Ascent

Chapter 16

Hermione's trouble with the animals was as difficult as she anticipated. More than once, she contemplated putting a stasis spell on them just to keep them from breeding or fighting or making whatever sounds they felt like they had to make at the time. She also had to adjust to Nagini's attention, who had discovered the caged buffet in Hermione's room a few days after she had returned. If one of the mice had a spell that did not hold or responded in a different way within its body, Hermione consented to feeding Nagini. The serpent eventually found that Hermione was a virtual font of treats and hovered about her master and his Medicus's chambers. Hermione permitted her free reign through the room as long as Voldemort made it perfectly clear that night time was off-limits. She had to do the standard locking spells on the tank again to protect them from Nagini's enthusiasm, and since none of the creatures within it were Animagi, the spells held.

The myriad of experimental spells she applied to them were not working as well as she thought they would on the mice, although they worked a little better on the lizards. Even when she adjusted the spells or applied new charms to fit the object, the spells would sometimes slip away for no discernable reason or irrevocably harm the creatures. She was frustrated - she had been trained to deal with witches and wizards, not rodents. The snakes and lizards were much less of a bother to deal with, though, and she could feed some of the baby mice she really didn't need to the snakes now and then.

She disliked having the animals in her room, but it was the best place for them. Instead, she spent a great deal of her time in Voldemort's library when she was not experimenting. Voldemort was spending more time in his chambers, sitting near the fire or pacing back and forth, contemplating whatever battle tactics he anticipated using. The date for the first real battle was still hesitant; she could understand why he was more anxious than usual. Hermione guessed that part of the reason he stayed in his rooms so much was so that his followers could not see how anxious he was. Instead, Death Eaters and a few of the sub-leaders of each group would come to him. Hermione heard their voices muffled through the fire. She could not come back through until they were gone, which was sometimes inconvenient, but she always had something to keep her occupied if she needed to stay where she was.

If she were completely honest with herself, she would admit that she almost never wanted to leave the library anymore. She had more than anticipated the Dark Arts' hold on her once she freed herself to them - she had practically ordered Voldemort to force her out of the library whenever he thought she needed to leave. It was more than a little embarrassing to ask him to do, to admit that her weakness was so great, but she knew that it was better she had him to hold her back instead of let her pride waste her away. The pull of the books and the Arts would eventually wane as she grew accustomed to them, but she had abstained or restrained herself from them for so long that they risked running rampant over her. There was pleasure in her frustration. If she could not find what she needed in one book, it meant that she needed to search through another. Hermione thought that sometimes she was positively giddy, drunk on the forbidden knowledge she imbued hour after hour.

It appeared, however, that Voldemort was right. The books with relevant passages had already been pulled from the shelves and sat next to the fireplace. She knew their contents backward and forward - sometimes, she was sure she dreamed about them - so she kept on with her impossible task, garnering whatever she could. For all of Voldemort's stress, he seemed almost warm whenever he saw her in his library. Hermione thought about his strange solicitude when she was tucked into her bed, wrapped in quilts against the cold seeping through the window. She knew it was somewhat similar to the way he hovered about her when he compelled her to translate Severus's journal, but not completely.

She felt the familiar weight of guilt as she realized that she was losing herself in the Dark Arts, just as Voldemort had originally planned all of eight or nine years ago. She had to tell herself that a Medicus sometimes had to dwell in the darker paths. Her client already had a sort of claim on her; therefore, there was no way that she was unscathed, and there was no way that she could have avoided these studies. It seemed that fate demanded the Dark Arts pulsing through her veins, cocooning her in its steady vibration along her skin as she drifted into sleep. Her Dark Mark, which had remained rather dormant since her presence became usual in the fortress again, began to tingle and hum again. She could not resist finding the familiarity oddly comforting.

She tried not to think about what her old friends would think. Severus had told her he would not give her reassurance because she was everything she claimed to be. Her life could not be her own anymore, if it ever had been. Her concern had to be for Voldemort. And she did not find the prospect so terrible anymore.

