Capable
Lord Voldemort paced around his office like a rat in a cage. He swigged at his tumbler of firewhisky and realised he'd gotten himself just a little bit drunk. He blinked, bleary-eyed with his head swimming, and finished off another mouthful of the drink. He Banished the glass to his desk with wandless magic and put his fingertips to his eyebrow.
Hermione Granger had been foretold to him, he thought. In the early 1960s, Odysseus Siegel had been sitting four glasses of wine into an evening and had told Tom Riddle that she'd be coming. Then, somehow, in the year 2004, O.S. and friends had given Hermione a One-Way Time-Turner with the idea that she would come back in time to save Lord Voldemort from a fate of being completely vanquished. And she was doing a fine job of it, too. She was showing him all the information she could so that he would make better decisions this time around. He wouldn't make the same missteps he'd made in her lived existence. He would be stronger this time.
He could just dispose of her once he'd extracted every memory he needed, he thought. He could clear her mind of every thought that would help him, and if he was feeling particularly generous, he'd Obliviate her and turn her loose to the Muggles. Or, if he felt like it, he'd cast a quick Killing Curse and Vanish her corpse. But instead he'd kissed her - twice now - and he felt like doing it again.
She was awfully pretty, he thought. More than that, she was uncommonly brainy. Her mind and magic worked in ways very few others' did. She really could be a weapon, Voldemort thought. The first time around, he hadn't had her. First of all, she hadn't been born in 1968; she'd been born in 1979. But even in the years when she'd fought him, Dumbledore had used her in part because Voldemort had rejected people like Hermione Granger wholesale.
Perhaps, Voldemort thought, there was a middle ground. Perhaps he could spark a movement more like Grindelwald's, a movement fighting for the supremacy of the magical world over the Muggle world, inclusive of Half-Bloods and even Muggle-borns, with a hierarchy in place. The Sacred Twenty-Eight would be at the top of the social pyramid, of course, because they had the purest blood and therefore would maintain the most power and control. Other Purebloods would be given high-ranking positions in a new administration. Half-Bloods would be encouraged to marry other Half-Bloods to produce new Purebloods. And Muggle-borns would be encouraged to marry Half-Bloods in order to produce a weaker, but still valid, magical offspring.
Yes. He could see it now; it was all spelling itself out in his head. Centaurs and other intelligent Beings like Vampires, Goblins, and Veela would be accorded esteemed positions within the magical community owing to their intellect. Lesser creatures would not be destroyed, but would be ruled over by the superior magical minds.
Muggles, of course, were not to be fraternised with in any capacity whatsoever. The magical world was to exist separately from the Muggle world, because magic was special and unique. Unlike Grindelwald, Voldemort would promote isolationism. Where Grindelwald had called for the wizarding world to step out of the shadows to rule over Muggles, Voldemort would call for a magical world that sealed itself off from the Muggles and placed itself squarely atop that inferior existence.
Yes, he thought frantically. He could see it all now. And there was a place for Hermione Granger in all of that. She could be his secret weapon. She could be the arrow in his bow, arming him against defeat. She was waiting for him in the violet parlour, he thought distantly, and he needed to go to her now.
As he walked out of his office and down the corridor, he stumbled a little, and one of the portraits of a Renaissance man on the wall called out,
"Steady there, man."
"I'm fine," Voldemort snapped, though of course he was more than a bit tipsy. He'd had two tumblers of firewhisky whilst considering what it had felt like to kiss Hermione this morning. She had tasted divine, he thought. She'd felt warm and soft beneath his hands. He could still feel her back beneath the press of his palm, the downy skin along her cheekbone under his thumb. He shut his eyes for a moment, pausing as he walked, and tried not to let it all overtake him again. He'd already found himself holding a shaking quill at one point today, unable to finish off a letter to Cygnus Black because he'd been so distracted by the memory of kissing Hermione. Now he opened his eyes and forced himself toward the violet parlour, licking his lips as he walked into the room.
