Abyss

Chapter 15

Over the next three weeks, she slept with her head on the work table, she went to the bathroom, she paced, she ate, but she determinedly did not translate Professor Snape's writings. At least, that's what she told herself when she looked over the letters without writing down notes on cryptograms and other sorts of codes. Sometimes she found herself too close to figuring one part of the code, and she would close the book to shut away the temptation to exercise her straining mind. If she were at Hogwarts, she would have jumped at the task, would have consumed every letter, welcomed the challenge that the works of Professor Snape might give her. After all, his logic puzzle in her first year was, objectively, fun to answer.

When she thought she would spontaneously grab the quill and begin writing in pent up frustration, she sat under the table and clasped her legs to her chest. She fingered the teeth on the leather bracelet. She had replaced her talismans, comfortable with their old familiarity on her skin despite the connotation the Dark Lord had set upon them.

Hermione leaned against the table leg. Voldemort's blunt statements still echoed in her head. That she wasn't a Gryffindor anymore. That she had betrayed Harry and Ron and the Order by not telling them what she was doing, even though she was working with rather than against them. That the Dark Arts had taken hold of her, and she would have joined him willingly in the end--the Mark would not have been forced in the future. This last bit made her shiver the most. She was vulnerable to the Dark Arts. She did not necessarily believe that she would have prostrated herself before the Dark Lord, begging him to let her become his total and unbending servant just because she dabbled in the Arts, but... Her mother had once told her that her heart was open, innocent, and receptive. Voldemort was right when he said that she had not respected the Arts. To her, they had been something new to learn and manipulate to her own ends, not something that had its own invisible form or will to dominate. Despite the warnings, despite all the examples of those who had fallen under the influence of the Arts...

Hermione wrinkled her nose. She had hated it when Lupin or Professor Dumbledore threw them in her face, Snape, Draco, Voldemort. She had told herself she would be careful, study the Dark Arts only in a countering capacity; she couldn't possibly end up like them.

"But the power you would find--the ability to manipulate a being or state through sheer will--would intoxicate you; you would grow addicted to the heady sensation of control--a feeling that I think you've already experienced with Wormtail, no?"

She remembered the look on his face when she had the power. She remembered the sounds he made, the frantic pants, groans, even the shouts when she played him. She remembered the swell of superiority. And she knew that if she were thrown into his bed again, she would not lie there passively--she would have to have control again, she would make him writhe, knowing that she made him rather than just have him take her.

Not just Wormtail, though. She could not say that her escapades into the Forbidden Forest, or Knockturn Alley, or sneaking through Snape's stores or the Defense professor's office, had left her cold and emotionless. Her heart had quickened, and she had become dizzy with anticipation. She told herself it was just nerves--at any moment she could be caught--but what she could not admit to herself was that the adrenaline rush made her more than just nervous. When she was safe in her room--in the sixth-year dorm or the Head Girl chambers--she would breathe a sigh of relief, and the high would last for about an hour. Harry once caught her when she came in with a huge grin on her face, and he commented that it must have been a pretty good snog, and he wouldn't ask about it just in case Ron asked him where she was that night. Hermione only grinned more, the thrill of being caught almost better than the relief of not being caught.

Hermione closed her eyes, her fingers still playing with the snake fangs, and she tried to shut out evidence of the Dark Arts' supremacy. Still, Snape's snarling face superimposed itself on her blank slate, and she shivered. Lupin had told her Snape was the Order's Dark Arts researcher because he had already fallen to them. That Lupin and Voldemort were in agreement told her that what she had considered Snape's immunity was not immunity at all--unless she wanted to call already having the sickness immunity. He was not redeemed--only moderated, the beast held in check. She wondered if Lupin was considered to be under the Dark Arts, if his beast had to be fought all the time.

As a response to her depressing turn of thoughts, her mind leapt from Snape's darkness to his writings.

No, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to translate. This is exactly what he wants me to do. And if Voldemort wants it, no matter what he says, it's not something I'm going to do. I couldn't betray...

Which led her guilty train of thought in a full circle. She did not even catch herself as her hand drifted down her arm to rub her Dark Mark.