Sometimes, when something violently jerked her out of her dreams and her eyes opened wide to the darkness, she wondered what would happen to her if Voldemort died in the next battle.

Christmas came and went with little fanfare for Hermione, although the house elves wanted the castle to know that they were preparing a feast worthy of Yuletide. For the first time, she did not feel annoyed or angry at an interruption in her studies and experiments in order to eat at the feast with the rest of the Death Eaters. The dinner went as planned without the theatrics of the last one. She gave a passing thought to whether any of her old friends had wanted to give her a Christmas present... or at the very least a Christmas note. The spells that prevented most post in and out of the fortress would have sent any owl offering holiday joy back to its origin. Still, she did not think that she merited a happy acknowledgement from them anymore. The understanding did not dampen her appetite - she consumed three full plates, plus dessert - but it did dampen her spirits.

As soon as she finished eating, she left the room without engaging anyone in conversation and sat on her bed, watching the skittering of her animal residents through the tank, mind peacefully and determinedly blank. Hermione pushed an insistent Nagini gently away and wrapped her quilt around her. She had not bothered to light a lamp, so it was dark in the room when Voldemort entered. He lit one of the lamps nearest the bed and handed her a plain piece of parchment. In his other hand, he held a rough vellum envelope and his own letters. The handwriting on the envelope betrayed the writer as Dumbledore, but Hermione's letter was from a different hand. It took her a moment to read it, and Voldemort stood there, watching her.

Dear Hermione,

We received the note you left behind for Snape. We were disappointed, but we were warned time and again that this might happen. I guess sides are inevitable. Remus says that there can be no neutrality when both sides demand a choice. I wish it weren't true. I wish you could be safe from him. As much as I resent it, it was your choice. It's even harder with what's coming.

I don't know what will happen if we ever meet again. I continue hoping for your return for the sake of what we were, but what are we now, Hermione? There are so many difficult questions that I couldn't fit onto this page, and I doubt even you can answer them. I may still not like Snape, but I guess he knows what he's talking about when he says that you tread a fine line. I try not to blame you.

This letter has kind of become something I didn't want it to be, but every time I try to write another without all of this, it ends up insincere. So... I'll leave my doubts there. This letter was intended to send you holiday wishes, mostly good ones from those of us who love you. That, at least, will never change. I can hate what you stand for, but I won't stop loving you. Remus says that's the best gift I can give. I'm not even sure whether this will get to you or whether Voldemort will just set it on fire for spite. Both Remus and Snape say that he probably won't. I'm not sure why, although I'm sure there's some Medicus rule that commands it or something.

Anyway, Happy Christmas! Consider our words as our gift.

Love,

There was a line and a half of names from the order, signatures ranging from the polite to the flamboyant, and Hermione could not help the lifting of spirits that it brought her, even if the feeling was also bitter. Voldemort did not say a word as she set the letter aside. He drew Nagini closer to him with a soft series of hisses, but he paused at the door.

"The date has been set, two days from now," Voldemort said softly. "I expect you to be ready for the battle, even if you do not plan on coming."

"Do you have any ideas how you will protect yourself," Hermione asked. "since the immortality spells can't be applied?"

"There are adequate Shielding spells that can be altered for my needs. They are not as sturdy as I would like," Voldemort replied.

Hermione rocked on her tailbone for a moment, considering a possibility. Then she pulled the quilt away and went to the laboratory cabinet to retrieve some bottles of Strengthening Solution.

"I don't know what this magic will do to you," Hermione murmured, setting them in a box and bringing them to Voldemort. "Your decay has inexplicably slowed down in spite of you continuing to use your magic. I mean, you've cut down on it, but you're still doing quite advanced curses... I thought that would do the most damage next to self-experimentation. But it hasn't quite." She handed the box to him. "These might help - more benefits than problems. I suggest you fortify yourself with them, two bottles a day. If you let me apply our connection every evening, I should be able to gage their efficacy, whether the decay progresses or regresses."

