Abyss

Chapter 6

Hermione's eyes flew open, and it seemed like the screaming and the dance of the fire continued. But then she blinked and realized it was she who was still screaming and the firelight was on the ceiling rather than the walls.

"I thought you would never wake up. I had to give you the antidote." Hermione started at the unfamiliar voice. It was a cool tenor that reminded her vaguely of a frigid wind whistling through the eye of a stainless steel needle. It continued, "You're nightmares are rather... illuminating, let's say, as well as interesting."

Hermione jerked up into a sitting position. All the Death Eaters she had seen in her dream and in Ministry records were still in various forms of leisure. They had all turned to stare at her. She began to scramble back until she realized she was sitting on a mattress and a man was sitting next to her. She recognized the serpentine face as Voldemort's. Instead of screaming, which she had done a remarkable amount of times in her dream, she froze, staring into his eyes.

...his dark red eyes with slits for pupils that she had seen so often that year and had never connected with Harry's description of the Dark Lord. She had been harboring Lord Voldemort.

As Voldemort watched the dawning comprehension, he laughed, an icy-cold, high-pitched laugh. "From one nightmare into another, isn't that right, Hermione?" His laughs trailed off into a hum.

"My Nightmare potion," she whispered.

"I appropriated a vial of it and its antidote. I thought I had altered the potion so that you would wake up at a certain time, but I've never experimented on the potion before; my quantities cancelled themselves out."

"Draco."

"He did not know his mission and blundered straight into your hands. Both he and his father have been punished." Lucius, who stood nearby, shifted uneasily.

"Belthazar."

"I liked the name. He's my Animagus. I became one for this mission. I didn't trust anyone else to do it right. I should have continued to follow that principle into even the simplest tasks involved."

"The mission?"

Voldemort smiled, indulging her confusion with regards to the earth-shattering revelation. "Infiltration, of course. Damage to Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Ronald Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and any number of adversaries. My venom can fell an elephant in minutes. The Potter boy would be all too easy."

"And you didn't because of the anti-venom Madam Pomfrey made," Hermione said, cognition returning, and with it, a new horror.

"Precisely."

"And I interfered. I'm in the way."

"Precisely."

Hermione lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye, Gryffindor courage welled up inside her like a hot spring. For the last three years, she found this trait surfacing more and more often, confirming the Sorting Hat's decision.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, no quaver revealing the ripple of fear that lingered, spirit notwithstanding.

Voldemort's smile died. She was not in her nightmare with emotions vulnerable and raw. No, in reality, she could steel herself for an attack. He would not disappoint her.

"I'm kidnapping you," Voldemort answered, picking at an invisible piece of lint on his robes, "to call a spade a spade. Surely you did not expect to escape this war unscathed."

"No."

"But you had hoped. Do you still hope?"

She looked within herself. Yes, there was still a weak, pathetic sliver of hope--that for some anonymous reason she could be the turning point for Voldemort or one of the Death Eaters. She supposed everyone had that little bit of vanity that they could somehow make some psychological difference instead of being treated like Everyone Else. She assented to Voldemort's question.

He sneered. "You won't when my Death Eaters are through with you. I understand you are academically acquainted with their methods. That's what you were researching, wasn't it?" Voldemort chuckled in the back of his throat as he beckoned to two hulking Death Eaters with faces like dumb gorillas. They approached the bed with a sack in their hands.

"You aren't the mistress of Belthazar any longer, Hermione," Voldemort said, standing and walking away casually. "You are now the possession of Lord Voldemort. Hide her eyes and bind her, Crabbe, Goyle."

Voldemort's retreating back and self-satisfied smile was the last thing Hermione saw before the fathers of the Crabbe and Goyle she knew pulled the sack over her head and tied it closed around her neck so that she could neither see nor breathe well. She fought as they bound her wrists and ankles with rough, magical rope. She continued to struggle as one of them slung her over his shoulder. Her efforts slowed as it grew harder and harder to breathe in all the oxygen she needed through the thin holes of the burlap. She felt slim fingers reach into the sleeves of her robes and take her wand.