She was standing there in her pleated black skirt and mustard-coloured jumper, her hair in its loose chignon, and she smiled a bit at him. Legilimens, he incanted in his own head, and immediately her mind hit him with a desperate sense of want. She wanted him. She had enjoyed the kiss. She wanted more. He pulled out of her head with a slip and cleared his throat. He wandlessly dragged out her chair and mumbled,
"I'm going to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning. Errands. I'll be bringing you with me."
"Yes, Master." Hermione nodded obediently at him, her eyes going a bit cheery as she declared, "It'll give me a chance to go to Flourish and Blotts."
"What, is the library here insufficient?" Voldemort narrowed his eyes as he sat, and Hermione chewed her lip a little as she said,
"I'd like to get a copy of Stars Within Us: Advanced Astronomical Calculations. The skies here are clear, and I find myself staring out my window at night."
"That book isn't in the library here?" Voldemort felt himself almost concerned. Hermione shook her head and shrugged.
"I tried Summoning it from the shelves, but no luck. It's fine; I'll get myself a copy."
"Very well," Voldemort nodded. Their food appeared then - seared scallops with bacon and orange sauce. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Hope you like seafood."
Hermione said nothing. He felt a pulse from her mind. She did not like seafood. Voldemort cleared his throat and said,
"We'll get you something else."
"This is fine, Master," Hermione insisted. He opened his mouth to say that he'd fetch Dobby, but Hermione immediately cut into a scallop and took a bite. He felt her brain wince in discomfort at the flavour. She did not like it. He scowled.
"You are displeased with the food, so we shall get you something else," he snapped. "DOBBY!"
A moment later, the House-Elf appeared in the room with a little crack, and Hermione appeared to be gagging through her bite of scallop. Voldemort pinched his lips into a line and said,
"Bring us something else to eat. How about butternut squash soup with crusty bread, Hermione? Does that suit?"
Her eyes were watering as she tried not to make a fuss. Dobby snapped his fingers and vanished. Hermione huffed a breath, and for a long moment, there was silence. Then the plates gave way to bowls, which slowly filled with yellowish-orange liquid. Baguettes of bread appeared on the plates beside the soup, and Hermione murmured,
"I'm sorry, My Lord."
"Now I know," he said. "You don't care for seafood. And you know that I don't care for mushrooms."
"No?" She smiled a little at him. "I shall remember that."
"I was doing some thinking, before I got a little drunk," he told her. She gaped at him, wide-eyed, and then smirked. He nodded. "Oh, yes. I've had more than a little firewhisky this evening, Madam Granger."
"Have you, Master?" She laughed a bit, exuding jollity. Her mind was glowing, he thought. He sighed and dipped his bread into his soup. He took a bite and sipped his wine, admitting,
"I need water, not wine. I could Transfigure it."
"That trick's been done before. Other way round, though," Hermione joked. Voldemort smiled. He got the reference, having grown up with Anglican nuns taking care of him. He sipped his wine again and told her,
"I was thinking that my movement could focus on a hierarchy of witches and wizards atop a magical community that includes places for all intelligent Beings," he said, "existing completely separate from the Muggle world. Our priority would be on isolating ourselves from Muggle intrusion on our culture, on maintaining bloodlines, and on creating new bloodlines. Beings of high intellect would have a place at the table, so to speak. What do you think?"
Hermione's face shifted. Her eyes blinked slowly. He couldn't read her, suddenly. He frowned and pushed into her mind with Legilimency.
If that's the path he takes, he will win, she was thinking. If he includes Muggle-borns in any capacity whatsoever, and if he does not seek to destroy intelligent Beings, he will win. If he marries Half-Bloods together and venerates the offspring as new Purebloods, he will win. This is his path to victory. If he follows this course, he will win.
Voldemort extracted himself from Hermione's mind and tipped his head to the side. He narrowed his eyes at her and asked quietly,
"And what do you think, Madam Granger, of that path for Lord Voldemort?"
She spoke very clearly then as she raised her wine glass and said, "To the Dark Lord's victory."