"You must not have found anything of import if you are reduced to giving me Strengthening Solutions," Voldemort said. His voice was even, but there was a bemused glint in his dimly lit eyes.

"I'm not reduced to anything," Hermione said. "It's simply something to try. Take your first tonight. You might as well."

Voldemort looked at the box and considered taking one right there in her room, but he dismissed it. "I read the letter, as I'm sure you're aware." He looked down at the uneven writing in her hand. "I don't understand your friends," he finally said.

"If it makes you feel any better," Hermione replied with a little smile - that tickle of bittersweetness from the letter expanded into something closer to a touch of happiness, "I don't really understand them either."

His nostrils flared slightly as he considered her comment. "After all these years, you still... how long did you wear my cloak after I set you free?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere. Hermione rarely spoke of her friends in front of Voldemort when he did not bring them up first, but he tended to mention them when he thought he had gained the advantage, when there was something he felt he could use. She was immediately wary, but if she avoided the question, that would be as dangerous with Voldemort as becoming angry.

"I burned it after a little less than two years," Hermione said. She could not quite look at him. Like the serpent's tank, she had not thought of the cloak for what seemed like decades. Remembering it again sparked the same conflicting feelings wearing the cloak had inspired.

"Longer than I anticipated," Voldemort murmured. He shifted the box he held so that he could face her more fully without something in the way. "A nice touch, don't you think?"

"It didn't hurt me, if that's what you mean," Hermione said. The conversation was beginning to prickle the back of her neck.

"Then what did it do for you?" Voldemort asked. His eyes narrowed in something approaching delight, feeding on her discomfort.

"If you want the truth, it was a grounding influence," Hermione said. She fought not to snap. "You were far more familiar to me than the world that you threw me into - at least after everything you'd made me do. Then it became a crutch after I'd moved beyond Hogwarts. Severus convinced me to burn it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

"None of them except Severus knew you wore my cloak, did they?" Voldemort ran one finger down the line of her cheek. His eyes were vaguely nostalgic. "Their goodness and light wasn't enough for you? How must you have felt when you realized that you needed me..."

Hermione shuddered at his touch, drawing tension down the straining muscles of her limbs. This position was unnervingly familiar and startlingly different - she was caught between the worlds. Her hand reached up and pressed against the center of his chest. "Probably something like this."

Voldemort inhaled in a sharp hiss as Hermione dove inside him, feeling the separation of bodies, stretching out until he could feel the focus of her presence in the places of decay. She was hot where she filled him, hot against the cold of his body. He shook, fell hard against the door as he tried to breathe on his own. His free hand clutched at the wall reflexively, and still Hermione clenched harder within his. As he began to feel real pain from his unwillingness to have her inside him, Hermione was physically wrenched from his body, stumbling back. The room was thickly silent broken only by their panting breaths in the wake of the encounter.

She was confused, angry, chagrined. The good feeling left from the letter was gone, just as Voldemort had initially hoped it would be. Voldemort was flat against the door, clinging to the box of Strengthening Solution. Sweat poured down his face, and there was a slight flush of fever on his cheeks. For a moment, he almost looked human.

Part of Hermione wanted to apologize, but the other part wanted to just leave it there, let him carry it with him without giving into pity. The saner part of her realized that if there was one thing she had to control right now, it was her temper. She took a step back; the hard expression on her face remained.

"Don't forget to take your Strengthening Solution," Hermione said coldly. She felt herself begin to unravel from the inside out. Her hands were shaking, but she did not want him to see.

Voldemort swallowed, caught his breath - the air was harsh down his throat as he breathed for himself. Most of what he felt, he thought, was shock. He had read about the Medicus before requesting one, had read of accounts when the client or other people tried to hurt the Medicus only to be magically prevented and punished for it. The Medicus usually maintained a cool head in the crisis, as they were trained - rarely did the Medicus herself initiate the attack unless necessary in defense. Hermione was clearly not a typical Medicus. He knew that, for a Medicus in her position, she was inexperienced, and that he was a singular case. Voldemort was not accustomed to feeling anything strongly, except anger, maybe frustration. Presently, he felt terribly vulnerable, and he did not like it at all.