"Can't let you have that," said Voldemort's voice, muffled by the thick material between them. "I know how resourceful you can be."

Hermione screamed in fury and kicked and thrashed, but the man holding her grabbed a tighter hold around her legs and began walking. She ceased her struggles again, hoping to hear or smell something that might indicate where they were. At one point she heard drips of water onto stone and splashes of shoes in puddles, but this did not help. And all she could smell was her own breath trapped in the bag.

She did not know how long they carried her; she lost all track of time. She may have even miraculously dozed off. She was startled awake only once, when the torchlight disappeared into darkness and icy air blew up her robes. Footsteps crunched against fallen leaves. She must have dozed off again because the next thing she knew, she could hear hoof-beats and rickety carriage wheels on stone flags. Her head bumped against the carriage walls and the massive shoulders of the thugs besides her. A low chuckle in front of her revealed that Voldemort was there as well. In an act of defiance, she kicked out her bound feet and hit someone in the knee. She heard no response expect the rustle of the man to her left who took hold of her legs and set them in his lap while the other did the same with her head. Her side itched terribly.

When the carriages finally stopped, the shift of freezing air currents announced their arrival at their apparent destination.

"Take her to the interrogation room," Voldemort murmured before exiting the carriage.

Crabbe or Goyle slung her back unceremoniously over his shoulder, jolting her breath from her lungs. Crabbe or Goyle gave a dull, amused bark as she gasped for what little air circulation there was. She saw red spots on the insides of her eyelids like red flowers. A few rogue tears rolled up her forehead and into her hair. Had her nightmare ever ended?

Then they were inside with torches flickering with a warmer light. There was a tangle of voices that echoed, like in the cave of her dream. She shifted slightly because the man's shoulder was poking into her bladder. The rumble of the man's stupid laughter rippled through her as he moved her back.

It was too soon that she heard a door open, and she was thrown to the floor. Her hip and shoulder took the initial brunt of the fall, but her knee and head hit the shackles on the floor. Tear promptly jumped to her eyes, though the pain only lasted a few seconds.

Her hands and feet were unbound, but her wrists were pushed into the cold shackles. They tightened and pulled her so that she was sitting with her back against the stone wall. Her tail bone sat on a stone flag. She knew that this discomfort was only as small taste of what was going to be done to her. An overwhelming weight of despair crashed onto her spirit, and she slumped into her bonds. She did not even look up as the bag was removed from her head and pure firelight entered her eyes.

"You look familiar," said a nervous voice. "Have I met you before?"

Hermione lifted her face to the man.

"Wormtail!" she exclaimed, genuinely surprised at his presence.

"I have seen you before," Wormtail said, still studying her countenance. "Where-?"

"I had longer hair... and different teeth."

Wormtail squinted his eyes, searching deeper.

Hermione gave him another clue. "We met in the Shrieking Shack, traitorous rodent."

His whole visage revealed his embarrassment. "You're Potter's friend. You're... Hermione Granger... the intelligent one."

"And you're the cowardly one, as I remember it correctly," Hermione retorted.

"Claws in, Hermione," Voldemort said, ducking under the low doorway of the room. "And while we are on the subject of old acquaintances--last year, were you a prefect?"

She replied, "You have to be a prefect to be Head Girl."

Voldemort smiled. "Of course. When did you start your little... experimentations?"

"Last year." Her voice shook as snippets of memory drifted to the top of her mind.

Voldemort's smile broadened, though the change was more disconcerting on a serpent's face than a man's. There was a nasty curve to his almost lipless mouth. "And, pray tell, Hermione, have you ever experimented with the liliath flower?" At Hermione's reaction, Voldemort laughed, and his voice jarred her to the bone. "Hermione, Hermione. You really have changed your hair, it's amazing how much of a difference that makes, don't you agree, Wormtail?" He gestured to Hermione for Wormtail's benefit. "She has been practicing the Dark Arts for more than a year now. Can you imagine a Head Girl flouting the law so easily?"

