Abyss

Chapter 12

As Hermione's eyelids drooped shut, a wad of spittle struck her cheek. She did not bother to brush it away or open her eyes to see who it was. Lisa Turpin, having become used to the idea, was now enjoying her daily visits to the throne room, one of the only rooms big enough for the Death Eater meetings and their activities--except for the Harem, but those were different sorts of activities. The Death Eaters would come before Voldemort's throne, bow before their Dark Lord, then resume their usual position in the circle. Lisa always took the time to spit on the shell of the former Head Girl. Oddly enough, Draco usually did not bother her.

Yes, she attended Death Eater meetings at the feet of Lord Voldemort. Sometimes Voldemort let her wear the shift; other time he made her take it off, but still, he did not keep her locked in the quarters all the time. With the Dark Mark burning black on her left arm, Voldemort let her join him like a trained puppy to the meetings. And to tell the truth, she did not care anymore. She did not care at all.

The murder of her parents and her perverse initiation did not rip her insides out. She still slept well. She was able to eat. Her eyes had no more tears. There was not emptiness so much as something had been shut off. She watched the Death Eaters--she heard all that they and Voldemort discussed, all the horrendous things they planned--but it meant nothing.

All she could see were the blank, bloody faces of her parents, the smell of their burnt skin, the coppery, salty taste of their blood and Voldemort's on her tongue, the appearance of the Dark Mark... and then it stopped, and she would stare at one place for hours on end, then the cycle of the grotesque began running over and over once again like an ugly, broken, discordant song.

Voldemort was pleased with her. He would stroke her hair absent-mindedly during meetings and kiss her forehead with a particularly cruel smile when he was about to sleep, which was not often. Hermione had developed her own sleeping schedule--when she felt like sleeping, she would sleep. When she woke up, she would wait for her mind to fall asleep again.

She had lost all hope.

Until the day Hogwarts was attacked.

***

Ironically, the attack came on Valentine's Day. Couples were paired by the dozen in nooks, crannies, and the Astronomy Tower. Snape and Filch patrolled the corridors like ravenous wolves, twice as rabid. Snape abhorred affection of any kind, but Filch was mourning the loss of Hermione, who, under ordinary circumstances, would be patrolling as well. Ernie Macmillan was not nearly as tasty to look at.

Valentine's Day was traditionally a quiet night for the dark forces. The sticky sweetness of the holiday generally made them irritable and sick to their stomachs--or they felt compelled to participate as well. Dumbledore, Lupin, and Moody were on watch, but Tonks, Kingsley, Mundungus, and the Weasleys were at Grimmauld Place, taking a night's well-earned rest. Snape and Filch were more than enough to counter any of the hormone-driven time bombs.

What they did not expect was the Dementor-like vampirism the junior Death Eaters, Cat's Paws, and Black Dogs were wreaking across the castle in the guise of being very occupied. The Dark Lord's followers completely avoided detection until Snape caught Vincent Crabbe sucking deeply at Hannah Abbott's mouth. Crabbe panicked and pulled away before trying to barrel past his Head of House. Snape cast a Binding Charm that ensured Crabbe's paralysis. Then he knelt by Hannah and checked her pulse. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse was weak, but it was better than nothing.

He scooped her up in his arms to take her to the hospital wing. Unfortunately, he met Draco along the way, who hexed him unconscious before finishing Crabbe's job and freeing his crony from Snape's spell. He shook his head sadly at his professor before arranging Hannah's dead body so that her legs straddled Snape's and a bared breast rest in his hand.

Pansy and Lavender really made the rounds after seducing the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw passwords from some gape-mouthed second-years that they left lying in front of the House entrances. Lavender walked through the boys' dormitories of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor naked but for the mask covering her face, sucking the life from any boy who happened to be awake at the time. Pansy did the same with Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Draco played his own game with a black toga as he prowled through the halls looking for the same star-crossed lovers that Snape and Filch had been looking for. That is, Filch was looking until Lisa Turpin appeared in front of him in a negligee, a thong, and not much else. After his life was taken, Filch was then put into a very indecorous position with his cat, whose neck had been snapped.

And still Draco prowled. He would startle the hidden couples, flash them into freezing like rabbits in headlights, then bind them together with the Lip Locker curse. He would complete the cruel trick by including his lips with the other two and sucking life from both of them simultaneously.

Snape would later realize that this was a procedure that he himself had developed. All the life, all the power that the young followers consumed would be transferred into a cauldron of a potion boiling in the center of a circle split with a pentagram. Whoever drank the potion would be imbued with the life force, strength, and magic of those who died for it. It was Dark Arts at its finest, and it was the turning point of the Inner House Wars.

