Abyss

Chapter 17

Voldemort had predicted his Death Eaters' reactions perfectly. The minute he told them that he was letting Hermione go, the room rumbled with protests, sneers, exclamations regarding his insanity, and aspersions on Hermione's parentage, character, and occupation. Wormtail looked shattered. The only people in the room who did not comment on Voldemort's idea were the young Death Eaters who had been initiated only a few months before, those who knew Hermione better than the supercilious Death Eaters who had only seen her as the Dark Lord's bitch.

Lucius was the first Death Eater to see the smirk on the youths faces. MacNair, who was standing next to him, was laughing like Voldemort had lost his mind. Lucius elbowed the other Death Eater's ribs and nodded at his son.

Then Lucius broke ranks, causing even the most distain-ridden Death Eater to turn and see what the man was doing. Draco's smile grew. Voldemort looked at him through one eye, his pleasure evident in the set of his mouth.

"None of you know Granger," Draco said, bowing his head to show respect to his master. "You are foolish to contradict our lord's plan, if only in words." He fell to his knees and offered his palms to the Dark Lord in submission. "How could you doubt him after he has spent so much time with the Mudblood? I was at Hogwarts when Dumbledore's Order was preoccupied with the girl. I heard speculations among the other students, and I heard the rumors, some vicious, some optimistic. Most thought she was dead. If she were to go back... Our lord knows what he is doing." Draco inclined his head, once again catching Voldemort's eye. "I support his plan."

The murmuring continued, but the tone was more agreeable after the explanation, more subdued, more frightened.

"From the lips of a child," Voldemort murmured, climbing down the steps that separated him from the Death Eaters. He drew his wand and held it over Draco's open hands. "Strange how one of the youngest of my trusted Death Eaters had to enlighten you. You have a perceptive son, Lucius." Voldemort's eyes darted to the elder Malfoy. "I wish you had shown the prudence to exercise your own perception instead of focusing too heartily on blood when we have a chance at striking another real blow--with a Mudblood, but with a Mudblood who received more O.W.L.s than your son, just as this once-half-blood did, as I recall."

Lucius, while rankled by the Dark Lord's intentional insult and less than subtle challenge, accepted his chastisement. On second thought, the plan was an ingenious one--Lucius could see it plainly in his mind's eye as he replayed his own episodes with the Mudblood and how they would affect her when she was given back to the Order. So it was with a fatherly pride that he watched Voldemort promote Draco. The boy was going to be included in the next battle rather than act as a simple cat guardian and researcher.

Lucius was looking forward to fighting beside his son--the boy knew how to duel with as much finesse and ingenuity as force. On a battlefield, it would only be easier for him if he could see only the enemy and not the faces. Not because Lucius thought Draco would hesitate to kill someone he knew--Draco might lose his focus in a personal battle, as he had done with the Potter boy only five years before, and likely many times after, leaving his back open and vulnerable to attack.

"Now," Lord Voldemort said for all to hear, "this is not something that will happen right away. Immediate results are highly improbable--none of you are to comment on Hermione or the failure of the plan. Her realization may come after years of slow poison within her mind and, more potently, her heart."

"My lord," MacNair said, his countenance finally serious, "although I understand your logic and the benefit of having Hermione Granger on our side, what if she doesn't come back? What if she helps the Order all the more ardently?"

Voldemort gave an enigmatic smile. "The Order will never trust her like they did before I took her. If they believe her beyond reproach, a hint of doubt will give them pause, and they won't tell her what she should know; they won't ask for her help in case they are wrong. Even outside of the Order's hands, and with the taint of my Mark on her, she will never cause trouble against us--she can never be in a position powerful enough to do so."

"If I may, master," Lucius said, "the girl is resourceful and powerful in her own right, as you've said."

"Lucius, my friend," Voldemort replied, adjusting his cloak and returning to his throne, "as Slytherin as she can be, she is also a Gryffindor. Excluding Wormtail, what Gryffindor who has betrayed her best friends will collect herself enough to act as an opposing force?"

Wormtail looked up, the corners of his mouth turned down and his forehead creased. "My lord..."

