A Bellamort Tale

Part 44

The blond young man swallowed heavily before he took a last glance into Hermione's face. The fear he could see had almost made him stay, but he decided to rather follow the dark lord's orders and rushed back into the bathroom.

"Don't get yourself all worked up, Hermione Granger. I am not here to cause any harm. Yet. But there are a couple of things I need to know."

She gulped, not able to face him directly, then stammered.

"O-Okay, w-whatever I c-c-can tell y-y-you, I will."

He chuckled. It wasn't kind, just cruel.

"Well, that's exactly where my problem is. Despite being able to read you like an open book, there is something you're hiding from me. I want to know what that is. If you agree to tell me, I might let your child live. Do you understand me? I might. Not I will. It's your decision that will influence mine. If I am pleased with your answer, I'll make you a promise, a promise that will keep this child under my personal protection. If I am not, well, let's say there are many people around who won't like the idea of the Malfoy heir being only a halfblood. See where this is going?" He threatened.

But Hermione scoffed.

"How can my answer please you, knowing very well that I will talk about the plans we made to defeat you. So my only choices are between you harming the baby or others harming the baby. Great!"

He grinned, yet not as evilly as before.

"I was talking about your honesty, child. If you're completely open and tell me everything you know, I will keep my promise. If you hold anything back, well, you'll see."

The pregnant girl was already close to tears again and tried to hide it.

"You can cry, I know it's a hormonal issue. I won't think you're trying to influence me. As I said, I can read each of your thoughts except those few you manage to hide behind the ones you let me see. Not to mention that your Gryffindor pride wouldn't allow you to use crying as a weapon. No, wait, that's not a Gryffindor thing, it's your very own. You don't want to be a pathetic little cunt like whoever Lavender Brown is." Completely unaware of it at that moment, the dark lord made a mental note for the name. "Ah, I see. Pretty, blond, stupid. So very different from you. Who told you you aren't pretty? The excuse of a boy with the red hair? You listen to a pathetic Weasley? Stop it. You're doing it again!"

He was fuming and jumped to his feet, lifting the girl up with him, just by using the wandless magic that once again was oozing out of him.

"Please!" Hermione cried. "I didn't do it on purpose. I've been doing that for more than four weeks now, I can't just stop doing it subconsciously."

He stared at her, leaving her levitating in mid-air for a while, then he slowly calmed down, and so did his anger. Voldemort let the girl down slowly and carefully, making sure she wasn't hurt afterwards.

"Well, I won't apologise, but be aware that I wasn't planning to do that either. Now tell me or let me see. What is it you're hiding? You know about the Horcruxes. How?"

Hermione took a deep breath.

"Dumbledore. He told Harry everything he knew before he died. Obviously, he had somehow foreseen his death. We know that Harry destroyed the diary in our second year. And killed the Basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor. The one I had in my bag was the real one, by the way, so I figure Dumbledore managed to exchange them before you even got your hands on it. Or should I say before Snape got his dirty hands on it? Anyway, I know that we had the real one because Ron destroyed the locket with it. The locket that Harry and Dumbledore wanted to find the night he died. Yet they only found a copy. The real one had been stolen by someone else. Regulus Black."