***

Ron was sitting up in bed, his curtains drawn and his pajamas on. He could not stop thinking about Hermione. Last year, on this very day, he and Hermione had shared their first kiss. Of course, they were a little drunk, and they pulled away, spitting and wiping their mouths, but still... Hermione was there. And where was she now?

Probably being tortured for the five hundredth time, he thought glumly, resting his chin on his knees.

"Ron," someone whispered. Ron's head jerked up. It almost sounded like...

"Hermione?" Ron called out.

The curtains opened a smidgeon, and a form climbed through. "Shh," it hushed quietly.

"Hermione?" he repeated.

"Shh," she whispered. "It'll be all right, Ron."

Her hand reached out and took his. Their fingers intertwined.

"Hermione, we were so worried..." he whispered. A finger touched her lips.

"Shh." The whisper was close now, right in front of his face. "Have I ever told you that I love you?"

And she brought his hand to her naked breast, rubbed her nipple with it.

"Hermione?" His voice cracked as his entire body tensed at the feel of her feminine skin. She kissed him gently, then pulled down his legs so she could climb on top of him.

"Haven't you wanted this?" she whispered into his ear before licking along the edge.

"I..." he squeaked. Once again, her lips captured his, but this time, they did not pull back, and Lavender began sucking the life out of him. Ron's eyes shot open, and he began struggling, but Lavender's limbs gripped him tight.

Suddenly, the curtains flew open and a voice shouted, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

It was the only way Harry could think of to get her off of him, but Lavender pulled him up with her, holding onto him with all her strength. Harry ran to Ron and pulled him away, but still Lavender would not leg go of his mouth. Harry let out a yell, waking the other boys in the dormitory except Seamus, who had been visited by Lavender already.

Dean rubbed his eyes sleepily, but at the sight of Lavender's naked body, he woke right up, springing from his bed and pulling at Lavender's hair. She squealed against Ron's mouth. Ron's face was going pale and his eyelids drooped.

"Stupefy!" came a commanding voice from the other side of the bed. Lavender slumped where she floated. Harry grabbed Ron as he fell to the bed, gasping for breath, lips colorless and eyes glazed.

Neville stood there in his boyish pajamas and round face, chin set and countenance grim. He looked at Harry and said, "Lavender won't be the only one."

Harry blinked at this authoritative Neville, then nodded. "Dean, watch Ron. Don't take him to the infirmary. I get a feeling it's not safe right now. My scar is tingling. Voldemort's probably not here, but his followers are... probably active. Neville..." Harry paused, observing the stoic resolve in the boy's face. "Do you think that you can handle Gryffindor Tower? I'm going to fly to the Headmaster's tower and warn him."

"Then?" Dean asked.

"Then I'm going to kick some arse, of course. What do you think we've been learning for the past two and a half years?" Harry ran to his trunk and retrieved his Firebolt and Invisibility Cloak. "If Lavender even twitches, hit her again with Stupefy. Or worse. I really don't care."

"They got Seamus," Neville said.

Harry threw the cloak over himself and fastened the clasp. "Then you have to make sure they don't get anyone else. For Hogwarts."

***

The alarm had been sounded, and the castle was chaos. Draco hid in a corridor and discreetly called for a retreat. The Death Eaters, Cat's Paws, and Black Dogs began to leave, fleeing for the dark forest. Draco knew that some of Voldemort's followers were captured. He had watched Millicent fall down the stairs after Ginny Weasley performed a Boggart Curse. But Voldemort had a great number of life forces writhing in the cauldron and more than a few hostages.

Draco charmed his robes back on, and after making sure that Voldemort's followers were in the forests--those who could, anyway--he hid undercover of the chaos, keeping his head down, maneuvering through the rush of frightened children.

A fist connected squarely with Draco's jaw. His head flew back and he stumbled.

"Hermione's right," Harry's voice said. "That does feel good."

"Potter," Draco said, rubbing his chin and looking around for his enemy.

This time a solid kick planted itself into Draco's stomach.

"You know what?" Harry said. "I really don't like you."

"Why don't you fight me face-to-face like a Gryffindor?" Draco gasped. "I thought you wanted a fair fight."

"Because you fight like a Slytherin." Harry punched him on the side of his face. "And since Slytherins cheat, it's a fair fight if we don't fight fair."

"That's Slytherin logic there, Potter," Draco said, still gasping for air. But his face twisted into a ghastly smile.

