As If In Wonderland

“Miss! Miss!”, a house elf chanted to awaken Hermione from her bed. “Miss! Master wants miss ready!”

“Ok, ok”, she sighed as she pushed herself up from her bed, “what does his highness want!”, she huffed while pushing herself up from her bed. The memories of the night before hit her, but she couldn’t break down, he had taken almost everything from her but she wanted to be strong. Its all she had left.

“Master wishes for miss to be ready to see him at breakfast!”

“What if I say I don’t want to go?”

“Master says miss will come to breakfast, in either the clothes he has supplied, or nothing at all”

“The bastard. So what am I supposed to change into?”

“Miss’s clothes are in the bathroom, master gives miss half hour to be ready”

“That’s fine with me, the sooner I see him, the sooner its over with”

“Pibby will get miss when she is ready”, it disaparated as soon as it finished speaking. She groaned, knowing she was powerless to avoid him.

After taking a quick shower and drying herself off, she was left to wear what had been laid out for her neatly on the side. Hermione put it on in disgust before looking at her reflection in the mirror. Facing her was herself, Hermione Granger, just without something. Her eyes were steadily losing the spark they had behind them, she lowered her lids to her clothes. A simple white crinkled dress that ended mid-thigh, the Greek style to it was completed by the thin golden ropes around her waist loosely, she was disgusted by it-not because of how it looked because she thought it was beautiful, it was the fact that he had given it to her.
She noticed she had not been supplied with shoes, and made a mental note to moan at Voldemort later.

She cast a quick hair drying charm wandlessly, she was glad she had mastered the technique though she could only do basic spells-only on the rare occasion could she show strong magic without a wand, usually when she felt extreme anger.

“Breakfast? More like torture”, she said to herself as she walked back into her bedroom to see the beaming house elf waiting for her.

“Miss is very pretty, master thinks so”

“The dark lord does not think so, he just thinks about causing me pain when he is bored”, the elf didn’t reply but signalled for her to follow it out of the hallway and down to a private dining room next to the larger room she ate in the night before. It was still large, with a cabinet filled with various pieces of china and silver and a small bookshelf next to a grand fireplace and a side table with a few beverages on top. The centre of the room was a golden chandelier which hanged above a mahogany table with enough chairs for eight people, though only one sat at it.
Voldemort sat at the end facing Hermione, ignoring a small buffet of food placed neatly around him as he read ‘The Daily Prophet’, he wore just black trousers from what she could see, showing his well toned upper body off . She stood for a moment, watching and waiting for him to acknowledge her, growing impatient as he finished the page he was reading.

“Please sit”, he said without looking up, but raised a hand to show her that she was to sit next to him, on the side of the table so he could see her but also had her close. They sat in silence, waiting, and getting annoyed,

“Am I just hear to warm the chair or did you want me for something?”, she asked moodily, he smirked before folding his paper and laying it on his side.

“You seem very…impatient this morning”, he picked up his knife and fork and began to eat some food on his plate, “tuck in of course”. She slowly began to eat, not looking at him though knowing he was watching her closely. “You aren’t still upset about last night are you?”, he lowered his eyebrows and put a hand on her chin to turn it to face him.

“What is it that you want milord? You called me down here, and I know for a fact you didn’t just want a chat about my feelings”, she narrowed her eyes to match his, she wasn’t upset, she was angry.

“I hardly touched you, you don’t need to get worked up about that”, he said thoughtfully, neither breaking eye contact.

“Why don’t you try having your virginity taken from you forcefully. Something I was saving and you fucking stole it!”, she growled.

“You wont be leaving this residence any time soon, rather me take it sooner than later”

“Rather you didn’t take it at all”, she looked away from him as he chuckled,

“I have no interest in sex, its too mortal for my liking, though I admit…it was quite enjoyable with you”

“Fuck you”, she said under her breath, he heard her but chose to ignore it. “Tell me my duties”

“Oh yes. Let me think…”, he was winding her up on purpose. “…I will have to think some more about it”

“Oh take your time”, she rolled her eyes, “-am I being rude? If so, just torture me like you obviously will”

“im not going to torture you, as you’ve pointed out, its too obvious”

“then do what you wish to me, because I don’t care”

“oh but you do, that’s why you are so terrified of me. Pretend all you like that you are not, it amuses me”, she didn’t reply but lowered her eyes to her plate of food before eating some slowly. “I hope you liked the dress, I chose it myself”

“So the dark lord likes his fashion then”, she taunted with a smirk, “maybe you should dress yourself instead of worrying about what to dress me in”

“I only dress in dark regal robes at formal events, breakfast is hardly formal. I was getting the impression you liked my bare torso”, he taunted back, she just placed her fork down and turn round to him with a laugh.

