to him. He took it immediately in his own, holding it as if he meant to kiss the back of her hand, and she was surprised to find his skin warm, soft, smooth but not unnaturally so.

His appearance was such that she had somehow expected him to feel like ice... like cold marble; hard and silky.

“You did not think me a man?” he murmured at her, amused.

She tried not to blush and failed, looking down away from his ruby gaze.

“Are you afraid to speak to me, little Gryffindor?” he challenged.

She looked back up at his eyes, which were cool, speculative, glinting slightly. “..Yes” she whispered honestly.

His thin lips stretched wider, smirking at her. “That is perhaps wise” he responded.

His thumb stroked lightly across her knuckles suddenly and she jerked as if slapped.

The feeling... it was a very... affectionate... gesture. It was- it was... something she would have called flirtatious if anyone else had done it.

She looked at him fearfully. Oh god... what if he wanted...

His smile widened further and took on the appearance of something predatory.

“Would you like a bath, Hermione?” He asked in a voice of polite inquiry entirely at odds with his expression.

Immediately two factions launched into battle within her. There was the voice of reason which screamed at her in blind panic to refuse as politely as she possibly could and hoped to be able to go back to the cage soon where it felt a lot safer. Then there was the more impulsive voice of desire, desire to bathe, yes, but also desire for something other than the silvery patterned walls and the empty great hall and her thoughts and the silence.

This – Voldemort talking to her, touching her even, as frightening as that was – this was something new.

It was something other than the endless days of tedium.

HE was paying attention to her. He hadn’t hurt her so far. This was better than the cage.

Her under-stimulated senses cried out for more. It was glorious to be acknowledged as someone real, someone tangible again. She couldn’t just ignore the chance to have more... If she refused him and he allowed her to go back to the cage, he might never talk to her again. She would sit and slowly go mad by inches day by day until she either died of emptiness or Harry turned up to free her – if he ever did, and even then she would be alone... or she would be in Ron’s excited triumphant arms.

She realised, surprised, that she was more interested in the sudden attention Lord Voldemort was currently bestowing upon her than she was in a caged future and an uncertain prospect of Ron Weasley’s arms eventually.

She decided impulsively.

“Yes please” she replied hopeful that he wasn’t merely taunting her.

His expression became still more shark-like and his eyes glittered at her. He stood, gracefully and pulled her to her feet gently by her hand, drawing her closer.

The different factions in her warred again as she hung on the cusp of panicking and stepping back, or acquiescing and stepping against his black cloaked body.   She tried not to look afraid as she felt his hand guide her against him.

He felt warm and solid. It was as unexpected as his hand had been.

She felt his arms curl around her, his hands splayed on her lower back as he pulled her more snugly against him and then there was the squeeze of side along apparition.
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Captive Audience