That was the thought that ran through her head as Hermione Granger let out a shaky breath and wrapped her cloak tighter around her. A wind kicked up, whipping her bushy brown hair around. A rotting wooden sign creaked. She was waiting outside the Leaky Cauldron for someone she never thought she would wait for, to take her someplace she never thought she would do.
She looked down the street at the headlights; the car, a blue taxicab, rolled down its window and an old man poked his head out. “You ok, miss?” he asked in a wavering voice.
Hermione smiled a weak smile. “Yes, sir. I’m all right.” Stupid Muggle, she wanted to shout. Leave me alone! Stop it, she told herself. That isn’t you. Malfoy is really rubbing off on you, Hermione Granger.
“Ok, then. You be careful.” The window rolled up again and the cab drove off, leaving silence in its wake.
Hermione sighed and shifted her feet. What was taking him so long? She was anxious enough as it was, not to mention depressed.
A muffled crack made her look up. A young man with tallow-white skin and slicked back blonde hair came striding up the street, his black cloak billowing out behind him. He grinned broadly when he saw Hermione, and took her trembling hand in his own gloved one.
“Aw, sweetcheeks, you came!” he exclaimed in a soft voice.
“Did you doubt me?” Hermione snapped at him, despite her depressed attitude. Instead of looking him in the eye she looked at the ground; pavement is very interesting, she thought. All those little cracks and bumps, some chunks missing…
“Hermione?” She looked up. Draco Malfoy smiled sweetly. “Are you having second thoughts? The Dark Lord doesn’t take non-believers.”
“What else have I got to believe in, Draco?” She brushed away the tears that had welled up in her eyes.
Draco held a hand to her lips; she fell silent, finally looking him fully in the eye. “Forget them,” he whispered. “You don’t need them. You’ve got me, love.”
Hermione pulled away, walking a few steps before stopping. What could she say? That she had never wanted to be part of this, and that she wanted out right now? She knew she didn’t want to be a Death Eater; Death Eaters are murderers, something that she wasn’t!
But this was something she had to do now. She had no other choice.
A cold hand touched her shoulder gently; Draco had taken off his glove, and he squeezed her shoulder lightly. “It’s eleven o’clock, Hermione,” he said. “Time to go.”
She didn’t want to leave, though. She had never been the leader, but the voice of reason. Hermione Granger, the Muggle-born bookworm. Always the first to raise her hand to answer the question. The girl who could recite a definition word for word from a book. According to all the Slytherins, she was a mudblood. A dirty witch whose parents were Muggles and who should be rid of. Voldemort would never accept her as a Death Eater! But Draco didn’t care; he’d fight for her, make Voldemort initiate her.
Oh, great, a part of her grumbled. You fell in love with somebody who’s going to make a killer out of you. Great job, Hermione.
She could just imagine what the Dark Lord would be like. Cruel, heartless, and willing to shoot her down in a matter of seconds when she showed up. Yep, you made a great choice, the sarcastic voice told her. You’re going into a place where there are only Purebloods, and being Muggle-born only makes you more vulnerable.
“Hermione!” She glanced back over her shoulder, her brown hair moving with the light breeze. “Your decision was made when you agreed to meet me here,” Draco explained to her rather quietly. “Come on. You can leave all this fear behind, all this uncertainty. The Dark Lord will accept you, no matter what. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” Hermione held out her hand. Draco took it. Despite her thoughts, her fear evaporated. She closed her eyes and sighed softly. “I’m ready.”
Draco smiled. “Then let’s go.” Letting go of her hand, he strode back out into the narrow street, spun around, and disappeared with a crack. Soon after, Hermione did the same thing.
********************************
Hermione scrunched up her eyes; claws raked her brain, back to front, probing into its depths. It was silent in the cave, and it weighed heavily upon her ears. There was a picture of her and her mother, picking flowers in a meadow; Ron’s mangled body, with Voldemort standing over it; and her father’s dentistry on the corner of the street. Voldemort was using ligilmency on her, and she didn’t like it one bit.