“Why would I be interested in your torso after what you did to me last night? You are just pure evil”

“There is no dark or light, only power and those too weak to seek it. Surely you have learnt that by now?”

“I will never learn it, as its not true”, she said defiantly.

“Do you like your dress?”, he asked randomly after a moment, “You didn’t answer before”

“What do you care!”, she lowered her lids again as she saw his begin to show anger, “yes I like it milord”

“Good, I do too. I had to choose something I liked, as its all you will be wearing until I change my mind…”

“what! So I have to wear the same dress everyday!”

“It will be cleaned of course, I wont have mess in my home”

“Oh yes I forgot, the great dark lord cannot stand mess-though he ignores the mess he creates in peoples lives…”

“You are funny”, he smirked before raising his wand “crucio!”, she didn’t scream just whimpered in pain. It was unbearable pain, and he held it longer than he had ever before, causing tears to fall from her eyes as she kept them closed tight.
He lifted it and pulled her by her arm back onto her seat roughly, after she fell off of it from the pain.
“You see, I have no time to deal with trivial matters such as choosing you new outfits everyday, I have supplied you with nightwear in your room, and I will make sure you have new clean undergarments each morning…And about the shoes, I don’t believe you deserve any just yet”.

She wanted to scream insults at him, but was wise enough to keep her mouth shut.
“Your duties will be as following: You will obey any order I give you, anything I ask of you, you will do”

“Be as vague as you like”, she muttered

“I could ask anything of you, but on a daily basis you may have chores around my home when you are not doing the main thing you are to do. You see I have a library, filled with many books-I see you are listening now”

“I like books”, she said simply

“I know you do, a quality we both share. Your task will be to sort every book into each of the shelves for each genre, you will then arrange all into alphabetical order, by author. It will be quite a basic task, but quite a long and tedious one, I have thousands you see”, he carried on as she widened her mouth in shock, “It needs to be done as it hasn’t been sorted out for centuries, it is Slytherins very own library passed down through his descendants and always added too. House elves do not know what is part of the alphabet and what isn’t…so they are useless, and I wont allow any common servant touch those books-”

“-so what makes me so special? Aren’t I just another of your common servants, or I mean slave”

“You aren’t any special, you are just the only servant I have who would have the brains to do the next part. Your main job is to assist me when I wish for some research, you will be doing any extra I may need”

“You want me to assist you in knowing how to hurt others basically, I refuse”

“Im sure you will soon get sick of the cruciatus curse though, and as you know, I have no problem in harming you in…other ways”, she paled slightly, she knew what was on his mind. “As you know I may ask for anything, from doing jobs in the library to serving me food when I have no time to get it myself”. he stood up and pulled on a white shirt he had hanged over the back of his chair.

“So this is my life from now on, serving you. that’s it”, Hermione said dully, “I always wanted something out of life…and now its wasted”

“This is your life now, yes you will be serving me, but you will get something out of it if you allow me in the future”, he replied while buttoning up his shirt with his wand

“I know what that means”, she placed her cutlery down before standing up to face him, “I guess I am supposed to go straight to your library, where is it?”

“it comes off of my room”, he put his hand on her arm before she could think, and he apparated them into it. She stood stunned as she marvelled at the thousands of books before her eyes, all shelved on wooden bookcases surrounding the very large room. In the centre sat a sofa and table under a chandelier similar to the one in the dining room, everything was black and green, it was very intimidating yet Hermione was more pleasantly surprised by the books than worried about where she was.

“Wow”

“You like it then? It is of my ancestors, passed down by generations, additional books always added, this may be one of the highest quality libraries in existence. So few have entered here, consider yourself lucky to set foot in here”

“I actually do consider myself, not lucky of course. But this room…its brilliant, so much knowledge in this here…”, she wondered aloud. Voldemort was quite astonished by how much she liked his library, he expected her to ask to leave as soon as possible at the very least.
“Im not happy about being your slave, or what you expect me to do. Though, being surrounded by so many books…its daunting”.