"It was a half-compliment, Wormtail," Lysander whispered.

Wormtail bowed his flushed face and resumed his sulking over the loss of Hermione. He only hoped he would see her again and that she would not think he was as repulsive as everyone else seemed to once she was an official member of the Death Eaters.

---

Hermione was preoccupied by a nasty staring contest with the curtains hanging insolently from the four-poster bed. She stared so hard at the way the shadows mocked her along the crevices and folds of the burgundy fabric that the texture seemed to blur, turn into colored orbs that would laugh at her if they could.

She was not insane, but she felt better thinking that the inanimate objects had personalities. It made her stay in the Dark Lord's chambers more entertaining. For all the guilt associated in Snape's laboratory, at least she had something to do there, and now she wanted to continue doing something. As it was, her doing was limited. For heaven's sake, a house elf fed her--her limbs were completely immobile, shackled to the bed post. She had tried to break the bed post, but she guess either the wood or the chains were charmed with an Unbreakable, so she had only succeeded in shifting the bed maybe a centimeter from its original position.

She seriously considered shifting the bed out of the fortress, but the door might be the big problem. Someone would probably find her. And a bed is pretty conspicuous; it growled when it moved. Voldemort came in only once to do something in the bathroom. He had noticed that his bed was not in the same place it had been. She could see the laughter in his eyes, and with the wave of his wand, he Levitated the bed to its original place. Almost as quickly as he arrived, he left to wherever he went instead of sleeping, which she had seen him do maybe twelve times. She wondered if Nagini always knew where he was if she had to be milked--maybe calling over distances was a Parselmouth talent.

The curtain looked like it was shifting uncomfortably. Maybe her stare was finally getting to it.

Wait, Hermione, snap out of fantasy land, she told herself. Curtains moved when an outside variable moved them, like a breeze. Or a breeze caused by a person.

All too late, she whipped around to see the older Crabbe and Goyle advance on her. Crabbe swung his fist, catching her face just beneath the eye. Goyle complimented what would eventually be a shiner with quick hook into her stomach--it would bruise, and this time it seemed that there was no one to heal them.

The two hulks distracted her from the casual wizard standing at the doorway. He pointed his wand at the gasping girl on the floor.

"Stupefy."

Still gasping, she fell limp. With her panic lessened by unconsciousness, she caught her breath more quickly and soon lay sprawled on the floor like a doll; the Dark Lord spelled away her shackles. Voldemort jerked his head, indicating that the two men should follow him. Crabbe gathered her in one arm and threw her over his shoulder.

"To London," Voldemort said, and he Disapparated. Crabbe, carrying Hermione, and Goyle soon followed. They knew the place. Voldemort had shown them the specialized Apparition point a week ago.

An abandoned warehouse, condemned after a fire, a place where no one would think to look or stumble upon. There were arrangements for reconstruction, but nothing definite had been agreed upon among the contractors. Voldemort looked anachronistic in his robes and serpentine face among the charred crates and machinery of the Muggle world. He sneered at his surroundings, but his loathing for all things Muggle had to be set aside. His delight at the cunning of what he intended for Hermione overshadowed the dreariness of the warehouse.

The Dark Lord led the two men to a little nest of musty blankets with a small sack of food next to them and helped lower Hermione down to the floor. He arranged her so that she could be comfortable even in her state and situation, then stood.

"Go back to the fortress," Voldemort ordered Crabbe and Goyle. "I have eyes here to watch me." The two hulks shared a look like they still doubted the plan, but they also knew that their master was much cleverer than they were, and they did not have to agree with the Dark Lord--only obey.

When they were gone, Voldemort crouched down in front of Hermione, the dirt and dust and ash of the concrete smudging his robes. He disregarded the filth and touched Hermione's eyelids gently. It was time to let her go, time to give her what she wanted, time to give her back to the Order.

"Enervate," he said, his hand cradling her face.

Her body jerked awake. She blinked, looked up. The first thing she registered was not the Dark Lord, but the dirty warehouse ceiling. It was nothing that Voldemort would allow in the fortress--maybe she had been rescued. But then her eyes focused on the figure above her, and her hope fell to the cement and exploded in a shower of glass.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," Voldemort said.