He wanted to say something. Anything. Anything to keep her from having the last word against him. But he could not think of a single thing to say to her. He reached for the door knob and left without another word. It was not a retreat - his shoulders were high and his breathing quiet again.

Now that the catalyst was out of the room, Hermione felt genuinely terrible. She, too, knew Medicus history and that the Medicus was rarely the one who caused the pain that called the magical law into affect. Her stomach filled with shame and anger that he could make her feel guilty for a perfectly normal (if ill-advised) reaction. Voldemort had been pushing and pushing, forgetting that he was pushing someone who could push back now. Remus might have told her to be the better person and simply withhold a reaction. But I'm not the better person, Remus, Hermione thought. She was still angry.

After some hours had passed, the door in front of her opened again. Hermione was still awake, staring at the shadows coming through the window. Without a word, Voldemort handed her a package wrapped in red and green ribbon. She knew what it was before she even took it from him. But she did take it. His expression was just as blank as hers. She stared at him and waited for him to leave. He left without looking at her, his jaw tight from the way his teeth clenched together. She wondered what he was holding back. Once the door closed behind him again, she ripped open the package.

He had given her another cloak, more intricately designed than the last one, but also meant for practical use. She did not rip it up or burn it again as she wanted to. She threw the cloak at the tank and sat on her bed, clenching and unclenching her hands.

Breathe, Hermione. That's always the best course of action. She could use Shannon's advice about now - another Medicus affected by the Dark Arts, and she had made it through. Then again, Shannon never had a reason to go back.

One, two, three, four...

She leaned down until her head was on the pillow. She ignored the call of the cloak and let the anger slowly dissipate into the night. She fell asleep thinking about the upcoming battle.

-----

Hermione waited impatiently in the audience chamber, alternating between pacing back and forth through the room and sitting by the throne, unconsciously choosing the position she had taken when Voldemort treated her as a slave. Her knees were up and her chin rested in the crevice between them. She felt like she never blinked. The battle would start any minute, and Voldemort left an hour ago with his Death Eaters and Black Dogs. She was already regretting her choice to stay away, and she did not know how any attack on Voldemort that pierced his shield charms would affect her. If any of their past experiences with pain were any indication, it would not be pleasant, even at such a distance. Her entire body seemed to quiver, bracing itself. She watched the great clock above the door as the seconds ticked by.

She felt badly from the last interaction she and Voldemort had experienced. She could not manage to apologize, but she did feel guilty. They had pointedly avoided each other in the days between, although each could feel the other under the skin. Voldemort was taking the Strengthening Solution as Hermione had told him to. She sensed it every time he took a drink, phantom warmth spreading through her veins. They crossed paths - it was inevitable when she had to go through his quarters to the library. Voldemort would follow her with his eyes. She would not look at him. Every time, she felt the Dark Mark thrum on her arm, intense in a way that it had not been in years.

Concern flooded her as the minute hand hit the half past position - the battle was beginning. Her stomach clenched reflexively. She thought that at least a little of her anxiety originated from Voldemort's. She hated that she had to wait for whatever happened, had to wait through whatever curse Voldemort took, had to wait until he returned to her. Until now, usually it was Hermione who left the fortress, enjoying the break from the tension. Now it was Voldemort who left her, and she could not help but consider whether Voldemort felt the same way at every separation. Medicus and client were not technically supposed to be physically far away from each other, especially as time passed. Hermione had not really felt the effects of that separation before, but perhaps she had made a big enough breakthrough that they had reached that level of connection. It bothered her that the connection was stronger when their strange relationship was more strained than ever. And of all things, because of her.

