Odysseus Siegel
6 October 1968
Lord Voldemort paced in his office, sipping from a glass of pumpkin juice. He had taken breakfast alone in here this morning - poached eggs and toast - and Dobby had already cleared the plates. But now he just paced, because he was anxious to know whether the time traveller was going to show up or not.
He'd scarcely slept the night before. He'd stared at the ceiling in his wood-paneled bedroom and had wondered if he was making a grave error in believing the witch. But he'd searched her thoughts, and all he'd found was a sincere, ardent longing to make things right. To be certain, in her lived experience, she had fought against Lord Voldemort, who appeared to have amassed enough power to be the enemy of Albus Dumbledore and company. She had battled against him at Hogwarts, where his grey, mangled corpse had collapsed in mortal death after all of his Horcruxes had been destroyed.
But Hermione Granger, though she'd helped destroy Horcruxes and had bravely spoken Voldemort's name when so many were afraid to do so, had decided after the war that she had made many wrong decisions. She had argued with her husband and her best friends about it, screaming at them that she wished she'd been on Voldemort's side during the war.
She was a Mudblood, Voldemort knew. And she could be an Occlumens, but he did not sense deception from her. He sensed incredible intelligence, and a pure intention. He sensed a forceful power of will. He sensed… potential.
There was knocking on his office door, and Voldemort sniffed as he set down the glass of pumpkin juice on his desk and barked sharply,
"Enter."
His office door opened, and Dobby the House-Elf came tottering in, leading a pretty young witch behind him. Hermione. She held a simple leather handbag and wore a knee-length dress of dark blue wool, and as she followed Dobby into the office, the elf declared,
"Miss Hermione Granger for you, sir."
"Yes. Go." Voldemort shooed the creature away, and Dobby Disapparated with a crack. Hermione stepped further into the office, and Voldemort wandlessly shut the door behind her. She seemed profoundly nervous, so Voldemort decided to have a peek into her head. Legilimens, he incanted silently.
She was hoping that he would be merciful after examining her memories. She was wishing that perhaps he might be kind enough to wipe her mind and set her loose in Muggle London after he'd extracted the information he needed to be successful. She was thinking that even if he killed her, it would have all been worth it, because she would have accomplished her mission. She would have come back in time for the right reason.
Voldemort pulled out of her head with a neat slip, sliding from her thoughts like water running down glass. She blinked at him and said softly,
"Good morning, Master."
"Miss Granger. Or, I suppose, it is Madam Granger, isn't it? I misspoke last night when I introduced you to the Malfoys. I do apologise," Voldemort said loosely. Hermione shrugged and shook her head.
"It is of no consequence anymore, My Lord. Ron isn't here. I shall never see him again, so." Her eyes welled heavily then, and he realised she was about to cry. He cleared his throat roughly and asked,
"Have you had breakfast?"
"I have, yes. Thank you." Hermione glanced at his glass of pumpkin juice and frowned a little. He could plainly read her thoughts on the matter, even without pushing into her mind. She was surprised that a figure like Lord Voldemort consumed mortal food and drink. She supposed it must occur; he must eat. He must drink. Still, it was strange for her to imagine him like everyone else. She'd known him as a distant monster.
Voldemort sighed, picked up the glass of pumpkin juice, and sipped carefully. He took his time swallowing the mouthful of juice, then stared into his glass and murmured,
"I would like to know how it is that I became that grey-faced, red-eyed beast without a nose. Tell me."
"Well, Master," Hermione said, shifting on her feet where she stood, "You… erm. You first rose to prominence in the 1970s, and there was a great conflict toward the end of that decade. In 1981, you attempted to kill a boy called Harry Potter, because a prophecy had been delivered that led you to believe his death was necessary for your success."
"Harry Potter." Voldemort narrowed his eyes. "His name floods your mind. He is not the red-haired boy; that's Ronald. He is… the one with the glasses and the scar."
