Surrender

Surrender

“Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.”—Shakespeare, Macbeth

It was not a wedding in the traditional sense of the word.

The bride would most assuredly not wear white, there was no place here for purity. There would be no scented flowers strewn on her path, no softly-lit candles to light her path as she walked to meet her bridegroom. Rather, the bride was wrapped in a dress of black silk and her hair was tied with a red bow, but not in adornment for the ceremony that awaited. She kept the red silk ribbon as a token from her lovers, from the two who had kissed her with their knives and sent her on her way. They had held hands and smiled in the dimly-lighted chamber, eyes shining as they watched her set out into the world, like proud parents watching their daughter go off on her first day of school.

She walked with Lucius Malfoy down the corridor, taking care not to slip on the wet stones. He held her elbow, but it was a reverent gesture—he did not drag her, as he might have done when she first was taken. She had forced him to bow to her through her suffering in the Dark Lord’s torture chamber, and he would take utmost care to deliver her safely.

When she reached the end of the hallway, the stairs descended into pitch-black darkness, and she turned to Lucius, holding her hand up and shaking her head slightly. These stairs she would walk alone.

“You might fall,” he said in his cold voice for Lucius could speak no other way, not anymore. Too long had he served the Dark Lord, too long had the Mark been burned on his skin.

“It is too late for that,” she said, “I have already fallen.”

In the night she had awoken frightened, pressed between the two who had prepared her for this moment. She had disentangled herself from between them and stared in the mirror, murmuring softly with her wand to see her reflection. She did not bother looking at the Mark branded onto her skin. There was no need — she saw it reflected in the darkness of her eyes and the quickening of her heartbeat as she thought she saw crimson flare in the darkness behind her, in the mirror’s reflection. She had turned, slowly, and found herself alone in the room with only her sleeping companions. She thought she might have heard a hissing laugh, but perhaps it had only been her imagination.

She had crawled back into bed, between the whip-thin body of Bellatrix and Rodolphus’ lean physique, and she had slept without dreams.

Now she was poised on the precipice, preparing to descend into her new life and leave the old one behind.

“I will go down alone,” she said, returning to the task at hand. There was certainty in her voice; he could not gainsay her.

“As you wish,” he said, surrendering her arm. He bowed over her hand and left her there, his footsteps sounding his retreat into the darkness. He had been lighting their way with his wand so as he left, the light slowly faded.

She was left in darkness, and her soul sighed in relief. Finally, finally, the time had come to surrender.

Hermione stared down at the twisting spiral staircase that led down to the devil’s lair, and took a deep breath before she started to walk. Each step brought her closer to the heart of the shadow.

She knew who waited for her at the bottom of the stairs, like a serpent coiled and ready to strike at its prey. God help me, for I am excited to be the prey.

Down, down, down she walked, into the cold, into the dark. With every step, she thought she could hear him calling to her, although it was silent in the stairwell. She had her wand at her side, but she did not cast the Lumos spell.

Hermione had learned to be at home in the darkness. It was strange how she no longer missed the light.

The stairway curved gently as she descended down into the gloom, the air becoming colder as she continued. If I had a light, I could see my breath, she thought idly, pushing her hair from her face, which clung to her skin.

The door waited for her at the bottom, and it was slightly open, a hint of light forming a rather sinister picture in all that inky blackness. She paused briefly at the bottom of the stairs, hand reaching out to push the door open.

If I listen closely, will I hear them? Ron, Harry, Ginny? The friends who’ve fallen, when it’s me who has risen? If they had voices, they were quiet—more like a hushed whisper in the background, the murmurs of people in dreams that one never quite remembers in waking life.

Sometimes, when she’d first come here, she’d wake up with their voices loud in her head and her face wet with tears. Soon, the voices had faded and the tears had dried. Now there was only a surety and a growing, terrible excitement pounding within her breast.

Hermione pushed the door open and walked inside, drawing her arms around her body at the chill.

“You are afraid.”

The voice came from the shadows of the room; the darkness hung heavily and she could not even see the glimpse of his eyes in the gloom. Regardless, her breathing accelerated and she shivered at the cold caress those two words, spoken so softly they were almost a whisper.

“Yes,” she said, quiet. There was no reason to lie to him, he would know.

“Yet you crave this fear,” he said. His voice was colder than Malfoy’s would ever be. Perhaps in his service your voice loses warmth, as your soul fades away to nothing.

What would happen to her, who would be his chosen?

“Yes,” she said, a sob rising in her throat. She would not cry, not here, not in this room that was so cold her tears would freeze on her cheeks.

“Do you think to change me? To make me see the error of my ways? To teach me love and warm me?” He sounded vaguely amused.

Hermione walked through the chamber, the hem of her dark black robe brushing over the stones. If there was something there in the darkness that would do her harm, it would not matter—the most terrifying thing in the room was not even the man who waited in the shadows for her. It was the terrible desire wrapping around her and pulsing through her veins. She felt the chill of the room, of him, seeping inside of her, and she craved it. That was the true danger in this room; her longing for him, for what he was, for what he would do to her.