"Give me a reason to hurt you really badly, because I can't kill you," Harry said. He kicked Draco in the shoulder, and Draco lost his balance. He fell to the floor onto his side.

"Your Mudblood sends her love," Draco sneered. "And she spreads her legs so easily."

Draco pointed his wand where a strangled cry was building. "Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted.

A wand appeared in midair and flew to Draco's hand while Harry stumbled back from the force of the spell. His heel caught in the cloak, and it pulled half off of him. Draco pointed his wand at the invisible remains.

"Accio cloak!"

The Invisibility Cloak flew from Harry completely and draped over Draco's arm. Harry lunged at Draco for his wand and knocked Draco onto his back. Draco managed a Redactor Charm that pushed Harry's legs upward, but Harry ad a good grip on Draco's rubes.

"She writhes so well, Potter," Draco hissed as Harry fumbled for his wand. "Her legs wrap around you so tight... And not just her legs... I wouldn't be surprised if she laid the entire Gryffindor Tower. After all, don't Head Girls have their own rooms? Have you ever been invited, Potter?"

"Shut up!" Harry screamed, forgetting about his wand altogether and pummeling Draco's face. "Where is she? Where did you take her?"

Draco nearly vomited as he choked on one of his own teeth, but he dealt a solid blow to Harry's stomach. Harry doubled over in pain and grabbed his wand and cloak through the stars in his eyes. He managed to knee Draco in the groin before Draco hexed him away. A patch of warts was growing on his nose.

"Thank the gods I didn't point at your eyes, Potter," Draco managed through gritted teeth. "But I really have to go. I have a date with a Mudblood."

He staggered away.

Harry was about to go after him, oblivious to the tears on his cheeks, when he heard a scream behind him. Shaking with frustration, Harry whirled around to help whoever it was that screamed.

That was how he found Professor Snape.

***

Draco was the last to Apparate back to the fortress. He sauntered through the ranks, mindful of his bloodied face but bound to pay his due to the Dark Lord first. He grinned at Hermione as he bowed before his lord. Hermione's eyes glowed lucidly, which meant that she was temporarily back in reality.

Voldemort bid him rise. Draco forced himself to not blink as Voldemort stared at him with his unnervingly serpentine eyes. Finally, the Dark Lord gave a grim smile.

"You have done well, Draco, played on your rivalry, and still managed to leave the Potter boy for me." Voldemort let his fingers slide against Draco's blood-dripped chin. He brought his fingers to the lips of Hermione and pressed the blood into her mouth. She knew not to resist.

When he felt her mouth had been violated enough, Voldemort removed his fingers and took his wand in hand. With a few words, Draco's face had healed to its original state. Draco bowed again in gratitude, then walked back into the ranks. He felt no shame for the blood still staining his face. Lucius, who stood next to him, put a hand on his shoulder in pride.

"How many have we lost?" Voldemort called out to his returned followers. It turned out that only Millicent, Lavender, and a young Slytherin had been left behind: a Death Eater and two Cat's Paws. Voldemort did not spend too much time mourning their loss. Their initiation into the field of duty led to their demise--they were unworthy. But he had what he wanted.

He got to his feet, approaching the cauldron with a half-smile on his face. His hand grasped the apple wood spoon gently, and he stirred forty times in a counterclockwise motion before summoning an old Black Dog named Leonard Reuben to bottle the resulting potion for him and his Death Eaters. Reuben bowed and Levitated the cauldron to the laboratory.

As Voldemort turned to return to his seat, he snapped his fingers. "Bring your leftovers," he commanded imperiously, and just as he sat back down, his Black Dogs and Cat's Paws dispersed. The elder Crabbe and Goyle threw five bound Hogwarts students to the center of the Death Eater circle.

Hermione stiffened, mind all too clear. Padma and Parvati Patil were in the front, and Terry Boot toppled over them. They were closely followed by Harriet Bolger, a Hufflepuff first-year, and Darla Ferris, a second-year Ravenclaw. The twins were gagged as well, but although their faces were painted with fear, their eyes flashed in anger.

Hermione stood, her weakened limbs shaking. When the five saw her, their eyes widened. Harriet and Darla ran to her and threw themselves to the Head Girl. Hermione let them huddle close and put her arms around them, but stared at the twins and Terry. But not before the Dark Mark on her arm flashed at them. Quietly, she shook her head against the looks of hurt and betrayal they were giving her. Tears trailed sluggishly down her cheeks.

