The Light and Darkness Anthology

The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever. --Herb Caen

This is not what he expected. Not this... emptiness. Not the despair, not within him, but without. No, within him, it was lifelessness, even living. This was not how he had imagined it.

Gravestones. So many gravestones. Monuments that blended with all the others, even the expensive crypts that held his faithful blurred among the many crypts. And his name, still remembered - yes, he had his immortality in more ways than one - but it was simply an entity in itself. It was spoken now in the same tones as any ghost or monster, even though he was alive and healthy as ever. People saw him in the streets - he walked freely - and bowed in deference. He was untouchable, a venerable god. He had achieved all his goals, all the dreams that he had dreamed since he was a child.

Only to come to this. They were dead. He did not know why he was immortal and he could not pass it to another.

He would never wish this hell on another, even to the long dead Harry Potter or the long dead Albus Dumbledore. Centuries had passed, and they were merely words, fainter even than he. And now, all he had were memories. Not history, but memories.

She bent over the desk, her hair blocking her face from his narrowed eyes, but he knew that she had her special look, the look she had when she was absorbed in her work, so focused and attentive. The look she had when he let her push him onto the bed, let her rule him for those rare moments when she was the Dark Mistress rather than the simple woman he kept.

No one remembered her now. Well, that was not entirely true. She had her own infamy in historical circles, like any other woman who sat at the side of a leader, like any other woman who changed leaders.

"Bella," he hissed, the soft slide of his voice overpowering her indignance. "Lucius, Rodolphus, Avery. Enough. Mudblood or not..." He looked at her, eyes darkening. "She has her benefits. Tell me, Hermione, why you are willing to forfeit your friendship with the late Potter to help his enemy?"

Hermione looked up from her place on the floor before him, kneeling, small in the audience chamber, like a little girl. "My lord, there is nothing for me out there. I could stand dying, but I cannot stand losing my mind."

"Ah yes," he said slowly, softly. "Your mind."

She had been a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman, and an even more beautiful lady, but then she began to grow older, and older, and older, while he stayed the same, a smooth body with age only indicated in the sharpness of his eyes, the knowledge behind them, the angles of his body, the movements of a man who knew his body like an instrument. She began to drift.

She was the woman of the library. She had found her place within his empire. Her petite form belied a power that so many patrons took for granted when they tried to sneak into the private library of the Dark Lord. He taught her the hexes himself, and she had been so quick to learn.

She had been watching him, out of curiosity more than anything, he supposed. She did not engage with him - she was not allowed with her blood, even with her place, to address the Dark Lord. And the more she watched him with trained intensity - him, the man who killed her best friend - he began to watch her, walking through the stacks and peering through book shelves after the library closed. She was not permitted in the private library either, but she contented herself to the vast selection provided for her. She lived there, slept on the couches provided, ate with the other employees that went home to their families, did not speak with them, and they never spoke to her.

But he watched her deep into the early hours of the morning. He knew the rumors and stories of her experiences at Hogwarts, and not even her blood could deter him, or the refreshing curiosity that he thought he had lost.

Nearing her one hundred thirtieth year, Voldemort understood his folly. Hermione tried to help him find a way to counter the masses of transfigurations and charms he had cast upon himself, but unlike Dumbledore, her body was failing, although power still quivered. Despite all the restorative draughts and age-defying potions, death was simply the way of it. She did not cling.

She gasped as she saw his hand reach through the bookshelves, hand her a specific book for which she had been searching the many shelves. She took it after she recovered from her initial shock, avoiding his skin.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He stepped from behind the book shelf that separated them. "You've been watching me, Hermione."

She knew better than to deny it, and while her mouth opened, she could not respond. He saw the conflicting emotions there in her eyes. He did not even have to probe her mind. He was amused and, he dared to admit it, intrigued. He had not seen a girl's face flush like that since Bella first came to him for her Dark Mark. Rodolphus, however, kept her satisfied, and he had not preoccupied himself with anything so frivolous. But now... he had risen, over Potter, over Dumbledore, over the rubble of Grindelwald, over the Order, and he had the time now to... consider.