He couldn't breathe all of a sudden. He picked up his own wine and downed it in three big gulps. He set down the empty Beaujolais glass and pushed back his chair. He stalked over to the grand piano, his dinner forgotten, and sat at the bench. He was drunk; the firewhisky he'd had before coming here had settled into his veins now.
She was too much, he thought. So he sat down at the piano and opened it, placing his long fingers carefully upon the keys.
He'd taken his first piano lesson as a boy of five years at Wool's Orphanage. He'd been an angry, brooding young creature, and the matron had thought that music lessons would be good for Tom. He'd shown immense talent, progressing quickly through his studies with the Muggle piano teacher. By the time he'd left for Hogwarts at age eleven, he was playing complex Chopin scherzos. At school, he'd accompanies Flitwick's choir as a hobby, and as a way to show off. He'd won first place in the Hogwarts Talent Show that had been organised in his fifth year, partially because everyone had loved Tom Riddle, and partially because he had been so accomplished at the piano that the second-place competitor had been left in the dust. After graduating from Hogwarts, Tom had occasionally used the piano in the White Wyvern, serenading people who were eating at the pub and getting his meals for free in exchange. He'd played in wealthy people's homes on the Continent, showcasing his talent in order to win favour and access. Here at Malfoy Manor, he played often, mostly as a form of stress relief.
He played a low chord with his left hand, his right hand trickling around in a moving scale. He began to sway gently as he played, his left hand migrating chords up and down as his right hand flicked about expertly. He raised his eyes to see that Hermione was still sitting at the table, staring at him. He curled up half his mouth at her and peered into her head, and he caught a stray thought halfway through her thinking it.
… sexiest thing I've ever seen in my entire…
She had a vivid memory of being in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, where there had been an out-of-tune piano. She'd played Beethoven there; she'd had basic lessons as a girl. But she was nowhere near as skilled as Voldemort. She'd tried to teach Ron Weasley to play, but he'd been hopeless. Voldemort was an expert, she was thinking. He knew exactly how to crash his hands in thundering chords, how to wander and roam around the keys with a flittering touch. She was coming alive, he could feel. She was trembling on the inside, watching him play piano like this.
Voldemort chomped his lip and turned his attention back to the piece he was playing, a century-old concerto by a wizarding composer named Johannes Friedman. His left hand stretched to accommodate the aching chords of the piece, whilst his left hand plinked out the feathery rhythm atop. He was nearing the end now, and Hermione was rising from her chair, abandoning her own soup. She was walking slowly toward him, Voldemort could see out of the corner of his eye. He glanced up to see her with parted lips, with hooded eyes, and she was pulsing with scarlet want.
Voldemort gulped hard and finished off the concerto with a dramatic flare of his right hand, a mighty flourish of notes that extended up into the highest register of keys, accented by thudding, percussive chords with his left hand. He slowly pulled his fingers from the piano and shut the lid, and he muttered,
"I play better when I'm sober."
"Well." Hermione seemed like she wanted to reply with some witty comeback, some sharp rebuttal, but when he glanced up to her, she was just staring down at him and breathing rather heavily. Voldemort pushed the piano bench back a little from the instrument and sniffed, deciding that now was as good a time as any to push everything just a little too far. He could feel longing from her; her mind was whirling with all sorts of thoughts about how talented and powerful he was. And she was thinking, in the back of her head, that he was going to wind up winning this time around. He swallowed hard and decided that he wanted to keep her very close indeed, so he stared at her for a moment and then whispered,
"I am a little drunk."
"So you've said, Master," Hermione nodded. He worked past the knot in his throat and told her,
"Your mind isn't like anyone else's in the whole world, I don't think. I hold that belief for a lot of reasons, but I… your mind is fascinating to me. So."
Her honey-coloured eyes flared at that. She nodded, and he beckoned to her as he said,
"Come here, Hermione."
She approached him and stood before the piano bench, walking up between his legs. Voldemort's breath hitched in his nostrils as she stepped close - so close - and he felt her desire rolling from her mind.
Capable.