Without warning, the first page of SS's Writings surfaced in her mind, clear as if she could see it right in front of her.

hr hj nfhrtcngtj, cbpjrvyjnt, cjrylj, jmpyng gptgrd hh gppjnp phn hyp hhk nd y hmj ryck f gtj npcrgmbljp y grjfclly hnptrcctjd hdj, Y gnt h gy jrj nd hw hgt y hygltyjp, cpt ykj hcrp, gvj jvjr jglly jjn hr hj grk hrd. jw f yp hllhwjrp jglly hllhw ym n hjyr hhcghtp--hjrj rj g jw, nd hpt rj jgth gtjrp. hjyr hygltyjp rj hr hjmpjlvjp nd hjmpjlvjp lhnj. Y, n hj thjr gnd, jrvj h nj, nclcdyng ypjlf. Y gvj h hygltyjp. Y hcld gvj yjd g jgr ftjr y jrvycj yth hj grk hrd, ct y gmnjd hnhr h j hh Y rcly jtrgyjd, hh Y jlyjvj jtrgyjd j n y hcr f jjd, jpt j lyvj, h Y ctjd p py hr ym. jp, g jgr nth hj grk hrd'p jrvycj, Y jtrgyjd ym, ct j yd ht ppjgl h y hnhr nd Y jlt h jmhrpj. Y jjl h jnpj f hyglty h lbcp cmbljdhrj, ct Y tyll wj ym y hnhr.

ftjr hc jgd hyp, Y yll j hndjmnjd r gvj jjn hndjmnjd, nd hnj f hjpj hrdp yll gttjr. f t p jvjr jgd, hjn y hhcghtp rj y wn, rjj, nfjttjrjd, nd Y jjl h jjd h ydj hjm n y jgd. hgt hllhwp p nrjptrgynjd y ychphgncy r crcpljp, gmblyngp hr hptjryty hpjfclly n hj gr ctcrj hjn hj grk hrd gp jjn hnqcjrjd nd yp gmj p h hngjr jgrjd, ct pjd nfrjqcjntly n ypthry jxtp. vjn g gn ythhct hpj gn rjgm.

S.S.

The 'Y's were clearly 'I's, and the vowels were obviously replaced with the consonants that kept repeating themselves, but sometimes the solitary letters just didn't make sense...

Down, Hermione.

She was pathetic. She knew it. Pathetic. A pathetic little rat, a snake in the grass, all those lovely, traitorous metaphors. She could loll listlessly at the foot of Voldemort's bed and memorize the Greek key designs and each snifter of brandy--by smell, no less--but she could not sit in Professor Snape's private laboratory with a book open and keening for attention without giving in. Surely she was not that weak. Surely...

Were there letters missing?

Hermione. Stop it.

The consonants that replaced the vowels were common themselves. Which were the replacements and which were the originals?

Hermione Jane Granger!

She jumped as her nail raked against the Dark Mark, pinching at the skin and drawing blood. It was tingling, but not burning, not an indescribable, insistent burning like she had seen with the other Death Eaters. It startled her, and she hated to think of herself in the same category as the Death Eaters.

When they see your Mark, they're going to kill you.

Those were not Voldemort's words, they were her own. She touched the Mark, watching as the red faded back to its traditional black. It had not done that before, so Hermione knew Voldemort reminded her of her binding to him on purpose. Maybe he did it to rouse her Gryffindor righteous ire. She laughed mockingly at herself.

What makes you think that after all of this, anything is going to get better? They'll assume the worst, you know it.

But someone always believed her. When Ron got in a snit with her regarding Crookshanks, Harry supported her. Okay, maybe he did not believe her quite so much, but at least he did not tell her that he didn't believe her. And Ron was such a good friend while Harry was being a prat in fifth year--sure, they argued a lot, but nothing was wrong with a little arguing, even if it had annoyed Harry. She wished she could be arguing with Ron over something stupid right now instead of contemplating how to betray her friends. She couldn't do this to Harry. Wait, strike Harry, she couldn't do this to Snape. He had clearly wanted to hide his thoughts.

Or... had he?

If so, why would he keep the book in the laboratory? He knew Voldemort's abilities. If Hermione was deciphering the code without even trying, Voldemort could probably do it just as easily. Why keep a book where Voldemort could find it?

Unless he wanted it to be found at the right time.

The idea was so big in comparison to everything that she had just been thinking that she climbed out from under the table, opened his book, and looked at the page. She looked on the next page to compare the two, and there seemed to be a division of writing style. The former was introductory, more casual, while the pages following it had lists and numbers and the writing was cramped, like hers when she wanted to fit everything into a confined essay. Therefore, the introduction would likely have no information from which Voldemort could profit.

She would translate this page--no others--and she would not write down the code, only the translated words. Which led to the dilemma of the code.