"Hello, children," Voldemort said. Harriet and Darla squeaked and ran back to the seventh years. Voldemort curved his lips in an awful smile. "We are honored by the presence of some of the original members of Dumbledore's Army. My Death Eaters, show them proper respect."

The Death Eaters laughed and sent mild spells in short painful bursts. The children did well. The third year of the DA, Hermione and Harry had reluctantly told them they would have to experience at least some of the milder curses to learn how to handle the pain, if not resist it. Padma and Terry shut their eyes.

"Crucio," Voldemort added, almost lazily.

Terry screamed. His eyes flew open and rolled around in his head as he jerked and twitched on the floor. Hermione tensed when those eyes seemed to look on hers. She sat down next to Voldemort's throne, grasping the stair. The four others stared at Terry with their horror clearly etched on their faces. The two youngest crawled to Padma and Parvati, mouths gaping in fear-inspired awe, but then they flung themselves at Voldemort.

The Dark Lord smiled, which made Darla and Harriet falter just long enough for Avery and Nott to step forward. Their intentions were clear by the way they dug their fingers into the flesh of the girls' arms and in the way that they looked at the still childish bodies.

"Time to play," Avery said, twisting a hand into Darla's hair.

Hermione half-stood. "No," she whispered.

One look from Voldemort made her sit back down. But then she said more loudly, "You're sick."

Avery smirked salaciously at Hermione. "Of course. That's why the Dark Lord gives us the expendable ones. There are an awful lot of them, and Nott and I might as well use a little of our 'insatiable' appetite for the cause. I've heard you've had your own exploits with Lucius and Wormtail."

Hermione tried to ignore the reminder. "They're children."

"They scream louder. And they taste better," Nott said. Harriet yelped as Nott pinched her bottom, and she began struggling in earnest as Nott pulled her out the room. Avery followed, saluting Hermione mockingly. Hermione wanted to forget the sound of Darla's screams.

Hermione only had time to register that Terry's screams had stopped before Voldemort backhanded her. She twisted around with the force of the blow and braced her fall by clinging to the throne arm.

"And you were doing so well," he said.

She made sure Terry was all right before she turned her attention back to Voldemort. Only to find his wand in her face.

"Sanguinante," Voldemort murmured. "Tractuminus."

The sound that came out of Hermione's mouth was an unrestrained, unmitigated expression of pain that cannot even be called a scream. The Bloodbath Curse was only effective because of the integration of the Hemorrhage Curse. Her raging, boiling blood strained against its thin confines, erupting in small bruises across her body.

Hermione did not know how long Voldemort kept her under the curse, but she was black and blue and sore all inside. Small hemorrhages threatened to hurt her in a more permanent way, but Voldemort quickly cast an all-purpose Healing Charm that did away with most of the damage. The rest was cured by a potion that Rabastan brought him. The man was an adequate potions maker and was the only Death Eater besides Voldemort himself who understood the codes and riddles left behind in Snape's abandoned laboratory.

"I repeat," Voldemort said slowly, "you were doing so well."

For the first time since the initiation, Hermione's eyes looked directly with Voldemort's.

"You said it yourself," Hermione replied, "I only had two parents. And you already killed them."

Voldemort was silent, staring at Hermione, a fully lucid and functional Hermione. He clenched his teeth in frustration.

"True," he said tightly.

But then he turned his head and pointed his wand at Terry. "Stupefy." Terry slumped to the floor, open eyes glazed and accusing.

"But you still have plenty of friends," Voldemort concluded. "Bella, Rodolphus, MacNair."

The Death Eaters broke from the circle and stood before their lord.

"Take the girls and extract all the information you can from them. Can you make it quick?"

The three, renowned for their torture techniques, shared looked of glee before assenting.

"Don't kill them. Draco..." The young Death Eater gave Voldemort a grin. "You kill them. Their power is necessary before we drink the potion."

Hermione flinched as she watched Padma and Parvati being dragged by their beautiful hair out of the throne room. She almost ran after them, but Voldemort jabbed his wand back at Terry in a warning.

"What do you even care anymore?" Hermione asked despairingly. "Why do you preoccupy yourself with keeping me... like this? Why don't you just kill me and be done with it?"

"And lose the thrill of a challenge finally worthy of Lord Voldemort?" the Dark Lord said. "No, as annoyingly resilient as you are, you still have your uses. Enervate."

Terry blinked, conscious again. He struggled to his knees.

"Stay here," Voldemort ordered her. Just to make sure, he spell-shackled her to the throne, then approached Terry.