"I can easily imagine a Head Boy flouting the law," Hermione hissed.

Wormtail sneered, eyeing Hermione. "And you call me a traitor, Hermione. How hypocritical of you."

"I wasn't practicing the Dark Arts for the Dark Arts' sake!" Hermione shouted at him. "I didn't do it because I wanted to be powerful or feared and because I wanted to be a part of your side. I didn't do it because I wanted to destroy, like you, Wormtail. I didn't do it because I'm afraid. I did it so I could find out how the Dark Arts can be defeated. I had to study the Arts themselves to learn how to destroy them. So that if the Order ever realized I didn't mind putting myself into danger, when they understood I could really help them, I would be prepared."

Wormtail, at least, was fairly abashed. Voldemort, however, let his obvious mirth at her idealism tinge his crimson eyes with malice.

"Yes," he hissed with relish. "But it never occurred to you that the Order had good reason, maybe a reason you didn't know, to keep you from their core. Maybe that reason is why you are here now. Maybe you are just too valuable for them. Maybe you're too intelligent, too daring, too resourceful for your own good. Maybe that fool of a white wizard knew you'd be an easy target to us and easily persuaded to reveal information. Let me assure you, Hermione, my Death Eaters are quite adept and eager at breaking a woman. And I know your fears, Hermione," he murmured, running a finger over the delicate curve of her jaw. "I know your fears."

Her eyes darted to the side, where Crabbe and Goyle were shifting uncomfortably where they stood, their robes barely succeeding in hiding what Hermione recognized from her nightmares. She trembled in spite of herself.

"Release me," Voldemort whispered, almost under his breath. He slid her wand into one of her hands, holding the wrist tightly so that she winced, though it did not hide her bafflement at the imperative.

"Release me from this ridiculous spell," he hissed.

Hermione's brows contracted. "I don't under-"

"The snake-charming spell, you ignorant girl. Release me from these bindings you've unwittingly forced upon me." His words remained low so that Crabbe, Goyle, and Wormtail could not hear the humiliating words.

Revelation lit up Hermione's eyes, and she had to fight a triumphant grin. She was defeated and the bubble of laughter betrayed her scorn. Voldemort gritted his teeth in fury.

He murmured, "Fool of a child, I have my servants who would destroy you. All I have to do is give the word. One little word. For the both of us, Hermione."

Hermione's amusement died as a belated frost kills an early flower. But the snake-charming spell... it extended to his human body as well?

"You can't hurt me," Hermione said wonderingly.

"They can," Voldemort snapped. "I've no qualms against watching you be beaten, used, and killed before my eyes. You are fortunate I want you alive. Be wise, Hermione, as I know you can be. Release me!" The simmering in the cavity of his chest burst in a rush of uncontrolled frustration, and his voice soared in pitch to a sound as lunatic and frosty as an ice storm. Hermione flinched under the blow.

"No," she replied almost affectionately.

Voldemort lifted a hand to hit her but found his will snagged by the spell.

"So be it," he murmured, reining in his violence. "Wormtail, if you would please remove her robes. Be gentle. They are of fine quality I'm sure Miss Granger never appreciated. I don't want them ruined."

Wormtail's eyes widened with a mix of apprehension and nervous excitement. "You want me to-"

"Remove her robes. I'm sure Crabbe and Goyle will be watching very carefully." Voldemort stepped back and prepared to brace himself for his protective reaction to her predicament.

Hermione gazed upon him, mouth set in a stoic line. She raised an eyebrow.

He gave her a tight smile. "Do not flatter yourself that the sight of you naked will affect me in the slightest. I have long since foregone that pleasure. Your body means little more to me than any animal."

As Wormtail's increasingly unsteady fingers fumbled on the ties of the underdress, Hermione observed that while all three Death Eaters became more heated and aroused as her breasts and belly and thighs were bared to everyone's view, Voldemort did not blink an eye in pleasure. He merely twirled her wand around his fingers and just watched. Voldemort Banished the outer robes, but the dress was strapless, so it gaped open.