As she stared at the letters, she began to substitute vowels where they looked like they belonged: an 'a' here, an 'e' there, let's see how that works. And in less than thirty minutes, she cracked the code. Snape had to have intentionally made it this easy--it had to be this easy on purpose. If not... Hermione felt a blush creep up her face. She wondered if he had intentionally made the potions logic puzzle easy as well. Or maybe she just... Voldemort just... she never really thought about being smart before, but she had always thought that Snape was clever--if lacking in social graces--and had dismissed any idea that the talents she had were any more than learning how to crack open a book, a skill that so many people failed to accomplish.

She really hoped that the code was supposed to be that easy.

She wrote out Professor Snape's words in the blank book, mentally adding letters where they were needed. She tried not to think about what they said until it was finished.

What she read made her color again, but she felt better now that she knew the introduction had nothing of interest to the Dark Lord. There, in Snape's hand, was an introductory confession of sorts.

For the unfortunate, subservient, puerile, temping bastard who happens upon this book and by some trick of fate unscrambles my carefully constructed code, I want to say here and now that my loyalties, just like yours, have never really been for the Dark Lord. Few of his followers really follow him in their thoughts--there are a few, and most are Death Eaters. Their loyalties are for themselves and themselves alone. I, on the other hand, serve no one, including myself. I have no loyalties. I would have died a year after my service with the Dark Lord, but my damned honor to he who I truly betrayed, who I believe betrayed me in my hour of need, kept me alive, so I acted as spy for him. Yes, a year into the Dark Lord's service, I betrayed him, but he did not appeal to my honor and I felt no remorse. I feel no sense of loyalty to Albus Dumbledore, but I still owe him my honor.

After you read this, I will be condemned or have been condemned, and none of these words will matter. If it is never read, then my thoughts are my own, free, unfettered, and I feel no need to hide them in my head. What follows is unrestrained by sycophancy or scruples, ramblings for posterity hopefully in the far future when the Dark Lord has been conquered and his name is no longer feared, but used infrequently in history texts. Even a man without hope can dream.

S.S.

His first line cut her straight to the quick. Once again, she thought, she was pathetic. And she would not go a single line further.

She slammed Professor Snape's book shut and hid under the table, rubbing her Dark Mark.

---

"Well, well, well, if the little Mudblood hasn't done her homework," the voice said in her ear. Hermione's eyes opened. She did not know when she fell asleep.

"Malfoy," she replied, trying to swallow the taste of sleep from her mouth.

"Almost wish that I could still go back to Hogwarts so I could tell Potter just what a bad girl you've been," Draco continued.

"And I almost wish I was back in third year so that I could hit you properly--so that you didn't get up again," Hermione groaned, trying to stand against the tide of dizziness. She moved so quickly that her head hit the table, and she fell back to the floor.

Draco's laughter was far too loud. Hermione bit back a few choice phrases as she brought her hand to the bump that was growing on the top of her skull. This time, she gingerly made her way out from under the table, checking her balance as she went. She did not seem unduly disoriented, so she waited for the room to stop tilting. She was startled when Draco reached out a hand to steady her. She wrenched away and leaned against the table, holding her head.

"I was just trying to help."

Hermione coughed out something that could have been a laugh. "You, help me? I thought I was just a Mudblood. I thought I was just friends with Harry. I thought I had no purpose except to further the Dark Lord's evil plot. If you really want to help me, you can undo the shackles, retrieve my wand, and help me get out of range of the fortress so that I can Apparate back home. But for some odd reason, I don't think you're going to do that. So don't talk about helping me."

"You're quite welcome, Granger, for keeping your cat alive, healthy, and happy. It was my pleasure, really." He was satisfied when she shot him a glare but did not respond. "Let me help you."

"I'd rather kiss a snake."

"And apparently, you've done so. Within Hogwarts walls with the Dark Lord posing as my snake, no less. Now sit down and shut up."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. The room had stopped spinning, and she could look straight at him. "Last time I checked, Malfoy, I was the Head Girl. It doesn't matter where I am, I'm still your superior."

He sneered. "You've never been superior, Granger. It doesn't matter how many titles you've received, from Head Girl to bitch, you've never been better than me."

"I may be the Dark Lord's pet, Malfoy, but I'll always be better than you. Even at my lowest, I've more than twice your magic."

Draco raised his own eyebrow. "So that's why you've done exactly what the Dark Lord told you to do."

Hermione faltered, then retorted feebly, "You do no less."