She angered him. She frightened him. She had exploited something she knew he practically feared, and Voldemort did not fear things lightly. There was a startling power in the knowledge and experience, which was precisely what was so dangerous about what had happened. Voldemort was accustomed to near total control of everyone and everything around him. He had already shown signs of being more than a little uncomfortable with Hermione's intimacy with him on a more equal footing, and she had taken what little truce they had developed and thrown it away. And why? A closer proximity to the Dark Arts? She knew that she had once had the ability to quell Ron and Harry with a glare once she got started on a tirade, but Voldemort was another matter altogether. She was not supposed to have the upper hand with Voldemort, and she should know better than to topple those expectations - equality was the aim, not superiority.

A wicked whisper in the back of her mind told her that it was about time she stopped being his slave and started being his master.

Her fingers fumbled with the leather string around her wrist, fiddling with the fangs threaded through. She had almost forgotten she still had these talismans. In waiting for the battle and the restlessness that came with her shame, she had looked in her wardrobe where she kept a box of keepsakes. Objects and memories of another time. She had found the small jewelry box that held the talismans that protected her from many of the horrors of the Forbidden Forest, Belthazar's dry, raspy snakeskin, and the bracelet that held his lost teeth. It was unusual to have the memories of that time before Voldemort really came into her life superimposed on the present. She nearly did not recognize the person she had become. When had she lost control?

It was barely ten minutes into the war, and already, some of Voldemort's injured followers were appearing in the audience chamber. Voldemort had ordered them to fight until there was no possible way they could have been of any use. Then, because it was only one battle and not intended to be the last one, he expected them to return to the fortress to tend to their wounds. Had they not been needed for future battles, he would have been more callous. Hermione saw vomit, blood, tears, ragged or lost limbs. Only ten minutes in. Her heart sank to her stomach, and she clenched her hand around her wand. There was no sign that Voldemort was injured, but she kept anticipating it.

She was startled to find that she was more than concerned. She was downright worried, much as she had been about Harry or Ron or other close members of the Order when they went out for some serious or silly purpose. As more and more Death Eaters and Black Dogs appeared in the audience chamber by the minute, her fingers itched to cast some sort of charm to help those nearest to her, if just to have a distraction, some confirmation that she was still the Hermione - or the Medicus - that she had been. If only to show that it was not Voldemort that did this to her. But she wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees, the snake fangs brushing against her thumb and clicking against her wand. No one noticed her there on the dais.

The clock over the door gave a strange, mechanical sigh before it called the next half hour. Hermione's own inhalation mimicked it, but her scream drowned out the ringing of the bell. This was beyond anything she had ever felt before, so much so that it could not even be called pain. She had felt Cruciatus before, and this could not compare. It was as though every inch of her was torn apart by thousands of serrated claws. The pain was only enhanced because it was not her own. She was feeling it through him - she was with him and not near him.

Her back arched, her head slamming into the cold metal of the throne, her limbs clenched, curled, and flailed, fingers grasping for purpose against an enemy she could not see. Her face was drawn, gaunt, and pale. It appeared almost alien, defined by straining muscle. Blood dripped from her nose, not from the attack, but from the force of the shared experience, and her eyes rolled back until it looked as though they had gone white. Those of the Death Eaters and Black Dogs who had recovered to some extent or who had come with those who needed another hand all turned to see her body convulse as though she were possessed. For those who knew her, it was one of the most frightening thing they had seen - for those who did not, they had nightmares long after they had forgotten. The sound did not belong to her alone.

Hermione could see. She could see through Voldemort's eyes the haze of blood, the flash of light over the grass and over his body. She heard sounds of triumph, but Voldemort still breathed in spite of the terrible curse. She felt every strain of his heart and mind as he forced himself to continue living as he had done once before. He knew she was there and not there. He knew he needed to leave while he could grip his wand with any sort of certainty, even if it was reflexive with every pulse of fire through him. He felt hands on him and thought them an enemy. His wand whipped in an arc, curses spilling from lips as he breathed. But the hands took him away from that field and back to the fortress.