Hermione's face twisted in bewilderment. She struggled to sit up and realized from the lightness of her wrists that she was no longer shackled. She held her hands to her eyes as if to confirm the obvious.

"I meant that literally." Voldemort sat next to her on the blanket nest, leaning back against the stack of crates against which the blankets nestled in what might have been the most unguarded action Hermione had ever seen him do. "You're not in the fortress. You are among people. Listen."

The silence of the warehouse fell away as she listened as hard as she could, honing her senses toward the sound that Voldemort was confident was there. She could hear the soft murmur of cars, people walking, the clamor of the proverbial marketplace, even the subtle vibration of the Underground.

"If you wanted to, really wanted to, you could leave right now, run away from me," Voldemort whispered into her ear, his voice magnified from her strain. "I wouldn't stop you."

She looked at him, still nonplussed. She would have run if she were not stunned by the sudden transformation of her captor.

"Of course, I would not recommend it," Voldemort said, returning to his original, languorous position. He closed his eyes. His face looked like it was carved from stone. "You have no shoes, no wand, no money, and you're wearing Severus' clothes, which might earn some odd looks. Not to mention that your eye is swelling up and you probably have bruised, if not broken, ribs. I'm not going to fix them. You'll just have to live with the injuries. Be glad they are not more permanent." With his eyes still closed, his right hand drifted to her left arm, clasped around her forearm where the Dark Mark began pulsing. It was not unpleasant, just odd, like a tic. Hermione felt like her mind split and lay open to the Dark Lord's subtle probing. She tried to clear her mind, but that seemed to make it easier for him.

"I have told you once," he murmured, "that you were extraordinary. I maintain the opinion."

His hand slid down her arm. The tips of his fingers trailed over her knuckles and to her nails before withdrawing.

"You are free, Hermione," Voldemort said, eyes flying open and locking with hers. "A few members of the Order will be here in four hours to retrieve you."

He got to his feet and began to walk away. He hesitated as he felt her hand close around his wrist like he had often done to her. He glowed underneath his stoic exterior.

"Wait," Hermione said, "I don't understand. You're leaving me here for the Order? Just leaving me here? Just like that?"

"I've had all the use from you that I can take," Voldemort said. "All that is left is to kill you. And the world is more interesting with you in it, for both sides of the war."

He extracted his wrist from Hermione's grasp, gave her one last look, and left. Without another word, without a single explanation, just left.

It was almost anticlimactic.

Except she knew this was some new plot. Were there Death Eaters waiting for Voldemort's signal to torture her en masse? Was he leaving her there to starve? She noticed the sack next to her, looked inside, and immediately dismissed the second idea--a simple meal, just one, but food nonetheless. Well then, was he just trying to raise her hopes again, have her on tenterhooks as she waited for the Order?

Or was the Order really coming? Was he telling the truth? Or was it an elaborate hoax and he would appear four hours later with the patronizing smile on his face, eyes glittering with mirth?

His words about the Order's distrust of her motives after seeing the Mark surfaced--everything he had ever said about how she could never be with the Order or with Harry and Ron and her other friends after everything that she had been through, everything she had done, after the Mark on her arm, his brand. She shivered against the cold and tightened Snape's cloak about her, pulling the blankets closer.

She did not know Voldemort's game, but she was just going to wait. There was nothing else to be done. She could not very well go out in her garb and bare feet in the late winter weather. She sniffed, curling slightly so that her side was against the crates. Beyond the musty, industrial smell of the warehouse, the wind brought in the smell of the city outside. Among the myriad of typical city aromas and the persistence of winter, she could smell spring. Once again, a tendril of hope unfurled in her chest, and she closed her eyes. Maybe the hope would be crushed... maybe not. Maybe the Order would not trust her, but anything would be better than Voldemort and Wormtail and Lucius and Nott and Draco and everything else. Anything.

Surely they would remember her as she was.

---

A select few of the Order, including Lupin, Moody, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, stood in the Headmaster's office. Harry, Ron, and Ginny were next to Dumbledore, flanked by Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall. They were all staring at the center of the room, where six trunks were piled precariously amongst shattered glass.