She dropped to her knees and put her hands to her head, taking deep breaths to calm herself. She heard Voldemort laugh; it was high-pitched and bit into her ears like fangs. “Look at me!” he ordered, and she looked up.
Voldemort had a large black cloak on that covered most of his body; his nose was nonexistent, while his eyes were just slits, almost like a snake’s. He had no hair to speak of, nor did he have ears. At least, none that she could see. He was standing on an alter in the middle of the room, surrounded by his followers.
Amazingly, Hermione held his gaze with a glare of her own. Go ahead, she thought. Kill me, strangle me, maim me”I don’t care anymore! She knew he could hear her; he was probing her most private thoughts, even those that were most recent. Surely he could hear what she was thinking now!
Voldemort laughed again, sending shivers up her spine. “I’m not going to kill you,” he whispered in a falsely sweet voice that echoed around the cave. “Yet.”
A Death Eater laughed somewhere in the back of the crowd surrounding them; he quickly disguised it as a cough. Voldemort’s gaze never wavered; Hermione tried to look away, but didn’t. She fingered her wand in her pocket, a false safety that she would need in the days to come.
“How does it feel to watch a loved one die, knowing you can’t save them?” asked Voldemort.
It was her turn to laugh. “Was that supposed to be hard?” Her hands went back to her head as she screamed; she lost eye contact with him as visions of Harry, her, and Ron in the common room, laughing, exploded in her head.
“Okay, okay!” screamed Hermione. The pain subsided. She mumbled her reply.
“What was that?”
“I said it’s horrible!” Hermione yelled at him. “Watching one of the sickest bastards in the world kill those you love!”
Voldemort smiled a crooked smile. “Very nice answer, Mudblood.” He spat the last word out with hatred written all over it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Hermione managed to stand up. She held out her hand as Draco started to run towards her, mouthing, “I can do this by myself” before Voldemort tried to hurt him, too. At the same speed she met Voldemort’s gaze again, ready for the next question. She made a face at the memory he now watched: she was in the girl’s washroom at school, hiding under a sink as Ron and Harry fought off a mountain troll. The day she had become friends with them.
“How touching,” Voldemort commented with a snarl as that scene quickly changed to their ride home on the Hogwarts Express. “You, Potter and the Blood Traitor all nice and happy. What made you befriend them?”
“Your troll had tried to kill me.” Hermione grit her teeth; he was searching her memories again. “They saved my life.”
“Wrong answer!” Voldemort cried, and a great force pushed down on her brain. Her stare wavered, but held. It hadn’t been as bad as the last time. “Tell me the truth! I will not accept lies!”
“Then you’ll get nowhere with me,” Hermione spat, half-panting. “I befriended them because…I thought Ron was a hopeless idiot who…needed my help. A lost cause.”
Voldemort smirked. “A lost cause?” he repeated. “Like Malfoy over here, I suppose. He’s a hopeless idiot, too.”
Hermione bit back her retort and, instead, worded every swear word she knew at the ground. Just stay calm, don’t show fear”
“Don’t show fear?” Voldemort laughed at her, this time making the hair on the back of her neck rise. “You probably swore that the minute you stepped in here.”
“The first chance I get you’ll be hexed into oblivion,” Hermione growled. She gripped her wand tighter, stronger and more determined now. But Voldemort wasn’t done questioning her.
“Why are you here?”
Caught off guard, Hermione blinked. Why had she come? Suddenly, Voldemort backed off; her memories were hers and hers alone, for the time being. This left her time to think.
Why exactly had she come? For one, everyone had left her; after Ron had died, killed by the Dark Lord himself, Harry had gone into hiding, so much like the man he swore to kill, to get stronger and strategize. Ginny had been in St. Mungo’s for the past three months; in the last battle, her whole right side had been damaged, though thankfully she had lived.
“I guess I came because I have nothing else to do,” she answered quietly, her voice getting stronger as she went along. “Everyone, even the love of my life, has left me, either by choice or no. And now, to be with the one I love now, and to stay safe that little while longer, this is the only way. I suppose that’s why I came.” Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and shut them tight as she could and rolled up her sleeve to show a bare arm; she knew what came next. The Dark Mark, what would make her a true Death Eater.