Wormtail cursed in admiration. Hermione did not think Crabbe and Goyle had enough blood in their brains to make a coherent statement. Goyle had already begun to undo his trousers.

Wormtail reached to touch the shadowed swell of her breast with his silver hand.

"Got your thirty pieces of silver, didn't you?" Hermione spat. Wormtail jerked back as though burned.

"Indeed," Voldemort chuckled. "Wormtail, go ahead. She can't hurt you."

"Is this the only way you can touch a girl?" Hermione continued, kicking out with her legs.

Voldemort smirked.

Wormtail's brows contracted and his hand plunged to her breast in determination. He fondled and molded her breast as though he had never felt one before. Hermione's face and ears turned red, and she thrashed against him. Crabbe and Goyle removed their trousers, revealing the full extent of their bulk. Unlike their children, they consisted entirely of rippling, straining muscle, and one leg was practically the size of her waist. Hermione froze.

"They're too big," she whispered. "They're too big."

"You have a choice to make, Hermione. With a snap of my fingers, their self-control will shatter, and you will find yourself at the mercy of two capable Death Eaters. It can all go away for one simple spell."

"Never," she muttered, narrowing her eyes.

He shrugged to mask the frustration inside. "It's your body, not mine." Then he walked to Crabbe and Goyle and whispered to them, "Do not rape her until she is unconscious. She is not to die, and there are to be no chronic repercussions. Bruises and a few scratches are fine, but nothing that scars or breaks. Understood? You can screw her when she can't feel it--she'll certainly feel it when she wakes up again."

The two mountains looked dimly disappointed at having to hold themselves back, but unlike their offspring, their violence had technique, and Voldemort knew they could follow his orders. MacNair would be best for this kind of work, but the executioner sometimes developed a fondness for his victims, especially the younger ones. At least Crabbe and Goyle were not intelligent enough to form an emotional attachment.

Voldemort snapped his fingers and turned away, prepared for her screams and his Death Eater's own bestial sounds.

Wormtail protested several times before he was shoved out of the way, falling so that his lord could see him. He felt slighted that Lord Voldemort had mentioned only two capable Death Eaters, but he was willing to try harder. Voldemort stayed him with a hand and shook his head.

"You'll have her eventually," he muttered mockingly. "Let Crabbe and Goyle sate themselves. Watching them should suffice for you right now." Wormtail flushed--his master would never let him forget the several times he had been caught with his pants down and his hand oiled in what he had thought was a private room. "There is little you can hide from me, Wormtail," Voldemort said.

Hermione gave an unrestrained, blood-curling scream. Voldemort winced, the sound ripping through him and pulling at his spell strings. He turned around as another fist bludgeoned her face so that her face was symmetrically purple and yellow and red and swollen. Goyle, with a marriage of discreet abuse, pounded her abdomen in just the right places and with just the right force where she would not bleed internally but a belated bruise would settle like a corpse rising to the surface of water. Then Crabbe plundered her mouth with his tongue, unable to restrain himself to mere violence, smothering her screams and making her gag in disgust as she struggled to breathe.

Voldemort stifled the urge to kill his two henchmen and merely walked forward, placing a halting hand on Crabbe's and Goyle's shoulders. The muscles of their necks and shoulders and genitals strained to harness themselves at their master's request.

Voldemort bent over Hermione, whose eyes had glazed over and whose mouth had gone slack in shock and torment and physical agony. He fingered her tears away. Hermione focused on him, pleading. He had never expected such exquisite trembling from her, and he wanted to bathe in it, wallow in his victory.

"What do we say, Hermione?" he chided, taking her face in his hand in a subtle act of dominance.

"Please," she begged, "oh, please, I never thought..." Her lips quivered and her breath hitched in her throat.

