Riddle Her This

Disclaimer: Not mine, no way... I wish though.

pinkwands: You know what, let's sulk together!!!

angel: H'mm you seem pretty certain Hermione's going to get saved.... only kidding!!! Or am I?

Miepje: Of course it had to be Slytherin colours, and you know what... I want that outfit!

D Mysinger: Thank you...

zairaphel: Aww shucks!!! Is it really that good?? Thanks.

lisa: It's not going to get easier.

Eternal Twylight: Thanks for getting hooked, imagine LV as how you like him to be, although I'm pretty happy for Ralph Fiennes.

Jem89: Thank you. Yes she does, lucky cow!!!

Jade: Thank you...

Katie: Answer in this chapter, sort of!!!

The Second Shock

The World Federation of Wizards did not find any suitable quick fix solution, and decided they ought to just rely on the Chosen One. Harry found himself doing less schoolwork and more mingling with Ministers of Magic the world over. Harry felt that it was best to try to learn at least ONE foreign language. He opted for French because that was the language easily available to him through his friendship with Fleur. He found he could actually pick it up reasonably and quickly. Ginny was not pleased that her man was locked up in a room with a veela, and showed her displeasure. She had never liked Fleur very much, and the fact that Harry’s time was either occupied with Ministers, and Fleur, Ginny began to shrink into her shell.

Ron was worse. When he heard the news he couldn’t concentrate on anything for a whole week. And by the end of the week Ron could not take life anymore, as she was the only person he had ever wanted, and now she was trapped in possibly a loveless marriage with a Wizard that he, Ron, had no chance to fight. He could not fight the despair within his soul. On Sunday morning Hagrid had rushed into the Great Hall carrying Ron’s dead body in his arms. Hagrid was weeping and could not be consoled. The school had a day off.

This news even shook Snape, when Minerva told him Severus gripped the back of the seat, and his knuckles whitened. He could not think of anything to say. He sat there stunned and shocked. He hung his head in shame at all the horrible things he ever said to the boy.

Ron’s suicide had only made Harry’s resolve strengthen and his green eyes sparkled not just outwardly but inwardly as well. After two months he found he was fairly adequate at French to at least start talking to certain French-speaking Wizards. Within three months, the world had received their second shock.

~*~*~

Hermione was surprised that after three months of marriage he was still being kind, sweet and gentle to her. He had been a very attentive husband, and he simply refused to go into the arms of another woman, and he noted with particular glee, that she was refusing to step into the arms of another man. He had been kind, and sweet to her, to keep her by his side. He knew that it would not do the marriage much good if he resumed to his old ways. Besides, he wanted to keep her body good for conceiving. He had to have an heir.

Hermione hadn’t been feeling very well the past few mornings and he knew why. After the amount of lovemaking they had been partaking of she should damn well start showing signs of being pregnant. He was beginning to get impatient to hear the news.

“Are you still not well my dear?” Lord Voldemort asked, as she tottered back in the library after rushing out of it in rather a hurry.

“Just some passing sickness, Voldemort,” she said.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, “I heard morning sickness can be a symptom of something… else,” he sighed.
“There is only one way for us to find out,” Hermione said. “I have to be checked by a healer.”

Lord Voldemort put the book down, and looked at his wife.

“There is no need,” he said. “I can determine whether you are or not.”

Hermione felt that he was being too overprotective, she had not set foot outside the Riddle House in the three months she was here, and she was blissfully unaware of Ron’s suicide, and the entire World of Wizard kind to get her out of there. The past three months have been taken with passionate sex, and more passionate sex with a bit of reading. Voldemort got up off the sofa and he gestured for her to lie down. Hermione became very wary of whenever he told her to lie down, but she did so anyway. He knelt on the floor and pressed his thumbs and fingers around her womb, and he felt it… he smirked. His plan was working. He was to be father; the blood of Slytherin was to be intact.

Even though she didn’t tell him, he knew what bloodline she really came from. She was born of a third generation squib, but she was a witch, proving the magical gene did not entirely leak out of Dagworth-Granger. The name so intimately connected with the Gaunts that he absolutely felt as if he was restoring what was rightfully hers. He saw that in her mind the first time he met her. She let people believe she was a Muggleborn, goodness know’s why. She had HERITAGE! She should be proud of it.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, my dear, we are going to be parents.”

Hermione threw her head back and smiled. She was going to be a mother. She looked at her husband.

“That’s brilliant,” she said. “Shall we announce it?”

Lord Voldemort considered this for a moment, and thought that he’d keep this quiet for just a bit longer. It was still in the fragile stages of the pregnancy. This would mean that he had to be extra attentive towards her. Besides, he wanted to wait until the baby was born. He was hoping obviously for a son.