But it never came. She opened one eye, then the other, to see Voldemort staring at her intently. Slowly she let her sleeve fall as another question came out of the Dark Lord’s mouth,
"What special knowledge or service do you hope to offer the Dark Lord for giving you the honor of being among his followers?"
She would have to think hard about this one. For one, she was smart”all outstanding OWLs, Exceeding Expectations on her NEWTs. But other than that, she couldn’t put her thumb on anything else. Oh, Ron, she thought. Why did you have to leave me? Why did you all have to leave me?
There was another one”she wouldn’t desert him. But she needed more reasons!
She looked over at Draco; he smiled encouragingly. He would accept her, no matter what.
Hesitantly, Hermione said, “I’m one of the brightest witches of my age, and I will never leave you, not that that’s possible, anyways... I…also know almost everything about the Order of the Phoenix”where the headquarters are, who’s running it, what’s going on.” She winced for no reason, ready for the Killing Curse, that flash of green light that would kill her. But it, like everything else, never came. “That’s what you want me for, don’t you?” she demanded. “My knowledge of the Order?”
“Of course.” Voldemort spread his hands out wide as he stepped down from the alter. “Why else would I take in a Mudblood? Now.” He was standing right beside her, his rank breath the same degree as her anger”hot and seething with hatred. Automatically she rolled up the sleeve of her cloak, then her sweater, and stared at Voldemort with a determined look on her face and one thought running through her mind:
Goodbye, Ron.
But it wasn’t goodbye, not just yet. Black smoke swirled around, first her feet, then her whole body. It clouded her vision, leaving her blind. But her eyes were open, so how could she be blind? Then, white smoke”the color of Malfoy’s skin, she noticed”swirled in front of her, turning into letters that spelt out words:
But is that all true?
Should you need any help
None shall be out of the blue.
Oh, the Order has eluded me”
Shall it stay that way?
Listen close, friend of Draco,
Or everyone shall pay.
It is not Dumbledore,
I will tell you right now.
It is one you’ve barely heard of,
His brother who has made a vow.
To serve me to his last breathe,
Which was so long ago.
Tell me, who died,
And stole my very soul?
A riddle, Hermione concluded right away. Of what, she couldn’t tell. She had immediately thought Dumbledore”he had died the year before, and the wound was still fresh, a wound Ron’s death had ripped open anew. And he had stolen Voldemort’s soul, if that meant the Horcruxes he had destroyed.
But, a part of her argued, he didn’t make a vow to serve Voldemort.
So who had? She took a deep breath, thinking of a person she had only briefly heard of. Mrs. Weasley’s brothers had been talked about a little”Moody had said they “died like heroes””but they were part of the Order. Who had a brother?
Sirius had! She realized. He had had a brother who had been a Death Eater, but was killed by Voldemort for deserting him. Could that be him?
She had to be completely sure, though; who else had a brother she knew of? Ron, but his had all been good. That was about it. She smiled. That hadn’t taken long.
“I’ve figured it out, Voldemort!” she called out. “Is it Regulus Black?”
The black smoke and writing disappeared, and once again she was in that cave full of Death Eaters, looking into the eyes of Voldemort.
“That didn’t take long,” he grumbled, though his eyes never lost that cold sheen. “I suppose you have passed, Hermione Granger. I hereby submit you to the ranks of the Dark Lord’s Death Eaters, with your promise that you shall uphold your own.”
Hermione nodded. “Yes, Lord,” she forced through her teeth. She would have to get used to that, as with al the other choices she made. For a third, and last time, she held up her sleeve. It was a new beginning, she thought. A repent for the other things she had done. Or was it a sin? She wouldn’t think of that now; she was no longer Hermione Granger, Mudblood. For once in her life she had been accepted for traits other then her smarts.
Because now, she was a Death Eater, and Ron, she knew, would be proud. Whatever path she took.