"But at least I admit it. And at least no one expects anything different." His voice became slightly bitter. "At least with you they'll be surprised."

Hermione became concerned. Was he not pleased that he was a Death Eater? Isn't that what he had been working toward all his life? "You could always prove them wrong, you know," she said.

He snorted. "Yeah, right. And turn out like you?"

No, he was unredeemable. Pity. Just as pathetic as she was.

"Why'd you come, Malfoy?" she asked wearily, sitting down in the chair.

"Our lord asked me nicely and politely to see your progress," he replied, looking over her shoulder at the translated page.

After reading it, he looked at her and grinned. "Well, the son of a bitch got the first part right, Granger. How does it make you feel to know you've done the Dark Lord's dirty work?"

"Like shit. Get out." She closed the translating book and glared at Draco. He was not fazed. She supposed being chained took some of the menace out of her position. But she was telling the truth when she told him how badly she felt now.

"No," Draco said, nonchalant as he approached Snape's bookshelves. "I'd rather stay and taunt you a bit."

"You and every other Death Eater," Hermione muttered. To Draco, she said, "I'm not going to listen to you, you know."

"Yeah, you've never listened, have you, Mudblood? It didn't affect you at all when I first called you that in our second year, when you could have finally appreciated how low you really were, when you could have finally realized that book knowledge doesn't have any stake in blood."

"No kidding. Otherwise Crabbe and Goyle would be smart."

"Proving yourself to be the chirpy little beaver doesn't replace blood, Granger," Draco said. "You can try to be a real witch. You can learn everything that a book can tell you, but you can't learn how to hold yourself according to real magicking standards."

"What is it about blood that makes it so important?" Hermione yelled. "You've been heckling me for the past seven years because of blood. Other people are called 'blood traitor' just because they're associated with me. I can't go anywhere in Muggle clothes without the name 'Mudblood' being whispered behind my back--and plenty of purebloods go around in Muggle clothes, but somehow they know that I'm not. Why--with your utter lack of personality, intelligence, character, charisma, beauty, grace, and I wish I could say style, but you've got great style--are you better than me just because you were born? Even the Dark Lord that you've bound yourself to is half-blood."

Draco was tense, stiff as a puppet. He turned to face her, but his knuckles were still white from clenching his fingers against the shelf so tightly. "He knew to purify his blood--every element of Muggle blood has been siphoned from his body and destroyed--all that's left is the blood of Salazar Slytherin. But he also knows that when a child is born into a family that has pure blood, that child knows his own power, has been surrounded by it for so long that he is a part of it. Muggle-borns and half-bloods are always tainted with some sort of Muggle ideology that you can't get rid of. A pureblood child knows to let his power grow naturally, instead of forcing it into a synthetic package. A pureblood child knows that you can't learn magic. You can perfect your swish-and-flick and your pronunciation, and the spell can work perfectly, but the magic will only do what it needs to do. It has no grace. It's mechanical. I know that magic is something to be caressed, molded, cajoled into a semi-sentient form. Even the least talented wizard feels his way through what he can do. You've got the magic, Granger, I'm not saying you don't. You wouldn't be able to swish-and-flick your way through Hogwarts legend if you didn't. But you don't really know your magic. And you never can."

Hermione just looked at him for a while. He was serious. He was not being insulting or derogatory. He was serious. When he looked back at her, his pale gray eyes were solemn, pensive, not condescending. Maybe the Dark Lord had told him to be nice, but Hermione felt that maybe what he said was not the part of some speech Voldemort had given him. This was Draco. Not the Malfoy of Hogwarts, but Draco.

"You know," Hermione finally said. "I'm glad I didn't say anything about your eloquence, because if you haven't got that in spades, you've got enough to render me speechless for a few minutes."

"What a miracle," Draco mumbled, rolling his eyes.

"But," she continued, "it's just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."

He sneered. "Of course you'd think so, you're a Mudblood..."

"Oh, don't revert back to the name-calling, Malfoy, you were just getting interesting," Hermione said, smiling sweetly. "The point is: you have no basis for comparison. How do you know I haven't any understanding of what my magic is? What makes you think you have the slightest clue that I understand magic differently from you? Sure, I read books, but I just like to know things--I like to have all the background I can so that I can understand what I'm feeling, not to recreate what's supposed to be there. I like to know theory so that I can create magic in other ways. How do you think new charms are made? You think a wizard just feels it? No, the wizard wants to change something, then feels his way through intelligent research. All our professors at Hogwarts know that, otherwise they'd only teach us the practical and let us understand the theory through osmosis. It's just... who told you that Muggleborns didn't understand? Your father?"