Hermione pinched her lips and nodded. Suddenly her thoughts rushed through her mind. The boy's scar had come from Voldemort attempting to kill him as a baby. When his mother's love had protected him, Harry Potter had managed to rebound Voldemort's Killing Curse, and Voldemort had been destroyed in body. For more than a decade, Voldemort had been without form, and it wasn't until the boy was a teenager that Voldemort had regained a body of his own. Hermione's mind pushed forth an image of Voldemort, ghostly and bald and towering. That was what had become of him, after making all those Horcruxes, after having his Killing Curse rebounded upon him. And when the Horcruxes had been destroyed, Voldemort had died in that hideous, snakelike body, demolished once and for all by Harry Potter himself.
"Why?" Voldemort found himself asking. Hermione looked confused, and she tipped her head a little.
"I'm sorry; why what, My Lord?"
"Why, after all that, do you believe you were on the wrong side?" he sipped his pumpkin juice again, giving Hermione a suspicious glare. She opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again, saying firmly,
"Albus Dumbledore was the most manipulative human being that's ever lived, I think. He was a liar, and he used people to get his way. And he managed to convince all of us that you were out to destroy wizarding Britain, but if there's one thing I've done quite a lot of, it's historical research. I know that you and Gellert Grindelwald had similar ideas for the wizarding world - putting us in our rightful place."
"You know that, do you?" Voldemort set down his glass and folded his arms across his chest. "And what place is that?"
Hermione scoffed. "I've got Muggles for parents, and the Muggle world changes quickly. I've seen the sort of disgusting things the Muggles do to themselves. I left that world at the age of eleven. I don't believe the magical and Muggle worlds have any business mixing. And, furthermore, I believe magic is far superior to even the most 'advanced' Muggle technology. It's inherently sophisticated where they use brute, inelegant techniques to achieve -"
"So you're a self-loathing Mudblood," Voldemort interrupted. Hermione's cheeks coloured, but she said softly,
"In the war where I fought against you, you utilised Dementors. You utilised werewolves. If you could find a place for creatures like them, surely there's a place for a witch like me. Master."
"Hmm." Voldemort took a step toward her, noticing just how much taller he was than her. It wasn't that she was especially short; it was just that he didn't make a habit of looming over witches. He was a particularly tall wizard, and he suddenly felt quite large, hovering just a few steps away from her. She shied back a little as he said,
"I grew up in a Muggle orphanage. I'm sure you know that story."
"With all due respect, My Lord, I know… quite a lot about your past," said Hermione rather meaningfully. Her mind flashed vividly with the knowledge that he'd murdered his Muggle father, with the idea that his mother had died at Wool's Orphanage. She knew he'd had Gaunt family, about the love potion his mother had given his father. She knew all of it. She knew all of his dirty secrets. How? Dumbledore, Voldemort reckoned. Dumbledore had revealed all of this to her. But then another clear thought flashed - Dumbledore's face, and a vivid word… loathing. She hated Dumbledore's memory. She hated what he'd left behind.
"Tell me how Dumbledore died," Voldemort ordered. Hermione nodded.
"You ordered Draco Malfoy to do it," Hermione told him. "He was a boy, a boy my age. Abraxas' grandson."
"Why would I have a child kill Albus Dumbledore?" Voldemort snapped. Hermione sighed.
"I can't pretend to know your motivations, Master," she said. "I suppose because he was at the school. But Severus Snape wound up doing it. Snape is a boy now. I've just seen him in Diagon Alley, just a few days ago…"
Suddenly her face went white, and a terrified thought went through her brain. Was Voldemort going to kill Severus Snape to change what happened to Dumbledore? She had positive thoughts about Snape, he sensed. Snape had been a Death Eater - a double agent working for Dumbledore, but a sworn Death Eater who had murdered Dumbledore. Then a slight thought crept forth, just a little hint. Hermione was shrouding it somehow; was she an Occlumens after all? Voldemort scowled at her and thought Legilimens.