"Well," he murmured as he circled the boy, "let's see what is in your head. Legilimens."

Pictures flooded Voldemort's head, a virtual flood with the boy's stress levels. It took the Dark Lord little effort to establish a good grip on the slippery nuances of Terry's thoughts. He focused the slew of memories on the DA.

Then he paused. Something from the near beginning. The Room of Requirement. That would be useful for future followers as well as an asset during an attack. But something else was there. A presence and an emotion. Admiration? For whom?

"Hermione," Voldemort whispered. He solidified the specific memory and watched it play, taking note of how the boy felt and what he saw.

He withdrew and raised an eyebrow at Hermione's bound form. "Clever, the spell on the Galleons. A variation on my Signa Separate spell, I assume."

Hermione nodded.

"Interesting," Voldemort mused before returning to the memory. On a whim, he categorized Terry's memories according to his thoughts about Hermione. He sensed Terry fight back and smiled inwardly as he saw why. Naughty Terry sneaked into the prefect girls' bath and watched Hermione undress--an event that caused an astonishing spurt of erotic fantasies. And a few dates that led absolutely nowhere.

"Fond of her, were you?" Voldemort muttered, finally disengaging himself fully from the adolescent mind. Terry was blushing after having to relive his most private and personal moments and thoughts, knowing that the Dark Lord had access to them. "And was she fond of you?"

"Yes, I was," Hermione answered for Terry. "But not that kind of 'fond.' Which was why we broke up." She knew what Voldemort had found--at least, she thought she did.

"Why you broke up with him," Voldemort corrected. "But nonetheless, you are fond of him... even now."

"You're going to kill him anyway," Hermione said. She tried to reassure Terry with her eyes. "We talked about that in the DA."

"Martyrdom's poetic," Voldemort sneered, "but he'll be dead nonetheless. Or will he be?" He whipped around, taking the boy's chin in his hand. "Tell me, boy, are you afraid to die?"

Terry nodded. The overwhelming shock at seeing Voldemort's strangeness so close made him dizzy as his head moved.

Voldemort released the boy's face and straightened. "Thank you for your useful bits of information, but sadly, I don't need you anymore; the potion will have reached its limit after the girls' power is taken, and my other Death Eaters need a little sport. Wormtail, do you feel like you can do something with this one?"

Wormtail looked up, mask off and bewildered, but also resigned.

"No, my lord," he said. "I don't think so."

The Dark Lord stiffened, white face turning to stone.

"This is the fifth opportunity you have turned down, Wormtail. I told you that your work was to improve."

"I've slit the throats of some of the prisoners, my lord," Wormtail replied, head bowed.

"Hardly an improvement," Voldemort said, stepping toward Wormtail. The movement was not human--it was almost as if his upper body worked independently of his lower body. He seemed to glide... or slide, like a serpent, across the floor.

"Wormtail always had a weak stomach," Tanner sneered. "Never played our Death Eater games properly, now, did he?"

"He's not even worth calling a Death Eater," Lucius added. "He doesn't do anything."

"Is conditioning in order?" Voldemort continued, as though he had not heard the others.

"No, no, please," Wormtail begged, eyes widening when he realized what he had started.

"I don't think that will work," Lucius said coolly. "He's gone through it twice already, the poor excuse for a wizard. If he hadn't have given you Potter and his wife, he never would have even made Black Dog."

Voldemort fingered his wand as he came ever nearer to the cowering Wormtail.

"You have to learn," Voldemort said, "that it takes more than breaking Fidelius to be a Death Eater. I think it's high time you really knew." He raised his wand and lazily cast Cruciatus.

Hermione jerked against her chains at the high-pitched sound of Wormtail's torture. He sounded like a rat caught in barbed wire.

Wormtail gasped for breath against the rasp of nails in his lungs when the spell was lifted.

O'Reilly, a young jinx-healer from St. Mungo's, laughed and threw a curse at Wormtail's quivering form. Morag MacDougal followed suit, and soon all attention had turned from Terry to the pitiful rat, a grown man quivering from the antagonism and curses and self-loathing.

"Enough," Voldemort finally said, the ghost of a smile shifting his face into something nearly hideous. "Now, Wormtail, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Wormtail wiped his robes across his eyes and under his nose before pushing his shaking self to his knees.

"Bastards," he whispered. And suddenly the entire throne room was utterly silent.

"What... did you say?" Voldemort said. A smarter man would have quelled beneath the furnace of his glare.

Wormtail, however, stared straight into his master's face.