"Yes."

"The Dark Lord?"

"Yes."

"How would they know? How could they possibly comprehend every single Muggle-born and half-blood's psyche just by the basis of their own? And your father's a bloody pureblood, how can he know how a Muggleborn feels her magic?"

"Careful how you talk about my father," Draco said.

"Grow up, Malfoy," Hermione snapped. "I'll talk about your father however I like."

"What gives you the..."

"Does performing fellatio give me the right?"

Draco fell silent, digesting the idea, slightly shocked that his father would have done something like that with someone he actually knew, albeit loathed. "Our lord's idea?"

"Both he and Lucius agreed that Lucius should break me. It didn't work," Hermione replied.

"Don't call my father by his name."

"He asked... pardon, commanded me to call him by his first name."

Draco grinned. "Bet he wanted you to call his name out when he came."

Hermione's shoulders lifted compulsively, as though trying to shrug off the memory. "No," she said and looked away. "He did it because I'm the Dark Lord's, not his."

Draco jumped onto Snape's desk. "You really got into some deep shit, didn't you, Granger? Who would have ever thought you'd turn into our lord's pet? It has certain poetic justice, don't you think?"

"I may be his pet, but he's not my lord," Hermione muttered, retreating back under the table.

Hermione could hear Draco's boots against the floor, walking toward her. She jumped as the blank book hit the ground in front of her. Draco crouched down and opened it to the first page, where the translation of Snape's introduction was written in her neat hand.

"Isn't he?" Draco said. Hermione could not say anything. He gave her a knowing smile and stood.

"I'll make your cat purr for you, Hermione," he called on his way out. "By the way, Snape's robes look stunning on you. He'd probably think it was kinky. And if he'd kissed you like I did before the Dark Lord had to take you away, he'd probably been in his rooms, trying to punish himself for even thinking about it."

Hermione repressed the urge to start shaking, and when she was sure he was gone, she crawled out with the book in her hands. She rubbed her wrists where the shackles weighed heavy on the delicate bones. She stared at the two books.

Then Hermione opened Snape's writings and her own book and began to translate. She was pathetic, but she wasn't fooling anyone.

---

She was a quarter of the way through the books. Snape's notes were fascinating to say the least. From personal anecdotes and musings to potions notes, Snape managed to inject every bit of his acerbic wit and dry eloquence into every sentence. It was almost as though his acid tongue that she had heard so often in potions class was burning accusingly through her brain, as though he knew what she was doing. And from the way he acted before the recruit initiation, she guessed that he did.

But when her guilt was not tying her stomach into knots, she lost herself in his observations as the words decrypted themselves before her eyes, as though the code melted away into clarity. Sometimes, she even laughed when he mentioned his frustration with Neville--frustration so keen that he felt it cathartic to write it down in a book dedicated for more important matters. He wrote very little about the Dark Lord--perhaps he knew that he ought to preserve some semblance of loyalty if his death was going to be quicker and less painful. However, he wrote one paragraph devoted to his former master:

hj grk hrd p ht gd. t p hh gpy h ypmypp yp gdnjpp hr jyng gd, ct j p hh grjfcl, hh cnnyng. nd j p gr hh hwjrfcl h gptj yp gljntp h jyng gd. t p ypyllcpyhnyng hjn yp gdnjpp ll hh ftjn hrkp.

The Dark Lord is not mad. It is too easy to dismiss his madness for being mad, but he is too careful, too cunning. And he is far too powerful to waste his talents to being mad. It is disillusioning when his madness all too often works.

"Severus always was one to be rational," Voldemort said.

Hermione jumped, causing an ink spot to form after her period.

He leaned against the table and looked down at her, as casual as if she were only writing in her own diary rather than fulfilling his wishes, rather than acting the traitor, however small the act was.

"Even when he agreed with my plans, I could sense his doubt. It always irritated him that my instincts were correct. For all his instincts with a cauldron, he could never seem to trust his instinct in reality." He looked back down at the parchment page over which her quill was poised. "I have other tasks for you after you've finished this one."

He stroked the edge of the page with one white finger, drawing her eyes to him as he withdrew, brushing slightly against the fabric that covered her Dark Mark. She twitched.

The scarlet of his eyes darkened as she lifted her head to look at him, defiant in her betrayal.

He smiled. "Well done."