He took another step forward.

He had not cried at her grave. He did not know how to cry, and if he did, he suspected that he could not, any more than the sun could burn his skin, like his skin was hairless, dry.

Like he would never die.

She had died peacefully. He owed her that much. She understood the pleasure of pain, but he would not let her suffer.

A single white finger drifted along her jaw.

"And what have you seen, little Hermione?"

Her breath caught, and he knew. Not just sensed, but knew. He tasted the air and hummed with the pleasure of her scent.

"I asked you a question." His fingers traced the curve of her neck. He circled her, pushing her hair away from her neck so that he could see what he was doing.

"I see you reading," she whispered. "That's all. Reading." She gasped as she felt him undoing the back of her robes.

"No, Hermione, that is not all you have seen," he murmured in her ear. "Any other girl... any other woman would have run, or would be trembling with fear. But you aren't afraid, are you?"

She hissed, arched, as the tip of his tongue traced her spine. He pushed the robes to the side, slipping her sleeves from her arms.

"I am afraid," Hermione whispered, eyes closing as his tongue slid up her neck and along the edge of her ear.

"Of me, or of yourself?"

He could not cry, and he could not mourn. He wished he could. All he had then, instead of a shrine, was the memory of her. They remained as vivid as the days themselves, even as the present faded from his attention.

When he struck, she knew she did not have a chance. He had as much cold talent in sex as he did in Cruciatus and Legilimency. She had already had her dreams, and as she moaned beneath him there on the floor in the stacks after hours, she knew she had found her new place, even if he presumed to dismiss her when he was finished. She knew her new place because he could finish.

He had wanted to make her squirm, and he had succeeded. But he, too, lost himself in the music of skin, sighs, and sex, and although he was usually silent, he let out a slight groan as he came, as her nails slit the skin of his shoulder. She felt it vibrate through her body, and she knew.

He was hers, and she was his.

He did leave afterward.

But he came back, and they did not say anything when he lead her to the fortress, did not say anything when she no longer had to live in the library, did not say anything when he gave her other things to do, intelligent things, did not say anything when he led her to his bed.

She had been powerless at first. She had found her power, and Voldemort had found his match. They never did talk about it, never mentioned love, and Voldemort was unsure whether it was ever love, but he knew it was beyond lust, beyond the bedchambers (or the laboratories, libraries, dungeons, or the audience chamber). Sex was secondary, even in the beginning.

She did not whisper anymore. Yes, she had a new place. Lord Voldemort had not introduced her to his Death Eaters, nor did he integrate her. She was simply accepted because the Dark Lord accepted her, and everyone knew that what the Dark Lord wanted, he was given. They eventually accepted her in deed as well as word as her voice came back to her, as Voldemort's eyes sparkled with cold cruelty once again, as she herself sparkled like a carnelian, they found themselves under the same spell.

She was no Dark Mistress, except in the chambers. She simply was, and that was the way of things. Voldemort liked the way of things.

She had a gravestone, plainer than those of his original followers. He knew she would not have wanted him to make a display of her. When he walked among the grave like some demon, he always took care to pass hers, although he did not deliberately approach it. The visions of her were his true monument. He would be as old as the rest of time - he was a monument himself, the statue of a far-away figure that would never fade, never crack, never fall.

He did not suppose he would rule the world forever. He wanted to leave. He was restless in one place after the many centuries. Everything seemed to move so quickly, and while he learned quickly with it, it all seemed to blur, and his power no longer was a point of pride. He wanted to step down, watch the old order, or rather, the old chaos of the many nations play their little games. He was tired. He could only wait and drift in the past where he had truly lived, when life was vibrant and valued, not necessarily where she had been, but she had shone her light for her time.

Time. Time was all that was left, the forward, circular, unmeasurable continuation of time.

Voldemort waited for the world to end, hoping it would take him with it.