“I would never think that,” she said. She stopped and shivered in the cold. He would not warm her, no, never that. If I wait here long enough, it will become part of me, as it has for him.

It was why Bellatrix and Rodolphus, loyal as they were, would never really know the secret—they could serve, but they could never rule. They were still creatures of passion and of fire, not creatures of ice as was their Lord. As was Malfoy. As she would be.

Finally, she saw it; a flash of crimson, as if he were lazily blinking his dark red eyes, a movement to suggest he might have been standing—all lazy grace and sinuous motion, like the serpent ever at his side. He spoke suddenly in a series of hisses that she did not understand, and realized he was coaxing the serpent to glide from the shadows towards her in the language only he and the serpent shared, now that the other was no longer alive.

When Harry had spoken Parseltongue, it had always seemed strange and ugly to her. When the Dark Lord spoke it, it was elegant and enticing. In fact, it was as if she herself were a snake to answer to its call, as she swayed slightly towards his voice.

Nagini glided out of the shadows and flowed like water towards her over the cold stones. Her tongue flickered out as she navigated towards the young woman as Hermione waited like the mythical Andromeda tied to the rock, sure of her eventual devouring by the monster that slumbered beneath the waves.

“You want to be devoured, girl?”

The flush of desire that ran through warmed her, in sharp contrast to the chill of the room. Nagini curled against her, watching with knowing eyes. The snake hissed something, and Voldemort laughed in the darkness.

“She says she can smell your desire, girl, so I assume that you do.”

Hermione closed her eyes, ashamed and enthralled by the vividness of the images dancing through her brain. They were terrifying and alluring, and she moved slightly towards him, shivering uncontrollably.

“Will you not step into the shadows with me? I grow tired of waiting.” There was an underlying command in that tone, and she remembered Rodolphus’ lessons of submission. She found she was walking towards the darkness, Nagini trailing after her.

“Why did you send your serpent to me, if she is merely to return to you?” Hermione asked, hating the tremble in her voice.

“You will come to me or I will allow her to have you…and I do not think that is what you want.”

She shook her head, although the thought of what she did want was worse than anything she could conceive of Nagini doing to her. Nagini’s bite would cause a slow death by venom, but would his touch be any different? Wouldn’t he poison her with his touch, his hands, his body…

She moaned quietly in the darkness, unable to stop herself, and walked into the shadows. It was a sound of excitement, which she was sure he knew.

The Dark Lord was a figure, nothing more, standing at the rear of the room. Red, unblinking eyes stared at her. The serpent at her feet hissed something else, and Voldemort answered, without taking those crimson eyes from her progress.

I’ve been waiting…

“Yessss…” The sibilant voice reached out to caress her, and she found herself unable to move as she looked into his eyes. “So have I, girl. So…have…I.” There was a pulsing, leashed excitement under the cold hiss, and she sucked in her breath and felt her eyes relaxing into a heavy lidded stare. The very act of blinking seemed exaggerated, her eyelids heavy as she struggled to pull them open.

Rodolphus’ voice echoed in her mind….surrender, surrender, surrender… It seemed to get louder and louder, until she realized he said it as well, each s sending a wicked caress over her chilled skin.

She had to take but one more step to be next to him. Her mind remembered the sting of the lash, the bite of Bellatrix’s steel knife, all the sensations she had been forced to endure in their tutelage. All for this, this moment…she was afraid, her trembling was noticeable, and she heard that whispered word surrender over and over, tempting her unbearably.

“Come here,” he said. “Come to me. At last, you stand before me, willing. Close this distance between us and come to me, Hermione.” Words of love should never be spoken so coldly, but they were effective nonetheless.

She did as he asked, seeing a flash of his pale skin and the gleaming dark red eyes as she stepped up to him. He leaned down towards her, not touching her, but inhaling the air around her as if he tasted the air, as did Nagini.

“I know you are afraid,” he said. “I find it…arousing.” He was too close to her, taller than she, crowding her senses. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness; she saw him clearer now, robed and hooded, with the black-draped bed behind him. He held one hand out to her—he had long fingers, skin as pale as death.

“So do I,” she said, unable to stop the words that tumbled from her lips.

“Then take my hand, Hermione,” he said in that same seductive hiss. “Come to me and be reborn.”

She reached out and placed her hand in his; his touch was colder than his voice, than the room, than ice itself. His touch was death; he was an angel sent to destroy her, to take her soul.

He pulled her, the motion strangely gentle, to tug her into his arms. His body was against hers and she felt him for the first time—sinew and muscle, elegant and deadly. His arms did not wrap around her like a lover, to give comfort. Rather, like Nagini before she devoured her prey, they encircled slowly, as if he wished to choke the life out of her.