The word filled his head. He wasn't sure, suddenly, if it had come from her thoughts or from his own. Was she thinking that he was capable, or was he thinking that she was capable? He frowned up at her. Both, probably. He licked his lip and dared to reach for her waist. She was just short enough, and he was just tall enough, that she hardly loomed over him as he sat. She bent down a little as his hands settled over her mustard-coloured jumper, and she whispered,
"May I kiss you?"
"Mmm-hmm." He was surprised by the way she rather enthusiastically pushed her mouth onto his. He sucked in air hard, feeling her lips nudge his open. He grunted quietly as her tongue hesitated at the entrance of his mouth, and he squeezed her waist. He pulled at her, urging her down onto him. She moved quickly then, so quickly that Voldemort hardly knew what was happening. She climbed onto him, straddling his hips and joining him on the piano bench as her black pleated skirt fanned out around them. Her hands pushed into his greying, thinning hair, her fingernails coursing against his scalp.
Suddenly he wasn't self-conscious about his looks. As she sat on his lap and kissed him, her tongue dancing with his, he didn't care that he had a drooping eyelid and a smashed cheekbone. She was breathing quickly; she wanted him. She obviously didn't mind the scar tissue on his lips beneath hers. She clearly didn't object to how pale he was. She didn't mind how he looked. She wanted him because he radiated magical potential and because he exuded talent. He was powerful, and she craved that power. She wanted him because he was Lord Voldemort.
This was profoundly different, he thought, from the times girls had wanted him because he'd been handsome young Tom Riddle.
One of his hands worked its way up under the hem of her jumper, and as his fingers slid up her flat belly, all he could think was that she had the softest skin in the entire world. No one on Earth had skin softer than her. His fingers cupped a breast through the thin cotton material of her bra, and she let out a little squeak into their kiss. She broke her mouth from his and tipped her head back a little, and Voldemort seized. He leaned forward and latched onto her neck, and Hermione gasped. He suckled at the skin beneath her ear, lapping carefully and not biting. He didn't want to mark her up; it didn't seem like the right occasion for bruising her.
She moaned deeply and ground her hips down against his, rubbing intensely against the growing hardness in his trousers. His cock was aching now. He'd flushed completely firm for her, and he was throbbing beneath his robes. He needed relief somehow. She was only making it worse, rolling and rocking atop him as she massaged his scalp and he kissed her neck. He felt her nipple peaked hard beneath his thumb, and when he pinched it, she cried out a little. He was going to lose himself, he realised. She was going to make him lose all control, right here in this -
"Oh. A thousand apologies for the interruption."
Hermione yelped and tumbled off of Voldemort's lap, landing in an ungraceful heap on the ground in between him and the piano. Voldemort took a shaking, seething breath and glared at the doorway, where Sylvie Malfoy had appeared. She stood there quite imperiously, her chin tipped up as she surveyed the scene before her. She wore elegant midnight blue robes, perfectly tailored, her hair coiffed in curls, and she said,
"Abraxas and I had hoped you might join us for dessert this evening. I see you are busy. I'll tell him no."
"It's… erm." Hermione used the piano to haul herself up, straightening her skirt and yanking down her jumper. Her cheeks were deep crimson, from lingering arousal and from humiliation, and she looked like she was going to cry.
"We'll come to dessert, of course, Sylvie," Voldemort said smoothly. "We never even got around to eating our soup. Custard tart and syllabub for dinner will be just fine, won't it, Hermione?"
"Yes, My Lord. Of course," Hermione mumbled, bowing her head. He sensed red-hot embarrassment and something deeper, darker etching itself in her mind. He pried in and felt the thought.
They thought I was his secret weapon; now they'll just think I'm his whore.
Voldemort cleared his throat roughly, determined not to let that be the case. He rose from the piano bench, his head whirling from whisky and wine and Hermione and surprise. He straightened his robes and put his hand between Hermione's shoulder blades, and he said softly to her,
"Let's go have some dessert."
Author's Note: Well. That got… steamy. Way to muck it up, Sylvie, right? Next up, a trip to Diagon Alley, as promised. Thanks very much indeed for all the feedback!