"My dear Hermione, you know how to make it stop." He brought his face closer, the intimacy of the position terribly repressive to her. She tried to pull back, but his fingers tightened. "Only you can stop this."

She closed her eyes and began to struggle full force.

"You know it's no use, Hermione," he murmured. "You know I'll have your compliance. I'll break you."

Hermione's lids lifted just long enough for her to say, "I know you'll have your way. But I... I want to watch you squirm."

He resisted reacting in the way she wanted him to and stepped away, maintaining his possessive contact with her until she pulled away of her own volition.

"Wormtail, prepare her quarters, second floor dungeons, farthest to your left."

"Yes, my lord," Wormtail said, reluctant to leave but wary of consequences if he tried to return to his experimentation with Hermione.

Voldemort turned himself and said just before he closed the door, "Continue as you like. When you're finally finished with her, bring her to her new room. She is still to be alive. As you were."

Then he shut the door hard, drowning out the screams from the room, but not the ones in his head. He moaned, pressing two fingers to his temple. He tried to walk to his own quarters, but the farther away he walked, the louder Hermione's screams became and the more that nauseous knot in his stomach twisted. She was holding him back!

When he could stand it no more, he grabbed an expensive porcelain vase from a sideboard and threw it against the wall with a shriek. Then he looked for another breakable object to throw, anything to channel his repressed passion against the humiliation the girl had caused him.

It was then all went quiet, and, falling to the ground, panting and sweating, he knew she was unconscious.

~888~

When Hermione woke up, she found herself chained once more, but this time in a room lit only by the light of the moon. She did not know how long she had been unconscious. She knew that she was cold and naked, covered only by a thin, damp, practically moldy blanket. The drafts through the dungeon blew light breezes with fingers like icicles so that the wet blanket and wet, mossy stone beneath her made her even more frozen. She shivered in convulsions, her teeth chattering furiously and the muscles in her arms and the sides of her neck struggling to bring her spasms under control. She knew that by the time she stopped, whether by warmth, exhaustion, or sickness, she would cramp.

Her sex felt like it had been raped with a knife. From what she remembered of her beatings, she should have massive internal bleeding, but Crabbe and Goyle must have had a little skill with their wands, so there was only faint bruising along her abdomen, back, buttocks, knees, and shins. The cuts from Goyle's teeth on her breasts were still there, blood cracking dryly next to the scabs. Crabbe's small knife left shallow wounds on her shoulders--they broke open with her shivering and bled. The bruises on her cheekbones and the bump on the back of her head that knocked her unconscious as well as the finger marks around her neck were the worst to touch. She was glad she did not have a mirror. She did, however, feel the effects of a spell on all the remaining hurt from her ordeal. She wondered whether they were to aid or hinder the mending of the wounds.

It was an utterly miserable night, and she slipped into a shallow sleep between the elements and exhaustion every few hours. She did acquire a great deal of how dismal her surroundings were. The dungeon was made of a thick, heavy, time-smoothed stone slick with moss, algae, and a constant stream of water running down the walls. The room was only three-sided; the fourth wall consisted of metal bars like a prison, but much thicker. It would take Crabbe or Goyle to even budge the door. The opening led to a thin hallway and faced another cell, similar to hers, but drier. Hermione suspected Voldemort had given her the worst dungeon of them all. Second floor dungeon? How many were there?

"Hello?" she called. Only the echo answered until it was split in twain and the echoes echoed. She heard no alternate reply.

Hermione wrapped the sodden blanket about her and huddled in a corner, listening to a steady drip somewhere in the dungeon. Her new chains afforded her adequate mobility to a hole in the side of the walls she supposed was her lavatory. A slip of a window high in a wall let in a minimal amount of moonlight, but it let her know when it was morning. The slate gray sky was lighter than night. From the faint drumming and occasional rumble of thunder, Hermione gleaned that the unusually bad weather had not ceased. No one came to her that day but a few scrawny rats that nibbled at the algae and stared at her in curiosity. It would have been almost touching if it had not been so cold. By the end of her first day, she could no longer feel her ears, her nose, her toes, her chin, her nipples, or her sex. Her buttocks, breasts, shoulder blades, elbows, and knees were beginning to follow.