“No, Hermione. To give you life,” he whispered and walked her back towards the bed. She followed, entranced, unable to tear her gaze away from his.

“Yes,” she said, wondering when this gentleness would change, when it would be rough and hurt, like it always did, like she had grown to love. All of it, the pain, the humiliation, the submission, all of it was for this moment alone.

His hands moved up to push the robe from her body; she was naked underneath. Instead of touching her, he pulled at the ribbon securing her hair and freed her curls before tossing the scrap of red silk to the floor. She took a breath and wanted to protest, she had an attachment to the ribbon. “Nagini will keep it safe,” he murmured, hands skirting over her body, bringing a trail of gooseflesh the wake of his cold hands stroking her.

She tilted her head down and watched as the snake curled about the ribbon, as if protecting it, tongue caressing the silken threads of the ribbon gently. She shuddered at the image and murmured, “Oh…”

His mouth moved over her collarbone, and her hands inched up the folds of his robe to find purchase there as he backed her slowly up until her knees hit the bed. “Lie back,” he said enticingly.

Her body had no will to disobey him and she did as he asked. The coverlet was soft beneath her naked skin as she shifted restlessly, wanting him to cool her heated flesh.

Surrender, surrender, surrender….

I will.

She lay upon the bed, heart racing. On the pillow, there was a black rose, wilted slightly as if it had started to die. There were thorns on the stem, and she picked it up and ran her hand lightly over one of the points. Her eyes were slightly amused as she looked towards him. “A rose, how…unexpected,” she purred slightly, and he smiled in the darkness. If Bellatrix’s smile cut like a knife, his curved like a serpent. Both were things of dangerous beauty.

She propped herself on the pillow, liking the slight intake of breath she heard as he stood next to the bed, staring down at her, arms crossed over his chest as he leisurely viewed her naked body, spread out on his bed before him.

He reached his hand out, and she handed him the rose. He trailed it down her body; down her chest, the center of her stomach, down her thighs. Over and over, he traced it over her skin, and said softly, “You like this.”

“Yes,” she moaned, arching her back beneath the caress. The thorns of the rose scratched her, and the softness of the petals soothed the tiny hurt caused by the sharp bite. Her head tossed back and forth on the pillow, the darkness swirled around her and his eyes were no longer the only red that she saw, her vision infused with a crimson haze of lust.

Of its own volition, her hand trailed down her stomach, to the wetness between her thighs. “Touch yourself for me,” he said, the excitement making his voice less a serpent’s hiss and more an eager tone of a man who watched his lover writhing before him.

Her hand slipped between her thighs and she began stroking herself. He continued his wicked strokes with the rose, and her body was tight with pleasure, the fear in her pulsing dark and heady. “Come for me, girl,” he hissed, and she was unable to resist the whispered command. Her fingers moved over clit rapidly, and she came, calling out his name, loud and anguished in her pleasure.

His hands were tearing at his robes as he stripped in furious movements, his earlier languid seduction forgotten at the sound of her voice crying his name, at the sight of her flushed body bowed in her release.

He was above her in a brief moment, lying his body on top of hers and driving into her with a rough growl. He pinned her hands above her head, his long fingers wrapped around her wrists and together, their hands encircled the rose he still held in his left hand. Her hands were splayed on his pale chest as she stared up into his dark crimson eyes that burned with lust and something that reminded her vaguely of the fanatical gleam in Bellatrix’s eyes when she was using her knife—be it for pain or pleasure.

She moved underneath him, sobbing her pleasure and the conclusion of the wait that had seemed so endless. Their hands were still clinging together, and she tossed her head back and forth and laughed in delight, her fear leaving her as she felt him harden within her, as he thrust himself inside of her. She shivered as he bit at her skin, licking the blood that ran down her body from the wounds caused by his violent passion.

Hermione was trapped beneath his primal movements and scratching her nails down his back. She gloried in his hisses of pleasure and his growling, cold voice whispering in her ear. He spoke to her in a strange mix of English and Parseltongue, and she thought she heard Nagini hiss on the floor below them in answer. Their culmination was bloody and violent as she bucked against him, his hands tightening on her shoulders. He hauled her against his body as he spilled himself inside her.

There were a few moments where she drifted, sleepy and content, under his weight before she felt him move off of her reclined next to her on the bed. She shifted onto her side, her eyes traveling over his form—pale white skin, gleaming eyes, the sensuous curve of his body. He spoke, again in the soft tones of Parseltongue, and she turned to look over her shoulder at Nagini, who had risen up and was staring at her.

I am surrounded by snakes, she thought, amused. She grinned, unable to help herself, and reached out a hand for Nagini. The serpent no longer frightened her—Hermione felt in that moment as if she could have spoken to the snake. The serpent curled around her arm and glided onto the bed, curling her weight between them.

They did not speak, but when he woke her later with his tongue tracing her ear, hissing softly, she turned to him and surrendered once more. There was no longer any reason to be afraid.

She was his beloved, and she had surrendered.