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“About time!” Hermione exclaimed to herself as she threw herself on the sofa, resting the back of her hand on her forehead. The past weeks have been hectic.
She had initially been with her parents for Christmas, which had been quite an emotional time for her, as this had been the first Christmas she had had with them since she had erased their memories 5 years ago. Her parents had been angry at first, but after a while they had come to accept that there was no changing it. What’s done was done.
Late Christmas she had spent with the Weasleys and Harry, which has been chaotic to say the least with the small children around, the dinners, the presents… All she wanted to do right now was sleep this horrible headache away.
Tomorrow she had to return to the office and continue working on her case to legally make house-elves equal to wizards and witches. It has taken a lot longer than she had expected to at least get own department to see things her way. They needed a lot of persuasion, but only Twayne and Fawley were directly opposing her idea.
She sighed in frustration and made it her resolution that the house-elves would be free before the end of the next year.
On the same night though years away Tom Marvolo Riddle marveled at the stupidity of his Knights. Dolohov had in his eagerness almost blown their cover during this night’s mission. Lord Voldemort didn’t make mistakes. His plan was fool-proof.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t generations-of-incestuous-relationship-stupidity-proof. He wondered why he had decided to elevate the purebloods’ even further if they couldn’t see past their own inane wants. House-elves would have been more prone to following his orders than these morons.
And not for the first time this week Lord Voldemort promised that they would suffer tremendously.
"Wake up! Wake up!" a voices squeaked angrily. "You a useless one, isn't you?"
Hermione squinted her eyes open, but the headache from the night before had doubled, and she was quite sure that the angry-looking elf dressed in auror-gear was her imagination. Ron and Harry would have a laugh.
"Ugh, I need a coffee".
"You isn't getting one," It said in a high voice, "all yous purebloods is the same. You demands and demands, but you never understands. This isn't your world anyway, is it?"
Now Hermione knew she was just imagining things, yet she could resist answering her apparently very active imagination.
"I'm not a pureblood."
"Yes, yes," the elf said impatiently, "you all speak the same thing. 'please, mr. elf, I'm no pureblood-bitch. I can't be a slave!' Well, tough! Us don't believe you! Now, get up! You is in for an inspection!"
Hermione stayed where she was, and for the first time in a long time, she was too confused to say anything. She must still be dreaming! "Ouch!"
"Why does stupid pureblood pinch own arm?" the elf scowled as it pushed her forward. "You isn't getting away for just a smidge of pain, missy! Dark Lord gives more pain."
Dark Lord? She had pinched herself, but no way was this real. She must have imagined the pain somehow.
She shook her head with a smile, and decided to let the dream take its course…
… Which was easier said than done, when she suddenly found herself pushed towards a very familiar, yet very strange man, talking to another House-Elf in a fitting black suit.
‘The Dark Lord’ the elf had said, and yet this older man was too normal… too handsome... to be the snake-faced creature she had seen at the Battle of Hogwarts years ago. Yet she remembered Harry telling her what Voldemort looked like in his youth, and while this man wasn’t young, he definitely fit the description. But it made sense, didn't it? This was a dream, and she admitted she'd much rather face the human-version of the dead Dark Lord, than the snake-faced version. Too many bad memories.
"Here is another one, You Dark Holiness."
What? A giggle escaped her at the title, and a pair of red eyes turned to her, which made her freeze. No, this was a dream, so she shouldn't be scared. That was irrational. She wasn't irrational.
The red eyes on her were for some reason now looking... amused?. Of course Dream-Voldemort could read her mind. He was afterall a figment of her imagination. She just wished that this was a part that wasn't true for the Dream Lord.
"You are convinced this is a dream, girl."
Err... wait. that wasn't the voice she expected out of Dream Voldemort's mouth. He was supposed to sound sinister and evil, and that sound was just too smooth. She wasn't even sure she had an imagination that was that good.
"No, I wouldn't expect that you do." He answered her thought with distaste, the amusement now completely absent from his eyes. "Leave us, Puff."
The Auror House-Elf bowed deeply to Voldemort and popped away. Voldemort's amusement returned.
"Tsk, that was rather racist. Calling him a House-Elf." His voice was dripping with sarcasm, but she couldn't help a startle for a second when he called her a racist.
"Oh, that's rich coming from you," Hermione fired back, "You don't care about House-Elves or..."
"Really," Voldemort interrupted her, now annoyed, "stop calling them 'House-Elves'. What century do you live in? They're elves. And they have permission to crucio any person who calls them House-Elves, I assure you."
She hated her mind. She had invented a Hou- an elf-caring Dark Lord in her dream? Maybe Harry was right about her needing to relax. This was just too much.
"This is not a dream, girl!"
"Of course it's a dream!" Hermione retorted. "First of all, you're dead. Second, the elves don't have their freedom yet. Third, you are defending them!"
"I'm hardly defending them. I just figured Elves would be much better followers. They follow their orders as instructed." he shrugged noncommittally. "I'm still curious why you think this is a dream. I'm very much alive."
Hermione had to laugh at this. Figures, that the Voldemort in her dream was smarter than the Voldemort she had met. Of course, the Death Eaters couldn't be relied on. They were a bunch of rich simpletons.
"I do wonder," he continued, tilting his head, "how you seem to know me, yet don't seem to fear me. Oh, there is an underlying wariness there, but you don't cower like the others do."
Hermione furrowed her brows at this. She wasn't going to fear some dream, however real it may seem. He continued talked.
"You deny this world's reality, and you are under the delusion that I - Lord Voldemort - have succumbed to death, while everyone in this world knows that I will live forever."
Great! There was the Voldemort she knew and hated. The arrogant psychopath who is so assured of his own immortality, he never suspected someone would figure out about his Horcr-
She felt a sharp pain at the back of her head and the metallic taste of blood on her tongue where she had accidentally bit herself at the impact. She was now lying on the floor, Voldemort looming over her, wand aimed directly at her.
"How do you know of them? Who told you!?"
She breathed hard and fear overcame her, as she realized that this was not a dream. She would have woken up by now. This was really Voldemort standing over her with those threatening red eyes on her. But... how? Was she transported to some parallel world where Voldemort dominated
Voldemort's eyes narrowed as he looked himself contemplated what was going on. Suddenly, his eyes lightened up, as if he had gotten a really good idea.
He knelt down on the floor and stroked her cheek.
"Have you ever heard of the magic of a heartfelt New Year's Resolution?"
The smirk that was spreading on his face felt like a promise.