"I said 'bastards,'" Wormtail repeated. His round, weak face was set. "I did get you to the Potters, which is more than anyone else could have done. I handed their boy to you on a silver platter. Maybe that was truly all I was good for, even among my friends. I was the unlikely one; no one would guess poor Peter, whose Animagus was a filthy rat, was entrusted with something as great as the Fidelius."

Wormtail looked down where his hands were fidgeting. "I gave up everything I ever wanted for you, my lord. Even as pathetic as I was and am, I could have been happy just trailing in my friends' shadows. But I chose you. Then you... disappeared. I knew Sirius would come after me, and then I had to disappear. I had to be someone's useless pet until my old friends found me again. So what if I had been hiding. None of you did any better, claiming you were under Imperius or paying off Ministry officials or giving names.

"And I then I found our master." Wormtail's gaze returned to Voldemort. "Yes, I was cowardly. I stumbled across you, and I was afraid. But I could have killed the snake you possessed. I could have run. I could have killed myself. And I didn't, which again is more than most of your Death Eaters would have done.

"I nursed you back to health, brewed the potion to give you physical form, brought you Bertha Jorkins, sliced off my hand for your body. Sat there while you gloated before the Potter boy before you gave me this hand." He held it in front of his face, watching the play of light. "It is a beautiful hand, my lord. For a moment, I thought I had some sort of value in your eyes.

"My lord, I was not made to torture. Yes, I have a weak stomach and no backbone. I can't watch while they yell and plead, I can't watch them bleeding, I can't think of any spells to contribute to the play...

"I'm incompetent. I'm talentless. I don't know too much. I can't do more than half of the things you ask me to do... But I have been useful. I can transfigure. I am an Animagus. I could spy, network with the other rats, use this awful animal I become. And before any of you laugh at me again, remember that I'm the one with the silver hand."

Wormtail closed his mouth, cradling his stronger hand near his stomach. The spark of confidence that sustained him during his monologue flickered and died.

"Well," Voldemort said slowly. Wormtail flinched. The silence continued, suffocating, tightening, like steel.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a sharp crack that echoed in the ears of all in the throne room. Another crack, and another, until everyone realized that Voldemort, the Dark Lord, was clapping. A murmur sprang to complement the sharpness of the applause.

"My lord?" Lucius asked. Voldemort's face was so unreadable that he could not tell whether his master was mocking or serious.

"And I thought that the Sorting Hat misplaced you," Voldemort said. "All this time, and it took you twenty five years to show it. And it's about time." Voldemort smiled. "I thought you would be meek and boring and inept for the rest of your service. I'm glad that in this case, I was wrong. After all, I'm not a Seer, and I'm bound to make one mistake."

The Death Eaters were stunned.

"Only the Death Eaters who underwent thirteen years in Azkaban or died in my good graces would have done what Wormtail did. He bumbled through, but he did it nonetheless, even though he despised and despises me. That even I know, Wormtail."

Wormtail's fear-filled countenance appealed silently to the Dark Lord.

"Well done," Voldemort said.

Getting to his feet, Wormtail's eyes widened at the praise. He looked as though he could not believe that the words had come from his master's mouth. Where were the curses for insubordination? Where was conditioning?

Voldemort pointed his wand not at Wormtail, but at Hermione. He unlatched the chain from the throne and set Imperius.

"Come here, Hermione," Voldemort murmured. His fingers closed around the end of the chain.

Then he handed the chain to Wormtail, lifting Imperius. Hermione pulled against the man who now held her, but his silver hand held her fast.

"My other Death Eaters will deal with the boy. I've been waiting for you to protest, waiting for you to finally prove your title as my Death Eater." Voldemort stroked Hermione's hair. "And now you have. Unfortunately, I cannot lend you my own quarters for the night, so you will have to escort Hermione to your own. Just don't underestimate her, and you can enjoy her for the next thirty hours. At the end of those thirty hours, you will bring her to me in my chambers, and I will give you your portion of the Sanguinarian Strengthening Solution. I hope that's not difficult for you. After all, Lord Voldemort rewards those who are faithful to him."

Voldemort's grip on Hermione's hair tightened, tugging at the base of the strands near her neck. It was not painful, but it made Voldemort's presence invasive to the edge of her mind.

"Your punishment and Wormtail's reward. And don't worry. Your boyfriend's death will be relatively quick... compared to what is happening up here." His fingers massaged the back of her head as emphasis. Then he released her to Wormtail's whim.

"Have a lovely night," Voldemort said to Hermione as Wormtail led her backward by the chain out of the room.