"Just came here?" Moody growled. "Floated in the window?"

"Through the window, actually," Lupin said. "The sound woke me from a nap." He nodded at a large window on the other side of the office. "I repaired them as soon as I realized what happened. Well, removed them, but Albus can put them together again."

"Why did you call us here, Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked.

"Looks like a load of trunks to me," Ron added, straining his neck, searching along the stretched leather cases for something familiar that might indicate the importance among trunks that seemed unobtrusive and plain and totally a waste of N.E.W.T. study time over which both he and Harry were frantic--without Hermione's nagging, they had not started soon enough and found the prospect of failing the N.E.W.T.s on which their entire career rested more than heart-clenching. Even in the midst of war, they had to go through the motions. They wanted to go through the motions instead of think about the storm on the horizon, instead of think about the casualties, instead of think about Hermione and the empty space where she had been that widened with each passing day.

Professor Snape let out an impatient sigh. "Being afraid of them is not going to tell us why they are here." He stepped a bit closer to the stack. Professor Dumbledore held out a hand, as though he was going to stop Snape, but he let the imposing Potions Master approach the trunks. Snape reached into the middle of the stack and pulled out a pet cage. Inside glared a ginger tom with bandy legs and a grouchy face. He gave a meow of annoyance and stumbled to his feet, gathering his balance despite the way the cage rocked up in the air.

"Crookshanks!" Ron said, running forward and snatching the cage from Snape. "Hermione..."

"Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said softly, but still with a subtle force behind the voice, "please put the cat down. I doubt he has been charmed with an Eruption Hex, but certain issues still need to be accounted for."

Ron's eyebrows drew together in both frustration and confusion, but he put the cage on top of the nearest trunk and retreated back among Harry and Ginny.

"Earlier, I was given a letter via owl, one of the Ministry's owls, that bore Voldemort's signature--the owl was either stolen or the property of one of Voldemort's followers on the inside." Dumbledore took a small slip of parchment from his robes and read aloud, "Take her. Lord Voldemort."

"Short and to the point, without even excluding the title," Snape said, sneering. "But how are we supposed to take her? Is she in one of the trunks? If she is, I swear I'll hex her myself."

Harry whipped out his wand. "Hermione is..." he began.

"A traitor, Potter," Snape snarled, unfazed by Harry's ire. "I saw it myself."

"And your accounts are always so truthful, I'm sure we can trust them completely," Harry said, practically spitting. "You've never liked Hermione--you've been insulting her since first year."

"I've never liked you--in fact, I could say without shame or remorse that I loathe you, and you would have been expelled from Hogwarts six years ago if I had a say in the matter--but, as enjoyable as the ensuing chaos might be, I've never accused you of joining the Dark Lord," Snape retorted.

"Hermione would never..."

"She taught herself the Dark Arts behind the Order's back," Snape said. "I think that qualifies as something Miss Granger would never do that was against the Order in every sense of the idea, not to mention against the law."

"She only did it because she wasn't allowed in," Ron interjected.

"Don't be so naïve," Snape spat. "A girl like her, with her intelligence, with her persistence, and with a convenient kidnapping just as her Dark Arts activities were become more and more involved... Even a girl who wasn't intending for the Arts to take her over would have succumbed."

"Just because you were a Death Eater doesn't mean that everyone makes the mistakes you did," Harry replied, the tip of his wand still level with Snape's eyes.

"Harry," Dumbledore said. "Severus. That is enough. Remember what I said, Severus, innocent until proven guilty."

"Don't give me that righteous nonsense, Headmaster," Snape said, "you're just as worried that she turned as everyone else thinks. I'd go as far as say that you fear her embrace of the Dark Arts and her initiation as a Death Eater."

"What I think and what I fear or worry are quite different from each other, Severus," Dumbledore replied. Snape crossed his arms, but he did not comment again. "I do not, however, know how to retrieve Hermione if Lord Voldemort does not tell us how to find her. And I do believe that he will give her to us, if all of this is any indication." He gestured to the trunks.