Voldemort fell at the foot of his throne, blood a thick gout from his mouth as he struggled to pull his wand from Carmen's strong hand. His red eyes were filled with hatred, animalistic rage, stubborn determination, and he wrenched the wand away. The room trembled with the force of the power underlying his weakened form. He shook with seizure.

At Voldemort's appearance, Hermione's symptoms lessened until they were merely needles on her skin, as though her whole body had fallen asleep. She recognized the signs - what Voldemort was suffering was no mere headache or magical change. He was on the precipice of death, and she had been too far away. None of her other clients had been like this. Only one had died, and that one in his sleep. She had felt harsh, quick nausea with the old man's passing, but nothing like this violent upheaval, nothing like this bound protest that she needed to help him. It was not an expectation or a compulsion. She needed to help him.

She rolled over and pushed herself up. This was no time to think, no time to care about propriety. She ripped open the top half of his robes: the material was soaked and stained from the massive cuts and poisons seeping through his skin. This was nothing she had seen before, although the modus operandi of the spell was similar in structure and execution to one of the spells often used with great efficacy in the first war. But this was something worse, and she had no question that it was Severus's work, too. She grabbed Carmen by the collar of his robes and pulled him down until he toppled over Voldemort's side, causing a small fountain of blood to erupt from his chest.

"Hold him down," she rasped, her voice almost gone from the abuse of her screams. She positioned Carmen's hands on Voldemort's upper arms, removing the wand from his clenching hand. Voldemort watched her even as his body betrayed him, trying to rip itself apart. Carmen's strong hands and arms forced Voldemort's to cease their movements, and Hermione moved to sit on his legs. They bucked underneath her, but as she felt the needle pricks inside her grow more insistent, she nearly broke his legs to keep them down. Her teeth were harsh against each other, her face still white and garishly drawn. She forced Voldemort to look at her and plunged in, withdrawing halfway before she could lose herself in his death. She only needed to see the damage beyond its physical manifestations.

"You aren't dead," she hissed. "You won't die." She hardly realized she said it. They were not words of comfort. Her wand traced the glowing edges of the curse over his chest and face, and as she sensed the whisper of the spell in its workings, she began to cast against it. It was impulsive magic at its deepest, a skill rarely taught in schools, but something necessary to the Medicus Order. It was a skill Hermione had been terrible at, hence one that she had devoured in research and theory. If she had known what she knew now, she would not have bothered. Books could not prepare her for the litany of spells moving over Voldemort's rent flesh in both bodies. It was purely reactionary, and she felt neither pride nor surprise as the curse began to mend. Severus had cultivated it until it had no countercharm. He was a clever man with a talent for creating these sorts of spells.

But magic almost always had a counter - it was the way the world worked, and curses knew their own alternate state. This was not like Voldemort's myriad of calculated transfigurations. As dangerous as the spell was, its immediacy gave her the ability to attack it with its own quickly extinguishing power. Hermione whispered her spells until she took hold of the curse and pulled it away from Voldemort, replacing it with new flesh and blood. The replacement was not perfect - he had lost too much to repair completely what had been taken. That would require far more time and less instinctive casting. Breathing was now easier for both of them, and Carmen did not have to push Voldemort down so hard, and he watched Hermione and Voldemort with a slightly open mouth, captivated. Voldemort's eyes never left Hermione's. As long as she was half inside him, he could not look away.

When Hermione knew that the worst of Severus's curse had passed, she raised herself up on her hands and knees and wearily stood.

"Help me," she said to Carmen, her voice no more than a sigh. "We need to finish this in his rooms. It won't do for him to stay here."

Carmen did not reply, only lifted Voldemort onto the flying carpet next to him and climbed on himself. Voldemort was silent, looking at the ceiling. His form was as still as if he had died, yet his eyes glowed. The battle did not officially cease until two hours later, but neither Hermione nor Voldemort knew its end as she continued to heal him through the evening and night. Carmen stayed behind, hovering by the fire as Hermione's whispers filled the room with their power. After what seemed like an age, Voldemort's voice joined hers.