“Im glad you like it then, none of the books are in any order, so it will be very time consuming for you. You will not be able to open the books as I have charmed them to only open when I say”, he looked on as her face fell slightly, “-but…I may consider letting you read if you are good. Though im not sure you would be interested in the dark arts, as you call them”

“Im not into anything like that, I have no wish to learn dark magic, but I guess they cant all be bad…”

“They aren’t”

“Well I suppose, if you were to allow me to read some time…I would be grateful milord. I get bored easily, and being here experiencing pain so much…it would be a chance to be me again”, she said quietly before turning to investigate the books he had.

“I will keep that in mind”

“Oh this is going to take so long!”, she cried after a few minutes of scanning through the books, “none are in any order!”

“It will keep you occupied”, Voldemort said to Hermione’s surprise, she thought he had left. She turned to see him casually seated while reading a book, she would have to get used to seeing him like that, acting normal, rather than cursing someone.

“I still hate you”

“I don’t expect anything more, I don’t particular like filthy little mudbloods…”, she stopped what she was doing and turned round in a rage.

“One thing I cannot stand, is being called that”

Voldemort smirked, that information may come useful in the future…

“I hate you also then”

“fine with me milord”

They carried on doing what they were doing for a few hours in silence, occasionally Voldemort received an owl or sent one, a few times he apparated away without warning before coming back again to read.
Hermione preferred it when he was gone, she could forget where she was easily. Though she did feel lonely, even when he was there, she was all alone. From having friends around her, the order, her school life…and to this. Alone.

When he left the room, she took the opportunity to check everything to see if there was any way of escape, but there wasn’t, she was even locked in from Voldemorts bedroom, unable to leave in any way.
She couldn’t apparate, as he had placed a charm on her to prevent her doing so, she couldn’t even use floo powder which sat oh so annoyingly above the fireplace.

She stopped what she was doing as she realised what she was actually doing. She looked down at her arm which held a book before dropping it too the floor with a thud. The dark mark stared back at her, so dark and cruel…she looked down at the clothes she was wearing, the clothes he had made her wear.
Her knees collapsed to the floor as she burst out crying.

“What has become of me! Working for him…”, she whispered to herself tearfully. She wiped her eyes before gasping, “I cant do this…I wont do it. I wont, I wont, I wont! Ive already succumbed to him so much…now im not even fighting back!”.

She couldn’t believe how long it took her, all them hours organising his books, before she realised how stupid she was.

“You aren’t stupid, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t throw my property onto the floor”, she heard Voldemort return with a small pop. She didn’t get up, and didn’t turn to look at him.

“I am stupid, I just did what you said, just like that…and I would appreciate it if you didn’t use legilmency on me you bastard”, she breathed with her eyes closed.

“Excuse me”

“You heard me. I don’t care, I hate you and I have been such a fool today! Look at how much work ive done! And I get nothing out of it, im supporting you in a sense! You are one manipulating bastard, you knew I couldn’t resist so many books!”, she growled turning round to look at him darkly, “I am not yours! And im not going to bow down to you like everyone else!”

“Ah you will, and it will be fun to see it happen. You need to be disciplined though, crucio!”, he laughed as she screamed, the pain seemed more intense than she had ever felt it before, and she just couldn’t be bothered to hold in her screams.
“I thought I had made an impact on you last night, obviously it only worked temporarily”, he stopped the curse leaving her shaking on the floor. “Maybe I should try you out again, break you in a bit”

“No, please”, she gasped

“I wont touch you”, she sighed in relief, “because I am not like some of my followers, driven by lust…and I have no reason to lust after you, you aren’t anything special”, he whispered cruelly in her ear as she stood up, “I hate you mudblood, don’t expect anything from me. You are just a slave, clever maybe, but you are nothing, you may want to get used to that”

“You are wrong, I am something, and I will be something worth while once im out of your grip”, she looked up into his eyes, they held each others gazes for a moment.

“I really will enjoy breaking your spirit, though I know I have succeeded quite a lot since you have been here”

“You want me empty, with no life in me don’t you”

“No. I have many slaves like that, why would I want another?”

“Then I don’t want to know what you want from me, I wont sort out your books for you”, she said defiantly

“You will give in to your childish strop soon enough, I may surprise you with this but im not going to force you and im not going to punish you. If you can spend eternity in your room to sleep and the rest of your days in here doing nothing at all…then that is your choice”, he laughed before leaving.

He knew he had broken her down already, she just needed some discipline, he would bring back the curses later…once boredom and frustration takes its toll…

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Sorry its been long...
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