Severus Snape was dying. Hermione was watching him die. Voldemort had just killed Snape. Suddenly Hermione was wondering why Voldemort had done this, why he had murdered a man like Severus Snape.
"Why did I kill him?" Voldemort snapped at Hermione. She gulped hard and whispered frantically,
"The Elder Wand. You thought… you thought he was the master of the Elder Wand."
Her mind whooshed with ideas then, swirling thoughts about the Potters' ancestral Invisibility Cloak that had been passed down to Harry Potter, about the Resurrection Stone that lay within the Gaunt family ring, about the Elder Wand that Dumbledore had won from Gellert Grindelwald. Snape had killed Dumbledore; he'd mastered the wand. Voldemort wanted it. So he'd killed Snape. But it hadn't worked that way; it had been more complicated. And, ultimately, the Elder Wand had turned on Voldemort with a Killing Curse.
"Answer me this!" Voldemort snarled, ripping himself roughly from Hermione's mind. She blinked up at him. "Why, when you came back in time to change the course of events, did you not just go straight to Albus Dumbledore, your old ally? Answer me!"
Hermione's face went very red. She let out a strange little noise, and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears.
"I couldn't…" she whispered. "I had instructions. I had very specific instructions."
"From whom?" demanded Voldemort. Hermione licked her lips.
"O.S. and friends. I don't know who they are."
"O.S.," Voldemort repeated. He frowned at Hermione as cold realisation washed over him. "Someone called O.S. gave you a specially-made Time-Turner with the idea that you would come back here and change the course of my existence?"
Hermione nodded, looking quite confused. Voldemort's breath caught in his chest. Odysseus Siegel. A wizard he'd met in Berlin, the closest thing he'd had to a friend, an expert in time travel. Odysseus Siegel had been two hundred years old when Tom Riddle had met him, and the wizard had said something quite cryptic at the time, something Lord Voldemort would never forget.
When H comes, do listen to her. She'll do well for you.
At the time, in 1962, Tom Riddle had thought that Odysseus Siegel had had too much to drink at the end of a long night of chatting. But now it made sense. Siegel was a traveller, just like Hermione. And he had created a One-Way Time-Turner for Hermione Granger to send her back in time to Lord Voldemort, armed with enough knowledge to shift him from defeat to victory.
"My Lord?" Hermione asked quietly, and Voldemort snapped to attention. He chomped hard on his lip and shook his head.
"Why didn't you go to Dumbledore?" he demanded again. "Why didn't you come back here in time and go straight to Albus Dumbledore to convince him to destroy me?"
"Because… I am not here to destroy you, My Lord," Hermione said, "and because I had very specific instructions. I thought it best to obey the letter I received. I was told to find you at the masquerade ball. Avery Hall on the fifth of October. I was told that that's where I would find you for my mission. I was not told to go to Albus Dumbledore."
He could sense from her that she was not lying. He could feel that she was earnestly telling the truth, that she desperately wanted him to accept her. So he took a step closer to her, and he murmured,
"You find me just as hideous here as you did in that past life, I presume. I am chipped and scarred by Dark magic, as you can plainly see."
"I do not find you hideous, Master." Hermione's cheeks went rosy, and she bowed her head. Voldemort reached for her chin and tipped it up, making her stare at him.
"You are afraid of me."
"I am, a little," she admitted. Voldemort quirked up half his mouth and whispered,
"Don't be afraid, Madam Granger. I'm not going to dispose of you. I am going to keep you. At least for now. I'll be keeping you close. You'll take your meals with me and spend your days here in my office until I give you clearance to be elsewhere. Now. Why don't we go see about that black and white suite Sylvie Malfoy's got set up for you, hmm?"
Author's Note: She's still tricking him! But it's impressed with her. Now that they've spent a bit of time alone together in his office, perhaps we'll start to see a bit of weird dynamic develop between them? Meh?
Thank you so very much for reading and reviewing!