By the end of the week, she had long since stopped shivering--she did not care or notice that her wounds had healed unusually quickly, and that only the bruises on her face remained in a mild green, blue, and yellow. She had to lick the walls for moisture against her dry throat. Her stomach had forgotten its hunger two days ago, though the thought of a steak dinner with mashed potatoes made her mouth water in a rush and her stomach writhe in barren agony. All her mind could concentrate on was how to stay warm

A few days later, lips tinged slightly blue and eyes red, she had to think of something else.

Instead she thought of how stupid she had been not to realize all circumstantial evidence pointed to Belthazar: his understanding of English, his attentive stares when she was experimenting on a potion or charm, his hatred of Harry and Professor Dumbledore, as well as his hatred for Draco--how angry he must have been at Malfoy's incompetence--and his very nature as an Indian cobra in Europe.

And she had shared her bed with him! Enjoyed his presence! And the numbers of things she might have done in front of Belthazar, not knowing he was an Animagus of the Dark Lord against whom she was directly working... Her face would struggle to burn when she thought of how she had stroked his scales and invited him to help with her potions, those times she had refused to take him to the authorities despite his behavior on grounds that he was misunderstood. And that Dumbledore had veritably made her keep him...

She had three more days to ponder her idiocy. Her stomach no longer cared about her indifference and rivaled her desire to stay warm. Her thoughts were numb. The bruises on her face healed much more slowly than the others, but now they were only a vivid green and yellow. The worse of it was over.

It was at this point that two house-elves came to her and released her from her bonds, but led her magically into a living area of the building. They pushed her into a room and shut the door behind her, locking it with their own special spells, just in case. In front of a blazing fire almost the size of her was a claw-footed tub half full with water and bubbles and a small table holding a cup of water and a plate of fresh bread--light, but what she needed.

Her knees began trembling, and the hand that held her blanket around her naked body loosened and let the cloth fall to the floor. She stood there for a moment, letting the warmth lick at her frozen skin. When she felt she could bear the self-inflicted torture no more, she stepped into the tub. The water was not hot, which would have been a nasty shock, but lukewarm, hot enough for her. She sighed and nearly fell asleep at the bliss that crested through her body. She managed to stay awake and partake of the bread and pure water, a blessing after algae-filled water and nothing to eat. Everything was perfect.

Until the door behind her opened.

Hermione did not notice it right away, so happy was she with the paradise offered her; she had not even thought of ulterior motives. When the door closed, however, there was a distinct click, and Hermione stiffened, hesitant to break the fantasy.

When Wormtail's hand slipped into the water to fondle her breast in the same attentive fashion as before and as his silver hand grasped her chin to turn her head around for his lips, all she could do was blink back tears.

~888~

Hermione had not even the energy to fight him. Never had Hermione imagined that one man could apply such deliberation and even contemplation to the act of love-making--or rape, as it were. She certainly had not expected that from nervous, fidgeting Peter Pettigrew. He was clumsy in some respects, but he continued in the same patience with himself. Hermione could only feel lucky to be in a real, soft bed that yielded to her weight perfectly that she had fallen asleep before Wormtail could even touch her lower than her waist, just as she had been lucky she had not had to experience the pain of Crabbe and Goyle raping her--only its after-affects. She felt a little stretched now. She woke up sometime during that night with Wormtail's balding head of baby fine hair pillowed against her breast, his mouth near a startlingly aching nipple. She could not remember what he had done to it to make it hurt so. His silver hand was on the sensitive flesh of her upper thighs, and he held her to him affectionately.