“Not yet, my dear, we have to be cautious. I say you’re two months pregnant.”

“I’ll check my dates,” Hermione said. She swung her legs down and levered her body up. She walked over to the desk, and brought out a diary that Severus had given her as a present. She checked her dates and her face paled considerably when she noted that she had not had a period since the day she got back in time.

She frowned and double-checked. She had to be at least two months; she had to have had at least ONE bloody period. She shook her head, she couldn’t have conceived in 1943. She would have thought that the time travelling might have harmed the baby. She thought back to August, yes, she remembered having had one then. So it must have been. How come she wasn’t showing much?

“Voldemort,” she said after she had checked her dates.

“Yes, my dear, what have you found out?” Voldemort asked.

“I must be about half-way through,” she stammered. “I must have conceived in 1943.”

Even more perfect, Voldemort grinned inwardly; the baby will inherit my looks from then rather than from now.

“Are you certain?” he asked with a show of dismay and concern.

“Well, either that or I have forgotten to write down my dates, but that is not like me at all.”

“You are a happily married newly wed, Hermione, you have been rather more pleasantly occupied.”

Hermione smiled and shook her head, if it wasn’t for the fact that he could kill her at a moments notice she would have chided him for that comment.

“Yes, but I do remember to do these things, look I feel I really need to see a Healer. I need proper confirmation. Wouldn’t you want that too?”

Lord Voldemort sighed; she was not going to back down from this one. And no amount of passionate lovemaking was going to stop her. He knew that she would pester him about this. He sighed again.

“All right, but one of my choosing.”

“Yes, Voldemort,” she replied meekly.

~*~*~

Lord Voldemort chose a spy from St Mungo’s that had been trained as a Healer to look over Hermione. The Healer took various samples from Hermione. She first took a urine sample from her, and mixed it in a potion, she did not reveal anything. She then took some blood from Hermione’s arm, and mixed that in a potion as well. She nodded, and then sent her wand over Hermione’s abdomen. The Healer turned to look at Hermione.

“Would you like to know the baby’s sex?” she asked.

“No,” Hermione said. “All I want to know is how many months I have left before I give birth?”

“You have five months left, my Lady.”

Hermione swooned from shock. She had indeed conceived in 1943. She nodded weakly at the Healer.

“I’ll have to come back in a months time and check the baby’s condition, congratulations,” she said.

She packed all her stuff away, and bottled the various samples and packed them in a bag. She walked out of the bedroom, and walked down the stairs to her Lord. He was in the library still. She entered the room.

“Well,” he said.

“Five months, my Lord,” the Healer said. “Five months to go before your baby is born.”

“Have you determined the sex?” he asked.

The Healer nodded and told him, and a reptilian like grin spread across his face. She nodded and went back to her spying duties. Perfect! And he knew exactly what to call the baby when it was born.

~*~*~

Harry had meetings back and forth, and the Ministers were getting nowhere near a sensible solution to the problem. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. The cold icy winter had turned to the warm and leafy spring. Suddenly, Harry noticed that almost a year had passed since Dumbledore’s death. There were also only a few weeks to go before he could realise his dream to become an Auror. He also looked forward to being able to take Ginny out to more grown up places. He had plans for them.

The month now was May. Time had gone so quickly, Harry wasn’t sure whether or not he had spun through a vortex, or some time loop. It was only the continual updated stock of the Daily and Evening Prophets that assured Harry he hadn’t.

May and no one had yet come up with any good rescue plan, and Harry was getting restless. He wanted his friend back, as he was missing her terribly. He had already lost Ron, in a permanent way, but there was a way to get Hermione back. He wanted to storm in there and rescue her. He had waited long enough.

~*~*~

Hermione, too notice the time speed up rather unnaturally, but then she did notice that the older you got the faster time seemed to go. One minute she was still a pretty slim four-month pregnant woman, and the next she was nine months pregnant, fat, chubby, and extremely bad tempered. In fact, Lord Voldemort thought, she’s scarier than ME!

She was losing sleep, and she felt the baby kick, and push her around. She was surprised her husband had put up with her bad tempers. She would have been amused that her current state of mood swings actually scared him. He had seen other women in his circle get edgy towards the end of their pregnancy. But he had never seen them as ferocious as Hermione was acting. It must be the lioness part of her nature, but then he observed that even female snakes get mighty angry too before they hatch their young, or give birth to them. It’s just the female world in general. They must all get pretty grumpy.

Hermione shot right up as she felt something happen. She felt her knickers get wet. Her waters broke! She was scared to scream. She felt the baby turn in her stomach and she wanted to scream from fear, and excitement at the same time. She was to be a mother. A mother to a very fine baby, with a very fine husband… a husband that she fell more for everyday, although she couldn’t understand why.