"Unless he just wanted to rub her in our faces again," Lupin pointed out. "He has been quiet about her lately. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried ruffling our feathers."

"I am afraid, Headmaster, that I agree with the werewolf, although his mixed metaphors are atrocious," Snape said.

"Why not just say he's mocking us? He likes to tease," Ginny murmured, looking at the twitching tail of Hermione's cat.

Kingsley Shacklebolt snorted. "Of course he's mocking us. Albus, I have it on Auror authority that she is not to be trusted. I may still be on the Black case, but that doesn't mean I don't have access to other files."

Dumbledore turned his attention to Shacklebolt and stared piercingly over his half-moon glasses. "You have supporting evidence?"

Shacklebolt nodded, grim as a gravestone.

Moody shook his head. "Shacklebolt shared the details with me, and as much as it galls me, Snape's suspicions aren't misplaced.

"Aurors are authorized for interrogation, including Veritaserum, when she is apprehended," Shacklebolt added.

Dumbledore digested the information. "I want her here first, if she is indeed set free," he said finally. "Voldemort and his followers have been known to stage betrayal. I want her account, directly from her mouth and not under the influence of Veritaserum."

Shacklebolt bowed his head in acquiescence.

"What if she has turned Dark?" Ginny asked. "What if it's a trap for her to infiltrate the Order?"

"I refuse to believe it," Lupin said quietly. "Call me optimistic..." He raised an eyebrow at Snape. "But I still believe that, whatever Hermione has been through, whatever she has done, she is still on the right side, or can be redeemed. How would you have liked it if we all had your level of faith when you came to Albus?"

Snape bared his teeth, prepared to lash back with an appropriate insult.

"Remus is right, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted, laying a hand on Snape's arm. "However, I am prepared to listen to both Hermione's testimony and Auror evidence, if that is any consolation."

Suddenly, Snape convulsed and doubled over, clutching his left arm to his stomach. Professor McGonagall cried out and rushed to his side, holding him steady.

"The Dark Lord is calling me," Snape said. "But why...?"

"I think we know who is going to collect Miss Granger," Lupin said softly. "And you aren't going alone. I'm coming with you."

"Get away from me, wolf," Snape snarled. "When the Dark Lord summons, you go alone."

"You are no longer under Voldemort's employ," Dumbledore said. "I think Remus should go with you. And Alastor, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Kingsley can go..."

"No," Moody growled. "If it turns out to be a trap, I'll be more than a match for them long enough for Snape and Lupin to get Miss Granger out... or to kill her." He clasped a heavily scarred hand around Snape's arm. Lupin mirrored him on the other side.

"I want to go," Harry said. "If Hermione's hurt..."

"I want to go, too," Ron added. "No way we're going to let her be rescued by anyone but her best friends. We owe her that much."

"She needs us there," Harry said.

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. She needs you here. She will be brought here straightaway as soon as Remus, Severus, and Alastor are sure of her safety from Voldemort and his followers--no matter if she is friend or foe, Alastor. Bring her here. Unharmed, if you can."

Snape bit his cheek as the pain in his Mark increased. "Any day now, Headmaster," he said through clenched teeth.

"Good luck," Dumbledore murmured. Snape, Lupin, and Moody, forming an odd, antagonistic trio, staggered from the Headmaster's office to reach the edge of the grounds as quickly as possible.

"Hope for the best," the Headmaster said, sitting down behind his desk. His eyes had lost all their luster. Hermione, I don't know what to believe, he thought. He buried his head in his head, and the entire room waited.

---

Hermione did not know how long she had waited. She did not know whether she was asleep or awake. She thought she heard squeaking noises from behind the crates, but that could have been her imagination. She thought she heard whispers, thought she saw eyes, the twitch of a foot or a finger with her peripheral vision. She felt like she was drifting, like the world was rushing past her, abruptly turning on its axis. She could not smell spring, or even winter now. She could not hear the sounds of the city that Voldemort had told her to hear. Maybe she had only heard them because she had wanted to hear them. Or because he told her to.