Hermione was ready to vomit--or at least hit him for making her be so close to him, to this extent like lovers, feeling his skin, his body against her in ways she had never wanted to feel him. To his sole credit, though, he had been gentle. She eased herself from him, pulling a real blanket from the pile on top of them. Wormtail shifted, and Hermione shuddered in disgust. She wrapped the blanket, warm from their bodies, around her then stumbled about for a door. Her hand eventually bumped against one--she was almost ready to give up in despair--and opened it, backing up out the door to keep as quiet as she could so that he would not wake up and prevent her escape.

She turned around and jumped. Lucius Malfoy, a man named Nobbs, a pale, thin associate of his named Tanner, and Lord Voldemort waited for her.

~888~

A few days after Hermione's abduction...

McGonagall knocked gingerly on the Head Girl's door. "Miss Granger?" she called. She knocked again. "Miss Granger, are you all right?"

Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Harry, and Ron shared bewildered looks.

"She hasn't responded since we started knocking yesterday. We thought she was studying for the N.E.W.T.s," Harry offered.

"Very odd," McGonagall assessed. "What do you think, Albus?"

Dumbledore replied quietly, "I think we should open the door."

"It's blocked against Alohomora," Ron said.

"Abrio Des," Dumbledore chanted. The door jumped open.

"Oh," Ron said.

Dumbledore swept in, eyes cold and suspicious. He and McGonagall searched the immediate room, Hermione's bedroom. They found the sheets and quilt pulled back and the indention still noticeable on the fabric and pillow. McGonagall gasped.

But Dumbledore held up a silencing hand. He took the small vial of half-drunk Nightmare Potion between two fingers. His eyes narrowed.

"Maybe..." he mused. "Maybe... this isn't foul play. This is a Nightmare Potion. Minerva, check her laboratory."

McGonagall nodded, confused. When she came back, she was even more confused. "There's a page with her handwriting describing the brewing process, and there are more vials in the cupboard. But all her books are missing."

Dumbledore's blue eyes grew icier. "Curious." He observed the curves of the fabric where Hermione had been. Meanwhile, he explained to the others, "A Nightmare Potion is very illegal. It is possible--just possible--she used inappropriate proportions and disappeared. She could have destroyed her books if they were incriminating. But then she would have destroyed the rest of the potion as well...." He shook his head. "Then there is the issue of her character. Harry, has she been preoccupied or distant or even just different lately?"

Harry's brow drew in. "Are you thinking Hermione's been doing Dark Arts? Sure, she's been different, distant, but since we've left her out of the Order, we have less we can talk about. But the Dark Arts isn't like Hermione."

"On the contrary," Dumbledore said, "she's been practicing them for the last two school years."

"What?!" Ron said, his voice cracking with incredulity.

"Impossible," Harry agreed.

"I am not saying that I believe she has experimented to teach herself the Dark Arts in order to use them. It is likely that she did it for us, her own work for the Order. But the Dark Arts are notoriously seductive, especially to someone as hungry for knowledge as she. It has happened before, Harry."

"If you knew she was practicing the Dark Arts, why didn't you stop her or invite her into the Order or something?" Ron asked indignantly.

"Yeah, it's like she just wanted to help," Harry said.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "Hermione is a genius, Harry. If I tried to keep you from the Order, how long would it take before you found something else to do? I did not interfere because she would have still found a way, and I hoped she would realize her folly. But the folly," he indicated the indented mattress, "appears to have led to something more sinister. There are three most likely possibilities: One, her potion backfired and she is a victim of her own curiosity. Two, she has voluntarily left these premises, deliberately not telling anyone--so she could be dead in the Forbidden Forest or setting up quarters there or Chrestomanci knows what. Or three, she could have been taken by an unscrupulous character who either knows of her interaction with you, Harry, or her Dark activities."

"Hey," said Ron, peering into the tank, "not that I care or anything, but where is Belthazar?"

Dumbledore looked into the tank himself, his gaze piercing into the shadows but unreadable. "There," he muttered, "is another argument that she is still alive. It's curious... I'll have to speak with Severus and have him give his professional opinion on the purity of the Nightmare Potion and... other things. It is incredibly risky to experiment on yourself. It leads too easily to catastrophe."