She then screamed uncontrollably from pain… oh Merlin! She was beginning to contract. She steadied herself; she was not Lady Hermione for nothing. She grabbed a watch and used it to time them. They were already close. She felt weak, and powerless.

Downstairs Lord Voldemort heard the screams and smiled. She was delivering the baby on time. He called over the Healer and she came immediately.

“Please tend to my wife,” he said coolly. The Healer curtsied and kissed his robes. She walked up to the bedchamber and opened the door.

“Did I really scream that loudly?” Hermione asked, as she noticed the Healer enter the room.

“Loudly enough for your husband to understand what the scream meant,” the Healer replied. “Most husbands are frantic, but not him. He’s cool and steady.

“Look,” Hermione said, but she didn’t finish her sentence, as she was hit by another contraction.

“Now, dear, you have to remain calm,” the Healer said.

“I am bloody calm,” Hermione seethed through the pain.

“My this one can’t wait to come out can it?”

“SHUT UP AND GET ON WITH IT YOU BLOODY INTERFERING COW!” Hermione shouted through a particularly painful, and very long contraction.

Even if she were a Death Eater she was pretty much used to this from irate birthing mothers. So she just took this in her stride, other times she would have zapped the person for impertinence, or in this woman’s case poked a needle in really hard.

“You can’t expect the baby to come when you want it to come, it’ll come when it wants to come.”

Hermione scowled at the Healer and would have said something scathing, but the baby decided to move again. Hermione had her legs up, and spread open. The Healer took Hermione’s knickers off for her, as it was obvious Hermione couldn’t do it herself as she was in so much pain.

“IF THAT – THAT HUSBAND OF MINE COMES NEAR ME AGAIN, HE WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT HIM! UNFORGIVABLE? I’LL SHOW HIM AN UNFORGIVABLE OR TWO!”

The Healer looked at the door worriedly, as if thinking that her Dark Master might actually forget himself and kill her right now.

“Shush, my Lady, it’s going to be all right! When the pain is over you’ll forget all about what you’ve just said.”

“WILL I INDEED!”

The Healer continued fussing and helping Hermione. She placed cooling spells on Hermione, and she held her hand and let her squeeze them roughly.

“Now, Hermione, push!” Hermione pushed, and she pushed again. She was allowed to calm down for a few minutes. “Push again!” Hermione pushed again. “Harder!” The Healer exclaimed. Hermione pushed harder.

~*~*~

Lord Voldemort heard every word his lioness scream out. He actually smiled at the ferocity, and anger shown in there. He liked the amount of venom and hate that was centred on them. He was almost tempted to go up there and see the amount of pain she was in, just because he enjoyed watching people in pain, but he was very nervous of her attitude. She might, she just might actually finish him off! And he could not afford that yet. She had one other job to do.

~*~*~

Five hours later Hermione had the baby in her arms. She was a beautiful baby girl. She was already covered with fine auburn red hair. The Healer went downstairs to inform him that he had indeed become a father to a healthy bouncing baby girl.

He smiled, as his eyes glowed. He slithered up the steps and walked into his wife’s bedchamber and found her sitting in the bed looking at their baby daughter full of love and affection. He walked up to the mother and child and looked down on his daughter. The daughter was beautiful, and like the natural law of genetics stated she was born with red hair. The baby gurgled, and then opened her eyes slightly to regard her parents.

She had the most dazzling, sparkling emerald green eyes!

“But I thought that baby’s were born with blue eyes,” Hermione said shocked.

“They are, but this one decided to show advancement, much like her parents would.”

“What are we to call her?” Hermione asked, as she stroked the baby’s soft delicate cheek.

“Lily,” Lord Voldemort said.

~*~*~

The Daily Prophet was practically apoplectic with the headlines the following day. The World had received a second shock. Not only did the Dark Lord marry the female friend of Harry Potters, he also took sadistic pleasure in calling his girl the name of one of his victims. Whilst the world was indignant at this outrage a teenage boy was absolutely furious.

Harry Potter could not believe what he was reading. Why would Hermione do something like that? It cut his heart into tiny pieces and he felt that he could not go through much more, but he had to. Whatever that child was, it was still half of Hermione, and that half was worth saving.

Harry Potter was not the only one outraged by this piece of news, a lank haired man sitting at his breakfast table had opened up his copy of the Daily Prophet, and he could not believe what he was reading also, this was an absolute disaster. It finally clicked into place; the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began to fit. Tom Riddle must have seen his future, and decided to make sure he had an heir, but not just any type of heir. A girl - a girl that he could use to destroy Harry Potter with once and for all!

A/N I would say only one chapter to go for the final finish... sorry, but it's been a great ride, and I love you all for reviewing.