The Order was not going to rescue her. It was a cruel joke that turned her hollow. Voldemort was not even going to come back for her. She was just going to lay there in the midst of the dirty blankets, like a rat, and slip slowly into death. Voldemort had finished with her, but he certainly was not going to give her back to the Order. No, this was the way to kill her--slow, alone, friendless, in an empty building, unknown, traitor. She felt sick, disgusted with herself. Voldemort finally destroyed her, and this time it would be for good because she did not want to get up anymore. She deserved to die this way.

When she heard voices again, she dismissed them as part of her twilight, part of her haunted dreams that slipped in and out. Even as they grew louder, calling her name, she covered her head with the cloak. The Death Eaters had come. They would have their fun with her, torture her until she collapsed, then hit her simultaneously with the Killing Curse. Such death would be a mercy then.

She thought she recognized the voices as they drifted nearer. That voice could easily be Professor Lupin's. And that rough, gravelly bark, that could be Moody. And who could forget Professor Snape's sharp tongue that she had heard so often in potions class. That was when she knew she was dreaming. The Order could not be there for her. It was too good, and good had not visited her lately. She discounted the hands that grabbed her arm, her hip, her ear until they found the edge of the cloak and pulled it away from her face.

"Hermione." A whisper, and then hands lifted her up, into a pair of arms. Not like Crabbe. Cradled like a child. She kept her eyes shut. Maybe the dream would continue, and she could have five more minutes of peace like this.

"This is too easy." Moody's growl. He was right. That's why it was a dream. "There's bound to be a trap somewhere. Maybe the girl is faking. She'll curse you for sure, Lupin, if you aren't more careful."

"No, she won't," Lupin said. "She must be asleep. Her breathing is so even. Heart rate doesn't seem to be picking up."

"You're far too trusting. It's still too easy," Snape said. "Nothing is supposed to be given to us. The Dark Lord doesn't work that way. There is something else, some other plan he has. An ambush."

"Well, the trunks were just given to us," Lupin replied mildly. "Maybe it was meant to be simple to make us suspicious."

"They're doing a fine job of it," Moody muttered.

"Professor Lupin?" Hermione breathed, almost not daring to believe it.

"Hermione?" Lupin said, his voice betraying his eagerness. "Are you all right?"

"Are you taking me home? Am I dreaming?" Her eyes fluttered, and she felt warm breath on her face.

"We're going back to Hogwarts," Lupin said gently. "We just need to get to an Apparition point."

"As long as you don't make a fuss, Miss Granger," Moody interrupted.

"Alastor," Lupin chided.

Moody snorted, but they continued their escape without any obstacle at all, not even a rogue curse. Both Moody and Snape were on high alert. Hermione's eyes were open, everything around her fuzzy and dark through her eyelashes. A rush of cool, fresh air hit her face like a soft wall, and she breathed it in, her first free breath for months. The sounds that she had thought she heard with Voldemort augmented until they were almost unbearable against her ears.

"Say, sir, is that girl all right?" asked a concerned passer-by. Moody turned his face away from the woman, and Snape stepped quickly into the waiting taxi. He glared at Lupin, who was the only one among them comfortable with Muggle habits.

Lupin gave the woman a wry smile. "A few of my daughter's friends thought it would be terrific fun to spend the night in the warehouse. She has asthma and the dust... well, she's fine now, but exhausted."

The woman nodded in empathy, then continued about her business.

"Never knew you could lie so well without blushing like a Gryffindor," Snape said when Lupin joined he and Moody in the taxi.

"Let's just get Hermione back to Hogwarts," Lupin whispered. "She seems a bit in shock."

"Could be a clever ruse," Moody said.

"Alastor, please. Innocent until proven guilty." Lupin stroked Hermione's hair. She twitched against his tenderness, and Lupin quickly withdrew his hand. She found herself closing her eyes, succumbing to the wonderful dream that was no doubt going to be ripped from her again, but she would hold onto it for as long as she could.

Before her eyes were completely closed and the taxi drove off, she caught a silhouette that she recognized so well in a lit window of the warehouse. It raised its hand to her in farewell. She trembled,

So Voldemort had truly set her free. For better or worse, he set her free.